Start Telling Your Money Where To Go

Summary

The Ramsey Show – “Start Telling Your Money Where To Go”

Date: April 10, 2026 | Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Jade Weshall

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show focuses on the core principle of intentional money management: telling your money where to go, rather than wondering where it went. Dave Ramsey and co-host Jade Weshall take live calls, offering practical, sometimes tough-love advice on budgeting, dealing with family and financial boundaries, staying focused during debt payoff, investing choices, and building habits that lead to wealth. With real-life stories from callers at all stages—early debt payoff, contemplating family housing, dealing with windfalls, and even celebrating mortgage freedom—the show explores how behavior and discipline, not just income, are central to lasting financial transformation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family & Financial Boundaries: Multigenerational Housing

[00:51–08:32]

• Scenario: Caller Sally and her husband are considering whether to allow her in-laws to invest in, finish, and eventually live in their basement as “snowbirds.”

• Concerns: Loss of flexibility if family needs change, tying up in-law retirement funds in their property, and a lack of clear exit strategy.

• Advice: Dave and Jade strongly advise against blurring boundaries, regardless of financial standing.

  “They don’t need to move in there. That’s a bad idea. There’s more downside than upside.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [02:56]

  “The exit strategies on this...if something goes sideways and somebody needs help or whatever, you are stuck once you get in this and there’s no way out.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [04:54]

• Key takeaway: Proximity is good, shared dwellings are complicated; maintain healthy boundaries for both relational and financial health.

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2. Couples & Budgeting: Getting on the Same Page About Spending

[10:17–18:47]

• Scenario: Ella is frustrated that her husband, the primary earner, overspends mid-month on hobbies, making it hard to pay off debt.

• Advice: Switch from spreadsheets to the “EveryDollar” app, give both spouses a vote in monthly budgets, and face impulse spending as a shared problem, not a “mom policing dad” dynamic.

  “Both of you get a vote, and both of you emotionally shoulder the weight of winning with money.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [12:37]

  “You’re not his mother. He needs to step up and say, for the good of my family, this is what I’m going to do...”
  — Dave Ramsey, [13:37]

• Practical tips: Identify spending triggers, replace unhealthy stress-relief with productive habits, and commit to agreed plans with personal accountability.

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3. High Incomes, Irregular Cash Flow, and Still Feeling Broke

[21:31–29:37]

• Scenario: John, a 28-year-old land broker, earns ~$300,000/year but “the money just disappears.”

• Advice: Build a baseline budget for necessities, then “force rank” where every extra dollar should go before spending, using zero-based budgeting in the EveryDollar app.

  “You tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [29:37]

  “Very few people say, I’m going to budget, you know, half my income to completely blow it. No one says that. They only accidentally do that because they don’t have a plan.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [28:46]

• Key insight: High income doesn’t guarantee wealth—structure and pre-planned allocation do.

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4. Debt Payoff Decisions: What to Sell and When

[33:41–39:19]

• Scenario: Andrew and his wife debate whether to replace her newer, financed car to speed up debt freedom.

• Advice: Only sell a vehicle if all motorized assets exceed half your annual income or if you can’t be debt-free (except the house) in two years.

  “If the car’s not violating anything here...it’s just kind of part of your old story.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [39:13]

• Conclusion: Keep the car and pay it off aggressively since they’re on track.

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5. Pay Off the House or Invest? Strategic Wealth Accumulation

[39:20–42:54]

• Scenario: Grace and her husband have significant savings but wonder if they should split extra funds between paying off their $500,000 mortgage and additional investments.

• Advice: After 15% to retirement, throw all extra at the house. Ramsey’s research shows this is the most common route to millionaire status; paying off the mortgage in ~11 years and maxing out retirement contributions.

  “We did the largest study of millionaires ever...they paid off their house in 11.2 years on average. The paid-for house and the fully funded 401k is what we found every time.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [41:24]

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6. Emergency Fund vs Lifestyle Wants

[44:19–51:54]

• Scenario: Joy wants to go to Wimbledon but would have to borrow from her emergency fund.

• Advice: Do not use your emergency fund for wants, even with high income; save separately and keep margins for Murphy’s Law.

  “You can't say I have 15,000 for Wimbledon. You don't. You have $0 towards Wimbledon.”
  — Jade Weshall, [46:41]

  “I wish it was an emergency...but it's not.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [47:13]

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7. Entrepreneurship, Disability, and Rebuilding After Setbacks

[54:15–59:02]

• Scenario: Michael, after healing from a major health crisis, wants to rebuild his trade business while continuing his journey as a writer.

• Advice: Use the trade (electrician) to provide a stable foundation; scale it intentionally, and let writing income become “gravy.” Don’t over-exert, listen to your health metrics.

  “The electrician thing is a very good paying gig. It's 100% predictable...the publishing is hit or miss.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [57:29]

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8. Debt Snowball "Exceptions" – Prioritizing Deferred Interest

[61:06–62:45]

• Scenario: Dustin asks if it’s okay to pause the strict debt snowball order to pay off a soon-to-expire 0% interest card.

• Advice: Yes! Take out deferred-interest debt before the avalanche hits; be proactive by a month or two.

  “Pay it and get verification a month early that it's paid. They're going to try to screw you. It's what they do.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [62:31]

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9. Roth IRA Conversions & Tax Planning

[66:21–73:27]

• Scenario: Steve worries about leaving taxable retirement assets to his children.

• Advice: There are major benefits to converting traditional retirement accounts to Roth, including no required minimum distributions (RMDs) and no forced 10-year withdrawal for heirs (per the SECURE Act).

  “Now that I’m 65, it's suddenly occurred to me...there's two other benefits to having everything in Roth that are even more powerful than tax free growth.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [67:06]

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10. Teaching Financial Literacy—Who Actually Becomes a Millionaire?

[108:50–113:45]

• Fact: The Ramsey Millionaire Study found that process- and discipline-heavy careers (engineers, accountants, teachers) produce more millionaires than expected—because the path is about behavior, not just high income.

• Live Example: Scott, a high school teacher featured on the show, built a net worth of $1.83 million by following the principles he teaches.

  “All of those [professions] have a process...They simply took that process mindset and applied it to building wealth.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [109:02]

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11. Psychological Barriers: Overwhelm, Second-Guessing, and Peer Pressure

• Several callers: struggl with fears that they're “doing it wrong”—like Mia, a cancer survivor who is debt-free/multimillionaire but is told by friends she “made a mistake” by paying off her mortgage.

• Advice:

  “You need new friends.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [117:33]

  “Your worries and your math don’t add up. Your worries are a 10 and your math is a 1.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [122:47]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There’s a difference between having grandparents close and having them in the basement. That’s a major difference.”
  — Jade Weshall, [02:23]

• “Call the wambulance. I work hard. Shut up.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [18:47]

• “Personal finance is not a math problem. It’s a behavior problem. It’s 80% behavior, 20% math.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [83:57]

• “If you don’t have an emergency fund, you’ll use your 401k or your credit card for an emergency.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [92:27]

• “You made the only mistake by choosing your friends.”
  — Dave Ramsey, [121:48]

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Important Timestamps

• Multigenerational Housing Boundaries: [00:51–08:32]
• Budgeting with Spouse, Ending Impulse Spending: [10:17–18:47]
• High-Income Burnout, Zero-Based Budget: [21:31–29:37]
• Car Debt & Keeping/Selling: [33:41–39:19]
• Mortgage vs Investment: [39:20–42:54]
• Emergency Fund vs. Wants: [44:19–51:54]
• Entrepreneurship After Disability: [54:15–59:02]
• Debt Snowball vs. Deferred Interest: [61:06–62:45]
• Roth Conversion & Legacy Planning: [66:21–73:27]
• Who Becomes a Millionaire (Process Mindset): [108:50–113:45]
• Friends Discouraging Debt Freedom: [117:01–123:40]

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Overall Tone & Style

• Language: Straightforward, folksy, sometimes humorously blunt (“Call the wambulance. I work hard. Shut up.”).
• Emphasis: Personal responsibility, discipline, telling money where to go, and not surrendering to family, peer, or emotional pressure.
• Encouragement with Boundaries: Repeated affirmations for those making progress, but consistent calls to stop self-sabotage and stick to process.

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Final Takeaway

Tell your money where to go—on paper, on purpose—every month. Maintain boundaries with family, align with your spouse, and don’t let high income, emergencies, or pressure from others divert you from the habits that build wealth. Intentional, disciplined behavior—not income, luck, or inheritance—is what creates and preserves lasting financial security.

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Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Jade Washall, number one best selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co host today. The phone number is 888-255-2225. The call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Savannah, Georgia, Sally is calling. Hey Sally, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

So we found y' all through our church through FPU about a year and a half ago and we are on baby step four. And my in law popped this idea to us about six months ago. We have, we bought our house about two years ago and it has a very large unfinished basement. And they have had this idea that when they retire, which is going to be my father in law's retiring at the end of the year, that they want to kind of put some money into our house and finish off our basement for them to kind of be snowbirds to be here, go in the south and then go up north and then eventually kind of transition to living with us in our basement. And I'm not totally against the idea because we have a good relationship. It'd be great for our kids to have grandparents close by. But I'm a little bit concerned about the long term effect of this. You know, they wouldn't really have an ROI putting money into our house.

[Jade Weshall]

Do they know that?

[Caller]

Yes, we told them that. And my concern is just, you know, like, what happens if we do this? And you know, in five years from now someone has a stroke and now they need more care and a lot of their money is tied up in

[Jade Weshall]

our house or you decide to move and take a different job.

[Caller]

And my husband said that to them and they kind of were like, oh, well, I guess you just mean that two more people are moving with you.

[Jade Weshall]

Oh, boy. Listen, there's a difference between having grandparents close and having them in the basement. That's a major difference.

[Caller]

And I just, I don't know, like I, you know, we want to be, you know, I want to be a good steward of, you know, what we've been given and you know, to help out how we can. It's more just the long term. You know, we're 33 and.

[Jade Weshall]

Listen, hey, I gotta stop you. I gotta stop you because you sound like someone who knows what they want to do, but you don't feel firm enough in it that you're. You're talking yourself in circles about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you know, that's not a good idea, but you're afraid you're not being nice. And your classic Southern, bless your heart, you know. Oh, bless your heart. So. No, no, no, no, no. They don't need to move in there. That's a bad idea. There's more downside than upside.

[Jade Weshall]

I think so.

[Caller]

Yeah. And I just found out too, that they got an annuity and I got George's book. And I heard that, like, that is not good either. And so I'm concerned about their financial future and their money.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would rather them use their money to buy a nice little condo in your area. And that's cheap enough that it doesn't. That they can use it and still snowbird, and they can still be around and babysit and see the grandkids, but they have their own life over there and it's not tied into your home

[Caller]

and your decisions, as we told them.

And they said that they don't think they're gonna have the money to move,

[Jade Weshall]

but that this is a snowbird thing. It's not their primary residence.

[Caller]

Yeah, but they want it to be eventually.

[Jade Weshall]

Right? But it's not today, which means they have a place somewhere where there's equity building. And he is retired from a job. So there should be some sort of retirement, something, some nest egg. I don't know how big or small.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, bottom line is, whether they've got the money or not doesn't determine whether this is a good idea. As a matter of fact, since they don't have the money, it further ensures that this is not a good idea. If I woke up in your shoes, I would say, mom and dad, we love you. We'd love to have you close, but not that close.

[Jade Weshall]

Does your husband agree or is he fighting for the in laws?

[Caller]

No, he. No, he does. And I think my. My concern is, you know, and we're gonna. We're actually seeing them next month to like, really talk about this in more detail. And they base, like I told my husband, like, if they, If I find out, you know, they have like $5 million in their next nest egg, 100 grand to drop in our basement. Is it maybe a big deal?

