"I'm 49 With Nothing Saved For Retirement"

Summary

The Ramsey Show – “I'm 49 With Nothing Saved for Retirement”

Date: November 14, 2025
Hosts: Ken Coleman & George Campbell (Ramsey Network)
Theme: Financial hope at any age – answering real-life questions on retirement, debt, investing, and life transitions.

---

Episode Overview

This episode revolves around callers facing pivotal financial crossroads—whether starting over at 49 with zero retirement savings, navigating unexpected business or life hurdles, or tackling debt and major purchases. Ken and George, with their signature mix of candor and encouragement, walk listeners through practical, hope-filled steps to financial peace—no matter their starting point. The hosts continually remind listeners: it's not too late to build wealth and take control of your financial future.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Starting Retirement Savings at 49 – Kate’s Story

[00:43 – 08:29]

Context

• Caller: Kate from Nashville, 49, divorced, renting, no retirement savings, close to finishing Baby Step 2.
• Core Anxiety: Fear of being behind on retirement; needs encouragement and actionable next steps.

Advice & Insights

• Baby Steps Focus:
  • Finish Baby Step 2 (pay off all debt except mortgage), then Baby Step 3 (emergency fund).
  • Retirement investing is after building that safety net.
• 15% Rule:
  • “We recommend 15% of your household income going into retirement once you’re debt free with the emergency fund.” – George [05:07]
  • Even starting at 50, if Kate earns $100,000/year and invests $15,000/year till 67, she could accumulate $750,000.
• Variables Matter:
  • Income growth, potentially buying & paying off a home, and partnering with someone financially secure could boost retirement outlook.

Emotional Encouragement

• Community Connection:
  • “The baby steps alone are hard enough. And you’ve done so, so well.” – Ken [03:44]
• New Beginnings:
  • “It’s not too late. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is today.” – George [08:16]
  • Ken encourages openness to new relationships—a supportive partner could be a game changer.

Notable Exchange

“I just want to hear what you guys have to say about it.” – Kate [04:51]
“...I believe you’re gonna retire with dignity if you follow this plan.” – George [08:16]

---

2. Paying Taxes from Investments & Dealing with Complex Portfolios

[09:57 – 19:04]

Context

• Caller: Patricia, 70, Ohio. Inherited stocks, now facing tax complications from pulling money out to pay quarterly taxes.

Advice & Insights

• Clarity on Withdrawal Taxes:
  • Every time she sells investments (non-retirement accounts), set aside 30% for taxes [15:45].
• Portfolio Simplification:
  • Move away from single stocks, favor mutual funds for less risk, and avoid complicated broker arrangements.
• Budget Help:
  • Ramsey team sets up Patricia with a financial coach to resolve her layered financial situation.

Practical Takeaway

“Every time you take money out...set aside 30% in a savings account. If you overestimate, better than underestimating.” – George [15:45]

---

3. College Funding Strategy for Teens

[21:17 – 30:21]

Context

• Caller: Aiden, 17, Michigan, inheriting ~$90k in stocks/CDs at 18; asks how to grow his wealth and pay for college.

Advice & Insights

• Purpose-Driven Spending:
  • Use inheritance to cash-flow college; do NOT invest for long-term if funds are needed soon.
• Cost-Effective Choices:
  • “The employer doesn’t care how good the business class was.” – George [25:07]
  • Seek scholarships, consider lower-cost in-state or commuter options to avoid debt and retain some investment wealth.
• Ramsey Math Example:
  • Save $65k on college, invest it at 22, and at 62 it could grow to $3.5 million [27:50].

Notable Coaching

“Live with some freedom. That means using this money very wisely to protect the legacy that your grandfather handed down to you.” – George [30:21]

---

4. Should We Pay Off Our Low-Interest Mortgage?

[34:37 – 42:22]

Context

• Caller: Adam, Dallas, TX; has enough savings to pay off his mortgage, but prefers investing as returns currently beat mortgage rate.

Advice & Insights

• Math vs. Emotion:
  • “It’s not about the spread. It’s about peace and flexibility. Once you free up that mortgage payment, you can invest and be back to where you were.” – George [37:02]
  • Adam’s wife values the security of a paid-off home over minor gains from interest arbitrage.

Memorable Moment

“No one’s ever going to regret not having a mortgage. …[But] you look at things logically, she looks emotionally–she wants to feel safe.” – Ken [41:34]

---

5. Escaping Cycles of Poverty After Trauma

[43:51 – 52:40]

Context

• Caller: Dan, Mesa, AZ, living on Social Security disability and part-time grocery work. Struggles with ongoing poverty tied to trauma recovery.

Advice & Insights

• Affirmation & Hope:
  • Ken and George underline Dan’s resilience, positively reframing his customer service role.
  • “I heard a man who is full of joy – and not only that, but gives joy.” – Ken [47:00]
• Income Baby Steps:
  • Suggest leveraging his client service skills for better-paid jobs (like at Target, Walmart), step toward full-time work, and possibly return to tech/data fields he’s trained in.

Standout Quote

“You’ve lost trust in Dan … We’re telling you he’s worth trusting again. ... It’s worth betting on yourself.” – George [49:56]

---

6. Complex Small Business Rescue Amid Policy and Health Shocks

[65:09 – 74:56]

Context

• Caller: Ashley, San Francisco. Consultant for humanitarian initiatives; business suffering from public sector policy changes and husband’s illness; $250k debt, payroll, and vendor obligations looming.

Advice & Insights

• Immediate Income Focus:
  • Urgent need to secure any income outside her primary business until new contracts land.
  • Sell assets (company vehicles) and negotiate candidly with owed vendors.
• Call for Honesty & Urgency:
  • “You’ve got to bring in income NOW ... batten down the hatches… It’s just you as the employee now.” – Ken [73:26]

---

7. Retirement Nerves at 70 with Strong Finances

[77:50 – 85:59]

Context

• Caller: Tom, Dallas, approaching 70, $500k retirement savings, SS and pension, very low expenses ($1,000/mo), feels uneasy about stopping work.

Advice & Insights

• “You Have Permission to Dream”
  • Tom could have retired earlier; his diligent savings/budget allow for abundant margin.
  • Encouraged to invent a meaningful, flexible post-retirement life—part-time bulldozer work, hobby-based business, or shop projects.
• Memorable Quote:
  • “I think you’re stronger than you think you are.” – Ken [47:32] (From Dan’s call, applicable here too.)

---

Notable Quotes

“You’ve done so, so well. Now, you set us up. But what’s your specific question? Where can we most equip or encourage you?” – Ken [03:44]

“If you did that, you’d have three-quarters of a million dollars by 67. That’s not a terrible nest egg considering you’re starting from scratch at 50.” – George [06:08]

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today. And today is here.” – George [08:16]

“No one’s ever going to regret not having a mortgage. Nobody's going to say, ‘Man, I wish I had my mortgage back.’” – Ken [39:37]

“The truth is, you probably will be okay either way. So paying it off—is it worth the peace and happy wife?” – George [41:56]

“You’ve lost trust in Dan … We’re telling you he’s worth trusting again. It’s worth betting on yourself.” – George [49:56]

---

Key Timestamps

• Starting Retirement at 49: [00:43 – 08:29]
• Investment Withdrawals & Taxes: [09:57 – 19:04]
• Teen College Funding Strategy: [21:17 – 30:21]
• Mortgage Payoff Debate: [34:37 – 42:22]
• Dan’s Poverty Breakthrough: [43:51 – 52:40]
• Business Owner in Crisis: [65:09 – 74:56]
• Retirement Readiness at 70: [77:50 – 85:59]

---

Tone & Takeaways

The episode combines tough love with empathy. Hosts constantly stress both practical baby-steps and the deeper emotional journey of gaining confidence, letting go of fear, and starting anew. Each caller—no matter their age or predicament—is offered hope. George and Ken urge action, honesty, and self-compassion, with a recurring reminder that “it’s never too late to build wealth and live with dignity.”

---

Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This summary guides you through each major conversation, encapsulating the “Ramsey” roadmap for tackling debt, building retirement savings later in life, navigating business pitfalls, and facing emotional hurdles around money. Even without context, each segment offers clear, actionable strategies—plus memorable moments and encouragement for anyone who’s ever felt too late or too far behind to find financial peace.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Ken Coleman]

Normal is broken. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Excited to be with you today. I'm Ken Coleman alongside George Campbell. The phone number to jump in. Triple 825-522-588-8825-5225. Let's go to Kate here in Nashville, Tennessee. Kate, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hey, guys. How are y' all doing?

[Ken Coleman]

We're having a blast. What's going on in your world?

[Caller]

Okay, so I am. I think I'll just throw stuff out and then y' all can ask questions. I'm 49. I am divorced five years, and I have been renting and I have nothing in savings. I am on Baby Step 2 and will be debt free the end of this month.

[George Campbell]

Awesome.

[Caller]

And I will be. I'll be going into, of course, baby step three and hopefully into baby step three B really quickly. I believe what I'm looking for is some encouragement or.

[Dave Ramsey]

And.

[Caller]

Or advice on, you know, if I need to make some changes, if I need to do more. So. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Wow. So how. How long ago was this divorce? Is it finalized?

[Caller]

It was. It is. It was five years ago.

[George Campbell]

Okay. In 2020, did you walk away with anything? Any assets?

[Caller]

Very little.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And no alimony or anything like that?

[Caller]

No, unfortunately not.

[George Campbell]

Okay. What do you make?

[Caller]

Well, it.

I hate it when people say this. It varies. I own a residential and commercial cleaning company. That fluctuates. And so this year, I kind of took like a. I had surgery in January and I was burnout at the end of last year, but I'm still making and bringing in pretty good money. Bringing in right now around between 9 and $10,000 in my take home.

[George Campbell]

Fantastic.

[Ken Coleman]

Good for you.

[George Campbell]

So you've got a whole team that's running the show and you took a break. As far as you're not, you know, physically doing any of the work?

[Caller]

Well, I. For. Until May, and then I had to get back out there. I am one who needs to be moving. If not, I get depressed and eat. This is not a good situation. So I am out there with my employees. Yes.

[Ken Coleman]

Hey, a real quick question. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but I just feel like I'm supposed to ask what's going on in your personal life? Are you trying to date? Are you getting back out there? It's been five years, you know, Are you experiencing loneliness? Isolation? I just want to know where you stand on that.

[Caller]

I am pretty peaceful at the moment. I did do some dating, and it was just trash, so I'm not in that scene right now. I think I'm focused more on getting my life back in order or getting it in order, period.

[Ken Coleman]

Great. What about friends, though? What kind of friendships do you have?

[Caller]

I have, you know, I have some friendship. You know, I have great friends at church and Bible studies and things like that.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to do this alone. You've done some great stuff, but when I hear burnout, the biz, I just want to make sure that you got community around you. Because the baby steps alone, George, are hard enough. And. And you've done so, so well now. You set us up. But what's your specific question? Where can we most equip you or encourage you today?

[Caller]

I think my concern is my retirement. You know, with me renting at the moment, no money in saving. I've got my emergency fund, and that's it.

[Ken Coleman]

How long has it been since you got the emergency fund funded?

[Caller]

It's not the fully. It's not the. I'm just in baby step two, but I.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, I apologize. All right, so let's, let's. Let's bring George in here, because when you're in the middle of baby step two, your mindset doesn't need to be focused on retirement. George.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. So six months from now, will you have that fully funded emergency fund in place? You'll be debt free with that savings?

[Caller]

Yes, I do have the Every dollar app, and it is phenomenal. Phenomenal, by the way. I love it, and it gives me really good hope for my future. But, you know, I just want to hear what you guys have to say about it.

[George Campbell]

Well, yeah, I can show you the math because that's the best way to show the reality. And if you don't like it, you can make some changes. So we, you know, recommend 15% of your household income going into retirement. Once you're debt free with the emergency fund. So let's say by summertime, will you be 50 by then?

[Caller]

I will be 50 in February, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Perfect.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so let's say you're starting at 50 with nothing in retirement and your household income gross, like on your tax return, what is that going to show? That you made 150,000, 170,000?

[Caller]

No, I don't think it's going to be that. I would.

I don't know.

I'd say probably around 100.

[George Campbell]

Well, you told us your take home pay is nine or ten grand a month.

[Caller]

That's what I'm bringing in right now. It fluctuates, so I really don't.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

You know, and I wasn't working in the front of this year, so that's okay.

[George Campbell]

I like the conservative number.

[Ken Coleman]

100,000. It's a good number for this, actually.

[George Campbell]

That's 15,000 a year you'd be investing. Are you tracking with me 15%?

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

So per month that means 1250 is going to be going into investment accounts of some sort from age 50 to 67. If you did that, you would have three quarters of a million dollars by 67. That's not a terrible nest egg considering you're starting from scratch at 50 now. That's assuming your income never goes up. That's assuming you never get a home and pay it off. That gives me some hope that you can create a little nest egg for yourself. Now, I don't know what kind of lifestyle you're looking to live in retirement. I assume you want to live pretty comfortably and that means we got to get the income up. We might need to work longer. We can start to tweak some of these variables in. You want to see a bigger number in that retirement account?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

How does that hit you? It sounds like you are completely deflated.

[Caller]

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm thinking.

[Ken Coleman]

And let me throw something out there, okay. It's not part of, not part of the Ramsey plan here, but I. I've held my tongue a few times recently, George, when I've had call. When we've had calls like this. I'm going to throw it out there.

[George Campbell]

Okay?

