There’s No Fast Track to Financial Freedom

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ramsey Show - "There’s No Fast Track to Financial Freedom"

Release Date: February 3, 2025

Host: Ramsey Network (Jade Warshaw and George Camel)

In this episode of The Ramsey Show, co-hosts Jade Warshaw and George Camel delve into the intricacies of achieving financial freedom without resorting to quick fixes. Through a series of insightful caller interactions, they address diverse financial challenges, offering pragmatic advice grounded in proven wealth-building principles.

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1. Navigating Early Success in Day Trading

Caller: Amir from Irvine, California
Timestamp: [00:49] - [08:41]

Scenario:
Amir, an 18-year-old funded day trader, shares his remarkable success—averaging $15,000 weekly and peaking at $25,000 in a single week. Operating as an independent contractor with a 90/10 split, Amir has accumulated approximately $300,000 over six months. Despite his young age and living with parents, he seeks guidance on managing his newfound wealth responsibly.

Advice Given:

• Diversification: Jade recommends placing the majority of his earnings into index funds or a high-yield savings account to ensure long-term growth and stability.
• Asset Prioritization: George advises prioritizing the purchase of a home over a depreciating asset like a luxury car to build invisible wealth through equity.
• Future Planning: With ambitions in biochemistry and medicine, Jade and George highlight the importance of securing funds for debt-free education.

Notable Quote:
George Camel emphasizes, "If this was Vegas, we'd all be around you saying, dude, cash in the chips and walk away." [02:24]

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2. Evaluating International Job Opportunities During Uncertainty

Caller: Matthew from Nashville, Tennessee
Timestamp: [10:39] - [16:15]

Scenario:
Facing a layoff from a large corporation, Matthew contemplates accepting a sales role in Dubai offering a similar base salary with additional bonuses. The role, initiated through a college acquaintance, presents an opportunity to avoid U.S. taxes and potentially accelerate wealth-building.

Advice Given:

• Due Diligence: George encourages thorough research into the company's legitimacy and stability.
• Financial Planning: Jade advises assessing costs of living in Dubai and maintaining a flexible savings strategy to accommodate potential uncertainties.
• Risk Assessment: Emphasis is placed on the sustainability of income and the importance of having a backup plan.

Notable Quote:
George states, "Don't look at Amir and go, I'm going to be the next Amir. No, you're likely to be the next person to call in broke." [08:28]

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3. Balancing Savings and Real Estate Investments

Caller: Dane from Denver, Colorado
Timestamp: [16:21] - [19:43]

Scenario:
Dane, with substantial savings of $940,000 in retirement and no debt, seeks advice on reducing his savings rate from 32% to 15% to finance a $190,000 vacation home in the Colorado mountains.

Advice Given:

• Financial Prioritization: George suggests exploring ways to increase income rather than drastically cutting savings.
• Alternative Solutions: Recommendations include renting a property temporarily and allocating investments towards the vacation home without compromising long-term financial goals.
• Emotional Considerations: Jade underscores the importance of long-term planning over immediate gratification, especially with family considerations.

Notable Quote:
George advises, "If you were 38 with six kids, I'd be like, hey, let's pause before we do this move. But for Matthew, it seems like one of those things." [19:43]

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4. Managing Excess Income and Debt

Caller: Hayden from Bowling Green, Kentucky
Timestamp: [16:21] - [30:44]

Scenario:
Hayden admits to having $19,000 in excess income each month but struggles with uncontrolled spending, particularly on gas station snacks and vehicle expenses. Additionally, he carries a truck loan ($34,000) and a boat loan ($12,000), earning around $65,000 annually.

Advice Given:

• Budgeting Strategies: Introduction of the Zero-Based Budget to allocate every dollar thoughtfully, distinguishing between necessities and wants.
• Debt Reduction: Strong emphasis on paying off high-interest debts like the truck and boat to free up financial resources.
• Lifestyle Adjustments: Encouragement to downsizing vehicles and redirecting funds towards emergency funds and investments.

Notable Quote:
Jade explains, "You'll look up 10 years from now and there's a lot of regret because you went, oh my gosh, so much money passed through my hands and I was not a good steward of it." [24:33]

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5. Assessing Mortgage Payoff vs. Investment Growth

Caller: Seth from Portland, Oregon
Timestamp: [53:48] - [63:02]

Scenario:
At 45 years old, Seth holds a 401k worth $690,000 and a mortgage of $460,000. He considers withdrawing funds from his retirement account (incurring penalties) to pay off the mortgage, thereby eliminating monthly payments and reallocating funds into mutual funds and IRAs.

Advice Given:

• Opportunity Cost Analysis: Explanation of the long-term growth potential of investments compared to the immediate relief of a mortgage payoff.
• Avoidance of Penalties: Strong recommendation against withdrawing from retirement accounts due to tax implications and early withdrawal penalties.
• Strategic Payment Plans: Suggestion to increase monthly mortgage payments incrementally to pay off the loan faster without sacrificing investment growth.

Notable Quote:
George cautions, "Nothing is worth giving the government an extra 35% of my retirement and unplugging all that growth just to have a paid for house." [58:39]

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6. Inheritance and Real Estate Decision-Making

Caller: Chris from Boston, Massachusetts
Timestamp: [63:06] - [69:50]

Scenario:
Chris received an inheritance of $350,000 and is torn between buying a condo outright or making a partial down payment while maintaining investments in mutual funds and ETFs. Currently, Chris owns no major debts except student loans ($13,000) and a car loan ($8,000), with an emergency fund of $35,000.

Advice Given:

• Debt Prioritization: Immediate recommendation to pay off student and car loans to eliminate financial burdens.
• Investment Considerations: Advice to avoid liquidating retirement accounts and instead utilize the inheritance for strategic down payments, preserving investment growth.
• Homeownership Planning: Emphasis on balancing mortgage payments with continued investment to maximize financial security.

Notable Quote:
George states, "Therefore, two calls in a row where people are trying to buy their homes completely outright. I love that." [62:49]

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7. Critiquing Annuities and Whole Life Insurance for Business Owners

Caller: Unnamed Caller (Caller 7)
Timestamp: [32:22] - [41:19]

Scenario:
A business owner inquiring about using whole life insurance for infinite banking to fund real estate acquisitions and business growth. Despite being a committed Dave Ramsey follower, the caller seeks validation for this alternative wealth-building strategy.