[Jade Weshall]

But no, Dave is right. The money side of this, I don't

[Dave Ramsey]

care how much money they have. I don't care how responsible they are. This is a bad idea because it handcuffs you guys. The exit strategies on this, as you said. If something goes sideways and somebody needs help or whatever, you are stuck once you get in this and there's no way out. And that's the problem with this. And you are not being mean by saying no. We have to figure out some other way that you guys have a sustainable life. That's not mean.

[Jade Weshall]

Not at all.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not mean at all. You're not, you know, you're scared to death. You're not going to be nice because you're a sweet person. You can just smile and be kind and say no. And you don't need to have the meeting next month either. There's no reason to leave these poor people alone. You need to just. Your husband needs to call his mother and say no. You need to stay out of it. He needs to tell her no, not you, because you'll be labeled the Wicked Witch of the west forever. 25 years ago, I wanted to move in her basement and she wouldn't let me. That witch, you know, that's the kind of. That's how that stuff gets. Right. You're not wrong.

[Jade Weshall]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so that starts a whole narrative then. And you'll get blamed for it. So now make him have a backbone and tell his mommy no. And don't have a detailed meeting discussing it. I really would. I really would not do this.

[Jade Weshall]

I wouldn't do it either, because there's no.

[Dave Ramsey]

How does this end well? Well, then it looks like it doesn't end well.

[Jade Weshall]

If you have the meeting, it looks like you're considering it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know. I know. And that's not fair. That's not fair. That's. That's not fair at all. And so, you know. No, but. But if you. If they do move in, I can't think of an exit strategy that works. Unless both of them died in their sleep.

[Jade Weshall]

No, everything.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because other than that, I can't think of a good exit strategy here.

[Jade Weshall]

No. And then everything becomes.

[Dave Ramsey]

For you to move. Yeah. I mean, no, this is just. No, no, no, no. There's going to be aging problems and disability issues and care issues and you all. And boundary issues and. You guys, there's like 99 things that can go wrong and only one that can go right.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah. And all the risk is on you guys. It's. There's no risk on them because they get built in health care.

[Dave Ramsey]

The risk is on them as if you sold the house after they did a bunch of improvements.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the risk that's on them. But still, they need to use their money more wisely. And have a good life. That it's fine to be close by, but we need good, healthy physical boundaries. It's a good thing, man. So, you know, we are now getting calls in the last three years that in 40 years of doing this show, I've not gotten much of just this idea of multi generational housing. The parents we're gonna, I mean, I've had the mother in law question. We're gonna build a mother in law apartment. Right. Or we wanna add onto our house. And she wants to give us $200,000 to do that and then she's gonna give us that at her death and she's gonna live over there. That question I've had. But now we're seeing this thing of the family compound.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, and four families are moving on to one single piece of property and there's no exit these things, you know, and they're doing it because they think it's more affordable to do it. Yeah, but you guys have got to be real careful. You have to think through what happens in divorce, what happens in disability, what happens in death, what happens when the sister in law across the way starts doing cocaine.

[Jade Weshall]

What happens when you decide you just don't like these people?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, that could happen easy. You know, this is family after all.

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[Dave Ramsey]

Ella is in Dallas, Texas. Hi Ella, how are you?

[Caller]

I am Doing great. I hope you can hear me. Okay. And I hope that you guys are doing great too.

[Dave Ramsey]

We are better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I am actually calling because my husband and I are working through the baby steps. We are on baby step two right now and you know, we're fully aligned that we want to follow the steps all the way through, especially right now. He's, he just turned 40. I'm 35. We have a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and I'm currently pregnant right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, wonderful.

[Caller]

29 weeks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yay.

[Caller]

Yes. So it's really great. But of course, we change our mindset because of this. Understand that we really need to do a lot of planning the future. So right now getting out of debt is pretty important for us. So at the beginning of the month, you know, me and my husband, I go through my spreadsheets. I'm the finance person here and the budgeter. We go through a spreadsheet together at the beginning of the month. And you know, we are like, okay, we're going to make sure that we're strict, we don't buy anything, just what we need so that we can put as much as we can towards our debt. But then halfway through the month, my husband kind of goes through a lull and he starts wanting to spend money. You know, he starts looking at his phone. He wants stuff for his hobbies. He's very much into guns and motorcycles and things like that. I am a stay at home mom right now. My kids go to daycare, you know, two to three times, you know, part time just to give me a little break. He's really the sole income earner right now and he works very, very hard. His job is pretty mentally draining. On top of that, he's like in traffic. 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back. So I feel like the spending is his stress relief.

[Jade Weshall]

Has he always done that? Has he always been somewhat of an impulse spender?

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, he's a spender of the family.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. What we have to do is change the, the way this is being built. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I'm going to take you off of spreadsheets because he doesn't do spreadsheet. He doesn't speak spreadsheet.

[Caller]

Oh, no, he doesn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I'm gonna put you on our Every Dollar budgeting app. And there's one on his phone and one on your phone for the same account.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And the two of you sit down at the first of the month and both of you get a vote. Not just you okay. Okay. Both of you get a vote, and both of you emotionally shoulder the weight of winning with money at your household. We have three little babies soon, and we need to carry the weight of this on two adult shoulders. Okay? And based on that, I'm a man, not a little boy, that is taking care of my family. And so I'm going to look at this with my wife, who's a woman, not a little princess, and we're gonna make two adult decisions that are good about our future. And we're both gonna speak into that and lay out the game plan on the Ever Dollar budgeting app. And then once we've both looked at that through that lens and we both agree to it, then later in the month, if we decide to be a little boy again, we have to be reminded that we're a man if we decide to be a little princess again. But you're not his mother. He needs to step up and say, for the good of my family, this is what I'm going to do for a short period of time here. We're going to clean up the debt mess that we've made with our immaturity and impulse spending. And that means no motorcycles and no guns right now.

[Jade Weshall]

And to take it to even a more practical level, and this is for anybody who's an impulse spender, there are practical things you can do to stop that behavior beyond just saying, I'm not gonna do it anymore. Because if that's not working for him,

[Dave Ramsey]

the practical thing is to agree and look in your wife's eyes and make her a promise.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, but he can also do, like, if, you know, you've already identified, hey, the temptation is, you know, guns, motorcycles, cars. You know what the temptation thing is. Now the next thing is, okay, then you've also identified, like, what the cue is, like, what causes him to get in that mindset. Okay, it's his commute home, stressful work. So then it's up to him to go, okay, I already, I. I already know that I'm setting myself up to be in this situation. Instead, let me replace it with something that's actually helpful for me. So now his new routine needs to be, I don't come home and plop on the couch and get on my phone and start scrolling the next product I want. I go and I mow the lawn or I go and I work on the budget or I go, he's got to replace that activity with something that's actually beneficial and relieves the stress that he was trying to relieve by spending and that is just. I mean, that's psychology. That's how you change a habit.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, yeah, I completely agree. So let me reset this one more time, Elena, because what's happening right now is the two of you have agreed on a concept, and then you went and implemented the detail.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I want the two of you to agree on the details. Pinky swear and spit shaken, have a contract between the two of you. This is what we are saying together that makes our household go where we want it to go. And then you go do the detail. You execute the detail. But I want him looking at every line item on every dollar and agreeing. This is what we're going to spend on food. This is what we're going to spend on lights. This is what we're going to spend on whatever. And by agreeing to that, we're also agreeing that we're not anything else.

[Caller]

Right. Not veering off halfway out.

[Dave Ramsey]

And he's not doing that in advance. Instead, he's way up above it in the clouds going, I think it'd be good to get out of debt. We got babies. But I really want a gun, you know, and you know, because he's not. He's not gotten involved yet.

[Jade Weshall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I want to get him more involved in the detail, not in the execution of it. You can do the execution. You're the nerd. You're good at it. But I do want him to be involved in feeling the emotional weight of the plan that is going to be executed. The detail of the plan that's going to be executed.

[Jade Weshall]

That's right. And even in every dollar, when you can see that roadmap in front of you and you know it's going to take X amount of months and something that you think is small, three or four hundred dollars a month, that adds up to time that this is going to take to finish this. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

So we're having a kitchen put in one of the houses that we own. And obviously my wife's gonna be real involved in that design. You think so? She's real involved in the design. I'm real involved in the design because I want to oversee it. The builder is understanding the design, and the three of us have gotten in depth, detailed agreement with the kitchen designer of what is going to happen on paper. Then they build the cabinets. We don't get halfway through the cabinets. And then I walk in and go, well, that wasn't really what I was thinking.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, you know what it's going to be.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's the proper way to build A house too, by the way. Build it on paper before you break ground. Every detail. And if you have 42 change orders as you go up because you didn't think this through, it's the most expensive and slow way to build a house. And you'll end up hating your builder and he'll end up hating you. So instead you got a stinking plan. And you stick to the stinking plan with rare exceptions. And everyone is aligned in the detail of what the plan looks like. And then someone can go execute the plan. But we all three aren't gonna build the cabinets. Matter of fact, none of the three of us, the builder, me or Sharon, are gonna build the cabinets. A cabinet builder's gonna build em, but it's the same thing. Right, but we're getting aligned on the idea ahead of time, both strategically and tactically. Strategically. And the philosophy of debt free. Tactically is the alignment of. We're not spending this, we are spending that.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then she can write the checks.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, well, then you can also both. All three have accountability. And in their case, all two have accountability to be able to say when something's going off. Plan.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And I appreciate you honoring him for him working so hard, but that does not give him a pass on being a man. Lots of people work hard. Call the wambulance. I work hard. Shut up. Okay? Seriously, that doesn't mean I work so hard so I get to be stupid. That's not a line that anybody should ever say, you know, but we do. We say, well, I work hard. I feel like I earned it. Earned what, stupidity? Earned not being rich. Earned being deeply in debt. What did you earn with this hard work? You know? No, I want to get somewhere with this hard work. I want some dadgum traction. I want to be a millionaire, multimillionaire. I want to be outrageously generous, blow people's minds. I want to be torn up with this whole thing, guys. And that's what hard work should do. Not give me permission to go, I worked so hard. So, you know, now I get to be a little boy and be irresponsible. No, no. And by the way, buying a motorcycle or a gun is not irresponsible. But it is. While you're trying to get out of. Deb, If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend Netsuite. Netsuite is the number one, AI Cloud ERP, and more than 43,000 businesses run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in. And it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data, all in one place. Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues, close your books faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.com Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.com Ramsey. John is in Atlanta. Hi, John. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing good. How are y'? All?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I steal that line, so I hope you don't have a trademarked.

[Dave Ramsey]

Nah, I stole it somewhere. I just forgot where.

[Caller]

That's funny. So it's an interesting predicament. It's not really a predicament. I'm really fortunate to be in a position that a man and Lord has treated me, treated me great. But essentially, the last two years, I've made about. About $300,000, plus or minus.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Caller]

Thank you. And it kind of seems like the money just disappears. I'm not a big spender. I mean, I've bought big things, but I'm not a big spender. But I just. I don't have as much money left over from that as I should. And where the change is, is yesterday I made a pretty big amount of money. And I'm. I mean, the first thing I did was log on and talk to people on how to build a shop on my property. And I kind of stopped myself. I was like, all right, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm 28, with this much money. I'm trying to take a step back and be like, all right, how do I turn this into more without spending? And just wanted some insight on it. And.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. Are you single?

[Caller]

I am, yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, cool. All right, well, the good news is you don't have anybody to control but you. The bad news is there's nobody to gripe at you. I mean, you have no accountability.

[Jade Weshall]

How do you make the money? What kind of business is it?

[Caller]

So I'm a land broker, so I sell, like, farm, ranch, and hunting and fishing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. That's fun. I've got a friend of mine that does that. He makes that kind of money and more. Yeah, well done. That's great.