[Ken Coleman]

All right.

[George Campbell]

I'm not scared.

[Ken Coleman]

And Kate, this is coming from like the friend, the brother, you know, we're close to the same age. Yeah, I like that you're in a place of peace and you're getting your financial house in order. But I'm going to tell you something. Get further healing coming out of that divorce. Get yourself out there. Because what George just gave you from a number standpoint doesn't take into account a really good man out there who has his financial house in order. And we combine finances and we live a really great life. So you're not in this alone.

[George Campbell]

That's assuming it's a solo journey forever and Ken is believing more for you.

[Ken Coleman]

I am not putting pressure on you. I'm not.

[Caller]

I'm not giving love advice to God's ears.

[Ken Coleman]

Come on. Okay, good. So you are hopeful for it.

[Caller]

Yeah, I Mean, good.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, listen, you got, listen, you gotta put yourself out there.

[George Campbell]

And again, that's a variable that completely changes all of this.

[Ken Coleman]

We meet some guy who equally has been hurt and he. Or he's never been married. Whatever, whatever, whatever. And I believe that you can find that guy. I believe that. And we get on the same page with money. And this, this whole picture changes. I'm just putting it out there.

[George Campbell]

Just remember this, Kate. It's not too late. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today. And today is here. And you've got a great income, you've got a bright future ahead of you. And I fully believe you're gonna retire with dignity if you follow this plan.

[Ken Coleman]

I gotta say, my inspiring advice probably has to do with. I walked through the living room last night. My wife and daughter were watching the Golden Bachelor.

[George Campbell]

Oh, there you. I was wondering. I was like, ken's really wanting this to happen.

[Ken Coleman]

So my daughter says to me, dad, sit down and watch the finale. I was like, oh, how do I say no to her?

[George Campbell]

And you loved it too much.

[Ken Coleman]

No, I didn't.

[George Campbell]

Hey guys. George here. You know, I hate debt. And that includes sleep debt. I've been there. Fatigue, low energy, brain fog. And that's why I switched to Casper. My Casper mattress helps me sleep easier, cooler and deeper. And now every bedroom in my house has one on top of that. Casper ships free. Comes with a hundred night trial. And if you don't love it, they'll come pick it up. So let's ditch the sleep debt and build sleep wealth. Go to Casper.com Ramsey and use promo code Ramsey for 30% off all mattresses and up to 35% off everything else. That's Casper.com Ramsey promo code Ramsey exclusions apply.

[Ken Coleman]

All right, Patricia is up next and she is waiting for us in Ohio. Patricia, how can we help today?

[Caller]

Hey, I'm Scott. I have found this past year that in order to pay the quarterly taxes on my investments, I had to borrow from the investments to pay those taxes, which generated more tax liability for the following year. And I just realized this and decided it has to stop and immediately. And I've taken some steps to stop it and tried to. I'm trying to use the Ramsey plan, but I need to know if I'm taking the correct steps and if it needs tweaking or anything.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so give us a picture here. So you have a tax bill come up and you go, well, I don't have the money. I'm going to dip into my 401k and borrow against it. What have you been doing?

[Caller]

Well, I, in 2015, when my mother died, I inherited stocks and I brought them to a broker and everything and he's played with the portfolio and it has doubled. It's gone from mid-300,000 to $756,000.

[George Campbell]

Is this in a retirement account or is it outside of retirement?

[Caller]

Outside of retirement.

[George Campbell]

Okay. As you're paying capital gains taxes when you withdraw, is that the issue? Is that why you're saying you're getting taxed again?

[Ken Coleman]

Well, I think. Let's go back, let's go back a step. What are the quarterly taxes on? Is it, do you, are you self employed? And it's a two part question. Why quarterly taxes? What's going on? And why is it that you're not setting that money aside that you're not able to pay it? Give us a better picture.

[Caller]

Well, I have always been able to paint until I think this year. And what has changed? They became bigger than I could handle.

Like what became bigger?

I had sold a house and I had $15,000 profit from that. And I thought, well, I'll give that to the broker and he'll grow it for me so when I'm ready to buy a car, I can buy the car. So I did that and, but not realizing that I would have to pay.

[Ken Coleman]

You didn't set aside. You didn't. So you're getting. Here's why I'm digging into this, Patricia, so that we can help you. One doesn't have to pay taxes unless one is bringing in income and revenue. So you're clearly bringing in a certain amount of income and revenue and taxes are due on that and for some reason you're unable to pay them. Now in this situation, sounds like you sold a house, you didn't set aside any taxes on that capital gains and you just gave it all to investor and you didn't set some aside. So then the tax bill came back and you're so low on cash. Is that a proper representation of what I heard?

[Caller]

No, I'm sure I paid the taxes on the sale of the house, although I don't remember the particulars right now.

[George Campbell]

Well, forget the sale of the house. Let's talk about your business. So you're, you're self employed.

[Caller]

Okay. No, let me give you some details. I'm 70 years old, so I'm retired and I'm living off of Social Security. And attention, my income is $52,000 a year.

[George Campbell]

From those two things.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

From those two things. And my tax man, quite a few years ago, started to give me these slips of paper for the IRS and for the state that said I had to make four payments to cover the taxes for the. The following year. So that I wouldn't be surprised when, when I handed in my tax bill, that there's like a $5,000amount that I have to pay. So I pay it ahead of time and for installments. Well, this year when I, when I got Those, they're over $2,000, like $2,200 each time I, I. I went to see if I had that kind of a cash that I could pay it out of my own funds, and I didn't. So I borrowed from. I went to my broker and said, I need money to pay these bills. And I was given money. And it wasn't until the fall that I realized, oh, my goodness. Because what I did when I borrowed the money.

[George Campbell]

When you say borrow the money, I'm confused. Are you just selling off a portion of your investments? Yes, because borrow means you're taking a loan against it. But that's not what you're doing. You're just withdrawing from the investment account.

[Caller]

Yeah, I withdrew from the investment account. But then I realized, all of a sudden I realized, okay, I made all these withdrawals this year to pay 20, 25 taxes, and those withdrawals will come due. I don't have to pay taxes on them and keep running.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. Every time you take money out of that investment account, know that you should set aside 30% of that in a savings account. That's going to be the easiest way to do this is if you take 10 grand out of your investments, put 3 grand of that in a savings account, and then when tax time comes around, you transfer it from savings to checking and you pay the tax man. That's what I just. The easiest way to do it is just set aside. Just call it 30% if you overestimate. I'd rather that than underestimate.

[Caller]

Okay. Well, anyway, what happened was I found out. I asked how much was taken out this year, and my broker had said he wanted to charge a flat fee for the year, a certain percentage, and he wanted. And he split my accounts into stocks in one one area and in mutual funds in another.

[George Campbell]

Why are you in single stocks anyways? Why does your broker have you in those?

[Caller]

Well, that's what I started with. I started with all stocks and moving them over to.

[George Campbell]

He's slowly converting them to mutual funds. Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

I think two things. George, I would love for you to give Patricia Just a basic, let's get on a budget. And so that she's not lacking cash. She has. I think, Patricia, I'm guessing you have plenty of income through your. Through your benefits to be able to pay your bills, and you have some margin. Is this true or false?

[Caller]

False.

[Ken Coleman]

You don't have enough money coming in?

[George Campbell]

No.

[Ken Coleman]

What are you.

[Caller]

This is what I've done so far. I'll tell you. I transferred my investments to a bank to get them away from this guy because he insists that he is going to work with us, in essence. And every time he sells something and moves something, it generates the tax liability for me. And I need to be away from that for a while until I. I'm so confused.

[George Campbell]

See, do you not trust the broker? Because they're just doing what you tell them to do, and no matter who you work with, even if it's on your own, you're going to owe taxes when you sell off these investments.

[Ken Coleman]

But, Patricia, let's go quickly. We don't have much time with you, and I want to get you with a financial coach. We're going to give you a session with one of our financial coaches because this is an onion that's got a lot of layers. But I just need a yes or no question based on the pension, the Social Security payments that you told us, your income. Are you telling me that if you didn't have tax payments, are you saying that even with those benefits that you don't have enough money to pay your household bills, your utilities, groceries, all those things?

[Caller]

I. I have stood down to bare minimum and put myself on a budget, So I have $1,500 a month to go toward. Toward paying those things, and I. And that's what I'm going to.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. All right, So I think we. We're about to the end of our time and our ability to help you. And what you need is. And we're gonna. We're not gonna leave you hanging. So hang on the line, Patricia. Kristi's gonna get you set up with one, and they can walk through all of this, get it all.

[George Campbell]

They'll help you with the budget. They'll help point you to a tax pro who can explain, hey, here's how much your income is. Here's how much is taxable. Here's how much you need to set aside. We just need to get some of these details ironed out so you're not stuck in this cycle for the rest of your life. Sorry you're going through this.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest. Early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it. And they did. We got Netsuite. That was years ago and we've never looked back. See, netsuite isn't just for tech giants. It's built for growing businesses like yours. Over 43,000 businesses already run on NetSuite, including a lot that started just like you. And now with built in AI, NetSuite is helping them even more. It's one system connected to every part of your business. For real time insights, not guesswork. NetSuite AI flags inventory issues, cash flow risks, even supplier delays before they become problems. So you can trust the data, stop wasting time, and make the right decisions faster. Take a free product tour [e-mail] Ramsey. That's netsuite.com Ramsey.

[Ken Coleman]

All right, we go to Aiden, who is in Michigan next. And Aiden, we're here for you. How can we help?

[Caller]

Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call.

[Ken Coleman]

You bet. What's going on?

[Caller]

So in about six months, I'll be turning 18 and I'll be gaining access to a portfolio of about $90,000 in stocks. And on top of that, I'll have like 13,000 in a CD, 5,000 in a money market. What strategies would you guys recommend to help me grow these funds?

[Ken Coleman]

Where's the money coming from?

[Caller]

So when I was born, my grandfather put money into the stock market and it's just been growing ever since.

[Ken Coleman]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

So it's all been in your name this whole time, but you're turning 18 and have access to it because of that.

[Caller]

So it's a, it's a custodian account. So it's in his name until I'm 18.

[George Campbell]

Got it. So it's like a utma or ugma, one of those? Yeah. Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

What do you call grandfather? What's his name? What do you call him?

[Caller]

I call him Gordon.

[George Campbell]

That's very formal.

[Ken Coleman]

That's his actual name?

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

You don't call him Pops or Granddaddy?

[Caller]

Yeah, I do, but that's his name.

[Ken Coleman]

No, I. So it was a bad question. What's his grandfather name? What do you call Him?

[Caller]

Well, I call him Papa, but yeah, his name Gordon.

[Ken Coleman]

Papa. Yeah, I know we established the Gordon. All right. I was. All that wasted time for me to say, you need to thank Papa. Papa's a good man. He set you up. The moment's lost. We lost the whole thing in translation. Gordon. I call him Gordon. Gordon.

[George Campbell]

That's strong.

[Ken Coleman]

It's a strong name.

[George Campbell]

So the question how can I grow the money? We can answer that in two seconds. The better question is, what is the best use of this money for your future for the short term and the long term, which then we got 17 other questions like what does the future look like for you as you graduate high school? Are you going to go to college? You're going to go into the trades workforce?

[Caller]

I plan on going to college for finance and I plan on using some of this money for college, but I just want to grow it safely so that I have that money when I'm older.

[George Campbell]

Okay, well, the next question is, how much is college going to cost? Because if it's going to cost $100,000, we're not going to go put this money into the stock market.

[Caller]

Yeah. So I plan on going to MSU, so that's probably going to be around $130,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So you just let the cat out of the bag. We're not going to invest this money. We're going to park it in a high yield savings account to cash flow our college experience. Agreed. Yeah. Because you invest that money now, you're going to go take out 130 grand in student loans. Would you agree?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So that's why I cautioned against. I want this money to grow too. But that's not the purpose of this money. This purpose is to fund your education if that's your next step. Because the whole goal here is to avoid debt. Do you have any debt currently?

[Caller]

No.

[George Campbell]

Can we keep it that way and use this seed money to help you avoid debt for the rest of your life?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[George Campbell]

So that would be like a reasonable used cash car covering your college expenses to get you through the next four years. We're gonna graduate in four years. It's not gonna take six. Things like that.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So if you can make that promise to yourself and to Papa, then we're onto something. Because now at 22, you graduate debt free, you got a degree in finance, you're making 60 grand out of college. Now we can begin to go, how can I use my income as a wealth building tool instead of this money?

[Ken Coleman]

How close do you live to Lansing? The Main campus.

[Caller]

It's probably about like a two hour drive for me.

[George Campbell]

All right, why MSU in particular?

[Caller]

They have a good business class and just high acceptance rate. Honestly.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So that just go for the lowest bar possible. Here's what I'm thinking. Can we get a finance degree for 50 grand total instead of 130 grand total? Because I can tell you this, the employer doesn't care how good the business class was.

[Ken Coleman]

That's where I'm going. I just. My heart sank when you told me it was going to be 130 for Michigan State or state school. I went and looked at what the in state tuition is and a lot, you know, half of that cost is housing and all the other junk. That's why I asked how close you are. And the whole point is, is I'm with George. How can you use some of this money to cash flow college and still have some money left over for the very point that.

[George Campbell]

George, can you imagine graduating with no debt and $30,000 in the bank and another 25 for a down payment? That's a cool future. At 22, you're way ahead of America.