Advice Given:

• Skepticism of Annuities: George highlights the conflicts of interest inherent in those selling whole life insurance as investment tools.
• Risk Assessment: Both hosts emphasize the added complexity and risk of leveraging debt through insurance policies compared to traditional investment methods.
• Alternative Strategies: Recommendation to focus on debt-free growth and cash flow management without introducing insurance-based financial products.

Notable Quote:
George asserts, "Debt is not an option. And it leads you to be more thoughtful with way more peace." [38:58]

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8. Protecting Assets Amid Health and Family Concerns

Caller: Wade from Salt Lake City, Utah
Timestamp: [69:57] - [83:25]

Scenario:
Wade recounts his efforts to secure a home through a rent-to-own agreement with his father-in-law after financial hardships and a significant withdrawal from his 401k. Facing serious health issues, he worries about protecting the home for his wife in the event of further medical expenses.

Advice Given:

• Legal Protections: Suggestion to explore homestead exemptions and consult with a local attorney to safeguard the property against potential medical debts.
• Caution on Deals: George raises concerns about potential exploitation by family members and advises proceeding with extreme caution.
• Comprehensive Planning: Emphasis on having a robust support system and legal safeguards to ensure the home remains protected regardless of health outcomes.

Notable Quote:
George emphasizes, "Proceed with caution." [74:28]

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9. Financial Planning for Unexpected Parenthood and Employment Changes

Caller: Reagan from Chattanooga, Tennessee
Timestamp: [83:25] - [85:49]

Scenario:
Reagan and her husband, newly expecting a child, are grappling with financial readiness. Reagan is enrolled in grad school for a Master's in Bible and Theology while her husband transitions from a director position in soccer operations to coaching, facing unstable income streams and mounting credit card debt ($14,000) alongside student loans ($85,000).

Advice Given:

• Income Stabilization: Urgent recommendation for her husband to secure full-time employment to restore financial stability.
• Debt Management: Advocacy for implementing the EveryDollar budgeting app to gain control over expenses and systematically eliminate debt.
• Educational Continuity: While acknowledging the importance of education, Jade and George stress the necessity of immediate income generation over continuing schooling amid financial strain.

Notable Quote:
George advises, "He needs to find long term employment ASAP to provide for his family." [83:25]

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Closing Remarks

Throughout the episode, Jade Warshaw and George Camel consistently reinforce the philosophy that financial freedom is a journey requiring discipline, strategic planning, and a commitment to debt elimination. They emphasize the importance of living below one’s means, investing wisely, and seeking professional advice rooted in integrity and transparency.

Final Notable Quote:
Jade concludes, "This is the Ramsey Show," affirming their dedication to guiding listeners toward financial empowerment.

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Note: This summary excludes all advertisement segments and focuses solely on the content relevant to financial advice and discussions between the hosts and callers.

Transcript

[Jade Warshaw]

Foreign from the Ramsey Network. It's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm here with my good friend George Camel. Good to have you here, bud.

[George Camel]

Excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Jay. Now you have a lot of options.

[Jade Warshaw]

Thanks for choosing me to invite you on today. That's a lie. Well, we're here to take calls. It's a live show. Triple 882-55-5225 is how you get involved. I hope you do. Talking about your life, your money. Let's get right to the phone lines. We've got Amir in Irvine, California. What's up, Amir?

[Caller]

Hello.

[Jade Warshaw]

Hey, what's up? How can we help?

[Caller]

Hey, guys. I'm a big fan. It's really nice to be on the show.

[Jade Warshaw]

Glad you're here. What's going on?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I'm in a bit of a unique spot. I'm 18 years old and I'm actually, I trade futures. I'm a day trader and I've recently started making a pretty large amount of money. And I just want help, you know, managing it correctly and making responsible choices.

[Jade Warshaw]

When you say you've been making a lot of money, tell us real dollar amounts.

[Caller]

Well, I've been averaging about 15,000 a week for the past five months.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

Past week I made 25,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wow. What do you start with?

[Caller]

So how I actually trade is I'm a funded trader. I'm actually treated as individual contractor and the firm provides me with capital to trade with after they've evaluated me. So really I just paid for that evaluation fee, which was only $150.

[George Camel]

So you're not investing your own money?

[Caller]

No.

[George Camel]

What, how do you get paid?

[Caller]

So they take commissions off my trades and then they give me the rest.

[Jade Warshaw]

So what's the rest? What do you get?

[Caller]

It's, it's, it's a 9010 split. I get 90%, then they get 10.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wow. Listen, Lucky ducky. Wild lucky ducky. And I, I, I say that on purpose because this, I feel like this is sheer luck going on right now. And I only say that because a lot of the statistics show that day traders, I mean, statistically, it's like less than 5%.

[George Camel]

97% of day traders who persisted for more than 300 days lost money. So you are. I have heard that you're not at the 300 day market. And truthfully, I have no ill will. I hope you keep making money making money.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

But the key that I would go is like, if this was Vegas, we'd all be around you going, dude, cash in the chips and walk away. All right, you literally, it's like you just won the lottery and now you're playing with other people's money, which does lower your risk. You're not putting your own money. But my bigger question is, what are you doing with this $300,000 you've made in the last six months?

[Caller]

Well, I've got most of it sitting in my bank account. I still live with my parents, so I really don't have many living expenses. I'd say I probably only spend about maybe 1500amonth. I've just been saving it up and I've been planning on buying a nice.

[Advertiser]

Car, but I don't know if that's.

[Caller]

The responsible thing to do.

[George Camel]

I would have like a house before you put all of your money in depreciating asset to impress your friends. And trust me, they would be impressed. What's less impressive is invisible wealth, where you're like, well, it's in the equity of my very reasonable home.

[Jade Warshaw]

Have you ever lived on your own before, Amir?

[Caller]

No, never. I'm actually recently just turned 18.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So I might. I might differ with George only on timeline. Like, I think it's a good idea to buy a house, but maybe not yet. If I were you, my first goal would be like, listen, I'm going to get out of this house, my parents house, and I'm going to go rent for a while. And I'd probably park that 300,000 like in an index fund and, you know, maybe look at your projection and say, okay, do I want to be a homeowner in the next four years, in the next five years, whatever that is. If it's five years or less, I'd probably put it in a high yield savings account. But if it's more than five years, I might park a good portion of it, you know, just in some sort of index fund and just wait until you're ready to do something. I liked George's idea of doing real estate. But if you do buy a vehicle because you need one, just buy something that's modest. Like, I would not use this money as an excuse to inflate my lifestyle into such. That's not real long term yet, if that makes sense. I think you'll be a successful guy. We just don't know if you're gonna make $300,000 a year from here on out. Does that make sense?