[Caller]

Really fortunate to have A job that I love.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. I get to walk around on beautiful land all day long. That's neat. All right. Our drive on it. So here's the thing. The emotion that you're having is that it's regret, it's disgust that says, I make too much money to have nothing to show for it. Yuck. It's a bad taste in the back of your mouth, right?

[Caller]

I would say yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And I want to use that and say, okay, I'm going to lean into that and use that to say, that's going to force me to fix this. Because you don't want to wake up 10 years from now and have made $4 million over the last decade and have zero except a new shop in the backyard. And that's what you're saying. You're saying that out loud. So the first step to solving a problem is recognize there is one. So you're right on target. The way you fix it is you develop a detailed game plan before the month begins. Okay. And so download the EveryDollar app, and we'll give you a year free on it. Okay. And I want you to start with saying, okay, this is my monthly budget. Now, your budget is erratic because your income is.

[Caller]

It's also cyclical, which is why this is important now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. But we also need to set a baseline of what it takes to operate survival per month. Okay? So if you're making 300 and we said, okay, we're going to spend $10,000 a month, that's 120 to operate the household.

[Caller]

That's about what it is right now with mortgages. And I do say that plural and

[Dave Ramsey]

not a bad guess. Then, okay, but if it's a little bit more, a little bit less, I don't care. But set that baseline and lay that out and say, okay, where does this $10,000 per month go? Or $12,000 per month? Give every one of those dollars a name. And then beyond that, I would do one of two things, is I would have a list, forced ranked of where extra money goes, force ranked, meaning the first dollar beyond $12,000 this month that comes in goes to this number one thing until it is completed, then the number two thing until it's completed, then the number three thing. And so you've got a prioritized spending list beyond your operating monthly budget. Does that make sense?

[Caller]

It does.

[Dave Ramsey]

That spending could be generosity. It could be buying a shop in the backyard. It could be investing. It could be paying off the mortgage. But, you know, if I get an extra ten grand, the first four thousand is going to this and the next six thousand is going to this and have that done before you get the money. You know, it's laid out and you're just going to like doing a to do list. The most important thing I'm going to do first and then I mark through it and only then do I move on to number two and I mark through it and then only then do I move into number four and mark through it. And I've lived off of that system for 30 years because I've always had an irregular income because I've always been self employed.

[Caller]

Yeah, I think one of the hard things for me, which I say hard, it's not, I mean it's very doable and I know it is, but. So I've been in real estate for seven years. The first year I made 12 grand, second year I made 24. Third year made 76. And it wasn't until the fourth or maybe fifth year where it really started to pick up. So I mean I was really trapping, not scrapping, but I was really, you know, having a somewhat pinch pennies and fortunate enough to have a supportive family. But like putting this amount of money in this spot when they're big numbers like this mentally is really tough for me. I know it's the right thing. Like I completely agree with everything you're saying. I'd be dumb if I didn't. But like I tithe 10% of all money that. Let me rephrase that. I donate. Instead of using the word tithe, I donate. I actually have a question on that if we have time. But I donate 10% of all the money that I make and when that goes away and then I have taxes and then after that it's like that number just shrinks, just shrivels up so quick that it makes me nervous that I don't have cash.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, I mean think about, I get a, a royalty check in from a publisher, that's a substantial number. And I'm a tither. I'm an evangelical Christian, I give a tenth of my income to my local church. And so 10%'s gone and 40%'s gone for taxes. So 50% of that check is gone before I even start the budget. That's what you're saying. And that's the world.

[Jade Weshall]

That's just reality.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you're just one of those evil rich people that you should be taxed into oblivion.

[Jade Weshall]

Well, you just have to tell yourself that off the top. Like if you know, oh, I've got $20,000 coming in. It's like you don't even let yourself

[Dave Ramsey]

feel, I don't have 20, I got 10.

[Jade Weshall]

That's just the way your brain needs to start working.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that 10 is already spent on this prioritized list. And so I don't care what you do with the money because I know if you do it on purpose, you're going to do smart things.

[Jade Weshall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very few people say, I'm going to budget, you know, half of my income to completely blow it. No one says that. No one does that intentionally. They only accidentally do that because they don't have a plan.

[Jade Weshall]

Well, that's what they do. And I've been guilty of it. It's the I account for all the necessities, mortgages, car payment, you know, whatever those insurance, and then the rest is just in a pile called treat yourself. And then that's where all the money goes. Because you think, well, I budgeted the most important things, but that's the zero based budget teaching, which is again, I

[Dave Ramsey]

don't care if you treat yourself, but just write it down a line item, just say, and if you want to give yourself the whole thing to treat yourself, make yourself write it down. And then you're going to go, that isn't really what I want to do. I really do want to treat myself. But I really don't need $10,000 for that. I don't really need $100,000 for that. I need $2,000 for that.

[Jade Weshall]

And you're in control of it at that point, whether you do or you don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it's the old thing. Maxwell, John Maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. And John, that's really the crux of your question. You tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. And you always have some fun in there, you always have some generosity in there, you always have some investing in there. And fun equals lifestyle. That's a lifestyle purchase, That's a couch, a car, a trip, a shop in the backyard, a gun, a motorcycle. Nod to our last caller. That kind of stuff. So that's all lifestyle stuff. And that all works really well once you've gotten yourself rid of the consumer debt. Now if you got any money left after food, lights and water, it goes on the debt until you're out of baby step two. That's scorched earth. Until you're out of baby step two, you get your every except your mortgage debt. You get everything cleaned up. But that but that's not John's question. John, the question is very simply, you have to tell your money what to do before it gets there. Some kind of a system, some kind of a plan. I gave you an example of one. Or it will leave and you will wake up with this financial hangover wishing you hadn't made that much and have nothing to show for it.

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. If you have a simple tax situation, like you haven't had any major life changes or big investments, use Ramsey Smart Tax. Ramsey Smart Tax is affordable, keeps filing very simple, it's very accurate, and it has built in support in case you need a little help. Filing early means getting the best deals and you get that tax stress off your shoulders. So as soon as you get all your tax documents, go to ramseysolutions.com smarttax and start filing. Andrew is in Orlando. Hi, Andrew. How are you?

[Caller]

Hey, guys. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey. So my wife and I just got married this last November and we've been working ourselves through the baby steps. We're in step two right now, and we've paid off more than half of our debt so far, but we have some to go yet.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is that?

[Caller]

We have about 19,500 on a car loan and then about 4,000 in a credit card.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's what's left.

[Caller]

That's what's left, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you've already paid off 25,000?

[Caller]

Yes, correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Since November. Way to go.

[Jade Weshall]

That's great.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah. It's been amazing. The Lord has been so good. Huge blessings. So my wife is legally blind in her right eye and we've been talking through how we can pay off this debt faster. We're attacking the credit card. Super aggressive. But the car, the payment per month is about $420 per month. And once we pay off the card, obviously we're going to take what we were paying on the card and throw it at the car. But a question that we have is, should we look for something different? Should we look for a car that's maybe slightly older, maybe a little bit cheaper that we can pay off sooner, or are we. Yeah. What do we do?

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller]

Right now we're at about 108,000 per year.

[Jade Weshall]

Tell me where the blindness plays a role in this. Is it impeding her ability to work?

[Caller]

No, no. She works full time. She's in health care industry, selling healthcare insurance and everything. But it's mainly with like the distances in front of her, especially at night, it's harder for her to see. But she does have doctor's approval to drive. And so.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it's depth perception.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I've got. I've got a friend. That's. Yeah, same thing.

[Jade Weshall]

And is your issue with the car, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to save money on the car or are you saying because of her blindness she could wreck this car? Should we get a cheaper car, that it's okay if it gets dinged up? Like, what are you saying with all of this?

[Caller]

Really, really just trying to pay off the debt?

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

It doesn't really have any do with the blindness, has nothing to do with. Okay. Yeah, that's good. I like that. So if you paid off 25 since November, can you pay off 25 by November?

[Caller]

That's a great question. I, I, I think we could.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do you like the car?

[Caller]

Yes, we do like the car.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would keep it and pay it off.

[Caller]

Keep it in. Paid off. Yeah, yeah. The problem I see right now with it, it's a 2019. It's, it's a newer car with, you know, more sensors and stuff like that. I'm just thinking, like, man, like, if we do get repairs and stuff, can, can some of those repairs on a vehicle like that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, you can. Yeah. You're driving a piece of junk. That's why you're, and you're a tight one.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So if the, here's how I'm answering the question to give you the framework, I use two pieces or we use two pieces of information to determine if someone's car is their problem and if the car is their problem, I'll tell you to sell it in a heartbeat, okay? Because it's often the problem. This show sometimes is called the Sell the car show. Like the answer to every question, sell the car. Right? But the number one, you do not want all of your vehicles added together. Anything with motors, wheels, that includes your stinking lawnmower, your sea doo, whatever, all added together. Your camper that's in the backyard, if it's got a wheel or a motor. All your value added together should not be more than half your annual income, which would in your case would be $56,000, $59,000. So, you know, that's what I'm looking at, and yours is not. So it does not violate that. The second thing is, if there's debt on the vehicle, can we be 100% debt free except the house within 2 years without selling the car? And if we can, do we like the car, then yes, keep the car. But for instance, in your case, if the car was your rate of debt reduction, you're easily going to be within that and the car and your cheap car is less than half your annual, so you're in pretty good shape. The only difference was she just had a nicer car than y' all when you just got married. And so she won that battle. But it had debt and yours didn't have debt. And so now we got to clean that up, up. But I think at the end of the story, two years from today, with a fully funded emergency fund and your money going into retirement, we're going to be glad she's in a pretty good car, especially if she's got some of the newer features on that car with her depth perception issues. So Yeah, I think, I think I'm keeping it.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, I think so too.

[Dave Ramsey]

And, but you, you know, you can sell it if you want.

[Jade Weshall]

If you just wanted to be free

[Dave Ramsey]

very, very quickly, you want it to be free super fast. It's not, you're not doing anything wrong by selling it. But here's what's going to happen when you do. You sell it, you get, and you're debt free in six months, four months, and then you build an emergency fund. And then what's the first thing y' all are going to do? You're going to start talking about upgrading these cars because they're crappy. And you're going to do that with cash. And so you're still going to end up two and a half years from now in the same place that you are now with a paid for decent car.

[Jade Weshall]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I, you know, it's not, it's not, the car's not violating anything here. It's just kind of part of your old story.

[Jade Weshall]

Yep, I agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

Grace is in Fort Collins, Colorado. Hi, Grace, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. Good. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I have a question related to the gazelle intensity of paying off a house. My husband. I save anywhere from 100 to 150,000 a year after expenses and everything. And it's hard to not kind of look at the numbers and think, we've got 500,000 left on our house right now to think, you know, let's just try to pay this off in five years. But my husband, you know, he's kind of been looking more into the investment side of things too, as far as for whatever we make, should we do a portion that towards the house and the rest into investments? If we're already doing 15% into retirement,

[Dave Ramsey]

15% into retirement is all you should be doing. No more.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

The rest of it ought to go on the house. So this 150,000 you're putting on something else. How much is in that account?

[Caller]

In what? Well, so that's what we get basically at the end of the year. A lot of it comes from bonuses.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you're putting 15% away. And then you said in addition to that you're investing 150 grand.

[Caller]

Well, that's just what we have in cash saved at the end of every.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where is it?

[Caller]

Well, high yield savings.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is in that account?

[Caller]

About 70,000 right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

70. How did 150 turn into 70?

[Caller]

So at the end of every year, it'll be about $150,000.

[Jade Weshall]

So you just stockpile it until the end of the year and then you decide what you're going to do with it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, at the end of last year it was 150. How's it 70 now?

[Caller]

So we just moved last year. So we put a good chunk of money down into the house, but we just kind of accumulate and then year end bonuses.

[Dave Ramsey]

Any money above 15% should immediately go in the house.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not in savings.