[Ken Coleman]

That's what we want for you. And so what that requires is, you know, what's your GPA right now? Are you. Did you graduate or are you about to.

[Caller]

No, next year I'll be graduating.

[Ken Coleman]

So what's your GPA as a junior in high school?

[Caller]

Right now my GPA currently is a 3.5.

[Ken Coleman]

Not bad, my friend. I never even sniffed 3.5, so that's impressive. What do you. Have you taken any pre ACT SAT score, any tests?

[Caller]

Actually today I have SAT prep class.

[Ken Coleman]

Great. I'm going to tell you something. Just a little tip here. You need your own homework on this as it relates to business schools in the state of Michigan. I'd start there. In state tuition obviously is going to be better. But, but, and George, you know, I'm a big fan of this. I got a kid right now, I got a high school senior who's, who's going through this and he's crushing it. I have told him I'll pay for as many. By the way, I paid for George, a tutor for these tests. They're specifically for the standardized test. My son's got a 4. 0, but he's not a wonderful test taker and neither was I. And so it's like we got special prep for that. So Aiden, you know, if your parents are willing to pay that, you can pay it. I would get a tutor to prep you for these. These, these EX2, take them as many times as you as you need to. If you're cash flowing it because every time you go up, my son, by the way is taking the act twice and he's crushing it. He's measurable difference between. The second time he says to me the other day, dad, should I take it a third time? I went, how much money could we save? That's true, because it's like I'll pay for the test.

[George Campbell]

If he's saving five grand, you get a $10,000 scholarship. Then it was worth paying the tutor 500 bucks.

[Ken Coleman]

100%. So Aiden, I'm speaking real time here and so you're a junior, so you still have some time. But bringing this back home, where George and I are, you need to discover all of the schools in Michigan that have a good, a decent business program. They don't need to be top notch. And, and if we can go for half, what an accomplishment.

[George Campbell]

Think about this. You spend 65 on school instead of 130 and at 22 you invest that other 65. Can I tell you the numbers?

[Ken Coleman]

Tell him George.

[George Campbell]

Three and a half million dollars at 62. That's if you never put another dime in.

[Ken Coleman]

Aiden, did you hear that?

[Caller]

I heard it loud and clear.

[Ken Coleman]

So it's not two boomers, you know, hating on college. Like we're trying to make the most of that money for you.

[George Campbell]

And that's why it's very important to go. How little of this money can I use to cash flow college? And how much can I get from scholarships? Part time works, busting my tail so that I can have this kind of wealth on the other side.

[Ken Coleman]

Love it.

[George Campbell]

So if you just make a plan, I'm taking debt off the table. No debt. I'm going to use as little of money as possible and then once I graduate and have my income now, we can make some more adult decisions because the future is a little more clear and right now there's just too many variables for me to tell you. Just go park it in the market, Aiden, you'll be fine.

[Ken Coleman]

Let me see here. Where do you live?

[Caller]

Right Now I'm in St. Joseph, Michigan. Small town.

[Ken Coleman]

Give me an idea how far away from Detroit. Greater Detroit. That is.

[Caller]

That's probably going to be like three hours.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, great. Let me, let me just. I just did a quick search. Oakland University. My cousin, very successful marketing executive, went to Oakland University. It's right in the suburbs of Detroit. They offer free tuition for qualifying residents. So look into that. It's financial and residency requirements. I don't know. I'm not saying you're going to get free tuition, but this is just a quick search.

[George Campbell]

It's doing all the research instead of going, well, this is the school I want, so who cares?

[Ken Coleman]

And, well, here's what your answer was. And by the way, no judgment. Aiden, I appreciate it, but I want to encourage you. Your answer to George is, why Michigan State? You went well, Honestly, because, well, they've got a good business program. Someone told you that. Who really cares? Nobody. And then you said, ultimately it's a high percentage the acceptance rate. And you're in this stage and you've been conditioned by this country, parents, principals, teachers. You've been conditioned that college is the best way to success. And it's no longer true, by the way. Never was true, but we were told it was true. And so at this point, I'm just really driving this home. My homework assignment for you is to look at the most affordable colleges in Michigan. Look up their business programs. How are they rated? Do some research on that as well, and let's see how much money we can knock off a tuition so that we keep Gordo's investment for you.

[George Campbell]

I like this plan. This is like the prodigal son. You don't want to just spend all the money, the inheritance instantly and then come back and go, well, it's gone. I'm eating with the pigs now. I want to see you really live, man. Live with some freedom. And that means using this money very wisely to protect the legacy that your grandfather just handed down to you.

[Ken Coleman]

Hey, guys.

[George Campbell]

It's open enrollment time for health insurance.

[Caller]

And if you have ever felt overwhelmed.

[Ken Coleman]

Trying to figure out your health care.

[George Campbell]

Costs, you are not alone.

[Caller]

For a lot of families, health care is one of the biggest line items in the budget.

[Ken Coleman]

And it gets more confusing every year. But you don't have to settle.

[Caller]

Christian Healthcare Ministries is a biblical and budget friendly alternative to health insurance, and I am proud to recommend them.

[Ken Coleman]

With chm, you are joining a community.

[George Campbell]

Of believers who actually help share each other's medical bills.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, it's true. Members have shared over $12 billion in.

[George Campbell]

Health care costs since CHM started nearly 45 years ago.

[Caller]

And it's simple.

[George Campbell]

You choose your provider with no network.

[Caller]

Limits, you submit your eligible bills online, and other members help share your expenses.

[George Campbell]

CHM has program options for every stage of life, whether you're single, self employed.

[Caller]

Or raising a family. Y', all, open enrollment has a lot.

[George Campbell]

Of people scrambling right now, but CHM lets you join anytime. So go to chministries.orgbudget to check them out.

[Ken Coleman]

That's chministries.orgbudget. hey, George, guess what?

[George Campbell]

What?

[Ken Coleman]

The allnew every dollar is here.

[George Campbell]

That was a setup. Ken. I thought you really had something for me.

[Ken Coleman]

I know. I kind of like to do that.

[George Campbell]

I almost said chicken butt. To be honest, I refrained.

[Ken Coleman]

Wow. But yet you said it anyway.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

So there you go. So I met with the team the other day. The new EveryDollar is amazing. You hear this? And I go, I'll be the judge of that.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Do you know what I mean? I'm a little bit of a. Not a true cynic, but you're like.

[George Campbell]

You want to see it to believe it.

[Ken Coleman]

I would like to arrive at my own conclusion, not have a marketer tell me. So I had a meeting with the everydollar folks. You know, I was blown away by.

[George Campbell]

What's that?

[Ken Coleman]

The 12 to 15 minutes of questions when you initially get in there. And I said to them, I go, this is literally a more robust version of someone calling in the show and getting our coaching. You're going to get eight minutes. Eight, nine minutes with us.

[George Campbell]

24. Seven in your pocket is with 24.

[Ken Coleman]

Seven. And then I found out that for now and I told the people the other day, I don't know how long Dave's going to let this one go. But you also can get a 10 minute call with a real life financial coach.

[George Campbell]

That's right.

[Ken Coleman]

In addition to the articles, the here's what you need to do. So I'm just telling you, when I say it's no longer a budgeting app, I mean it. It really is.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. The group coaching, personal coaching, that's some of the best features.

[Ken Coleman]

It's a digital financial coach that oh, by the way, has a phenomenal budgeting functionality to it. That's my take. What do you say?

[George Campbell]

I actually just came from a lunch with those guys and they were showing me what they're working on. Mind blown.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh boy.

[George Campbell]

The functionality or moving just past it being budgeting and more like how do we track all the pieces of your financial life so you get a real holistic picture and you know what to do next. That's where this thing is heading. And you can come along for the ride and check it out.

[Ken Coleman]

Tell people where they get it.

[George Campbell]

Go get it in the App Store or Google Play. Just search every dollar. The average person finds thousands of dollars in margin in just the first 15 minutes. Like Ken mentioned, you got nothing to lose except maybe your stress.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, well played. I see what you did there. Adam is up in Dallas, Texas. Adam, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. How are you guys doing? Thanks for taking my call.

[Ken Coleman]

We're doing great. What's going on with you?

[Caller]

So my wife is an avid listener to your show.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, of course she is. You married a good woman. Tell her we said thank you.

[Caller]

All right, I did.

[Ken Coleman]

I will.

[Caller]

I honestly, just being honest, I don't listen to it very much unless she's in the car with me. But I have.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, let's put Adam on hold. Who's next? Who do we have next? I'm kidding, Adam. I'm kidding. Go ahead.

[Caller]

But I have listened to the audible book money makeover, and let me just say, 95% of the things in there I 100% agree with. It's preaching to the choir. But there's one thing that you guys preach that my wife agrees with and I don't.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, I love it.

[Caller]

What is it that is paying off your mortgage? I'll give you a little.

[Ken Coleman]

What a silly idea, right? No.

[Caller]

We have a $327,478.50 mortgage right now with a 3.625 interest rate. And I have been very adamantly against paying that off for the last of years because if we invest our money very conservatively, very safely, high yield savings account, money market account, it's been at 4.5 to 5% for the last several years. Just recently, it got down to 3.8. And my question to you is, why, oh, why would I pay off my mortgage when I can make more? Having it in conservative, basically guaranteed money versus at 3.8 versus, you know, getting back 3.625 by paying it off?

[Ken Coleman]

Adam, would you believe.

[Caller]

Would you believe 2000 a year right now?

[Ken Coleman]

Would you believe you're the first person to ever hit us with that?

[Caller]

I figured I wasn't. But again, I.

[George Campbell]

Here's the question.

[Ken Coleman]

You are not the first person. You are correct, sir. George, tell him.

[George Campbell]

Why do you have $327,000 sitting in that savings account?

[Caller]

So not savings. So we've got in money market account right now. We have enough to pay off our house.

[George Campbell]

That's what I'm saying. So you have the money to pay it off?

[Caller]

Oh, yes, sir.

[George Campbell]

But you like to see it grow at 3.8%, which, by the way, you owe taxes on all the money you're making from that. You understand that? So it's not apples to apples already.

[Caller]

The interest can be written off taxes by.

[George Campbell]

Sell the mortgage interest is what you're saying. Because you guys itemize every year, correct? Okay. So I can give you the logical math answer and that's where you're going to want to spar. But it's so far beyond that and what your wife is getting at, it's just not about the math. She does not care if you guys could make a thousand and you didn't that year because you paid off the mortgage. Because the other part you're not taking into account is once you free up that mortgage payment number one, you can invest that amount and you'll likely be back to where you were pretty quickly. I assume you guys have a great income.

[Caller]

The way you're talking, pretty good. Yes, sir.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so can we agree that you could save up 300,000 bucks pretty quickly with your income if you had zero debt?

[Caller]

Yeah, absolutely.

[George Campbell]

Okay, next question. Are you going to be broke in retirement if you pay off your mortgage and liquidate that investment account?

[Caller]

No, absolutely not.

[George Campbell]

So the argument is, do I want 5.6 million in retirement when I am 63 or will it be 5.3, but with a paid for mortgage, can we agree that's kind of what we're. It's kind of like both scenarios are pretty great. We can agree there.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

The other question, Are you both working full time right now?

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Now let's play this out. What if somebody lost their job, had a health situation, there was a recession? All of the factors that can happen in life to where now you go, oh gosh, I'd rather not have a mortgage when life comes at me.

[Caller]

So that's why I have the money and things where I'm not going to lose. I'm not going to put this money in the s and P500 or some one of the markets that can fluctuate day by day. This isn't something that is safe. Like I was talking about either high yield savings accounts or the money market to where I can take that money out anytime. If we did lose our job, or let's say the money market or high yield savings accounts got down to 3.5, I could just take that money and pay off the mortgage that day.

[George Campbell]

Okay, well, have fun having a disagreement in your marriage for the rest of your life. Oh, I'm kidding, George.

[Ken Coleman]

That's not fair.

[George Campbell]

Her security glands flaring up. It's not because of Ramsey. It's because there's something in her that knows that peace is more than just the spread. And that's what she's after. Nobody can come after your house. You own it free and clear. If life Happens you're going to be okay. And the truth is, you're probably going to be okay either way. And so paying it off, do you really think you'd sit there and go, gosh, I could have made $5,000 this year off that savings account? Or are you going to go, man, it feels good to not have a mortgage. And the flexibility we now have, the options we now have, the freedom we now have was well worth it?

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And I agree. I think it's a little bit of both. I think nobody's ever going to regret not having a mortgage. Nobody's going to say, man, I wish I had my mortgage back. But, you know, part of me would always be like, ah, gosh, it's $2,000 this year. I could have bought a new mortgage. You guys make, you know, I do about 140, 150 a year. And she does probably 200. 250.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so $2,000 is a drop in the bucket. We can. It's like kind of saying, I'm doing the credit card game for the rewards. I like getting two grand free. And I know it's not a big amount, but it just feels nice, right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

You know, I'm sitting here listening, by the way, I'm always on the side, like, either I'm on with Dave or I'm on with a money personality. And this call comes in, and I'm always just sitting here. You know, it's like letting them do it. And I'm like. And I'm listening for what's really going on. And I think there's two things I heard you say a minute ago. And George started talking. He talked over. He was so rude. So I didn't pick up what you said, but I thought you said about the $2,000. And then she's like, I could have bought a mountain bike. Did you say that or am I hearing things?

[Caller]

Yeah, I was just kidding around, but, yeah, I couldn't hear.

[George Campbell]

No, you weren't.