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah, I understand. It's not obviously a linear thing. I wasn't planning on buying you Know a supercar or anything? I'm looking at a 2014 Mercedes. Less. It's about $28,000. And I was just wondering if buying that cash would be a responsible thing to do or not.

[Jade Warshaw]

What do you make outside of like, is this your full time job?

[Caller]

It is now. I used to do like gigs on apps like Doordash and Uber Eats before I became profitable.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, and what did you make when you did that?

[Caller]

Well, it really depended because I was still in high school and then towards the beginning of this year I was still in college, so I was only working about 20 hours a week. So maybe at most like 1500amonth. But some months I'd go up to like 25.

[Jade Warshaw]

Here's the thing. I'm all about you buying a car in cash. I would treat this money like the, the windfall that it is. And so in that case, if you wanted to take some of it and buy a car, I'm not mad at that. Do you have any debt? I'm hoping not. No, no, that, yeah, 2014. What would you say, George? I'm fine with it.

[George Camel]

I mean, it's reasonable. The thing that the parameter we look at is you don't want more than half of your income tied up in things with wheels and motors. And the truth is we don't know how sustainable this income is. And so what I would caution you against is losing out on opportunity. Cost of, hey, 28,000 in a car that's going to be worth 20 a year from now may not be wise when I could put that into xyz. An investment, a future home, down payment fund, what it, what, whatever it may be. So there's nothing wrong with getting a car. I think you're doing it in a reasonable way. You don't sound like a guy who's about to blow up his life to go flex on Instagram. I just know as an 18 year old that would be my temptation.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I, I, I agree with George.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

You're 18. You have a lot of time to build wealth. And this is a really, really great head start. As long as you don't lose it in the next 150 days. Yeah. This car to me doesn't sound super inflated. It kind of just sounds like, I mean, it sounds like what it is. You were playing at the tables, you got lucky and you got a lot of extra cash on your hands. But be really smart with it and you're good to go.

[George Camel]

Yeah. One last question. What do you want to do with your life? Let's fast Forward five years from now, let's say day trading does not exist anymore. SEC makes it illegal. You know, what are you going to do?

[Caller]

Well, I'm actually currently in college studying biochemistry. My dream is to become a doctor one day.

[George Camel]

Hey, do you come from Middle Eastern?

[Caller]

I do.

[George Camel]

I feel that as a Middle Eastern guy. Everyone in my family is a doctor but me at this point. Or at least in the medical world.

[Jade Warshaw]

This money sounds like med school.

[Caller]

Yeah, it does sound like med school. That would cover all four years.

[George Camel]

Hey, that might be the reason this money was put into your lap. Not to blow on cool stuff, but to fund med school completely debt free. You know how much of a unicorn that would make you when you graduate, right. When all your buddies are bragging about like, oh, dude just took on another 50 grand in debt. I'm at 400 grand. Like this is the. These are the conversations my family now has. You know what I mean?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

And so I'd love to see you set yourself up for a debt free future. And to Jake, that point, let's. Let's hold on and see what the future holds. And if it is med school, we've got it funded. And mom and dad don't have to co sign student loans to make this happen.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's pretty awesome. My guy got lucky. It really is the equivalent like you said, George, to go into Las Vegas. Somebody gets hot on the craps table. And listen, I am the one telling him to roll again because I just love Las Vegas. But truthfully, day trading, the stats are there. Like there's no arguing with that. If for him, the good thing is it's not his money. And it's crazy that he gets to keep 90% of it.

[George Camel]

I want to know what firm is hiring 17 year olds to do this bidding on their behalf.

[Jade Warshaw]

That sounds very sketchy.

[George Camel]

And I believe Amir. I just think it's wild. We've taken many calls on the show, jade. People losing 30 grand, 150 grand, even 300 grand by day trading.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

So don't look at Amir and go, I'm going to be the next Amir. No, you're likely to be the next person to call in broke.

[Jade Warshaw]

I know. Amir got lucky. And lucky for him, he'll be able to pay for all of his med school in cash and be the first debt free doctor.

[George Camel]

He created his own scholarship fund.

[Jade Warshaw]

This is the Ramsey Show.

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[Jade Warshaw]

You're listening to the Ramsey show on the Ramsey Network. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, George Camel, best selling author, host of The George Camel YouTube channel, which is always popping off, doing amazing things. George, good to have you. Thank you.

[George Camel]

You as well.

[Jade Warshaw]

Let's take some calls. We got Matthew, who's in Nashville, Tennessee. What's going on, Matthew? Matthew, you there?

[George Camel]

Let's try it again.

[Jade Warshaw]

Are you there?

[George Camel]

Nothing.

[Caller]

Can you hear me?

[George Camel]

Oh, there we go. What's going on, man?

[Caller]

Sorry about that. Not much. Long story short, I graduated college a year ago. I've been working at a pretty big corporation for the past year. They notified me a few weeks ago that I'm getting laid off in March. And in the meantime, I've actually gotten a job offer in Dubai and I was wondering if I should take this offer. You know, worst case scenario, I stay out there for a few years and I don't have to pay any tax and just use that extra money that I'm not having to pay in tax as like a wealth building opportunity.

[Jade Warshaw]

Interesting. Is it the same line of work?

[Caller]

No, no, it's actually. So I'm in a logistics role right now. And this would be a sales role.

[Jade Warshaw]

Have you done sales before?

[Caller]

No, I haven't.

[Jade Warshaw]

Interesting. And is it like purely commission or is there like a decent base pay to get you started?

[Caller]

No, the base pay is almost the exact same as what I'm making now. And then there'd be bonuses on top of that and they Said eventually they would like to try to make me a partner at the company. It was started by an American a few years ago in Dubai.

[George Camel]

How did you get this offer? I'm just curious. I mean, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal to offer someone with zero sales experience.

[Caller]

I actually met this guy in college at a bar a few years ago, and he knows I'm, like, really interested in Middle Eastern politics and I like to read and stuff. So he actually called me and said that this company was trying to bring in Westerners to represent them and work on a lot of their deals. And so he had me in mind and just gave me a call. And it was just purely coincidence that I'd just been laid off.