[Caller]

Okay. And nothing like diversifying other types of stocks or mutual funds or anything. Retirement.

[Dave Ramsey]

No.

[Jade Weshall]

You're already investing your 15% now.

[Dave Ramsey]

You want to know why?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because the data tells us it's the fastest way for you to be a millionaire. We did the largest study of millionaires ever done at Ramsey. 10,167 of the them. And the typical millionaire in their first one to $5 million of net worth sounds like this. It took them 12 to 17 years from the time they started getting serious about getting out of debt and building wealth to get there. They paid off their house in 11.2 years on average. And here's what their portfolio looks like. Let's say They've got a million six in net worth. They've got a $700,000 paid for house and 900,000 in their 401ks and or other investments. But the paid for house and the, and the fully funded for the 15% going into the 401k is what we found every time, every time we did not meet millionaires that said, oh, you know, we kept a mortgage and that caused us to have great investing and that made us millionaires. Nope. They got rid of the mortgage like it was a cancer. Because it is.

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[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Winds Credit union studio Jade Washaw Ramsey personality number one best selling author is my co host Joy is in Los Angeles. Hi Joy, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi Dave. Hi Jade. Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

Yeah, we are recently debt free except at more our mortgage. And I wonder. Yeah. And I'm thinking if I could afford to go to Europe to watch Wimbledon. I really love watching tennis and I really want to do it. But then my husband and I were talking last night and when he saw like how much we're gonna to spend me and my. It's only going to be me and my son and he's like that's a little too much. It's gonna, you know, delay our baby step number three.

[Jade Weshall]

So you don't have any money saved?

[Caller]

We do, we do have money saved but then you know it's gonna. I will take the money from there. And so it's going to delay our.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you have an emergency fund saved of how much?

[Caller]

We have 15,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how much do you need in your emergency fund

[Caller]

for the trip?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, how much does the emergent the three to six months of expense?

[Caller]

Oh, 24,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's. So that's the target. And your household income is what target?

[Caller]

About $320,000 or sometimes 350 if my husband goes in overtime.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow.

[Jade Weshall]

How much does the Wimbledon trip cost?

[Caller]

Well, the tickets are about a thousand dollars for my son and I and you know, when we were. Yeah, yeah. The whole trip. The whole trip.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you're not going to London and buying a Wimbledon ticket for two grand.

[Jade Weshall]

I'm talking about when you price this whole deal out, the tickets, the airfare, the hotel, how much will it cost?

[Caller]

Oh, so the total is 9,000.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

That's the airfare alone because of what's happening. It's about $4,000.

[Jade Weshall]

Listen, I'm not, I'm not mad at the number. I just wanted to get to it. And my question is with the $320,000 income and when, when actually when do you have to have the $9,000 buy.

[Caller]

So we have the $9,000 already.

[Jade Weshall]

No, you don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Of 24. So you don't have 9,000.

[Jade Weshall]

You're. You're. Let's, let's clarify real quick. The definition of the emergency fund is for emergencies. Wimbledon is not an emergency. So you can't say I have 15,000 for Wimbledon. You don't. You have $0 towards Wimbledon. My question and what I'm trying to solve for you is how quickly can we get the $9,000 on a $320,000 income and still make progress towards baby step three? Because the, the next question I have for you is the 23,000. That's your. That three months of expenses or six months of expenses.

[Caller]

That's going to be three and a half expenses.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay, so I go back to my first question. I want you to have three months of expenses in order for this to even be something for you to consider. And then you would have to pay the 9,000 cash on top of that, not out of that. On top of that. Does that make sense?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what do you guys have planned in the next two months that you can take off of your calendar and cut your budget to bare bones in order to finish the emergency fund? Because, you know, Wimbledon's in June, and so you've got time. July, you've got time. And so I think you can probably, if you went to scorched earth. Jade's point is you probably can do both. You can finish the emergency fund and come up with the money to go. It looks to me like you can because your income is so fabulous. So, yeah, work extra. Have you got anything you can sell that you'd like to get rid of to cause this to happen? Have you got. You know, but I'm going to take everything out of the budget and go scorched earth. To be able to live, to be able to do this trip, if it's what you want to do. Here's what I won't do. I won't declare a trip to Europe an emergency. No, it's not an emergency. Okay. I wish it was, but it's not a. I could declare some things I want an emergency, but they're not emergencies. And so I have to, you know, at some point, I've got to categorize these things properly and say, one is a wish, a want, a dream, and one is a necessity. Being ready for Murphy, if it can go wrong, it will is paramount for families to get ahead. And you guys have been making good money and been broke for a long time and You've finally gotten yourself out of debt and you're finally saving money for the first time in your lives. Probably.

[Jade Weshall]

And let's talk specifically about why it's important. Dave just hit on the part that this is your emergency fund. You need it in case, you know, emergencies arise. But I do believe that when you're in an income situation like you, it's very easy to get lazy and very kind of like, oh, it's okay, I can afford it. I can afford it. I can cover it. If something pops up, we'll just cash flow it. You've got to guard against that, especially because you have a higher income. And that's the part where I think.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, agreed.

[Jade Weshall]

You gotta be extra careful.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, folks, here's the thing. If you have no money, none. Now, that's not her situation. But if you're sitting there with no money saved because you did stuff like this, you know, and not her situation, not picking on her. But have you ever noticed that when you're super broke, your life looks like a country song? Like, everything that can go wrong, Will. It's like you have a Murphy attractor beam. You know, it's like, beep, beep, beep, beep. If it can go wrong, it will. You know, it's like crap breaks, people get sick. The dog goes out in the street and gets hit every. I mean, it's like a country song. Everything that can go wrong, Will. It's horrible. And have you ever noticed that when you get a little money, all that stuff leaves? Like, if you got. If she's got $25,000 and makes 320,000 and no debt. You ever notice that? It's a different kind of song. It's like smooth jazz now. I mean, you know, it's not all that crap leaves. I don't have anywhere near the emergencies now that I've got some wealth. My life used to be one freaking drama after another. And I don't have anywhere near those emergencies. I don't. I think. I think an emergency fund is Murphy repellent.

[Jade Weshall]

I. Well, I think it keeps him away. I think it does. But more than that, I think it changes the definition. It changes. Like, I'm the type of person, I am never going to touch the emergency fund ever. I don't care what happens.

[Dave Ramsey]

Even for an emergency.

[Jade Weshall]

Not even for an emergency. I will do whatever move hell in high water to make it work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I agree. That's. Sharon. We have an emergency fund for our emergency fund. Yeah. So we never touch it. You know, I mean, it's like that. But here's the other thing is this. When you got a little margin in your budget, a flat tire, you fix

[Jade Weshall]

it, you just cash flow it.

[Dave Ramsey]

But when you're broke, a flat tire is an emergency. You know, the alternator goes out on the car, it's 500 bucks, 400 bucks, you just fix it, you don't think anything about it, it's not an emergency anymore. But when you're broke, every little thing like that is like, oh God, the world's coming to an end and

[Caller]

the

[Dave Ramsey]

drama queen's doing a dance between your ears. I mean it's just like. But yeah, so it's very interesting that the overarching thing of what I'm saying is when you get a little bit of money and you have a system and you're not just cold hard broke, your anxiety level just goes way down because the drama goes way down.

[Jade Weshall]

But if you get a little bit of money, you don't have a system, you're gonna be looking up more.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then you're gonna be back to having no money again.

[Jade Weshall]

That's why a third of people who make $250,000 or more are living paycheck to paycheck because they thought they could out earn their stupidity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oo, I tried it. It doesn't work. Maybe my stupid was just bigger than my income, but I tried it. It didn't.

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[Dave Ramsey]

payment of AT&T Verizon and T Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the

[Jade Weshall]

Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026.

[Dave Ramsey]

See website for full detail. Michael is with us in New York. Hi, Michael, how are you?

[Caller]

Hello, Dave. Thank you so much for taking me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

I appreciate it. I'm 52 years old, basically starting over. I had some major health issues and I've been permanently disabled for the last 16 years. Yeah, I've got the skills to rebuild a high income trades business, but I'm also gaining traction as a published writer. If you were me, where would you put your focus for the next year?

[Dave Ramsey]

What was the nature of your disability and how have you overcome it?

[Caller]

Well, I was a teacher and I taught trades. I taught welding, metal fabrication, heating, ventilating and air conditioning. And I, I became environmentally ill from the welding fumes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Ah. Okay.

[Caller]

So I had a neurological disorder, basically paralysis. Whoa. And you know, I've learned about juicing and things like that and that kept me alive. And I had, thank God, a long term disability policy that paid me my salary all these years. And about a year and a half ago, they offered me a settlement. I didn't take it. It. And then I looked at my wife one day and I said, you know, I said, I can't live like this anymore. And I decided to call the insurance company. They offered me the same settlement. I decided to take it and I took some radical responsibility and I lost 40 pounds, I got off oxygen and I got a clean bill of health from my doctor and I'm ready to rock and roll.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Yeah.

[Jade Weshall]

So the nature of the disability is completely healed and gone?

[Caller]

No. I mean, I'm still probably permanently disabled on paper, but it's not affecting me anymore. I can breathe at 7 liters capacity, even if it's only with one lung.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay.

[Caller]

I feel great. I green juice every single day. I ground outside, I jump on a rebounder. I'm doing everything that I had to do to gain my health. Like I said, 40 pounds.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, the whole thing, man. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's amazing.

[Caller]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, so I can't imagine you going back to welding.

[Caller]

No, I'm not. I'm actually a master electrician by trade. Oh. So. So, And, And I own it. I basically did electrical work and mechanical work. So I was planning on maybe, you know, starting there with a service business. Just high end business, basically myself.

[Jade Weshall]

Why wouldn't you?

[Caller]

While I write?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Good.

[Caller]

You know, you know, it's. I want to be cautious because of my health. I don't want to go backwards. I know. Young, beautiful family.

[Dave Ramsey]

No.

[Caller]

So I wanted, I want to do it as intelligently as possible. My question was basically, you know, if it was you, like, what steps would you take? Not only to ensure that, that I don't overdo it because, you know, I figured I could probably do it three days a week, six to eight hours a day.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you are an expert at monitoring the metrics that are associated with your health. You've rattled them off to us. It's been the whole sole focus of your last decade. And I don't think you're going to overdo it because I think the instant you do, you're going to know it.

[Caller]

That's very true.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it's not a permanent thing. It just would be fatigue and you'd say, okay, I got to take a week off or I got to slow down back to two days instead of three. Or you're going to know the metrics are going to talk to you because you're doing such a good job of managing your health so intentionally. Congratulations. So, yes, I think the electrician thing is a very good paying gig. It's 100% predictable that you're going to go get some money where the publishing is very hit or miss. And as you know, it takes a while to get it moving. And so I think your foundational underpinning is the electrician. And then the icing on the cake, the gravy on the biscuit, is the publishing stuff. And if the publishing stuff, stuff finally takes off enough that you never have to do the electrician again, so be it. That's awesome.

[Jade Weshall]

Is the primary, is the primary drive for you financial or personal fulfillment at this point?

[Caller]

At this point, financially, I don't have to worry about money at all. Everything I own for is completely paid for. My home, my cars. I have a brand new truck that's paid for so I can use that to start work. I mean, I don't want to buy a van right away. No, I want to. I want to build up to a van when I have the cash to buy it.

[Jade Weshall]

Right, good.

[Caller]

That's just the kind of person I am.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you can make really good money and start a day a week and then two days a week and then three days a week. And if it starts to wear on you, it go back to two days and if it doesn't, occasionally you can pick up four days and you can make a lot of money in the trades right now.

[Caller]

I agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I would do that as a foundational thing to give you patience with the publishing thing.

[Caller]

That is also going extremely well, I might add.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much are you making? What's extremely well? What are you making?