[Ken Coleman]

But see, you weren't. I'm not a money expert, but I can tell you this. I've coached over 15,000 people live before. I'm an expert at hearing things and seeing things. And when I heard that, I went, that's not a joke. And I'm going to tell you what I think is going on with this thing between you and your wife, because George has explained it beautifully, so I have nothing to add to that. But let me tell you what I think is going on. Your wife is looking at this emotionally, and you're looking at this logically and I think you look at all money things as logic. Nothing wrong with that at all. You're a smart guy. You're not a goofball, you're not a loser. You've been very wise with money. I just think you're going to have to decide in this situation how important is it to me to make the $2,000 every year and either bank it or buy the mountain bike off of my interest and I feel so good about my logical choice or do I want to meet my wife where she is and where she is emotionally and help her feel safe? I think that's the choice. That's my reach. And I think you just look at it totally different than she does. I think you need to walk a mile in her shoes for a little bit.

[George Campbell]

The question is, is it worth paying 12 grand in interest to make 12 grand in a savings account? Basic math tells me it's a wash, dude. I'm just gonna pay it off and get some peace in my life and happy wife. I'll take that as a bonus.

[Dave Ramsey]

Everywhere you turn this time of year, someone's telling you to swipe a card now and pay later. But that mindset always leads straight to debt and post holiday stress. Fairwinds Credit Union takes a different approach. They're here to help you win with money. Fairwinds doesn't push credit cards. They help you build savings and stay debt free, just like we teach with the baby steps. And to do that, Fairwinds created the Smart Bundle with Ramsey fans in mind. It's more than a bank account. It's a tool to help you live with intention. The Smart Bundle includes a no fee checking account, a high yield savings account, and the exclusive Ramsey Be weird debit card which says debt is normal. Be weird right on the front. So every time you swipe at this Christmas season, it's a reminder that you're choosing a different path to spend no more than you actually have to avoid that January budget hangover and to be free from debt traps. Go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey to open your Smart Bundle and get your Ramsey Beweird debit card today. That's Fairwinds.org Ramsey insured by the NCUA.

[Ken Coleman]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show coming to you from the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Dan joins us next in Mesa, Arizona. Dan, how can we help you today?

[Caller]

Yes, sir. Thank you for taking the call. I've been suffering in poverty for all my life, pretty much. And I have a plan and there's some Details around that, but that's my question.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, tell us more.

[Caller]

How do I get out of this poverty? Am I on the right track and what can I do?

[Ken Coleman]

Well, okay, let's start with where you are. What is your income?

[Caller]

Right now I have income of about 1400 with Social Security disability and I have a part time labor job for about 100 a week. My income last year on taxes was about 20, just under 21k, which is impossible to live on, of course.

[Ken Coleman]

Now I'm curious about the, the, the disability because you're working part time. What is the part time job?

[Caller]

The part time job is working at the grocery store as a courtesy clerk, bagging groceries, lifting water, pushing old lady carts out for him, trying. I try to make people feel good and have a blessing on the last face they see before they walk up.

[Ken Coleman]

Dan, you're Dan, you're a good man. What, but what your, what is your disability and how does it limit you from working more?

[Caller]

Well, I'm, I.

Psychiatric.

I've had deep trauma in childhood and I've been in recovery from alcoholism for 28 years. Coming up December 4th. But there's a lot of these underlying issues and problems which have really prevented me from thinking clearly about money, making clear choices and, you know, making bad decisions like that. So the disability is I can't really function that good in a workplace and a lot of depression and personality problems, but.

[George Campbell]

Well, how are you doing at the grocery store?

[Caller]

Well, I do excellent at the grocery store.

[George Campbell]

And why do you think that is?

[Caller]

Because I started doing a special therapy for trauma called EMDR in March and it took me from staring at the wall for a year and a half to working, feeling good and taking a. I took a training and got a certificate in Google data analytics from March until now.

[George Campbell]

Way to go.

[Caller]

I'm looking to up level. I'm trying to up level, but the thing is I get to get off Social Security for the first time since 2000, which is somewhat terrifying.

[George Campbell]

I think that's the root of this.

[Ken Coleman]

I do too. And Dan, I want to tell you, keep at it. And I would ask your therapist, get a professional opinion on whether or not she or he feels like you can go to full time work. Let's take some baby steps to this and let's move into if we can full time at the grocery store because you're psychologically safe there right now.

[Caller]

Sounds like, well, the problem, I can't do full time at the grocery store. It's a complex thing about the way they do their positions. I tried that in March, which didn't turn out. So that's what made me turn back towards tech because I went to graduate school for research methods in the 90s.

[Ken Coleman]

Great.

[Caller]

And I've got all the statistical background and now we've got all this new technology AI cover. Data analytics is hot.

[Ken Coleman]

I'm all for you going full blast on the technology side, but what I was suggesting is that might take a little bit of time to get that job and you're already in recovery and you're doing some work and so I think getting some wins here is super important. You would agree with that, correct? Not just financial wins, but psychological, mental and emotional wins. So here's where I'm going.

[George Campbell]

Dan.

[Ken Coleman]

I would have never guessed, nor would anybody in this vast audience would have ever guessed the trauma. We still don't know. It's none of our business. But we wouldn't have guessed any of that based on how you described how you treat people and what you do at the grocery store. So I'm going to tell you something, man, I just, I wish I could reach through the phone and give you a hug and say that I think you're stronger than you think you are. And I just as a stranger who's heard thousands upon thousands of calls, I heard a man who is full of joy. And not only full of joy, but like gives joy. I got goosebumps when you described that you want to be the last face they see as they go to their car. I mean, there's a guy who's been through so much pain and has made it through just enough to be able to give joy when you've had very little joy. So there's my locker room speech, Dan, but here's where I'm going. If the grocery store won't move you to full time, what about Target? What about Walmart? What about any other big box stores who need somebody like you who's going to show up broken. Yes, Joyful, yes. And you're going to give yourself away. I'd like to see you take that step and let's see if we can get full time pay and some benefits at one of those bigger stores and share some of your story. Don't share all the darkness, don't share, but just go, hey, I've been through a lot. I'm 28 years sober. I hear that from somebody and I go, rock on, baby. I have mad respect for you, Dan. So I want you to carry that and let's see if we can get to one of those roles, get more income in and get off of Social Security while we are making the inroads and connecting. And I'm going to give you my book. The proximity principle is my gift to help you make connections, to get into technology. Now that's my little speech, but I meant every word of it.

[Caller]

I appreciate you. That was amazing. It really helps me a lot.

[Ken Coleman]

You're amazing in my heart. Well, good, because I think your head and your heart need to get on the same page.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[George Campbell]

You've lost trust in Dan and we're telling you he's worth trusting in again. It's worth betting on yourself.

[Ken Coleman]

I stand with Dan. I'd call every store in Mesa and I'd vouch for you because there's nobody among us today that doesn't have some brokenness. So I think you're gonna have to step up a ladder on this, George.

[George Campbell]

The way out of this is income. And the good news is if you make so much working that you lose SSDI Good.

[Ken Coleman]

That's great.

[George Campbell]

That's exactly what you wanted, isn't it? Because that's the only path out of this, is making enough that you can lose it and not miss it.

[Ken Coleman]

George.

[George Campbell]

And cover your bills.

[Ken Coleman]

George. Take two minutes and walk him through step by step. Let's assume he's gotten that money now. Walk him through setting up a budget and trusting himself that he doesn't need Social Security.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, right now you're going. Well, budget, what money? You know you don't have enough coming in. But once you have three, $4,000 coming in and your expenses stay where they are at, I'm assuming 2,000 bucks a month. How much are you living off of right now?

[Caller]

1800.

[George Campbell]

1800. So can you imagine having an extra thousand or two thousand bucks left over after your bills are covered? What kind of life that could provide for you? Your ability to save, to invest, to give. Because I can tell you're a generous guy who has a heart for that. It's going to change everything. So you list out your income, you list out your expenses and the good news, there's going to be money left over when you believe in yourself and go, I'm going to do the kind of work that I was made to do. And I don't think you're passionate about groceries. You're passionate about serving people. And that could be through analytics, that could be at Target. It doesn't matter. The key is you're worth more than a hundred bucks a week. Can we agree on that?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Ken Coleman]

Dan, I'm going to tell you Those tears are not a sign of weakness, man.

[Caller]

Well, these jobs, you know, they started 100k these jobs. Yeah, I've been on disability since 2000. If I got a 6,000, thousand dollar take home check, I'd be on my knees, I'd be walking.

[Ken Coleman]

No, I tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna get yourself a ticket, you're gonna come to Nashville and you're gonna wait to meet George and I in the lobby. We're gonna come out and we're gonna give you a big bear hug and we're have a whole lobby, just cheer. Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. Let me tell you something. The Dan we're talking to today, who's here today and made the call today, has got enough strength to be the Dan that you want to be. You better believe that, my man. Hang on the line. We're going to get you the proximity principle. That is your homework assignment to get that $100,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

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.

[Ken Coleman]

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.

[George Campbell]

Insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.

[Ken Coleman]

And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a gut punch.

[Ken Coleman]

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.

[Dave Ramsey]

Me too.

[Ken Coleman]

They don't know what to do next.

[Dave Ramsey]

Me too. I mean, you're gonna 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.

[Ken Coleman]

That's exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Ken Coleman]

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

[Dave Ramsey]

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.

[Ken Coleman]

Miguel joins us in Los Angeles, California. Miguel, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hello, guys, Think. First of all, thank you for taking my car. I really appreciate it.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, you bet. What's going on?

[Caller]

Yeah, well, I simply just need help figuring out what to do with my home and debt situation. If I may give you a brief background, My wife and I bring home about $11,000 a month, including $1,000 from ADU that we rent out. But our mortgage has a balance of 182,000. It's a 15 year loan with two and a half percent and we make a payment about 1950. But we also have a HELOC with a high balance of 160,000 at around 9% that we're paying $1,200 of interest every month. Now, aside from that, we have about $27,000 in other debt. So my question is, should I refinance my existing mortgage and HELOC together to make one payment even though I lose the 2.5% ratio?

[George Campbell]

What'd you take out the HELOC for?

[Caller]

Well, before I knew about you guys, but I had about $30,000 in credit card debt that I paid off and could build that ADU that I built for my mom to live in.

[George Campbell]

So 30,000 turned into 160.

[Caller]

Well, 30,000 of credit card debt and then 130 for the ADU.

[George Campbell]

Got it. Okay. I would not roll this into one giant loan. Number one, it doesn't change the behavior. And number two, it's not going to change the numbers all that month, all that much. Now, your heloc being at 160 and your annual income, what's your gross household income? Are we talking like 175, 180?

[Caller]

Yeah, around 170. 175.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So because the HELOC is over half your annual income, you can kind of lump it into baby step six, which means you're focused on paying off that other 27,000 right now. Now. And once that's knocked out, we'll just tackle the 160 with your fantastic income, which is going to go pretty fast and let that interest fuel your anger towards this and towards the mistakes to go. Never again. I'm not going to put myself in this position.

[Caller]

Now. Now, George, even though we bring those $11,000 a month and in the past, before I knew guys knew about you guys, we were only saving about fifteen hundred dollars per month. So I want to know what Ramsey approved things that we are allowed to pay each month, like utilities, insurance, and what else should go to debt? I'm curious about that.

[George Campbell]

Well, you cover your four walls, food, utilities, housing, transportation, you're going to cover your insurance, and you're going to cover all of your minimum debt payments. Outside of that, zero spending. We're not eating out, we're not upgrading things for fun. We're not buying furniture. It is survival mode. And then you have 11,000. If we can get cut your spending down to 4,000, there's $7,000 left to throw at the debt. You see how the math works on this?

[Caller]

Yeah, I can see it going away pretty, pretty quick.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. Well, your 27,000 is gone in just a few months, less than four months. You clear that if you can live off of four and throw the other seven at debt. So I don't know what your expenses are. You're gonna have to make a budget tonight with your wife. You can use every dollar to do that and go, all right, we make 11. Our bare bones expenses to get by is $5,000. Well, that means you got six grand left to throw at your smallest debt, which means it's getting knocked out quick. And once you knock out the 27, you freed up a bunch of payments, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I wouldn't have any other. Other.

[George Campbell]

And you guys have any savings?

[Caller]

Well, we had about $20,000 in savings that I used to pay. Additionally about the 27,000 in debt that we had some car loans and some other medical bills.

[George Campbell]

Oh, so you liquidated savings to pay off debt. And so now you're back to how much in there?

[Caller]

It's only a thousand.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so once you're done with this consumer debt, the 27, I would go through that baby step three process and save up three to six months and then kind of put that HELOC in that baby step six territory. And that way, because it's going to take a little while. And so if we lump it in kind of next to that mortgage, it'll wait a little while to get there. That interest, it'll get knocked out quicker than you think. When you guys have 11 grand with a lot of margin left to throw at it, you can be done with this thing. And probably my guess, if we do the math on this, could you throw six grand at that heloc at that point?

[Caller]

I mean, if it's available, yeah, wouldn't. I wouldn't mind. Both my wife and I are locked into getting this paid off as soon as possible. So I say, then we're talking two years oh, nice.

[George Campbell]

And so instead of hanging onto the C lock forever, rolling it into a giant loan that you then take 15 years to pay off, you can knock it out in two if you keep it separate.

[Caller]

Awesome.

[George Campbell]

That's what I would do, man.