[Jade Warshaw]

How old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 24.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. Does this get you taking this opportunity? Does it get you closer to where you want to be in the next 10 years?

[Caller]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just, I feel like saving the money alone from having to pay 0% tax.

[George Camel]

Have you looked into all the implications of taking a career outside of the States? I don't know. So I'm just asking, have you done the due diligence?

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean, I've been looking into it. So pretty much the main stipulations are I have to stay out of the US for 32 days or less. Once I stay, once I'm in the US for more than 32 days, I'll have to pay tax.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right, right, right.

[Caller]

Um, and then also, if I make more than $114,000, I'll have to pay income tax in the United States.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so that was my. That was my question. So Your start is 114. Your starting, or is it a little less than that?

[Caller]

No. So the actual base is 72. My current job that I'm getting laid off from, I'm making 74. 6. And then with bonuses last year, I ended up making about 86.

[Jade Warshaw]

So my question was Dubai is quite expensive. No. So I. I don't know if you're getting some sort of, like, housing allowance. Like, I want to make sure that. I think this is great. First off, let me say, I love adventurous people. I love travel. I've worked in over 92 countries, so I get it. I love that.

[George Camel]

Yeah, we're just trying to poke holes to hit every angle.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, we want to make sure you're thinking of everything. So have you looked up. Okay, like, once I'm converting this money, how much it's going to cost to live and really what a budget and lifestyle would look like on that salary and you gotta account for the worst. Like you gotta pretend you're new to this in 72,000, like you could, that could be your year. You know what I'm saying? So have you done that kind of math and that kind of research?

[Caller]

Yeah, absolutely. So I've, I've been using like different programs, talking to different people. Obviously. Like, if I live in the Dubai Marina area, like where the Burj Khalifa is, everyone knows that's going to be more expensive. But actually in like the suburbs area, it's, it's pretty comparable to Nashville. It's not a little cheaper. And then from what I've heard and what I'm reading online is, is things like insurance are significantly cheaper, food costs, that type of thing. Just your day to day expenses are significantly cheaper. And the program I used was Numbeo.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

And it said on average, Dubai is about 14% cheaper than living in metro Nashville.

[Jade Warshaw]

So if you take this, that's good to know. If you take this, are you locked into a certain amount of length of time of contract? Or is it like, if you get there and you're like, this is where the birds get me out, you can just turn around and go.

[Caller]

I mean, with the way, the way I understand the permanent residency in Dubai, while I'm in that process, which takes about six months, I'll be, I'll pretty much have to stay there for that six months. But after that I would be free to go whenever.

[Jade Warshaw]

Listen, bon voyage.

[Caller]

See ya.

[George Camel]

Matthew's going to Dubai. I feel like I'm on Wheel of Fortune. We're going to send you now. It sounds like I don't see any, like, red flags here. If you've done your due diligence on the company, this seems legit. You want to make this move. You're young. Now's the time you can make this move without it affecting a bunch of other people, like your family. And so if you were, you know, 38 with six kids, I'd be like, hey, let's pause before we do this move. But for Matthew, it seems like one of those things. It's a fun adventure and if it doesn't pan out, he gets to say, hey, remember that time I lived in Dubai and got to experience that?

[Jade Warshaw]

Pretty awesome.

[George Camel]

Best case, it works out and he's partner at the firm in three years from now.

[Jade Warshaw]

I hope that's the case. Thanks for the call. Let's go to Dane in Denver, Colorado. Dane, what's up?

[Caller]

Hey, how's it going?

[Jade Warshaw]

Going good.

[Caller]

Yeah, I'm glad I got you too. I absolutely love the show. So thank you very much.

You bet.

All right, so I guess I'll just give you my background. I have a question about should I pursue building a second home up in the mountains here in Colorado?

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, we got about two minutes, so get into it.

[Caller]

Okay. All right. Yeah. I have 940,000 in my savings in my retirement. I have absolutely no debt. I own my current home, all my cars, everything. And I currently put 32% into savings. Right now I wanted to know if I could knock that down to y'all recommended 15% and then take those, that extra money that I'm putting in extra in the savings to pursue the home. The home's going to be about $190,000. I've already cash flowed the property, the septic, the well, all that kind of stuff. Cool. Now I'm just got to get the actual home.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

How long would it take if you, if you went down to 15%, how long would it take to save up the 190 needed?

[Caller]

I'm estimating like seven years.

[George Camel]

Whoa. It's a long time.

[Caller]

It is.

[George Camel]

How old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 46.

[George Camel]

Okay, so we're not going to touch retirement. Can you promise me that we're going to use savings outside of that? So the question becomes how do we make more in order to make this dream happen faster?

[Caller]

Man, I, I, I do everything I possibly can. I have a good salary, make 115. I have two side jobs. I'm actually starting up a little tutoring service to help people in my career. I have books that I've written, I gain revenue on. So I mean, I don't know what else I can do.

[Jade Warshaw]

Is this like a vacation house or will this be a rental? What will this be for you?

[Caller]

It will be a vacation home for me and my family. It's about an hour and a half into the mountains. It's my dream since I've been five years old. My biggest and I feel urgency here. I have two little kids and I really want to get it done sooner than later so that they get to enjoy it. And that's the whole point.

[Jade Warshaw]

Right.

[Caller]

I could wait seven years. My guts know telling me to do it now, but my brain's telling me, you know, be smart, cash flow at all. But I'll have, you know, an 18 year old at that point. And it's like, will it be worth it?

[George Camel]

Can you just go rent a place until it's done? And hey, once a year you guys go a few times a year, go rent A place up around there.

[Caller]

We do travel a lot. That's. This is our, you know, the only thing that we actually splurge on is our traveling adventures. And Yeah, I mean, we do try to experience as much as we can. Yeah, I mean, you're right. You're 100% right. I do not need this.

[George Camel]

I would just split the difference and go. We're gonna rent a place, we're gonna move at the speed of cash. This is a toy. We're not gonna go into debt for it. And truthfully, you got a 15, a 15 year old. A few years from now, they're gonna be like, dad, I don't want to go to the. I want to hang out with my friends this weekend. That's what's gonna happen. So I don't want you to put this whole dream on the kids. Just say it's for you and maybe the family gets to enjoy it too.

[Jade Warshaw]

Not bad. Not bad.

[George Camel]

I don't know. One man's take.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's one man's take. It's a tough one, but I gotta go with George on this one. This is the Ramsey Show.