[Caller]

Well, I'm not really making any money

[Dave Ramsey]

from it yet, but then that's not extremely well.

[Caller]

Okay, so basically we measure this on money. Yeah, yeah. Now 150 or so in articles. Not. Not paying any bills yet.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, no. But that's. It's fulfilling and that's what extremely well means. And you enjoy it and that's what extremely well means. And you're getting some notoriety. That's awesome. But you're still working for free.

[Caller]

I basically, yes, I am.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And so you're not ready to turn. You're not ready to turn your financial destiny over to $150 articles.

[Caller]

So the working for as an electrician running my business could pay for all that for pretty much.

[Dave Ramsey]

It pays for your life. And you got it. You can continue to rebuild and build a good life. And then again, if the publishing ever, the income from publishing ever starts intersecting the line with the electrician, then you can start to slow down the electrician because now you're making a living publishing things.

[Caller]

Awesome.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's where you need to get to. Not just the fulfillment piece, but that's the problem. It's so gamified. They give you feedback and make you feel like you're really winning. And then you add it up and it's like, I made $400. I didn't make any money.

[Jade Weshall]

But to your point, it's, it's. Right now his success is defined not monetarily, but that's good because he's got the other thing given him money.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what a great overcomers story. So good, so inspiring story.

[Caller]

Such a great.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, everything from the trampoline to the juicer. Man, I mean that's, that's very, very cool. Congratulations. That's taking the bull by the horn. Yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be defined by this. I'm going to define it. Yeah, that's a big deal. Dustin's in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Dustin. How are you? How are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, I just had a quick question with the snowball method and cards that have deferred interest. I just started the snowball method about six weeks ago. I've been able to pay off about $4,000 worth of debt so far.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

I have a credit card that I put a washer and dryer on. It would have been 18 months ago. The deferred interest is going to be due or it's going to hit in next month. It would take about $900 to pay that off, which I can do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so wait a minute. Are you saying deferred interest, meaning the interest has accrued but they've just not billed you for it yet?

[Caller]

It hasn't been applied to the purchase credit.

[Dave Ramsey]

What if you pay it off? Is there no interest if you pay

[Caller]

it off early, Be no interest.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you want to do that?

[Caller]

Okay, so I can pay off deferred stuff versus just the smaller stuff. I can kind of go out of line there.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would, you know, just temporarily. It's only 900 bucks. Yeah, the zero, that's nothing down zero percent interest until X. And then they back charge you at 38%. Yeah, that's how they screw you. And 89% of those contracts, people do not pay them off in time.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, if you can get out of that, that's wonderful.

[Dave Ramsey]

So yeah, you want to knock that in the face and, and you want to do it a month and a half, two months early.

[Jade Weshall]

So there's no question.

[Dave Ramsey]

So they don't say, oh, we didn't post it and now we really are going to charge you the interest because our. The mail didn't get here or bull crap. Okay, pay it and get verification a month early that it's paid.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because they're going to try to screw you. It's what they do.

[Caller]

Yep. Nope, I agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

And clean them up as fast as you can. I don't know how many of them you got, but yes, I want to get rid of those. And if you need to shift your debt snowball around just a little bit because you're saving, you know, probably 30 or 38% interest, something like that, 20%, whatever, over the course of how many months and that kind of thing. Yeah, that's gonna. It's 100% knock it goes away if you pay it early. And so and folks, that's the rip off of those. Nothing down, you know, the rooms there they went, right. And you know, you buy this couch and not pay for it for 24 months, no payments, no interest. And yeah, that 24 months goes by and an eye blink and then you get charged all that back and almost nine out of 10 people don't do it. If you're at the point where you think bankruptcy is your only option, stop for a minute. You might have another way out. Guardian Litigation Group Most debt relief programs sell you on the illusion of protection. But a crappy legal plan tacked on as an upsell doesn't actually defend you when you get sued. It just leaves you confused and exposed. Guardian is different. They're not some call center. They're real attorneys. And with Guardian, you're assigned an attorney from day one. That means if your creditor sues, you're not scrambling and you're not hit with surprise legal fees. Now, listen, I'm always going to tell you the best way out of debt is the old fashioned way. Clean up the mess and pay it off. But if bankruptcy is staring you in the face, Guardian gives you a legitimate alternative. They've helped over 55,000 people settle more than $600 million in debt. So before you make a decision that follows you for years, go to guardianlit.com Ramsey that's guardianlit.com Ramsey Attorney advertising results may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed. Well, I wish we could get to every call here, but we can't. The lines are always full and I know a lot of you get a busy signal. Sorry about that. We do have an alternative, though. If you go to ramseysolutions.com, you'll find our Ask Ramsey AI tool there. And it's based the data in the AI tool is based on three years of calls into this show, plus Financial Peace, University lessons, plus the books we've written, plus the articles we've written. And so, so only Ramsey information was fed into this. So only Ramsey answers come out of this. That's how AI works, by the way. It's artificial, if you hadn't heard. It's not real. And so it's going to produce an answer almost as snarky as you would get here on the air. And so we haven't been able to add quite the sarcasm level to it yet that we have in person, but we're working on that. So the rest of it, though, the answers are exactly what you would get here on the air. Ask Ramsey. It's a free tool. You'll get the same answer. Try it out. Ramsey Solutions.com Steve's in Green Bay. Hey, Steve, what's up?

[Caller]

Thanks for taking my call. I'm really excited to talk to you and Jade. So I have a very simple question. I'm 62, retired. My wife is 60 and she's going to work for four more years. I want to know how much we should be contributing to my Roth now because my investors are telling me that I have a $500,000 in my investments and there's only 150 in Roth and the rest are 401k and IRA. And I don't want to create a tax liability for my kids or grandkids. I have two children and four grandkids, but I only have an effective tax rate last year of 10%. So I just thought I should be contributing more to Roth. And they said I'm good because of the way things are going to roll. And let's get your opinion on that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, when I first started this stuff with, with when the Roths first came out, it was after we started this stuff, the Roth came about, I was so excited that, you know, I was in my 30s and 40s that I could have tax free growth. And I was pushing everybody to get tax free growth. And I'm pushing me to get tax free growth. And so I had everything in Roth and then anytime I could convert something to Roth, I would. And so I was always moving into Roth because I was getting tax free growth. Now that I'm 65, it suddenly has occurred to me that there's two other benefits to having everything in Roth that are even more powerful than tax free growth or add to. It's not more powerful, but they add to it. Number one, at 73, I don't have RMDs required minimum distributions. So all of your 401k traditional, you're going to have to begin to withdraw at 73 under the RMD rules whether you want to, whether you want to or not. And of course the more you have in traditional, the more that check is going to be be. The second thing is, and in my case all of mine's in Roth. So 100% of mine's just going to sit there and continue to grow tax free because I don't have required minimum distributions. Right. The second thing is that the Biden's, the Joe Biden passed the Secure act and the Secure act says that all inherited IRAs, in other words, if you name your kid as a beneficiary on your 401k or your IRA and it's traditional, if they inherit that they have to withdraw that money within 10 years on a 10 year schedule. So they have required minimum distribution. So they're going to pay income tax on 100% of that and they have to do it over a 10 year period of time from the time of your Death on Roth IRAs, none doesn't apply because there's no tax due.

[Caller]

And that's why this convert, this came up because my father passed five years ago, just left 50,000. But I'm still taking that out over time.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you're having to do the Biden withdrawals.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, within 10 years.

[Caller]

And I just don't want my grandkids or kids because we live simple. We can live on 50,000 a year, have zero debt, never had. And I just want to leave a legacy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, here's an interesting calculation. It's tempting to move the money that you have in traditional gradually to Roth to keep you from having bracket creep. Yeah, that's a tempting thing. And you could run those numbers out. Out. You're probably going to have to get a different investment group to help you with that because apparently your guys don't think this way. But if you want to get another opinion, you can go to Ramsey Solutions and check with one of our SmartVestors and have them run those numbers out with you. But you could run like bump a couple of brackets but not go all the way to 40, not go all the way to 39. Right. That's one way of doing it. And do a little bit a year and kind of dribble it out. The other thing that's interesting though is you think about like the last three years, you know, we had a 20, a 26, a 23% rate of return and an 18% rate of return on S and P. Now that's not normal, but we've had a ridiculously good last three years. Okay. In the market, if you had just moved it all and paid the taxes three years ago, you'd have had all of that 60% of growth with no taxation.

[Caller]

Sounds like you're a proponent.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, it's interesting, but you know, if we have normal market growth of 10 or 12% a year. Right. It does. It takes you a little while to get it back. But if you're healthy and you're 62 and you move 7 or 800,000 over and that creates taxation of what, 2, 300, 200,000 bucks? You're going to get that 200,000 back in tax free growth so freaking fast.

[Caller]

Well, I was telling that the very least I'd like to do is while my wife is working and has earned income, I can do this for at least three or four more years.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would do Roth IRA.

[Jade Weshall]

Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely. For sure. 100%. Anybody tells you to not continue to invest in Roth IRAs, it's only what, 80600 bucks at your age. Right. You can do.

[Jade Weshall]

I think you agree with, I think you agree with everything Dave is saying. I think your hang up is that that's not what Your tax profession. That's not what you're.

[Caller]

That's right. I have actually two people telling me that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah, but I think you can crunch the numbers out and understand it yourself with somebody and you'll figure out what I'm figuring out here. I actually, I took a call on this like a week ago. Maybe you and I were on the air together. It was a guy had, he had like seven or 800 grand. And I sat there and kind of was telling him, oh, I remember, do it, you know, kind of do it a little bit at a time and don't get bracket creep. And then it suddenly at the end of the call, it occurred to me, you're missing out on all of that opportunity cost on the, that tax free growth all those years while you screw around with dribbling it out to avoid bracket creep. Over five years, all that money now has been taxable. All that growth's taxable, and it wouldn't have been taxable. So, I mean, I think there's something to be said to doing it all and rip the band aid off. Yeah, that's it. Mathematically, I think you might come out ahead. You got to run some numbers to be sure. I'm not positive, but it's something to consider and something to look at. And I would get a different set of eyes on it because anytime you have an investment professional in your life, their job is to teach you not to tell you. And if they don't teach you, in other words, they start saying all that stuff, you go, okay, wait a minute. You're telling me I don't want to save in a tax free account? Of course I want to save in a tax free growth account. What kind of, you know, what do you, you know. Oh, no, you know. Yeah, so, yeah, I do a Roth every year and my net worth is hundreds of millions, okay? The building I'm sitting in is 600 million. Okay? So the, you know, and I do Roth, backdoor Roth, Sharon, and I do them every year. I'm going to keep the government's hands off of every stinking penny I can legally because I don't want them to buy a $22,000 toilet seat with my money. And that's what they do because they're idiots up there. And so I just, I don't want to give them money. It's not good stewardship, not if I don't have to legally. And so I'm going to do. It's the time of year when I'm pissed off right now it's tax time. So just, just bear with me, people. But that's it. I mean, that's the thing.

[Jade Weshall]

Yep, absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you gotta. But the Roth ira, moving everything to Roth people that ain't bad or overtime, that's the move. It gives you two things I had not considered early on and that's no RMDs and no inherited IRA forced withdrawal. And so your kids get a Roth IRA, zero income tax on it. Now neither one have estate tax on them. That's not an estate tax issue. But it's an income tax issue for your kid because it's a taxable account that they inherited or a non taxable account that they inherited. Something to think about. And think about the what if they held, let's take a million dollars and they hold that seven years, years after you die because they don't have to withdraw it under the Biden rule, it's going to double. It's going to be another million dollars. The million will be 2 million.

[Jade Weshall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what if they hold it 14 years? It's going to be 4 million. Building that wealth and all of that is without taxes. Yummy, yummy, yummy, honey.