[Ken Coleman]

Thanks, Miguel. Appreciate the call. You got this. Let's go to Tracy in New Hampshire. Tracy, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi, I'm calling because my husband recently lost his job, and we're currently looking at health insurance through my employer, and we're looking at a high deductible plan. And I'm wondering if we should put money in the HSA that will be attached to that plan or if we should put that money into savings or if we should apply it towards debt.

[George Campbell]

Great question. Do you know of any kind of upcoming medical expenses you might need to cover?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I have pushed off an MRI that I'm going to need on my knee, and so that's been scheduled for January. So that will be about $1,300. And depending on how that comes out, I will either need a surgery or that's where my doctor thinks that we're going to end up. And maybe physical therapy, if not.

[George Campbell]

Okay. In that case, I would fund the HSA with as much as you're going to need. And so you kind of run it through there. You can kind of use it as a sinking fund. I wouldn't overfund it right now in baby step two, but if you know you're going to have have $2,000 worth of medical expenses, let's at least fund $2,000 worth of HSA in there for the year.

[Caller]

Okay. So my employer will put in about 1400 for the year just by signing up for that plan. We don't put anything into the hsa. Wow. So you would. Yeah, that part is, like, really great. And that was one of the reasons why we were really considering that as the plan to go with. So since we know that we're going to have to pay for the MRI, the deductible for one individual, it's going to. It's 5,500. So initially, I was looking at putting 7,000 for the year into.

[George Campbell]

You're not going to need seven grand in there.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

I wouldn't be maxing it out. I wouldn't be overfunding it. You're going to get 1400 from your employer. You can then set up kind of a sinking fund style where you go, hey, I'm going to take out 200 from each paycheck. That way there's 2400 in there after 12 months. And that'll sort of COVID the ongoing medical expenses you have or dental, vision, work for the family, anything like that going on. So you're just kind of using it to run your medical expenses through as a filter for the tax savings. But we're not going to use it as a separate emergency fund or an investment account right now.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Once you're in baby step four, you can look at maxing that out outside of your 15% retirement.

[Caller]

Okay, baby step four. And then, so for right now, should we be taking any extra money? So my husband literally last week lost his job. So should we be taking any extra money and just putting that into savings until he gets another full time job? Or what would you recommend?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, you guys are in storm mode right now. So I would be living on a bare bones budget. Just cover the essentials. Food, housing, utilities, transportation, insurance. Do you have any? You have your debt. So make your minimum debt payments. But you may want to pause on the debt snowball until we have some stability.

[Ken Coleman]

What was his income?

[Caller]

He made. His base income was 4800 per month and then he made quarterly commissions on top of that.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, and did he get any kind of severance?

[Caller]

No, but he will qualify for unemployment. But that won't kick in for a few more weeks. But we don't want that.

[Ken Coleman]

We do not want that. I'm gonna tell you what, I'm tell you this right now. And as his wife, I'm glad you're on the call. Research has shown that losing a job, whether you're laid off, fired, doesn't matter. It's the emotional equivalent of losing a loved one. He's in a really tough, tough spot right now. And I'm gonna tell you, one of the best things he can do is to actually just go get a job. I know it's. It's an interim. Right, but just some type of work just to be staying active. He's still contributing. Is it going to be as much as he was making? Maybe, maybe not. But I would go get a job while he's looking for the next right job. That's super important. I would encourage him. You can tell him I said that. But let's get some more money coming in. We don't want to go to unemployment.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't let big grocery bills spoil your holiday plans. Shop at Aldi First. They've got USDA choice meats like beef, pork, and even your turkey, along with fresh produce, holiday desserts, and more. And you'll find all of them at the lowest Prices of any national grocery store. A family of four can save up to $4,000 a year by shopping at Aldi. You don't need a membership or some loyalty app either. So stop overpaying. This holiday season, go to Aldi US to find a store near you that's Aldi US Savings.

[Ken Coleman]

Based on regional analysis of Aldi versus select competitors.

[George Campbell]

Prices may vary by location, product availability, and the market.

[Ken Coleman]

Ashley joining us now in San Francisco, California. Ashley, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. Thank you for having me.

[Ken Coleman]

You bet.

[George Campbell]

What's going on?

[Caller]

I am a small business owner. I've been in business for about five years, and I've been doing pretty well financially for the last four years until January hit. And now a lot of the current administration's policies have hit about every single section of my job.

[Ken Coleman]

What business are you? What? Tell me about your business.

[Caller]

So I'm a consulting firm that helps to support humanitarian initiatives with corporations, colleges, and school districts. So essentially, they bring me in as a consultant to repurpose their furniture and fix assets with charities around the world.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. And I'm just curious, not trying to get into a political rabbit hole, but how, how are the questions, how are the current policies affecting your income?

[Caller]

So, first off, we're women owned certified small business. So the DEI initiative, we took a pretty hard hit with that in January. The grants for the universities being revoked. That caused some cash crunches for some of the programs and some of the projects that they do traditionally over the summer.

[Ken Coleman]

Gotcha.

[Caller]

You know, funding for the public schools, you know, obviously, if they don't, if programs are being let go or, you know, Department of Education is, you know, being restructured, all of those things. School districts are downsizing themselves and kind of wondering how they're going to have the programs that they need to take care of their students.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Caller]

And then obviously, the tariffs, which we all know that's a subject in and of itself, but how are the tariffs factors combined?

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. All right. So bottom line is, is that money has dried up. What was coming in freely to pay for your consulting services have dried up.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And where I'm at right now is like, I've done, you know, I knew that this was coming. So, you know, as each hit kept coming into play, you know, I kept restructuring, kept trying to shift things. You know, I started laying people off. I, you know, I changed insurance plans for benefits for the employees. I still had, you know, try to.

Reduce costs across the board.

But now I'm at a situation where my husband got sick and he was hospitalized for Two months. And he's also my business partner. So we're at a point right now where I'm starting to get work in queue for next spring. Like heavy in for next spring and potentially next summer.

[Ken Coleman]

Great.

[Caller]

But obviously that is not going to help me now because I still have, I have some pretty good sized bills that I still owe.

[George Campbell]

And how many full time team members do you have? What does your payroll look like?

[Caller]

Like right now it's just me.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so it's just you. What kind of debt do you have?

[Caller]

So Basically I've got one vendor right now that I'm about 140 days overdue that I owe him 60,000.

[George Campbell]

What's that for?

[Caller]

It's so basically in. I work with third party vendors at times. Some entities that I work with one and all in. They want an all inclusive cost for my service service. So there is some of my work that I do sub, subcontract out.

[George Campbell]

So I'm still confused how you just, you took on 60 grand in.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. Did you get paid and then you kept it and didn't pay the vendor?

[Caller]

Basically what ended up happening was over the course of the summer I had to let all of my employees go. And so basically in order to do that, I had to pay out all of their medical expenses, their insurance, their vacation time and all of that. So by the time everything was all said and done so that I didn't have the IRS on my back, it was either pay them or basically pay my vendor is ultimately what it came down to. So I'm in a situation right now where I need to pay them the money that's rightfully owed them. And also what's your total debt and all of that? My total debt right now is 250,000.

[George Campbell]

250,000. Where's the rest of this debt?

[Caller]

So I've got, right Now I have so 60,000. 60,000 for that. I have a couple of vehicles on the company which are about, which equals to about 90,000. I've got credit card debt for about 80,000. I have an office lease here for about 5,000.

[George Campbell]

Goodness gracious.

[Caller]

Insurance and all that other stuff.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

This is a highly leveraged business.

[Ken Coleman]

This is crazy. Just a practical question. How, how much money do you have? You laid it out. How much money you've got to bring in to cover the basics?

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean I have that figured out. I mean up until this year I was, I was bringing in over. I was, I was grossing. Last year I grossed 2.5 million. And this year I'll be Lucky to.

[Ken Coleman]

No, no, I get it. I'm just saying. Do you. Are you going to be able to take care of you and your husband.

[George Campbell]

But can you make all of your payments and cover all your bills right now? As it stands.

[Caller]

And that's why I'm calling you guys, is because right now I'm trying. I'm at a point right now where I am.

[George Campbell]

So there's zero income coming in this month.

[Ken Coleman]

Yes or no? We're not getting a straight answer from you.

[Caller]

There is income coming in, yes. But it's. What I'm looking for is I'm at a point right now where I'm just realizing that I'm not realizing, but there's expenses or there's bills that I know that I'm going to need to pay that I need to cover between now and April of next year, so.

[Ken Coleman]

And you don't have any contracts coming in, so.

[George Campbell]

Contracts. While we get a different job. And is your husband working now? Is he back to.

[Caller]

My husband is back. I do. I do have contracts. But as a small business owner, the contracts that are confirmed that are over 100,000 don't hit until next spring.

[Ken Coleman]

We. I understand that. I understand that. I'm not talking about next April. I'm talking to a lady who's absolutely drowning in debt. And I'm wondering how you and your husband are going to pay your bills. I haven't heard anything on this call about how you make money between now and April.

[Caller]

And that's why I'm calling you guys is to say, what are my potential options?

[Ken Coleman]

I know, but I gotta get a straight.

[George Campbell]

I can start with this. We can sell the $90,000 worth of cars we have.

[Ken Coleman]

Sell the cars.

[George Campbell]

I'm guessing you're underwater on both of them.

[Ken Coleman]

Go get a job.

[George Campbell]

What are the cars worth?

[Caller]

The cars? The cars are under lease right now.

[George Campbell]

They're a lease.

[Caller]

Yes, they're leased.

[George Campbell]

Then what's. Where's the 90,000 in car loan debt?

[Caller]

Because that's when the leases run out. That's how much the leases are for right now for the contract.

[George Campbell]

Goodness gracious. Why do you need luxury cars to run a humanitarian consulting firm?

[Caller]

They're not luxury cars.

They're used for transportation, like vans. They're business.

Yes, yes, they're for business use.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

And right now you live in California. It's not. It's not cheap living here.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, well, that's my next question. Do we need to move out?

[Ken Coleman]

Out?

[George Campbell]

You're living in one of the highest cost cities in America, so can you do this business from elsewhere.

[Caller]

Am I. Where am I going to go? Because anywhere that I go, I'm going to have to. I'm going to have to provide three times my income.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, again, I.

[Caller]

Business owner to boot.

[Ken Coleman]

I agree. I appreciate. George, that's not the right question. The question that we've got to answer. And you keep saying, well, that's why I called you guys. And I got bad news for you. We don't make money for people.

[Caller]

I can tell you I'm not looking to make money. What I'm saying is you should be.

[George Campbell]

I don't want to go.

[Caller]

I don't want to go out right now and get a loan and end up with something like the gentleman who had mentioned that he had a ridiculous interest rate.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, we're not. We're never going to suggest you get a loan. What I'm saying is maybe this business needs to pause right now. If you can't get contracts and both of you need to get full time jobs doing other things or four side jobs each in order to cover the bills during this storm, sell everything.

[Caller]

Which would be great, except that my husband is in rehab right now.

[George Campbell]

You just told me he was back to work.

[Caller]

He's back to work part time, yes, but he's in a. He's in a rehabilitation facility.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so then it's on you.

[Caller]

Yes, it's on me.

[Ken Coleman]

That's what we're trying to say. We're not mad at you, but we're sort of frustrated for you to go. Ashley, the fix here is you got to bring in some income now in the short term or this whole thing.

[George Campbell]

And it may not be from your business. If that's not a viable solution, which means. Which it isn't, use your skills to go do something else right now, which is to float you until those contracts come in, then we can write this shit. But right now, you built a house of cards with all of this debt that's mounted. So there's pressure.

[Ken Coleman]

And while we're at it, while we're throwing a lot of advice at you, but you got to get on the phone with this vendor and go, let me tell you my story. Here's what I had to do. Your story is the best policy, the truth. And I owe you and I'm going to pay you, and I got this much coming in in April. But you have got to batten down the hatches. It's an old phrase to get ready for the storm because you were in the middle it. The winds are howling and what we're telling you is you got to go get some income in for you and your husband first and foremost. It's just you as the employee now, so we're not worried about that. And, and I'd go to the vendor and I'd explain what's going on and come up with a plan. But I mean, we're talking about urgency and that's all we got for you.

[George Campbell]

You're going to, you might need to pivot this business. If the grant money's all dried up and nobody's coming for you for the contracts, we're going to have to figure it out another way to make this work long term.

[Dave Ramsey]

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 ChurchillMortgage.com to get started today. That's ChurchillMortgage.com this is a paid advertisement.

[George Campbell]

Homebuyer Edge and Seller Guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only and not available in all states or locations in the MLS, id 1591 and mlsconsumeraccess.org/al housing lender.

[Ken Coleman]

Open enrollment period for health insurance is just begun and if OEP sounds like Alphabet soup to you, we're going to break it down. Health Insurance Open enrollment period, or OEP, is from November 1st to January 15th. So whether you're self employed or you're going to need some help navigating the market or you're unhappy with the health insurance your employer provides, Health Trust Financial can walk you through your options. Not only is Health Trust Financial Ramsey trusted, but there's never any charge to speak with with them and they're gonna commit to finding a plan that's Right. For you feel confident in your health coverage choices by going to ramseysolutions.com health-screen coverage now, I'm gonna say that again because between the hash and the dash, I'd want somebody to say it again for me. And so I'm a man of the people, so I'm gonna say it. It's ramseysolutions.com health-coverage the-Symbol that's important. Or honestly, if you're like me and you never will, remember that, go to the show notes because it's just a link in the show notes.