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[Jade Warshaw]

You're listening to the Ramsey show and it's that time again. Tax season. And one of the best things you can do for your finances is to have a really, really good tax pro in your corner. Someone that you can trust. They're going to help advise you on the best moves to make for your situation or for your small business, especially if you've had some big changes in your life. This past year, you could really use a great tax pro. So if that's you, which it probably is, go to Ramsey Solutions.com,/tax pro to find CPAs and enrolled agents that have been vetted by the Ramsey team. Don't put this off. Do this. It's in your best interest. Pony of the cash. It's worth it. All right, George, let's get to the phone lines. By the way, I'm Jade Warshaw, joined by George Camel, but you knew that. Let's get to the phone lines. We've got Hayden, who's in Bowling Green, Kentucky. What's up, Hayden?

[Caller]

Hello. How are you doing?

[Jade Warshaw]

Good.

[Caller]

How are you all doing? Good.

[Jade Warshaw]

How can we help?

[Caller]

I'm calling. I'm. I'm struggling. I. Well, not really struggling, but after all, expenses and everything that's a necessity is paid. I have about 19, $102,000 left a month, and I just don't know where it's going. It seems like I just spend it.

[George Camel]

So. On paper. On paper, if you did what the paper said on what you spent, you'd have two grand. But you're saying it's disappearing, it's being spent?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Jade Warshaw]

Ah. Do you want to know what this is? A class. This is a classic case. You do what is called the treat yourself budget, which is I budget for all of the things that are, like, necessities. Like, I budget for my rent, my car payment, my groceries, you know, a couple of, you know, my cell phone bill. But everything else is up for grabs. And you treat yourself, and then next thing you know, you're like, where did all. Where did the money go? So does that sound about right?

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah, that does sound about right.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

Like, if you go to your. Your bank account statement will tell you, right? If you go to your bank account statement and you add up all the things that weren't the necessary expenses, it would easily tell you what's going on, Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

So what would you say are the top three things this money is disappearing to? Eating out. Are you sports betting?

[Caller]

Really?

[George Camel]

Gas station snacks?

[Caller]

Definitely. Gas station.

[George Camel]

Okay. I just guessed here a little there.

[Jade Warshaw]

What? You know what? I find that gas station snacks is a big thing like that seems to be a high ticket item here. I don't know what it is, but.

[George Camel]

I don't go in there. I'm. I'm too nervous.

[Jade Warshaw]

I don't go in the gas station to get food. There's two things that just shouldn't go together. I don't know. But anyway, do you have any other.

[George Camel]

Judging you are you like dip something, Something that you're spending vapes? I don't know.

[Caller]

No, I mean, I. I mean, I bought truck parts and different things. I mean, I dabble here and there's spending. You single usually? No, I got a girlfriend.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, well, that might be where some of it's going, I would think. Here's what I think you need to do. Okay, so a. I used to budget just like that. I was definitely the treat yourself budgeter who wanted to use the rest on, like it's up for grabs. That's the way I felt about your vegetables.

[George Camel]

All right. Yeah, get some dessert.

[Jade Warshaw]

But the truth is, when you treat your money like that, you'll look up 10 years from now and there's a lot of regret because you go, oh my gosh. So much money passed through my hands and I was not a good steward of it. As a matter of fact, for most people, think about it, if during your working years, Most people work 40 years, let's say you just make an average of $50,000 a year, that's over 2,000, that's over $2 million. That's going to pass through your hands. And if you take this portion of it and you just go up, it's up for grabs. I don't know what happened to it. You can't really call yourself a good steward of your money. And chances are you won't be prepared when the time comes to retire or buy a house or any of those things that, you know, we want to do to feel the success of our finances. So what I would suggest is a zero based budget, which is a form of budgeting that utilizes every single penny. And I just want to kind of clear up because a lot of people feel like budgets are kind of restraining. Right. Hayden and I have a feeling that you feel that way. Like you feel like a budget is something that's going to keep you from doing the things you want to do, when really it's the exact opposite. Because if you were to do a zero based budget, you'd not only be planning for those things like rent and car payments and keeping the lights on, but you'd also go through and say, wow, I have nineteen hundred dollars of margin. What is it that I want to do? Do I need to have a thousand dollars of savings? Do I need to build up a three to six months emergency fund? Is there debt I need to pay off? And if you've already accounted for those things, then you can say, okay, yeah, I want to spend a little bit on hunting and I want to spend a little bit on, I don't know, Wawa snacks. And so that's, that's the beauty of this is you get to decide. So let George and I help you decide. Do you have any debt?

[Caller]

I have a truck payment and then a boat payment.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, how much do you owe on the truck?

[Caller]

Around 34,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

And how much do you owe on the boat?

[Caller]

Around 12,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So that right there is a good indicator of what you should be using that margin for.

[George Camel]

What do you make a year?

[Caller]

Oh, last year I brought in around 80 grand, but this year I'm working full time and doing college, so it's dropped about 10, 15.

[George Camel]

So you're making about 65 grand?

[Caller]

Yeah, give or take.

[George Camel]

Okay. Man, you got a lot tied up in wheels and motors going down in value to be making 65 grand. Have you ever thought about selling these two items and getting something cheaper?

[Caller]

Well, the truck is what I use to make the money. Every day I drive for work. I do like hotshot.

[George Camel]

Can you get a cheaper truck to do this with? I don't think it's a $34,000 truck causing this.

[Caller]

Yeah, I probably could.

[George Camel]

I mean, if you had a $15,000 truck that was running great, could you do the same work and get paid the same?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

Okay, that tells me the truck was for you. And yes, you do use it for work. But you can also get a cheaper truck, get out of this debt, free up more margin, and I imagine you don't have a lot of time to be on the boat when you're working and a full time student.

[Caller]

Yeah, I do plan on selling the boat this upcoming spring.

[Jade Warshaw]

What can you get for it?

[Caller]

Oh, probably around 15.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

1450.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So that's another maybe $2,1500 that you could put towards this debt. What George and I are getting at is, and this is an, this is what Dave Ramsey would say, your biggest wealth building tool is your income. Right. And so good for you that you have $2,000 of margin every month. Bad for you that you have this debt because what are your payments on the truck in the boat?

[Caller]

Combined around 1300. I could refinance them, but I've just decided paying off.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think that's good. But think about if you had that $1300 back in your wallet plus the 2000. That's a lot of money. And so if we can get these things sold or paid off, that's really where you're going to see the ultimate potential with that money. And then we'd Be saying things like, hey, with this margin you could be investing 15% and hey, you could be doing. Do you see what I'm saying?