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Today's question of the day is brought to you by why Refi? If you've fallen behind on your private storage student loans and have stopped making payments, it can feel like every door is closed. But why Refi helps borrowers explore low fixed rate refinancing options that fit their budget. Go to yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay, Today's question comes from Nicole in Colorado. She says, my husband passed away unexpectedly in 2021. Sorry about that. Thankfully, he had a $1.5 million life insurance policy which I tithed on when it was received. I was able to pay off our home and put 1 million into mutual funds and retirement investments. I pull from the non retirement funds as needed for expenses. How do I tithe on the money I withdraw? I know I'm supposed to tithe on an increase and I want to make sure I'm honoring God with the blessings he's provided. It sounds like you already tithed on the money when you received it. It says I tithed on the insurance policy when it was received.

[Dave Ramsey]

You'd be tithing on the growth if the policy, I mean, if the investments made $120,000 in growth, then that's your income for the year and you would tithe on whatever they grew up. Oh, I See what you're saying, you could do it one of two ways, mathematically, you could. Either I don't tithe on investment growth until I take it out, okay? Because it's tied up in there. So I've got retirement accounts that have grown, and I have not paid on that growth until I use that money, okay? I don't tithe on the increased value of real estate until I sell it, okay? That's when I would tithe on it. And so. So what I would tithe on in your case, Nicole, is whatever money you're taking out, if you're only taking out growth, okay? So let's say you've got the million dollars in there, and let's say it made 10%, that's $100,000 growth, but you're only pulling out 60,000, then I would tithe on the 60,000. If you're pulling out 120,000, but it only grew 100, then I would tithe on THE growth, the 100, not the tomato. Not what you pull out, but what you pull out is the. If you don't pull out all the growth, I would only tithe on what you pull out. That's what I personally would do. Now, let's cloak this in an understanding that you can't outgive God, number one. So giving never hurts. You're never gonna be. You can't over give.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah. It's such a technicality now.

[Dave Ramsey]

And number two, don't get caught up in legalism, because God doesn't love tithers more than he loves non tithers. He loves everyone. Okay? And so if you mess this up, he's not gonna like. Okay, it's not a salvation issue. You're not gonna get smacked around. Okay? That's not that you can't. That's not. He's not a. He loves you. He's got a plan for you. He has us to give, not because it's a rule and not because we're trying to please him. He has us to give because we are the best version of us. When we are givers, we are more like Christ. Christ, like who gave his life. Right. You know, and the Father gave his son. We're more like them when we are giving. And that's what he wants to tap into by teaching us to be givers. And the baseline for those of us that are people of faith is a tithe, a tenth of our income. But don't get caught up in the legalism of it. Like you're trying to please God with This he's already pleased. Honey, you're a widow. You have a special place in the scriptures to be taken care of. Of and loved and blessed and prospered. And that's what your father wants for you. So do this with an open hand and an open heart, with no compulsion, no need to follow a rule. Instead, it's, I'm learning from my father how to be a giver. He's teaching me, and so I'm going to give something. Be careful not to get caught up in the details.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

It'll drive you nuts. You can really get in what the old, what the old King James called the jot and tittle, the crossing of the T's and the dotting of the eyes. The legalism. Yeah. Andrew is in Houston. Hi, Andrew. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing all right. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

Yes, sir. So my question is in baby step two and when you're listing out debts and it has to do with an upside down car loan. So we just finally got real serious about debt and hating being stupid, started budgeting, listed out all the debts, and one of our dumber decisions was this car that we're now underwater on. So my question is, and this is based on, God has blessed us with the opportunity to learn to be mechanics on two beater vehicles. So we have those.

[Dave Ramsey]

The opportunity to learn.

[Caller]

Yes, with some subpar mechanical assistance from myself.

[Dave Ramsey]

They.

[Caller]

They get from A to b. Yeah,

[Dave Ramsey]

the YouTube instruction manual. I got you.

[Caller]

Yes, that is correct. So this car one, it's, it's a turd mobile, but it. We owe about 11,003 on it and it's worth about 72. And so my question is, when I list it in the list of debts, do I list it at the 11:3 or do I prioritize it at the negative equity with the plan to sell it as soon as we break even on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

So put it in there as a $4,000 level in the debt snowball or the $11,000 level in the debt snowball.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'd put it at the four.

[Jade Weshall]

I would, too. I'm glad you said.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I'm making this up right now. I don't know if I've ever had this question, but.

[Jade Weshall]

Well, because that's the amount that you're

[Dave Ramsey]

actually going to put into it and we're trying to get out of it. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yes. Even I am dumping this thing and we are moving on.

[Jade Weshall]

Now, what are you doing to replace it?

[Dave Ramsey]

He's already got two beaters Right, I do.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay, so you're good.

[Caller]

Yes. I have two old Fords that each have about 200,000 miles on them and. And they get where we need to go.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

What's your household income combined after taxes and everything? It's about 77.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much debt have you got, not counting the house?

[Caller]

58,000, non mortgage. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. Good for you. So. So here. Here's what this sounds like to me. It sounds like to me you're going to have decent cars that you paid cash for in 36 months.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's where I think you're going to be. In other words, you're going to be debt free, have your emergency fund and save up and move up in cars. And I think that's going to take you about three years.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You're a good man. You've got this figured out. I can hear it in your voice. You've got this dialed in. If your voice, if your wife is as aligned on this as you are, you guys are going to become very, very wealthy over the next 20 years.

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah, we are 100% in agreement. And yeah, there was a lot of, like, shame and fear about debt, and we've sort of sat down and like, no, we're gonna get serious about it. And there's, there's hope now. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah, you've owned it and punched it in the face. I hear it. I love it. And the level of personal responsibility you're taking in, the verbiage and even the voice tone that you're using is. We can hear that you're going to.

[Caller]

There.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's pretty cool. Yeah. Because you know what causes how. We can read that from being on the air for years, both of us. Right. And you know this. We can all of you can hear it too. You're listening. You heard. He's. This guy's serious. He's not screwing around.

[Jade Weshall]

He's thinking about.

[Dave Ramsey]

No excuses, game on.

[Jade Weshall]

That's the difference. He's thinking about ways to get this done, but they're not ways that are excusing work or excusing the process. It's all about how can I do my part to get this done?

[Dave Ramsey]

How can I grind the most efficiently? Yeah. And here's the reason that that is so indicative, such an indicator, a metric on where his future's gonna be. Because personal finance is not a math problem. It's a behavior problem. It's 80% behavior, 20% math, about 20. The mathematics of becoming a millionaire, you learn by the sixth grade. You do not have to have a master's degree in business from MIT to become a millionaire. There's nothing that they teach you in that that causes a millionaire. Everything you needed to know mathematically, you Learned by the 6th grade. The problem is the person in my mirror. This guy can do some stupid stuff. This Guy has a PhD in Dumb. This guy likes donuts. I can be skinny and rich if I can control this guy. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Credit Union Studio. Jade Washall, number one best selling author and Ramsey personality is my co host. Today Sarah is in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi Sarah, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing well, thank you. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I have been, you know, watching your show for the past couple years diligently and you know, during the past six months or so I really tried to hone in on doing, you know, the baby steps and the debt snowball.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

But my main question is today, should I decrease what I'm putting away from my retirement right now to try to combat some of this debt? So I am a single mom who is a single income household everything. And I mean I have a car payment. I don't have a ton of debt, but I work full time and my daughter's in school. But I ran into some debt over the past six months or so. We had the government shut down. I have a government employee, I work in an admin position. And we had the shutdown happen last year in October. So I wasn't paying, being paid for, you know, a few months and you know, everything was still coming in where you'd have to manage the credit card, the child care costs and stuff, even though the mortgage was on hold. So when the money came in and I eventually got back paid, I started, you know, just paying down some of the credit card. And right now I just have credit card. That's about 18,000 that I owe on credit card.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got $18,000 in debt in three months?

[Caller]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, I'm saying in total because I had a couple things.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you acted like that shutdown caused it.

[Caller]

Oh, gosh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. So I took out a. I had to do a bathroom remodel on my tub shower for when I bought a. Had pieces of the metal kind of cracking off and stuff. So that was more of a safety issue. So I had.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so stop, stop. So you have $18,000 in credit card debt. How much do you owe on your car, about 30,000. Any other debt and what do you make?

[Caller]

About 75 to 78,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Your car is insanity.

[Jade Weshall]

It's half your income.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's killing you.

[Caller]

Yeah. So, yeah, my car is right around 30,000.

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You bought a car twice or three times what you should have.

[Jade Weshall]

Do you know what it's worth if you were to sell it today?

[Caller]

Oh, at least. I could at least get 22,000 for it.

[Jade Weshall]

What I want you to do is double check that. I want you tonight to go on Kelley Blue Book and look at private sale and see what you would get for it. Not what carmax would give you, not what. You see what I'm saying? See what it would be if you sold it yourself, because that'd probably be my first order of business. Because to Dave's point, it is a huge part of your world right now, and it's a huge part of your debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way too much.

[Caller]

Yeah, I. I really didn't want to get into this car debt. You know, when I did, I wanted to. I tried to, you know, wait almost another year or so to get a

[Dave Ramsey]

new car, but you bought a $30,000 car. You should have bought a $10,000 car. Yeah.

[Jade Weshall]

Let's get back to your first question, which is, do you stop investing in order to attack this debt? The short answer is yes. My question is, how much have you been putting aside?

[Caller]

So they take it out of my paycheck every. Every two weeks. So 500 goes towards my. Yeah. And then my matches at.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay, so 500. Yeah.

[Caller]

I would stop investing 2,000amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Because that's. That's bi weekly.

[Jade Weshall]

Right. I would stop investing immediately because you need your hands on that money to clean up. Up this mess. Now let's talk about why a little bit. Because you're. You're doing this. You're doing good things. You're just doing them out of order. So let's get you back on the right track.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jade Weshall]

If you're familiar at all. Have you heard the terminology of the baby steps?

[Caller]

Yes. And I had the emergency fund put away. You know, I had the thousand dollars, and I was good. Within the last year and a half, you know, I just. I got divorced two years ago, and I was taking on a lot of the debt myself, where I bought a new house. Not a new house, you know, a new place to live. I handled, like, the lawyer fees and everything, paying for childcare, and now managing the mortgage and everything by myself.

[Jade Weshall]

So you're feeling behind. You're feeling behind, and you're feeling like I need to get caught up. You're not behind.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, you're fine.

[Jade Weshall]

You're doing fine. You need that thousand dollars at your disposal temporarily. It's just, it's a short term situation.

[Dave Ramsey]

While you clean up the 18,000 debt and while you clean up the new $10,000 car debt, because we're getting rid

[Caller]

of the $30,000, it's a total of $18,000 in debt. Because the bathroom REM model, I owe about 10,000 on that.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you need to get rid of the car and pay off 18,000 and then you're debt free.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And get a $10,000 car and then you got to pay that off. So it's going to take you a little while to do this, but it's not going to take you 10 years. It's going to take you one or two years.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you're going to be totally focused on cleaning up all the debt. Because if you didn't have any payments right now, but your house payment, you'd be okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you could put 15.

[Caller]

The interest rate on the credit card, it's killing me.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, the interest rate on the credit card is not killing you. What's killing you is you're out of control and you're not pounding this debt. You need to be pounding this debt. List your debts, smallest to largest, stop all investing, temporarily stop all lifestyle, temporarily get rid of the $30,000 car and knock these debts out. And that's when this is going to work.

[Jade Weshall]

Let's talk about why it's in that order. Baby step two being paying off all of your debt besides your house and then going to baby step three, three to six months of expenses and then getting to the 15% of retirement. Because I think that's, that's the hardest part for people is to temporary pause, temporarily pause.

[Dave Ramsey]

If it was permanent pause, it would be the wrong answer.