[George Campbell]

And so don't make Ken type things out.

[Ken Coleman]

Don't make Ken.

[George Campbell]

He will fat finger it.

[Ken Coleman]

And I have narrow fingers, by the way.

[George Campbell]

404 user error. That's what Ken gets.

[Ken Coleman]

Well played, George. Tom is up in Dallas, Texas. Tom, how can we help?

[Caller]

Yes, sir. Good afternoon. I'm nervous about retiring. I don't know what to do. I'm of the age and my situation would allow it. I'm just too used to getting up at 3am and going to work and working 10, 12 hours a day.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow.

[Ken Coleman]

I think this is actually a really fun problem. I don't even think you have a problem. And I'm really excited to walk you through this. Let's get some of the details. You are how old, Tom?

[Caller]

I'll be 70 here. Right, right, quick.

[Ken Coleman]

Fantastic. And how much money do you have in retirement accounts?

[Caller]

About 500. 500,000.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. And because you said I'm of the age and of the means, where I can walk away. So is it just you? Are you married?

[Caller]

Yes, I'm married.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. And does your wife have any retirement account?

[Caller]

No, there's a 19 year spread between us. She's still working, still enjoying what she's doing.

[Ken Coleman]

All right, way to go, Tom, with the younger lady. Very impressive, sir. So your Social Security, if you walked away today, what would that be?

[Caller]

I had my. My fiduciary has talked me into collecting now instead of waiting to get the extra $300, so. Right. The taxes I'm having them pull out now is 3,400amonth.

[George Campbell]

And you have any other source of income? Pensions, anything else? Rental income?

[Caller]

Yeah, there's a very small pension.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so it's basically your 3,400amonth of Social Security plus your $500,000 that you could withdraw from, Correct?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And you're saying that's enough?

[Ken Coleman]

And what is your. What's your wife's income?

[Caller]

About 30,000 a year.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, so do I understand you to say that if and I'm not saying you want to, but if you were to retire today and walk away, do you feel financially like you'd be very comfortable?

[Caller]

I. That's, that's the question. I, I've never had a budget. I've only started listening to you guys lately. Everything I have, motorcycle, bass boats, house, everything is paid for.

[George Campbell]

Good.

[Caller]

I owe no one nothing thing.

[George Campbell]

So your monthly expenses, between her 30,000 and your 4,000, if you didn't even touch the retirement accounts, you could live off of that just fine.

[Caller]

Oh yeah.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And so really now it becomes a. I'm just used to working for the last 40 plus years and getting up early. You can still get up early. Nobody's going to stop you from doing that.

[Ken Coleman]

And you can still work. It just doesn't have to be obviously in the job you've been at for 40 years. So now you go. Okay. I've got a lot of skills that I have accumulated over all these years working. I've got a lot of experience. So it's not just skill, but it's just know how to use the skill. You know, what you enjoy doing after all these years. So if it were me, Tom and I actually preach this all the time. You know, if you want to keep getting up at 3:00am, find something to do between 3:00am and you know, whatever time you would go to work. But I like you still working on some level. Do you have to work 40 hours a week?

[Dave Ramsey]

No.

[Ken Coleman]

So those ten 12 hour days, you don't have to do that anymore. But you can do something you really enjoy that actually produces a result that you care about. And I think that's what you're looking for at this stage of life, if financially it's the right move.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Our nut every month is only about 900 to $1,000. Yeah. Just the four walls, you're saying your.

[George Campbell]

Total expenses are a thousand bucks a month?

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Water, electric, all of that stuff.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, that's great news. That's great.

[George Campbell]

It's very frugal.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. Is the house paid for?

[Caller]

Yeah.

Yes, sir.

[Ken Coleman]

Wow, Tom, way to go.

[George Campbell]

You could have retired off much less, my friend. You could have retired 10 years ago.

[Ken Coleman]

I mean, the reality is, Tom, when I look at this just on, on paper, you've got a lot of margin just on your Social Security check.

[Caller]

Oh, and I, and I realize that when I'm having an issue with is how to not come in and sit on a bulldozer all day because I really enjoy it.

[Ken Coleman]

You do enjoy sitting on the bulldozer?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Get You a little bulldozer in the backyard and you just go out there and sit, you just enjoy, enjoy the weather.

[Ken Coleman]

You know what, that's not a bad idea. But no, you know what, Tom, let's ask it this way. What would walking away from that job, would there be anything about that? You would go, that's a relief. Or I'm kind of glad I'm not doing that.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Caller]

My bosses are all the same age as my oldest kids and I just, this is not the industry I came to work in.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, let me ask you this. Is it worth it to you to look around and see if there's any older guys that have a small, small business and they need somebody reliable and they, they're pulling their hair out because they've been trying to get like 22 year olds to show up and be dependable and everything else. And you come along, they go, you're kidding me. You've been doing this for 40 years and you want to continue to drive a bulldozer? And you go, I do, sir. And he's going to go, how much you want to get paid? I think that's possible, don't you?

[Caller]

Yeah, it takes some investigation. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I think that's what I would look to. Somebody out there, Tom, is probably closer to your age or a little bit different culture, what you're looking for. And they need somebody like you, knows how to operate a large machine and I think that's there. They don't care how old you are.

[George Campbell]

I think you've got some homework to do. You've had this laid out in front of you where you just go, well, I got to wake up and go to work. And now it's time for you to dream again. And that's the scary part. So I would sit down and write down all the things you could do, want to do. Want to try, write down a schedule of what your life would look like and then go, try, try it. Take a week off and go, I'm going to try this out and see if I like it and if you don't, change it up.

[Ken Coleman]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

And maybe your wife is scared that you're going to be laying around the house bothering her. Is that part of the deal?

[Caller]

Oh, no.

[Ken Coleman]

This guy doesn't lay many hobbies.

[Caller]

Y. I, I have too many hobbies and too many projects.

[George Campbell]

What's the hobby you wish you had more time for right now?

[Caller]

Fishing. Working in my shop.

[George Campbell]

You could spend all day doing that.

[Ken Coleman]

What would you, what would you make in the shop?

[Caller]

I've worked on everything but a submarine and a satellite. And that's because they can't get them to me.

[George Campbell]

Wow.

[Ken Coleman]

I love Tom. No, Tom, I appreciate the funny answer. No one loves having more fun on the show than me. But give me an answer. What would be something that you would make in the shop if you were.

[George Campbell]

Focused on one thing?

[Ken Coleman]

You're like, I could actually fix this, this, or make this and somebody would buy it. What would come to mind?

[Caller]

Automobile parts. I, I build everything I drive. I, I build it from the ground up.

[Ken Coleman]

I just wonder, Tom, if you don't just start a little fun mechanic business or whatever, whatever that is.

[George Campbell]

Tom's brakes and rotors.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

You're talking to the two wrong guys to classify the that. But we, we know what you're saying. I just wonder if you don't start that on the side for a bit and see how that goes, you know?

[Caller]

Yeah, I, I, I did years ago and was, was good at it and, and customers thought they owned me, so I kind of backpedaled out of it.

[George Campbell]

Well, now it's on your terms.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You know your way around a clutch pack piston.

[Ken Coleman]

Tom, what are you talking about?

[George Campbell]

I just wanted to see, I wanted to test his knowledge.

[Ken Coleman]

Tom, is that a thing?

[Caller]

Well, yeah, yeah, that's a thing. I don't buy it from the store. I just build it.

[George Campbell]

That's right, builds it like a real American show.

[Ken Coleman]

I think you start your own business today in your head and start doing it. Start customizing Tom's stuff. No customer.

[George Campbell]

I wish I had a Tom in my neighborhood. He could really help me.

[Ken Coleman]

I put Tom to work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here. Winning at money is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. What to do isn't the problem. Doing it is. In her brand new book, what no one tells you about money, Jade Warshaw dives deep into the reasons you've been stuck. This book exposes the real emotional fight with money and shows you how to win that battle. Pre order now for $24.99 and you'll get over $100 of free bonus items. Get your copy today at ramseysolutions.com store.

[Ken Coleman]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit union studio, I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me and we're going to talk to Stephanie here in Las Vegas. Stephanie, how can we help today?

[Caller]

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

[Ken Coleman]

Sure. What's going on?

[Caller]

So my husband and I can't agree on a budget for buying a house. How can I Convince him to up our budget.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, I have to background this though.

[Caller]

If you want it.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, yeah, you got to lay the case out. You got to pretend like George and I are supreme court jud to hear the facts because we don't know. We don't know who's right, who's wrong. And you're telling us I want help making the case to up the spend on the house. So break it down for us.

[Caller]

Okay. We're currently a single income military family but my husband will be retiring in the next two to three years and that's when we'll be buying a house. After my husband retires we'll have dual income plus we'll have his retirement check. So we'll be making a lot more money than we're currently making. And over the last 18 years we saved a good amount of money because we're frugal, both of us. And we've earmarked about $300,000 as like a down payment. My husband wants to buy a house basically all in cash and is only concerned about the price. So he doesn't care about the area that we live in or that with that budget the house is most likely going to be a fixer upper. I on the other hand would like to put as much money as we can as a Dow payment but I'm opening to having a larger mortgage of about $150,000 with the mindset that we pay it off as quickly as we can because we're frugal and we'll have that additional income. The math comes out that our mortgage would be less than 25% of our take home pay at that time. And my concern is that I want a good school district for my kids and a good area for us to live in. And I prefer a house that we don't need to put a lot of work into because we've lived in some crummy places being in the military the last 18 years and so I just want to settle down and have a nice house that we can relax and enjoy.

[George Campbell]

That all sounded so reasonable. So where is he coming from that he is frightened by the idea of, I don't know, a fifteen hundred dollar mortgage?

[Caller]

I don't know. We as adult, like our whole adult life since we've been married, we've never had any debt at all. We've that never bought a car and took out a loan on it like any of that stuff. So I don't know if it's just that we'd be taking a large loan and we've never owed money before.

[George Campbell]

When you say large loan, you mean the 150?

[Caller]

Yes, the $150,000. I mean that's large to us.

[George Campbell]

And what would the payment be? You've done the math. Is it about 1500?

[Caller]

On a 15 year fixed, it would be 1500, yes.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And then your take home pay would be 6, 7, $8,000 a month?

[Caller]

Yeah. Our take only pay would be a little over $8,000 a month.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So this is all very reasonable. It's all green flags as far as the Ramsey parameters. I think the part we need to compromise on is you going, hey, we're going to have an aggressive plan to pay this thing off early. So if you said, hey, we're taking on this 150, we're going to knock it out in two years, would he say, okay, great.

[Caller]

I don't know. I know that he's just very concerned about that, that amount of money. And I don't know if it's from growing up, like childhood money issues or if it's just, it's such a large amount.

[Ken Coleman]

Sure.

[George Campbell]

Well, this is not a consumer debt, so we're not going to put in the category of this is stupid. We're always going to encourage 100% down if you can. But if this is something where, hey, three years from now, we, we need to buy a house. If you want to wait a year and just keep stacking cash and get even closer, that might be a good compromise too. But I don't like this idea that unless we have the cash, we're never going to, we're not going to do this at all or we're going to get a fixer upper.

[Caller]

Okay, yeah, you're on my side.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I'm on your team. The question is he needs to be willing to come to your side a little bit.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

There needs to be a little bit of negotiation so he can feel like, all right, I want a little bit.

[Ken Coleman]

And that's the part I want to address. So, Stephanie, based on what? You know, you talk with George. What, what do you think is the emotional holdup? What. In other words, what do we need to address with him to where he goes, oh, I'm not giving into my wife. I actually see it the way she sees it. There's something that's holding him back. What is it specifically?

[Caller]

I think that he likes to be in control with money and just like in general being like the leader of the house, I don't know. And so like having no control. I like feeling of not having Control. Because we owe this money. I think that's part of his, like, hang up that.

[Ken Coleman]

But can I tell you what's behind that?

[Caller]

Sure.

[Ken Coleman]

Fear.

[Caller]

Right.

[Ken Coleman]

And have you guys had a conversation about this where it got tense or has it all been pretty chill?

[Caller]

Oh, no. I mean, we've talked about this for probably two years now, and we literally cannot agree. So this has been a two year. Is it tense question in our household? No, he just shuts down the conversation, basically.

[Ken Coleman]

That's tense.

[Caller]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

I was going to say when someone. When the other part of the marriage shuts the other one down, that's tense. I don't care how it's done. It's still tense. I think you're going to have to sit with him and go, hey, I want to understand. I'm not trying to convince you anymore. We've gone round and round and round. But I do want to understand.

[Caller]

Understand, Okay?

[Ken Coleman]

I. I want to understand. And you can blame George and I. You called us up, you know, if you don't think that's going to upset him, because it's not like three. What it can't sound like is three against one.

[Caller]

Well, I told him I was calling you guys.

[Ken Coleman]

And how did he. How did he feel about that?