[George Camel]

Save up a down payment.

[Caller]

Well, my only problem with that is like my parents, which I just turned 20 and they're more like, don't sell the truck. The insurance is gonna. Blah, blah, blah.

[Jade Warshaw]

They're wrong.

[Caller]

Hey, it off.

[Jade Warshaw]

If you have a paid off vehicle, your insurance is going to be lower. If you have a used payoff paid off vehicle, your insurance is likely going to be lower than if you had something that's newer with payments. That's the truth.

[Caller]

That's what I thought. But yeah, I don't know, they just.

[George Camel]

Are they making the 1300 payments for you every month? No, they don't, they don't get a say in you getting rid of that payment because you're the one who has to pay it. Uh huh.

[Jade Warshaw]

Hey, the truth is with parents like they have, they have the best of intentions, but sometimes they, they only know what they know. And so a lot of times it's like they do it one way, so they pass that way on to you. And even though it's a good intention, it's not necessarily the right answer or the best way to do it. Does that make sense?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

And so I think from where you're sitting, you can just be like, okay, thanks. I. That's when you just do the smile and nod and you're like, oh, okay. And then you go into your life and you do the thing that you know how to do in your own life.

[George Camel]

You can be kind and respectful.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's right.

[George Camel]

Do you have any money, savings, Hayden?

[Caller]

My parents got around 30 grand for me. I got a. I had a problem with my arm in surgery, so I.

[George Camel]

Got a, A settlement.

[Caller]

A settlement coming in soon.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[George Camel]

And that'll be in your name? You said your parents have it for you.

[Caller]

Yeah, no, it'll be in my name.

[George Camel]

Okay, man, that, that'll set you up for sure.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. So if George and I were in your shoes. Yeah. That 30 grand, I'd keep it aside. Let's call that if you're selling this boat and if you're selling the truck or deciding to keep the truck.

[George Camel]

An emergency fund, plus some moving out money, plus some down payment money, that sets you up, man.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. I would definitely downsize this truck. I would not pay it off with what you're earning and what your life is. I downsize it. Yeah. This is the Ramsey show.

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[Jade Warshaw]

You're listening to the Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. I'm Jade Warshot. Next to me, George Camel taking calls all hour long about your life, your money. The number is Triple 882-55-5225. This is a live show so if you want to get in the conversation, all you have to do is call and we'll be there. All right, we've got Darren, he's in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What's going on, Darren?

[Caller]

Hey. I'm good. How are you guys?

[Jade Warshaw]

We're great.

[Caller]

Great. Thank you for taking my call. So what I'm curious to get your opinion on is whole life insurance. I know that Rams is pretty adamantly against it and prefers term life, but my question is do you have an opinion or knowledge on using it for infinite Banking? Specifically for business owner, a very brief backstory is I'm not a W2 employee. I own my own business. My wife and I are living and giving like no one else. We are so thankful to Ramsey Solutions for helping us get there and just setting the example of how to live and give for the Lord and yeah, and my business colleagues who I look up to are using the cash value in their whole life policy to continually borrow against to purchase real estate and grow their business. And I have never done that. We are a hard Dave Ramsey family so this would be a new venture for me. But I'm curious if you guys have any knowledge on that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Can I ask you what's, I mean you sound like a guy. Like you said, you've kind of listened and followed it and it's, it's worked for you to do Things the Ramsey way. What's causing you to change course and say, well, I want to borrow against a whole life policy?

[Caller]

That is a great question. And I'm unsure. And that's why I'm here, I think partially because I know what we are doing works. But if I could be doing something that is both giving my money interest monthly and I'm able to use that same money essentially to buy real estate and I'm able to deduct the interest paid, I guess, I don't know.

[George Camel]

Here's the truth. They're leveraging debt to do leverage real estate. And that's fine. It makes sense for almost nobody to do a whole life policy, especially as an investment tool. And think about this. Why would a whole life insurance salesman be pitching this as an investment tool to get you to buy their insurance? It's the only people who actually say it's a good product is the people who sell it, which should be a giant red flag.

[Jade Warshaw]

They're getting paid for it.

[George Camel]

And then your business buddies, they see these tiktoks and they're going, oh, my God. Gosh. They gave it a fancy name, Infinite Bank. It sounds cool, I will admit. Very intriguing name. All it means is yes. And there's a book, it's like, yes, I've heard of the book where they go, well, if you just read the book.

[Caller]

How to be your own banker.

[George Camel]

How to be your own banker. And the concept is you're going to borrow against the policy. The truth is you're taking a pause, a loan from the insurance company. Your cash value policy is collateral.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Camel]

So it's no different than taking out a HELOC against your house to go do real estate.

[Caller]

Well, it's against cash instead of against my whole equity.

[Jade Warshaw]

But it's still.

[George Camel]

But it's the same concept. It's going to have often variable interest rates. Sometimes the idea that you've got to have an interest rate low enough to even make the investment worth it, and you're adding a lot of risk and complexity to your life, all the while paying huge commissions for a low return product. And so here's what I would say. What is your goal? What are you trying to do? And let's figure out a better way to get there.

[Caller]

Sure. Well, for the record, we're buying an owner financing homes for $30,000 and less. Believe it or not, they do exist.

[George Camel]

And is that your business?

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Camel]

Okay. And so far you've done a cash.

[Caller]

Homes, almost 100% cash. We have a couple $30,000 loans on properties.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

On a five year term. That's why I did it, because it's five years and it's done.

[Jade Warshaw]

What's causing you to want to go different? Are you, are you trying to just do more at once and go faster?

[George Camel]

Are you looking to scale the business essentially and you're looking to debt to do it?

[Caller]

I'm looking to scale the business as debt free as I can. This has taken me from an opportunity to set up my family to really setting my, setting up my kids for their future. And all while providing people homes that they can own and have for their kids. I mean, everybody wins. It's just, do I want. Yeah, I struggle with taking out debt. I worked hard and everything's paid off. And I just thought this could be a potential opportunity, I guess. And I've had multiple, multiple guys that are very, very successful that use it. Here's the thing, that's what's confusing.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, here's the thing.