[Jade Weshall]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But it's not a permanent pause, it's temporary.

[Jade Weshall]

But a lot of people would say, oh, well, it's just a little bit, I can get the match. But there really is a lot of thought behind it that, and for me, the biggest thing is you want to make sure that you're setting your habits up the right way. Because if you're investing in a situation like this lady here, she's putting money aside, let's say she does finish, you know, get a little bit closer to paying off debt. But something pops up and she's like, oh, I need the money for this. She's going to look over at that retirement and go where there's some money over there. I don't have three to six months of expenses. Maybe that's some money that I can pull from. So it's not setting the foundation properly. Whereas if you say, okay, if I have all this money, I can get out of debt even faster, which means I can set up my three to six months even faster. It just puts you on a light warp speed that allows you to accomplish those goals so that when you finally start investing, you never have to touch it. You can set it and forget it. You never think about it. Because the money that you need is there in your emergency fund. It's there in your budget because you've paid off all your debt.

[Caller]

Debt?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. If you don't have an emergency fund, you'll use your 401k or a credit card for an emergency. Because you're gonna have emergencies. 100% chance, Dave. You need to be positive. I'm positive. You're gonna have emergencies. It's gonna happen 100% of the time. The only question is, how are you gonna cover them? Are you gonna have a plan and have a rainy day fund? When it rains, it's gonna rain. Have an umbrella. It's gonna rain. Have an umbrella. Quit walking around. This is not about skittles and unicorns. Yeah, this is. It's gonna rain. You need an emergency fund. Because if not, you're gonna put it on a stupid credit card and then you're gonna go, why am I so broke? Right? Or you're gonna clean out your 401k for your emergency. And guess what they do. They charge you a 10% penalty plus your tax rate. So you just borrowed the money at about 35% interest in taxes and penalties is the way it works out. Well, that was dumb. Oh, you need an emergency fund. Listen up, folks. If you've got a complicated tax situation and you're putting off filing your return, it's time to talk with a Ramsey trusted tax pro. Not next week, not April 15th, right freaking now. Ramsey trusted tax pros know the tax code front to back, so they can do the heavy lifting to help you file on time and explain things to you with the heart of a teacher. But they can only do that if you get on their schedule before they book up. Go to ramseysolutions.com taxpro to find a full time tax advisor who serves your area with excellence. That's ramseysolutions.com taxpro. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet when disaster Strikes. Our free insurance coverage checkup helps you figure out if you have the right coverage by giving you a personalized action plan with clear next steps. It's free. Did I mention it's free? Go to ramseysolutions.com checkup to take the coverage checkup and find out if you have the protections that you need. Donna is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Donna. How are you?

[Caller]

Hello. I'm good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. What's up?

[Caller]

Question about indexed universal life policies. My husband and I are going to stop. I know. Contributing now that we know better. But we have a little bit of a balance. Each of us have about 28,000 that we're going to be withdrawing. I would like to put it on the house or maybe. Or maybe into a Roth IRA and wondering what you would suggest.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool. Where are you out on debt? Do you have any debt left at all?

[Caller]

Mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just your mortgage. So you're doing baby steps four, five and six, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're putting 15% away in retirement already?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. I'd put it on the house then. Yeah, that's okay.

[Jade Weshall]

It's a big chunk. That's. What is that, 56,000 you'll take away from this?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Jade Weshall]

I love that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you both have 28. Oh, wow. What do you owe on the house?

[Jade Weshall]

250.

[Caller]

250.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, wow. Very good. Okay, so down to 200. And your household income's what?

[Caller]

About 320.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, cool. You're gonna knock this house out in no time. Very good.

[Caller]

We want to get it out in about a year and a half.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you're on the way. Definitely throw it at the house. Now I'm getting real excited. That's fine.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

I know.

[Caller]

Me too.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's fun. How old are you guys?

[Caller]

All right, 54, 57.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your millionaires are getting ready to be well done. Very good job. Jesse's in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi, Jesse. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey. How are you? Praise God.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, sir. How can we help?

[Caller]

Well, I got a question for you. So I'm 58. My wife's 56. Retirement's coming probably around my age, 62. She won't quite be there yet, but the question is when we go both to retire from the companies, and I want to transfer the 401k that I have and then what she has into an IRA or roll it over. I don't understand. Why can't we combine IRAs and 401ks?

[Dave Ramsey]

Retirement plans do not have marital component to them. They're all for individuals only. I don't know why you would need to combine them because if you're both have access to the money because you know you're working together.

[Caller]

Well, I'm just.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you can't put both things

[Caller]

when we retire to combine them into an IRA to get more of a compounding effect.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, no, it doesn't change it, it doesn't change the compounding at all. Two accounts of $100,000 each compound at exactly the same rate as one account of seven of two accounts.

[Caller]

I gotcha.

[Dave Ramsey]

You get no compounding advantage by combining them. Zero.

[Caller]

I gotcha.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So no loss there. No problem. It's just a legality, a technicality. And so your 401k rolls over into an IRA in your name and you name your wife as a beneficiary. Hers rolls over into her name, she names you as a beneficiary. And as you pull money out of either one or both. Both you're sharing the money because you're married and we're talking about this and we have a combined approach to life and that's how people prosper the most. Yeah, yeah, you're, you know, so you're right on track with all that. But you know, but my wife has been a full time mom since she was 40. So the retirement accounts are 90 some odd percent in my name. I mean we've got, we've done roth spousal, Roth IRAs for her every year, but they've not added up to nowhere near what I can put in my 401k here at Ramsey. Right. And so I've got, the vast majority would be in my name. But you know, she's got legal access to that in the event of a divorce. She's got, you know, beneficiary access in the event of death, she's got practical access in the event of life because I'm obviously going to share it with her. She's my wife. If we need any of that money, we're probably never talking touch it. But that's neither here nor there. So that's how. Yeah, how you get at it. But that's a good question. And you know, that's a common misconception mathematically. And the way you can run it off in your head is let's say that you had $100,000 at 10%, that means you'd have a $10,000 growth and you got another account that has $100,000 at 10%,that's another $10,000 in growth. Or, or you had a $200,000 account at 10% that's $20,000 in growth, and the other two are 10 each. So it's exactly the same. And the next year, when it compounds, it's exactly the same. It's just in one pile versus two piles.

[Jade Weshall]

Our brain likes to see a big pile.

[Dave Ramsey]

The total is still the same, the aggregate is still the same. And oftentimes people run into that. So John's in San Francisco. Hey, John. What's up?

[Caller]

Not much. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Caller]

So I have a pretty weird kind of situation. I'm 28. My partner and I are looking at possibly buying a home. We don't know we're currently renting. I have about a million dollars in assets tied to some watches that I've been collecting and buying and selling since I was 18. And I don't know if I should possibly sell some of them or all of them. Try to put a down payment on a house or to buy a house. House.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Wow.

[Caller]

Yeah. Are.

[Jade Weshall]

Are any of them heirlooms or, like, legacy pieces?

[Caller]

No, I. I have been really fortunate. I've built great relationships with a bunch of watch dealers and boutiques. So I bought all of them at retail with the exception of, like, one or two.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And I'm curious, have you tracked how they've appreciated traded?

[Caller]

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Have I. I've some of them. I've been really fortunate. I have a couple of protects. I have an Aquanaut and a Nautilus. Those have both doubled in value. I bought them for a bit under a hundred thousand. I'm really fortunate. Combined, they make about 400,000 a year. So how long ago did you buy

[Dave Ramsey]

them at 100,000 and then they doubled?

[Caller]

That was 2018, I believe. 2017. So this is before the kind of watch boom sort of happened.

[Dave Ramsey]

I didn't know a watch thing happened.

[Jade Weshall]

I was gonna say I didn't know there was a watch boom.

[Caller]

A lot of people started buying and selling on Covid. I've been ready for snagging a bit earlier, and a lot of my watches have appreciated in value.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, in. In general, collectibles, which watches would be guns, would be art would be wine, would be. In general, collectibles do not outperform the market. Market in appreciation. The exception to that is if you add in some expertise. So an art dealer will make more on art than he would make in a mutual fund. You will make more on watches because you're completely freaking nerded out about them.

[Caller]

It's bad.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's like ocd yeah, it's awesome. I love it and it's fun. It's amazing that you did that. You had have this. But overall, you just ask yourself, where 10 years from now, what would I rather own? And not just mathematically, emotionally, relationally. And so what do I want to own with my wife 10 years from now? I personally want to own a house more than I do a collectible now. I've got a bunch of cars, I've got a bunch of guns. And I would, if I didn't have a home, I would in a heartbeat get rid of those and move that money into houses. It's hobby for me. It's not anywhere near like you've got. That's crazy, John. That's me. I've never had a call from somebody who had a million dollars in watches.

[Jade Weshall]

I mean, I'd play urgency into it as well. If it's not an urgent thing to buy a house, if you hold onto them a little while longer, you have a really nice income, you could start to cash flow more of that house and have to sell less of the watches. So I think that there's probably a play where you could keep some of these, the ones that mean the most to you, and still cash flow the house if the home is not urgent.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I have noticed that sometimes when people are doing something like this, and I've noticed a couple times with me that, you know, I'm real enthused about it for a while, and then it's like fate fizzles out. Yeah, yeah, just dump them. I'm done.

[Jade Weshall]

Fizzles out.

[Dave Ramsey]

On to the next thing.

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey, Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramseysolutions.com. So here's an interesting thing. You guys have heard me quote this a hundred times, some of you, but I'm gonna do it again anyway. We did several years ago the largest study on millionaires ever done in North America. Detailed, airtight research to where if you disagree with the conclusions of this study, you're what's known as wrong. The data is that type of height, and it's the largest study by far that anybody's ever done on millionaires. And so there's somewhere around 24 million millionaires at any given moment in America. And a millionaire is someone whose net worth is greater than a million dollars. Now, that's the definition of a millionaire. It's an accounting thing. And your net worth is determined by your assets minus your liabilities, what you own, minus what, what you owe. So if you have no debt, it's simply what you own. And so when you have a million dollars worth of things, money, 401ks, house, that kind of stuff, then you are a millionaire. Well, no one should have a million. Well, that's. That's. It's not a moral construct. It's an accounting function. It's not enough. That's not. That's not what we're debating. What we're saying is there's a simple thing. You either is or you isn't. It's an accounting thing. And it's not a million dollars of income, and it's not a million dol. Cash. And it's not a million dollars of liquid assets. And it's not. It's simply assets minus liabilities. That's how you define it. Period. And if you don't define it that way, you're wrong. This is the definition. A billionaire is the same thing when assets minus liabilities equals a billion, which, by the way, is a thousand million. It's a lot. So if you have $100,000, you're a lot closer to being a millionaire than a millionaire is to being a billionaire. Like a bazillion times closer. Say a thousand versus a tenth. Right. One thousandth versus a tenth. That's a big difference. So all of that to say we've studied these things. One of the things we figured out was we wanted to track and say, okay, what careers caused people to be millionaires? Most often, the number one career field that became a millionaire, the most that appeared most often in the 10,000 that we studied was engineer. Number two was accountant. Number three was teacher. Hmm, didn't see that one coming. Number four, business person, business executive. Someone in business of some kind. And number five was attorney. Medical doctor. Didn't even make the top five. They're number six.