[Caller]

He said, okay. He said, hopefully they take my side.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, great. But. Well, I. You. Here's what you can say. Here's what George said. And then you could say, Ken took your side, but Ken didn't take your money side. Ken took your emotional side.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

And I mean this. And, and here's where I'm going. He is allowed to be fearful. He is allowed to. Because there's something in his past that shapes the way he views money and, and the. Where he institutes control. And I don't. And I appreciate what you said. Like, he's got to be the man of the house. That's not what it is. It comes across probably as bravado, but that's not what it is. He's a scared little boy. And I'm not insulting him. I'm. I'm telling you, as a guy who's had to deal with control issues, once I got to the fact that it was about fear of something, and then I had to dig deeper and go, what was I afraid of? And it goes way, way, way back. And so on some level, he has that. So the reason I'm telling you that is not to judge him or belittle him, but for you to have some empathy for him and then compassion toward his point of view and when you sit with him and walk through his point of view as the counter to all your points of view and you go, I totally understand that. What if I told you that this, you know, and you then you take George's layout, George, I want you to come and tie a bow on this. But that's what I'm hearing.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I feel that I definitely validate his feelings and not go, wow, you're crazy. That's not going to help anything. Are you guys living for free right now?

[Caller]

Well, we have like a bh, so we pay rent out of military money.

[George Campbell]

How much is the rent?

[Caller]

The rent right now is $3,000.

[George Campbell]

And he's okay with that?

[Caller]

I mean, no, but we're in a high cost of living place and our BH is exactly $3,000. So it's basically us just paying what the military gives us for housing.

So.

[George Campbell]

But basically we're trading three thousand in rent for, you know, fifteen hundred dollar mortgage that you're actually going to own.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Campbell]

So I think that's part of the math. The other part of the math is home prices are a moving target. If you waited, you were like, it's 2019, we should wait until 2022 to buy a home. Good luck. That house is now 50% more. And so the longer you wait, the more expensive this decision is going to become. Which is why I tell people, when you're financially ready, which you are, you're following the Ramsey plan to a T, go ahead and get, get the house and then pay it off aggressively. Throw four grand a month at it if you want, knock it out in less than three years. You guys set the plan, set the goal.

[Ken Coleman]

I've got a homework assignment. Christian and I put her on hold. Christian, guide her on how she can get to YouTube and pull this segment up. And I think they need to watch it together. Watch it together because we had no skin in the game. We're actually for you guys figuring this out in a very good way because I think it is a good move. Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not Uncle Sam's? Then listen up. There are tax deductions and credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a Ramsey trusted tax pro. They know the tax code inside and out so you don't have to and they can help you file when tax season rolls around. Get a trusted tax pro by going to ramseysolutions.com taxpro ramseysolutions.com taxpro.

[Ken Coleman]

The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Y Refi. When you when your private student loans are in default, it's easy to feel ashamed or stuck.

[George Campbell]

Why?

[Ken Coleman]

Refi won't judge you. They'll help you rebuild, refinance and regain control. Visit yrefi.com Ramsey that's Y R E F y.com Ramsey not available in all states.

[George Campbell]

Today's question comes from Carly in Washington. She says, My husband is 55 and I'm 42. He's the breadwinner of the family and would like to retire in the next five to seven years. Does it still make sense to focus on paying off her house while still investing only the recommended 15%? It seems like your advice is great for younger people, but not people at the end of their careers looking to retire and enjoy life before they die. Please help me understand why investing more now instead of paying off her house is a bad idea. Well, number one, I don't remember where in our planets said you should just only enjoy life when you're close to death. I don't remember. That's not baby step eight. We recommend 15% in retirement. Then anything beyond that, let's start chunking it at the mortgage. Because here's the deal. Paying off your house is a huge part of your ability to be able to retire. You get rid of that mortgage payment, you get rid of that biggest line item in your budget. Well, now we need less to retire. Would you not agree? If you've got rid of that $2,000 mortgage payment, you need $24,000 less of net income in order to live. So I think it's a huge part of your wealth building. And I think if you get aggressive at knocking out that house, you can increase investing to 30, 40, 50% of your income and make up for a lot of lost time. And she's 42. My guess is she's going to continue to work for the next, you know, 15, 20 years, which is going to help support this plan as well. So that's my take on why you shouldn't invest more now because you go into retirement with a bunch of debt, but you were able to invest. Invest. I don't know that that was a winning plan either.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, listen, the plan works. You know, I it is curious to me, the statement, it seems like your advice is great for younger people but not people at the end of their careers.

[George Campbell]

That's my guess is they got a late start on investing and so they're going, well, we need to really make up for lost time.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, that's what it is.

[George Campbell]

Therefore why pay. Pay down this mortgage?

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, she's just looking for, you know, well, we're just going to go invest, invest, invest and not pay off the house.

[George Campbell]

So it sounds like he may not be in the next five years if the math doesn't math. And I don't know that investing a little more is going to get you guys there. That's right. With that short of a time horizon.

[Ken Coleman]

That's right. It's the long game, the long game, the long game. That's what the baby steps are about. And it pays off. Ryan is joining us now in Phoenix, Arizona. Ryan, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. I just wanted to know how me and my wife can survive keeping her home. Our current income is probably about 4400. I'm in the middle of purchasing a business to help up that income a bit. I would need to be taking out a loan on to purchase the business we have. That would up potentially the potential for it after the expenses of the business to up that income to 5,300amonth. Month. And we have a total of 30 or sorry, 344,000 in debt without having that business as the debt.

[George Campbell]

Is that including your mortgage?

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Okay, Take the mortgage out. What is your consumer debt? Everything about the mortgage.

[Caller]

21,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay. What debt is the 21?

[Caller]

So 16 will be from credit cards and 5,000 is to be going car.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And what's this business going to cost?

[Caller]

Business is going to be 40,000.

[George Campbell]

So you're going to go into debt $40,000 to increase your income by 900 bucks.

[Caller]

Yes. So but I'm also going to be keeping my wife home at that point. And that would take care of her. It would up her that income and subset her from having.

[George Campbell]

I don't know how adding more debt to the picture, adding more risk, adding another payment allows her to stay home. That feels like some backwards math. I would figure out if we want to buy this business, do it in cash. I don't think the ROI is there on this business currently. It sounds like it's overvalued.

[Caller]

After paying all the expenses, which their expenses were about, they would the debt.

[George Campbell]

That's not counting the payment on the loan that you need to make.

[Caller]

No, that is including so the payment.

[George Campbell]

On the loan plus expense of the business. I mean, I just would give me.

[Caller]

3,000Amonth profit number one.

[George Campbell]

I'd never recommend anybody go into debt for any business, whether it's your own, buying a different business and the cash flow just that's not that impressive overall. 900 bucks isn't the difference. So the truth is your wife might need to work until we clean up this other debt. I don't think the 21,000 in debt is what's stopping you at this point from her work. Working or not working. But I would at least clean that up, get an emergency fund in place and then do the math to figure out can we do this without going into debt again?

[Caller]

We have about 10,000 in savings that we are just, we've been holding back on like paying off the credit cards because the majority of the credit card debt is on a 0% interest credit card. At the moment we're just making the minimum payments on it.

[George Campbell]

You're not selling me with your 0% interest rates.

[Caller]

I know, I know.

[George Campbell]

I would knock out the car loan today. What's the cost? Car payment?

[Caller]

Car payments, 100amonth.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so you get 100 bucks a month back in your life by knocking out the car. You can throw another four credit card debt. You'll knock out a card out of that. What's left? Is that a bunch of cards or one?

[Caller]

It's.

I have, I have like three or four and they all have like a couple thousand each on them.

[George Campbell]

You've done balance transfers to 0%.

[Ken Coleman]

I've.

[Caller]

No, I didn't do a balance transfer. 0%.

[George Campbell]

I.

[Caller]

The 9,000 was for a school like purchase for really trying to learn real estate and so on and so forth on that.

[George Campbell]

Is that your business?

[Caller]

No, my business is a pool business in Phoenix here.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And you're buying another pool business?

[Caller]

No, this is, I'm purchasing the business for the pool. The pool business is the one that I'm purchasing.

[George Campbell]

Got it.

[Ken Coleman]

What's the, what's the, what are the deal points of the purchase?

[Caller]

So I'm technically, I did some research on the pricing of the business. I'm actually getting from every source that I've looked at. I'm getting a 20% wholesale value of the business currently. The business is currently, currently worth about 60,000, but I'm being sold to it at 40,000, which is just. Basically what I'm doing is I'm purchasing all of the customers that are on and I'm also purchasing the equipment that was used.

[Ken Coleman]

And who's the current owner?

[Caller]

It's my brother in law.

[Ken Coleman]

I mean I gotta say I've never had anybody ask me advice on buying a business that's worth $60,000. But I don't think that's a great idea. You're calling about debt and paycheck to paycheck, living. And I'm sitting here the whole time going how are we going to make this guy some more money? And you're getting wrapped up in buying a business from your brother in law that's grossing $60,000. That's not a lot and I'm not trying to pop your bubble, but is this a wise decision?

[Caller]

My main goal is to grow the business and be able to make this my full time job because there is a very hot market here in Phoenix being it's so hot in so many pools and I've been doing my, I've.

[George Campbell]

Been putting my wife on. Drum up new business, find new customers and make it a sweat equity deal instead. Instead of you going into debt where you give him a portion of the profits until he's paid out.

[Caller]

The, the big problem is he, he's racked up a lot of credit card debt himself.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, see that doesn't mean you come out.

[Ken Coleman]

This is a fire set.

[Caller]

Yeah, I know.

[Ken Coleman]

Well if you know, if he moves.

[Caller]

He moved out of state completely and that's why he was, he was going to sell it. Either someone else or he's going to sell it to me. So it was either one or the two and he was going to give me a discount and he wasn't.

[Ken Coleman]

Can I tell you something else? I don't know who else he's going to sell that to. I think I'd renegotiate and no cash.

[George Campbell]

I would say you're going to give it to me for free and I'll give you 50% of the profits for a year and then we're done.

[Ken Coleman]

That's fair. I like those deal points. He's desperate.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I mean if it's, if you make 60 grand of revenue and net profits are, you know, 40 grand. He gets 20 grand out of the deal for doing nothing.

[Ken Coleman]

I wouldn't go into it with the terms. I am not in favor of you doing it under the current terms. I think that's a bad deal and you're going to regret that and you might resent your brother in law. That's my concern. And you got to make more money. I got into that whole deal just trying to dig around and go, man, you got to make money. So you know George, we talk about cutting, cutting, cutting, but man, when you're paycheck to paycheck, yes, you cut but you better start bringing in more money.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, adding to the debt doesn't help getting out, out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle. What's up, guys? George Camel here. What if I told you that you had thousands of extra dollars hiding in your budget right now? Listen, I know how crazy that sounds. You're thinking, dude, I'm broke. My money's tighter than the middle seat on a spirit flight. But believe it or not, you've got more margin than you think. And our every dollar budgeting app helps you find. In fact, the Average person finds $3,015 on average in just the first 15 minutes. That's like giving yourself a huge raise without an awkward conversation with your boss. Now, look, this isn't magic. You're not hitting the lottery. This is just your money that we're helping you reclaim and reorganize. And everydollar shows you how to make the most of it so you can make faster progress on your goals. So don't miss out on thousands of dollars of margin. Go start everydollar for free by downloading the app in the App Store or Google Play Play right now.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, George. Do you like the Christmas deals?

[George Campbell]

I like a deal and I like Christmas. So I'm.

[Ken Coleman]

I. I love. I love a good Christmas deal. But I don't know anybody that loves a deal more than you. I don't care if it's an Easter deal, a Halloween deal.

[George Campbell]

Well, I just. I don't like paying full price for anything that's for the truth of it.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, you. This is a. I could call this a George Camel sale.

[George Campbell]

That would have been a better name. I'm gonna be honest.

[Ken Coleman]

This is our unbelievable Christmas deals that we bring out every year. Santa Dave has dug deep in the bag. We're gonna have best selling hardcovers, all the personalities, hardcover bestsellers only 13 bucks. Questions for humans decks. Deloney's got 703 versions of those. All of those are $12. Audiobooks and ebooks only $7.99. Are we losing money? I'm starting to wonder.

[George Campbell]

That's cheaper than a Chipotle bowl.

[Ken Coleman]

And then all the different assessments, the disc assessment, the get clear career assessment assessment, $20. I don't remember approving that. These are unbelievable deals. So much more. Go to ramseysolutions.com store ramseysolutions.com store or if you're watching on YouTube, listening podcasts in the old show notes, they just have links. Anthony is joining us now in Seattle, Washington. Anthony, how can we help today?

[Caller]

Hello. Hello, Ken. Hi, George. Hope you guys are doing well.

[Ken Coleman]

We are.

[Caller]

My name is Anthony Pink. I'm over here in Seattle, loving life.

[Ken Coleman]

Life great.

[Caller]

Found Dave Ramsey, 2013 FPU graduate. I joked to myself I thought Chef Ramsay was good with finances. And I found out it was a different person.

[George Campbell]

Disappointing.

[Ken Coleman]

Disappointing?

[Caller]

No, it was positive. We've. We've been following the baby steps, my wife and I and I had a general question about tithing on 401k interest and traditional investment. Do you guys do that? Is that suggested by random You. What's the lowdown on that?

[George Campbell]

Well, we're never legalistic about this, but there's a good methodology to think about it. To go, okay, the tithe traditionally is on the increase, so your profits, what you actually take home. So if my investment grows, but I never saw the money because it's just still sitting in an investment account, I'm not going to tithe on that. But If I sell $10,000 worth of investments and I took that home, that's on my tax return, then, sure, you can tithe on that, as this is income we brought above and beyond. So how is that what you're talking about here with investment growth?

[Caller]

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Caller]

So the solve the money analogy, I think that it's a no.

[George Campbell]

Well, the technical term is a realized gain. So an unrealized gain is, hey, it made money in the investment account, but I haven't actually sold it. The money never went through my fingers. So if the money goes through your bank account account, you can count it as income, and you are free to give on that.