[George Camel]

People take out what caused their wealth though. They're using it knowing there's risk involved. They have a risk tolerance and they're going, I'm willing to take this gamble.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. People take out debt every day for businesses and some people do well and some people don't. I mean, that's just, just the truth. Somebody could pay cash for a business and that business could shut down. Right. Like the way you're doing it is not necessarily going to cause you to be successful or to be a failure. However, when you do add that element of, of debt, you are adding an element of risk. So if you are already likely to succeed, now you're stacking more chips against yourself. And if you were already likely to fail, then you're just going to fail harder. Does that make sense? Like, that's the way that I see it, really. Math and numbers kind of aside, I really just see it as adding risk. And do I need to add risk to an equation that was already working well for me? It was already building wealth for me. My answer would be no, I wouldn't do it.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

I think Dave Ramsey should write a new book called Be youe Own bank because Dave is actually his own bank. And he's done it debt free. And it wasn't a I'm trying to do a debt free. He just drew a line in the sand and said, I'm done. I'm going to build the business debt free. I'm going to build a real estate empire completely debt free. I'm going to move at the speed of cash. He could have moved A lot faster had he used debt. But he had tasted, you know, the fruit of that tree, and it did not taste good going through bankruptcy back in the 80s. And so I would caution you against it. You can do what you want. I'm wishing you the best either way. But you said you're a person of faith. I can't get this out of my head, Jade. The borrower, a slave to the lender. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle. Whoever gathers, little by little, will increase it. So I'm playing the tortoise on this one as a believer. And, Darren, I hope you do the same.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's a very good point. That's very good. Yeah. Business is risky as it is. Why add more risk?

[Caller]

That's.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's all I'm saying.

[George Camel]

Especially if I got a family now. It's like that adds a whole other piece to it. And so you can build generational wealth a whole lot of ways for your kids. I'm not doing it with a whole life policy.

[Jade Warshaw]

I mean, I. I just think about. Let's say. Let's say you've saved up.

[George Camel]

Let's.

[Jade Warshaw]

Let's play it on both ends. Let's say you've saved up, George, $60,000, and you're like, all right, I'm gonna go all in on this business idea that you feel that enough like your own cash that you're kind of sliding those chips in the center to go, okay, I'm going all in on this because, yeah, you can do your business plan and do everything, but sometimes businesses fail. Like, they don't perform the way you want, and you will be out that money, that cash that you had.

[George Camel]

Children recognize this. If. If a child works to make $10 to go spend a Chuck E. Cheese versus Mama Jade giving $10 to the kid and said, have fun. Oh, yeah, kids blowing that 10 bucks in five minutes.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, yeah.

[George Camel]

Coming back for more when you had to earn that $10, you're like Skee ball worth another dollar. I don't want to cash this in quite yet. You feel it because you've earned it.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's right. That's so true. That's so true. My. My son just started on commission in the house. He's six years old. And so it used to be you go to Target, we give him money if he wants Pokemon cards, but now he does his chores. And he. The first week, because his paydays on Saturday, the first week, he said, oh, I don't want to get paid. Just hold on to it for me.

[George Camel]

Because deferred comp is what he asked.

[Jade Warshaw]

Deferred comp. He was afraid he'd spend it. Then after four weeks, finally I was like, listen, like you, you can be trusted with this money. Like, you can give it, save it, spend it. And so he got paid. He got paid $10 for all of his chores. And so he's just. Now he's like, okay, I'm gonna go.

[George Camel]

And I'm more thoughtful.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I think I'm going to buy Pokemon. First you want to buy a fish tank, then you want to buy Pokemon cards. He's like, really thought opportunity cost. Yeah, it's, it's. And it's true. It's such a small way of thinking of it. But now he's thinking of all the options he has. He's not just going in on the first idea he, he, he heard. Because it's like, what if I get this and I don't like it? I spent my money on it.

[George Camel]

Gosh, I wish every American adult could have your 6 year old's wisdom. Because here's the thing, you turn 18 and they go, ah, just put it on the card.

[Jade Warshaw]

I know you don't even think about it.

[George Camel]

He lock. Let's infinite bank our way out of this. It's a different game when you go debt is not an option. And it leads you to be more thoughtful.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes.

[George Camel]

With way more peace.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes. Way thoughtful.

[George Camel]

Oh, my God, I will die on that hill.

[Jade Warshaw]

I will die on that hill too. I don't even con, George. I've been on this life for so long, I don't even consider that. Like, it doesn't even come into my brain as an option. Why would I do that to myself? All right, that doesn't provide for this hour. Thanks for hanging out with me, George. Thanks for everybody in the booth. We'll see you next hour. This is the Ramsey Show.

[George Camel]

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[Jade Warshaw]

The Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey show where we are taking calls about your life, your money. We're helping people build wealth, do work they love, and create amazing relationships. This is a live show, so if you want to get your call on the line, the number is 1-888-825-5225. I'm Jade Warshot. Next to me is, let's just say, my favorite host, George Camel.

[George Camel]

You say that to all of your hosts.

[Jade Warshaw]

You're right, I do. You're all my favorites. I love you guys. That's right. It's always a good time with George Camel in the chair next to me. All right, let's go to the phone lines. Morgan, Washington D.C. is on the line. What's up, Mark? Morgan?

[Caller]

Hey, guys.

[Jade Warshaw]

How are you?

[Caller]

I'm starstruck right now. I listen to the show every day.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, wow. It's exciting to talk to you, too. How can we help?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I am a federal employee. I'm an attorney at one of the government agencies, and I am considering taking Trump's buyout offer, and I need some help on how to decide. I'm 26. I was married. I just got married in August of 2024. I make about $190,000 a year, and I'm debt free.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

My husband make 190 a year. We're debt free.

[Jade Warshaw]

So get the listeners up to speed. For anyone who's not clear on what you mean by Trump's buyout, tell. Tell everybody what that is. Yeah.

[Caller]

So Trump is offering full pay and benefits through 30 September this year. But I'd have to stop working now. So the catch for me. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

[Jade Warshaw]

And this is in response to you either being a remote worker or fully in office, correct?

[Caller]

Yes. So I currently work two days in office and two days at home. And that's been able to be working for me right now because it's, you know, only two days. But I work. I live about 100 miles from the office.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, wow.

[Caller]

About two and a half hours. And I've actually got an apartment in Silver Springs, so we're floating two rents.

[Jade Warshaw]

Wow. So you drive in, stay for two days, two consecutive days, and then go home.

[Caller]

I do, and I do it because I really love my job. I can't really practice what I do anywhere else. I can practice it for the other side, but not for the government. So that's kind of my hesitation. I really love my job and I don't want to give it up, but my income as an attorney is a little bit more replaceable than my husband's.