[Jade Weshall]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you always think of the doctor and the lawyer being the millionaire. Right, but they are. But medical doctors are notoriously bad with money. They're stereotypically bad with money. They're like artists or something. You know, it's like, you know, a music star is notoriously bad with money. Football player Notoriously bad with money. Same thing, but they're still number six. But what we couldn't figure out is how teacher lands in the middle of those things, because all of those are highly paid professions except teacher.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So how does teacher land in there? And what we figured out was after studying it a little bit more was that all of those, lawyer, accountant, engineer, teacher, business professional, they all have a process that they have to submit to and have to follow the process to do their career. So when you're an engineer, if you don't follow the process, the bridge falls down. When you're an accountant, there's generally accepted accounting principles. There's not three ways to do accounting. There's one, it's not art. You don't get to make it up. When you're an attorney and you're in court, there's a process to do litigation, and you have to follow the process or you'll be held in contempt and so on. Teachers have to follow a process. They use a detailed lesson plan. So these are all process people. So they simply took that process mindset and applied it to building wealth. And that's how teacher ends up in there. Fun fact is, Scott's on the phone in Spokane, Washington. Scott is a baby steps millionaire, and he's a teacher that teaches the Ramsey Foundation's high school curriculum. Is that right, Scott?

[Caller]

That is 100% correct, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

I wish I had a high school teacher that was a millionaire because he followed the principles that he was teaching me in his class. I would have sat there with, with rapt attention.

[Caller]

It is, it is fascinating to watch my students when I walk into class, because I teach the why and when I, when I walk in. Right. And you watch those, those light bulb moments with those kids, because I tell them on day one, I don't want you to have to live the life that I had to live because I learned the lessons the same way you learned them, Dave, that I was in debt. And I don't want you to be in debt. I want you to live your life the way I'm living it right now. In your 30s, not in your 50s.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So how old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 56.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what is your net worth?

[Caller]

My net worth right now is 1.83 million.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. And give me a little breakdown on that. How much of that's house and retirement and so on.

[Caller]

So about 700,000 is in my house, and we just recently paid that off within the last year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Caller]

Thank you. And then the majority of it, I Would say another. Probably 700 is probably 7. $800,000 is in my retirement and my 401k. Then I have a pension attached with that as a teacher. And then we have other investments, IRAs, investment accounts, things like that. And then small, small portions in savings and checking accounts.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Way to go, Scott. So how much of this did you inherit?

[Caller]

None.

[Dave Ramsey]

Zero. Okay.

[Caller]

We have a small, a very small amount that we inherited that help helped us pay off that last little bit of my student loans, but very insignificant amount.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It did not mathematically cause you to be a millionaire.

[Caller]

Oh, no, no, you didn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your money, you got the old fashioned way. You earned it. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yes, yes. As you say, you know, when you're broke, you.

[Dave Ramsey]

I hear you. That's it. So, so you've been a teacher for how long?

[Caller]

Over 20 years. So it's funny that you had mentioned engineer as well. I was a computer engineer and an actual engineer in the military. So yeah, I built those processes and applied them, obviously. But the main thing is, right when you are teaching the foundations, the kids, they just kind of glom on. It's interesting to watch those light bulb moments with the kids because they really do start to process that information. And you just kind of watch them, you know, day one, they're like, yeah, whatever. But you, you tell them in, in the curriculum, you tell, you tell them on the show, what we're teaching you is what grandma taught you. This is common sense information. They look at you like, whatever, but as they go through and they start to process and begin to just kind of grind at it, and they're like, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. And they, they, they kind of just figure it out and it becomes very hard. It's almost second nature. And they, they figure out really quickly that we, we need to avoid debt. This is not something, do they ever

[Dave Ramsey]

say, well, Mr. Scott avoided debt and he's a teacher and he's got 1.83 million. I mean, do they ever look at you and go, my gosh, I got a walking social proof right in me front of.

[Caller]

Well, it's interesting because I, I am very, very honest and open with the kids. And when I tell them, tell them my stories because I, I open up and when I tell them I had to work three jobs and my kids are like, dad, why are you never home? And they, I mean, some of the kids break down.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah, they probably relate to it.

[Caller]

Yeah. And they relate to it and they, I have kids crying. I have kids, I Had one student come into class the first day of school and go, it's easy for, say, you know, you don't need a credit card. He has millions of dollars. Four weeks into class, she was like, I have a. I have a friend that wants to get a credit card. How do I talk him out of it?

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Love it. Love it. Very cool. Well, how long have you been teaching the curriculum?

[Caller]

14 years. I taught it before it was digital.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Wow. I remember that. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. Very cool. Well, thank you for teaching it. And congratulations on being a baby steps millionaire and another hero in the American story right here. Absolutely incredible. If you didn't know, we have a high school curriculum called Foundations in Personal Finance that's been taught now in 48% of America's high schools. Six million kids have graduated from it. So if you can help us get it into your local school, that'd be awesome. And sometimes you need to knock a noggin on the school board. But, you know, hey, whatever it takes, baby, that's what we're going to do.

[Caller]

Sam.

When I talk to people on The Ramsey Show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing. Not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And guys, that is so normal. But it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our EveryDollar budget app. EveryDollar not only helps you tell your money where to go with the budget budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you called the show.

[Jade Weshall]

And it's right in your pocket.

[Caller]

So don't keep living normal. Go download the EveryDollar app, answer a few questions and get your plan today.

[Dave Ramsey]

Our scripture today, John 1:14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we've seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father full of grace and truth. Bill Murray said people are like music. Some speak the truth and others are just noise. Mia is in Seattle. Hi, Mia. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm great. How are you guys? And thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

My question, basically in a nutshell is two weeks ago, for my 62nd birthday, I paid my mortgage off 16 years early. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Caller]

Well, all my friends, I mean all my friends are telling me I made the biggest mistake of my life. And now I'm really terrified that they're correct given the current market situation and things. So my question was to try to get some guidance from you based on my current situation.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need new friends.

[Caller]

Well, let me give you just a quick content. I'm 62, I'm single, I'm in the midst of an eight year canceled battle and my doctor said I won't be able to return to work for the foreseeable future. So based on that, you know, my friends are telling me I can took my liquid assets that I had to pay it off 16 years early. And that was a big mistake because my interest rate was 3.5% and I could have been making more all the things you hear, but now I'm afraid maybe they were right.

[Jade Weshall]

Do you still have a nest egg?

[Caller]

So what I basically I have is I'm currently my income. I have a disability benefit from my former employer that separated me last June for disability of 7,070amonth. And that will end by three years the way the policy set up when I turn 65. But it could end previous. I get a $3,000 monthly SSDI payment after the taxes and the medicare are deducted. And then I've got my assets. I have a $80,000 emergency fund in cash and I have 23,000 in cash for insurance prem that are going to be changed in November. And then my investments, I've got 1,430,000 in the traditional IRA.

[Jade Weshall]

You're okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your friends are morons.

[Jade Weshall]

And I'll go a bit further. They're talking about a stratosphere that they've not yet entered. So how can they know you're the only software minute, you're the only one who's actually done it. So don't you think you have a better, better frame of reference than they do? They've only had debt,

[Caller]

right? So I'm debt free. I've got two.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're a debt free multimillionaire. You're okay, calm down.

[Caller]

I. Okay. I'm just, you know, with the current situation, current situations, what are you.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're not in Iran and being bombed, I think you're okay. You are in Seattle.

[Caller]

But because I can't, I can't go back to work. Like I'm going to be $10,000 a

[Dave Ramsey]

month income and a million dollars. That's the current situation.

[Caller]

Okay, you're okay. Okay, well I was Worried that I'm really not okay.

[Jade Weshall]

What do you think is going to happen?

[Dave Ramsey]

How would you not be okay? What current situation are you referring to?

[Caller]

Well, so, for example, my, my medical is going to change in November because my secondary is my premiums are going to really high.

[Dave Ramsey]

A million dollars.

[Caller]

But the million dollars really doesn't they tell me, go very far?

[Jade Weshall]

Yes, it does.

[Dave Ramsey]

It goes a long way because it's making a hundred thousand. Is it invested in good mutual funds?

[Caller]

Well, yeah. So the traditional IRA is that. And then I've got two 18. 218,000 in a Roth. I've got 100.

[Dave Ramsey]

All of that invested in good mutual funds.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So it's all going to make around $100,000 a year. Year that you're not even touching.

[Caller]

Right. So I basically structured, you know, how you. The four buckets that you advise, they're in. They're in the traditional and the Roth because I have to protect against irmaa. So any capital gains, I make days in the retirement and then. And then I've got 440,000 in municipal bonds and 342 and some core equities that's managed. So. But I'm trying not to touch any of that you want.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not touching any of you have a $10,000 a month income without touching it.

[Jade Weshall]

And you're going to have that for the, for sure for the foreseeable next three years.

[Caller]

Well, the long term disability benefit, the way my employer wrote the policy, it could go away before three years, but the max I have left and it is three years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And depending on whether you remain disabled or not. Yeah.

[Jade Weshall]

Right. Even if it went away, you'd still be.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Jade Weshall]

Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You did not make a mistake. The only mistake you made was in choosing your friends.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or listening to them. I have some friends that I actually like that are also not smart. But that's okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do any of you.

[Caller]

I just looked up how long it would take to wire the money and have it clear so that I got my letter saying the write off was closed on my birthday because for my present for myself, I wanted it to free. Scream.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

So I told my. I told my friends and then they just. I was in tears because they were like, that's ridiculous.

[Jade Weshall]

And I just think that's jealousy. I do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, idiocy or both.

[Jade Weshall]

Yeah. Who in their right mind, when somebody has done something incredible like that, would not celebrate them, even if it's not your personal choice, that you wouldn't celebrate what somebody else views as a personal accomplishment and it's zero detriment to them.

[Caller]

Okay, so. But I still have like a 600amonth HOA. So I have, you know, a lot of expense.

[Dave Ramsey]

Amia, I guess. Mia, your worries and your math don't add up.

[Caller]

Okay, okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your worries are a 10 and your math is a 1.

[Jade Weshall]

Or let's, let's, let's be as logical as humanly possible right now. Who do you think knows more about this situation? Dave Ramsey or your three little buddies at home?

[Caller]

No, I. I get it. I.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, there you go.

[Jade Weshall]

That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need to breathe. You need to breathe. You're okay. You are in great. You have done a wonderful job. I don't know what the house is worth. If it's worth a million here in Seattle, it probably is. And you got a million dollars. You're a multimillionaire at 62. I want you to concentrate on fighting cancer, not arguing about whether you should have paid off your house or not. I want you to go beat it. Go beat the big C and live your life, kiddo.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Matthew's in Phoenix. Hey Matthew, how are you?

[Caller]

Good. How you doing today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So my question for you is, I'm recently going out on my own. Business wise, I'm in home remodels. I've been doing it for a long time. I'm just trying to do it on my own now. My question is, I've been cash flowing everything for our vehicle, my truck, everything's spot paid for. Absolutely. Debt, no credit card. My question is, would it be a bad decision to take out a small business loan, maybe 2500 to 5 grand just to help back fund this? You know, I'm doing it backfunded.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does backfund mean?

[Caller]

I'm trying to think of the right word. Just, you know, when tools come up that need bought, stuff like that, you've cash flowed everything discontinued cash flow.

[Jade Weshall]

Don't stop now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't stop now. Don't fall into the debt trap. Because when you fall into the debt trap, you have to take jobs from customers that are unreasonable to pay the debt payments. And then you get an unreasonable, no fun business to operate because you have to put up with the buts. You don't want to have to deal with the buts. You want to deal with the good people. And you don't have to. You can send the butts to your competitor. If you don't have debt payments, say I think you need to. I've got here's my competitor's business card. You need to go talk to him.

[Jade Weshall]

That's so good.

[Dave Ramsey]

And let them worry someone else's ears off. Instead, you go work with the good people, make some good money and do a good job and help those people and make you some money. And you're in a great line of work. Please continue to organically fund it with cash flow. No debt. Please, Matthew. Please do that. Just swing that hammer. Turn that wrench, baby. You got a great thing going. You're not. You're sitting on a gold mine. If you don't screw it up by going into debt.

[Jade Weshall]

Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know lots of remodel guys and repair guys that are running businesses that are half million dollars a year right now. And that's the profit. Hello. You can really do good at this. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.