[Caller]

I like it.

[George Campbell]

Is that simple enough?

[Caller]

Simple enough.

[Ken Coleman]

All right, Great question. Thanks for the call.

[George Campbell]

I don't know if there was more there, but that's my. That's one man's take.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

From a math and theological standpoint, I hope it wasn't heresy. But here's the thing. If you want to give more, you're not going to. You know, no one's feelings are going to be hurt. If you want to tithe more, be more generous. But from a. A biblical standpoint, when I look at the tithe, I go, this is all about the realized gains, the things that you took home. That's right. So, well, if I didn't see the money, yeah. I'm not going to tithe on it.

[Ken Coleman]

I agree. And I think that, again, without going too deep on this, there was no heresy there. But I would say, again, it's tithing. If you dive into it, biblically, is about the first fruits. Right. And so something that you receive, to your point, if it's actual income, however you get it, again, that's for your interpretation. You know, that's between you and God, Scripture is clear on tithing and 10% of first fruits. So that's, that's kind of why we're not super legalistic on it, but we lay out the theology on that and you do what you want with that. Stephanie is up in Los Angeles, California. Stephanie, how can we help? Stephanie? Wow.

[George Campbell]

And she waited all this time just to not make it on air.

[Ken Coleman]

We'll try to get her back. Nate is up in New York. Nate, how can we help?

[Caller]

Hi. How's it going, guys?

[Ken Coleman]

Good. How are you, sir?

[Caller]

I'm doing good. So I'm 19 and I'm starting my first year of college in January. And my first year is paid for. I have a benefactor who is, who is going to take care of all the, all the stuff for that except for housing and food. And I'm just trying to figure out the best way to save and to budget and to have enough for my second year of college.

[George Campbell]

Love it. How much is that going to cost?

[Caller]

So it's, it's projected to be about 11,000 a year.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And are there any scholarships or grants or anything available that can lower that amount or is that included?

[Caller]

That's not, not that I can get a hold of. And like I said, I'd like to like stay out of any, any, you know, government grants or government loans or anything like that?

[George Campbell]

Well, sure. Don't, do not take out debt. That's not what we're talking about here. But if you can get free money, I would do that. And if not, now we got to figure out how to save up $11,000 by whenever the payment is due. So is that December of 2026? January of 27?

[Caller]

Yes. Yeah. Okay, December of 26.

[George Campbell]

So we'll call it year. So basic math says let's save up a thousand bucks a month to get there. Can you do that right now working part time?

[Caller]

I should be able to. I'll be. So right now I'm starting a job, I'm starting a job a noon tomorrow that'll be paying $16 an hour. And then when I move out there, I have a job for 15, 50 an hour.

[George Campbell]

Nice. How many hours?

[Caller]

And that'll be 20 hours. Like starting out. I'm going to try and get a little bit more and then. But they have promised me a full time job with a pay raise during the summer.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

So you can make up for lost time there. That's exactly what I would do. Because even if you just stuck to the part time job, you would likely have the perfect amount to cash flow the following year. But if you really ratchet it up in the summer, you'll have the 11 grand plus, plus some. And I would just park it in a high yield savings account all year long and pretend it does not exist.

[Caller]

Yeah, okay.

[George Campbell]

This is a great plan, man. I'm proud of you. And you can continue that for the following, you know, the last two years.

[Caller]

I should be able to. And. And I got. I got a pretty good situation. I'm living. Living for 550amonth. That's. That'll be rent and then, you know, food. I can live for 50 or $100 a week.

[George Campbell]

I love it. Live like a broke college kid, because you are. That's the way to do it, man. I'm proud of you. Keep that up.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I love that. Great discipline there. You know, Live like a broke college kid. You know, there's something to that. And I love that you said this, because this is real. So got to set this up. Got to be careful. Of course, I don't read the comments, so I guess I don't need to be careful. Yeah, you read the comments.

[George Campbell]

They will read roast, you know, and.

[Ken Coleman]

You'Ll tell me they love you. Ken, there are a lot of young people, naturally, so coming out of college, and it's tough to get a job that your degree said you were going to be able to get. That's real. Cost of living is very high. Tough to buy a house in those first couple, three years. Those days are seemingly gone for a lot of people. And. And yet we forget that when you come out of college, even though you're out, it's not a bad idea to live like a broke college kid for a little while just to get some stability. I guess my point is, is I'm saying I want you to have as much as you can get, but at the same time, a little bit of patience, a little bit of, I'm going to live like my grandparents used to live, which is on way less than I actually make. And I think that that attitude is not very prevalent right now. Am I right or am I Wrong? Wrong.

[George Campbell]

100% right. The problem is, you know, social media and expectations and friends make you want to live a lifestyle you just can't afford yet. And you go, I have been in School for 22 years. I want to finally live. I deserve the nice car. I want to live in a nice place. And all of that leads to being broke. So the longer you can suppress your lifestyle, the better off you're going to be. The more you can amplify your long term wealth building. And that's the rub. The people who do that like our friends here. He's going to be just fine.

[Ken Coleman]

It's going to be great.

[George Campbell]

It's the ones who go, I'll take as much monopoly money from Sallie Mae as possible. Oh, and by the way, I want to rent the fanciest apartment in town and I want to have a fancy car. And you go, dude, you can't afford this life now. It's going to delay your other dreams. So don't complain. When you can't buy a house because you're in crippling debt. That's not going to help. So that's the key. Live like a broke college kid. Live like no one else, so later you can live and give like no one else.

[Ken Coleman]

Speaking of which, real quick on hot seat, your favorite broke college kid meal.

[George Campbell]

Oh, gosh. I mean, ramen is hard to beat. If you have access to hot water, you've got access to a great meal. Add some sriracha in there.

[Ken Coleman]

I'm gonna go with you.

[George Campbell]

Chef's kiss.

[Ken Coleman]

And I'm much older than you. Back in my day, you could buy 10 ramen noodle packs for $10.

[George Campbell]

10 bucks? So a dollar a pack? I thought it was cheaper. That was like 10 cents a package.

[Ken Coleman]

Our scripture of the day comes from Isaiah 29, verse 20. Those who are confused will gain understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction. Our quote of the day from Booker T. Washington. Success always leaves footprints. That's a nice, short, like, bomb of a quote. Like phenomenal. Just boom.

[George Campbell]

I like the brevity.

[Ken Coleman]

Go do your homework. Follow the footsteps. Stephanie's up in Los Angeles. Stephanie, how can we help?

[Caller]

Yeah, hey guys. Appreciate you taking the call.

[George Campbell]

Sure.

[Caller]

My husband and I own our home here in actually Napa, California. And we have been talking about doing an addition to our home. We had to buy it at a kind of a rundown, rundown look of it so that we could afford a place here. And so it needed a lot of attention. And now we're at a point that we're looking to add a little bit of square footage to so a kitchen and living room. And at the moment, we've been talking about doing a second on our home in order to have the cash flow. We do have some money set aside in a savings account. I just am hesitant to want to use the money in a savings account versus the second versus putting your home.

[George Campbell]

On the block at risk as collateral with a second mortgage and adding a payment yeah. That sounds more exciting to you than liquidating the savings that you had earmarked for this specific thing?

[Caller]

Yeah. And maybe that's me being a little nervous and intimidated on letting cash out of.

[George Campbell]

No, what that does, it gives you the reality of what you're actually about to do. That's a good thing. That's your body saying, hey, a home addition is expensive. You sure you want to do this? And when you take out a second mortgage, it's like, woo, free month money. When really you're just borrowing against your home, moving backwards, adding stress and payments to your life and risk on top of that. So I would never recommend anyone taking out a second mortgage to do an addition. I would tell you to just cash flow it. So you have the money to do the whole thing right now in cash?

[Caller]

Yes. So my husband and I both work for the fire department. We do all right. We roughly make about $300,000 a year. We.

[George Campbell]

We.

[Caller]

In the last two and a half years, we've done six rounds of IVF. So that was very expensive for us.

[George Campbell]

And you were able to cash flow that.

[Caller]

We were. And that's the, almost the struggle part to it is that, you know, it's. In the last two and a half years, we've spent about $200,000 on IVF. And so we, you know, we know the expense and we know how much it didn't set us completely back. However, it definitely was a lot out of pocket. And then. So we are looking to obviously expand our family because of the IVF that we've gone through, and hence the reason why we needed or wanted to expand the house. And so.

[George Campbell]

So what's the current status with the IVF process? Where are you guys at?

[Caller]

Yeah, so the last round, we was the most embryos that we've actually received, and we have. We have four embryos at the moment. Our son. Our son was an IVF baby on our first round and was a success. We've now done five additional, and up until just the last two, we hadn't gotten anything. We hadn't even gotten tested quality embryos. So we were struggling with that for a little bit there. And then this last year in 2025, we paid $50,000 up front to do two rounds of IVF back to back. And in that two rounds of IVF have received four quality embryos.

[George Campbell]

Okay, well, at least you guys have the ability to save up and you're putting your money where it matters. So I'm really proud of you guys and I'm hoping for the best there. What is the addition going to cost?

[Caller]

So in my heart I want it to cost $100,000. I have about, I think maybe $120,000 is, you know, my margin of error. And my husband and I have about $250,000 in savings at the moment.

[George Campbell]

Oh, amazing. Just cash flow and get it done. It's been looming. It's living rent free in your head at this point. Your peace of mind is worth something. I would spend it and not look back and have no regrets. And you'll have a beautiful house. You guys are doing it the right way. There is no need to add risk and stress to your life by taking out a second mortgage.

[Caller]

Okay. All right.

[Ken Coleman]

And hey, the last thing you need in this process is any stress, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ken Coleman]

You know that you're a pro at this. So, you know, that's just one more reason I, I would be the peace of mind, the joy in your heart that all goes into this deal. You know that.

[Caller]

Yeah, so, yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, I, I think it's maybe that simple. I, maybe because I have you guys one maybe last, the money that I have in the savings account that we have in the savings account, minus now maybe the addition. So let's just say we have roughly about 100 to $150,000 left in a savings account. What is your guys best advice for investing it?

[George Campbell]

Well, does that include your emergency fund?

[Caller]

As of right now in hand that we own, we have 250,000 dol thousand dollars in the bank.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

We did use it to do the house addition, you know, minus the 100, 120, maybe 150, God forbid.

[George Campbell]

So I would separate that out and go, okay, we're going to keep 40 or 50 as our emergency fund and the rest we could invest, let's say that's $50,000. You could use that to front load some college accounts. If the kids are in the picture, you could use that to fully fund some backdoor Roth IRA IRAs for the year for some tax free growth on that you could invest outside of retirement as sort of a bridge account maybe for future spending for the kids, you know, to just leave money growing for you. And so there's a lot of things you could do and then just life along the way, you can enjoy some of it. Sounds like you guys have been through a lot. Maybe you take a vacation, maybe you give some and maybe you cover IVF for another family who's going through it. There's so much you can do with that. But it comes into Three categories of you can give it, save it, and spend it. I would encourage you to do all three.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. Thanks for the call. We're rooting for you. Yeah. Let's go to you. Feel like we can get to this one?

[George Campbell]

We can try. I think we're already here.

[Ken Coleman]

Let's go.

[George Campbell]

Let's go. Rachel.

[Ken Coleman]

Get right to the Rachel and Tulsa. We got a couple minutes. What's your question?

[Caller]

Hi. I am married. I'm currently disabled. I have some medical issues going on. On. I'm trying to figure out with my medical bills. They won't let me make a smaller monthly payment. I'm trying to figure out if I should put all money that I was putting towards my student loans towards my medical bills, or if it's okay to let them go to collections.

[George Campbell]

Are you on a payment plan currently or is it a minimum payment you need to make?

[Caller]

No, the payment plan, they. They say the lowest payment plan I can get on is about $500 a month.

[George Campbell]

How much is the medical debt?

[Caller]

The medical debt is about 7,000, and it's a couple different accounts. And so the $500 a month is a couple different payment plans.

Wow.

[George Campbell]

Have you looked into financial assistance programs through the hospital, charity care, sliding scale, all of that?

[Caller]

I have. And my husband makes too much money.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so how quickly could you knock it out? Because it sounds like you guys could make the $500 payment. Let's say that is the minimum. And then you just knock out your other debts a little slower.

[Caller]

The thing is, we can't do 500amonth. Even that.

[George Campbell]

How much does he make?

[Caller]

Still have. He makes like 83,000 a year, which is great, but I still have about like $700 a month in medical expenses besides bills.

[George Campbell]

Would they take a cash lump sum, you offer them five grand instead of seven?

[Caller]

They said if we offered them 4,000, my biggest bill, they would take 1,000 off. But the only way we could get that lump sum is through parents. And I didn't want to borrow money from my parents.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I agree. But I think the question is, can we continue the debt snowball? Maybe we make minimum payments on the debts and try to save up that four grand grand to try to get that discount. I would try to do everything you can. I would look at the medical billing and coding and have them re review it. I just did this yesterday with Chat GPT and it gave me a script for what I need to say on the phone to lower the bill.

[Ken Coleman]

Love that.

[George Campbell]

So I would upload your bill and seriously use that to try to lower it, then negotiate it. Get real resourceful, and I think you can knock this out without it going to collections and damaging your credit.

[Ken Coleman]

We believe in you, Rachel. You've got it.

[George Campbell]

And.

[Ken Coleman]

And remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.