[Jade Warshaw]

So the issue then isn't that you don't want to work from the office. The issue is if you were to move, it would put your husband's job. He. It put him right. Okay. Yeah. Right.

[Caller]

One of us would have to quit. So we're weighing whether it's him and he would be without income right away or it's me. And I've got kind of seven months of Runway.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you're at 190. When you said you can only do your type of lawyering there, what does that mean?

[Caller]

Yeah, So I work in Veterans Administration benefits.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

And so it's. It's only practice in one court. It can be practiced nationwide, but I can only practice it for the veterans instead of the government if I take, you know, to buy out and try to find a new job. And then there's a question of. I've never practiced that kind of law before. Well, I will. I like it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Sure.

[Caller]

You know, they have a different set of skills.

[Jade Warshaw]

What about your husband? What does he do and can he do it other places?

[Caller]

So he's in supply chain and logistics, which, you know, definitely can be practiced anywhere, but the federal government does most of the jobs in D.C. and there's a 90 day federal hiring free right now.

[Jade Warshaw]

And what's he make?

[Caller]

He makes about. With bonus, about 85,000.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. So his is the lesser of the two incomes. So just looking at this, like, pragmatically, just looking at the facts, it feels like his job would be easier to replace and it's less income to replace, whereas yours would be. There's only one place to practice it and do what it is that you do and you make a higher income. So based off of those two thoughts, it feels like going to D.C. would be a better choice. What does he think about that?

[Caller]

He's so supportive and wonderful. He's kind of willing to do whatever, you know, we kind of think is best. I guess my hesitation is eventually I Would like to maybe get to the point to hang like you, start my own practice. And so I would need some rehearsal at a different firm.

[Jade Warshaw]

Were you thinking that even before this Trump thing or did that just spark it up?

[Caller]

Yeah. So it might be kind of a golden opportunity to get out of the lease that I'm in in D.C. and then have.

[George Camel]

How easy is it to get out of the lease?

[Caller]

It's a 60 day notice to get out of the lease, month to month, thankfully.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, that's interesting.

[George Camel]

And from what I've read, there's not a lot we're not sure about the legal underpinning of this, if he can actually do this. So my fear is kind of what happened with student loan forgiveness is the student loan companies went, hey, Jade, here's a $20,000 check as a refund. And we're going to reinstate your student loan balance. Good luck with the government forgiving it. So my fear is they say this, you leave and then they don't actually make the payments. So do you have any. I may be wrong in this. Do you have any other information that would help solidify this decision?

[Caller]

I may only have assurances from the government.

[George Camel]

That's exactly my fear. Assurances from the government is enough to.

[Jade Warshaw]

Send that doesn't make me warm and fuzzy on the inside.

[George Camel]

So I think there is a lot of risk here. But if you're willing to handle that risk and go, listen, I'm going to land back on my feet. Worst case, I'll go find something else to do. We're okay financially. We're debt free. If you're in that position and you go about this like, hey, it's a new adventure. We're going to find something ASAP to replace the income and not just wait until September 30th to make a decision, then I would be okay with it.

[Jade Warshaw]

Do you have kids?

[Caller]

Yeah, no, we don't have kids. And kind of on the security front, we've actually been saving to buy a car in cash. So we've got our emergency fund plus the car cash fund. So I think together we've got about 40,000 cash tucked away, which, so, you know, it kind of adds that extra layer of security to maybe go out and try something new.

[Jade Warshaw]

Can you live on 85? Yeah.

[Caller]

So after, after retirement and everything, we bring home, like we see 76 or about. Yes, 7,600amonth. So, yeah, I think we can live on 85. That includes. That's before funding our Roth IRAs as well.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so what I think that I think what will give you a lot of peace if you decide to stay where you're at and start your own thing and keep your husband's job on. On. On the line. I would do an every dollar budget. If you don't have it, we'll make sure you have it and really play out. What would your budget be on? 85,000. And maybe there is a little bit of gap there that you have to fill in, and then you can come up with, okay, what's our plan going to be? Because we don't want to dip into emergency funds if we don't have to. Right. And then you can really put together a solid plan, and there will be less question marks in this whole thing. I kind of like the idea of you stepping out on your own. Not gonna lie. I'm always gonna. Almost always gonna vote that route, though.

[George Camel]

And generally, what we find as people leave the, you know, the government, public sector, they end up doing better in the private sector, especially if you're gonna start on your own or go work for a firm somewhere. I think in your line of work, you're gonna. You're not gonna have trouble finding it. And so that also gives me peace. I don't want to make this sound like carte blanche advice for anyone with a government job to do this, but in Morgan's situation, I mean, it sounds like you guys have thought through all of the. The different angles of this to go. We can make this happen, and it's gonna benefit us.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. It feels fortuitous that this happened to. To kind of get you thinking about your other options out there on your own, which is really very cool. That's kind of the same thing that happened to Sam and I during COVID Everything shut down during COVID And that's when I saw the email come through from Ramsey Solutions that said that they were hiring personalities.

[George Camel]

And it just felt like this fork in the road. Hey, if we're going to change up our life, the world's already in flux and chaos. Might as well.

[Jade Warshaw]

Might as well at least consider it. Like, I. I wasn't looking. But when something. When a great offer comes, and in her situation, her stepping on her own is a great offer, there's no real reason not to explore it further, you.

[George Camel]

Know, and we're so glad you did explore Jade, because you're here next to me on the Ramsey show, and we're best friends. Who would have thunk it? I love it.

[Jade Warshaw]

I love calling you my best friend. And then you just look at me.

[George Camel]

It feels good. I don't want to retort. I don't want to give you the response back, but it feels good to hear it. Let me say that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I'm glad that I could boost your self esteem on this, this Monday. All right. This is the Ramsey Show.

[Advertiser]

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[George Camel]

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

[Advertiser]

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[George Camel]

For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them.

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[George Camel]

They don't know what to do next.

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[George Camel]

That's exactly.

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[Jade Warshaw]

Hey, guys, Rachel Cruze here. All right, I'm about to say what.

[Caller]

Everyone already knows, but budgeting is a.

[Jade Warshaw]

Good thing to do now. Actually starting well, that's where people freeze up. And you guys, it doesn't have to be that way. With the EveryDollar budgeting app, getting started is super easy and so is sticking to it. You can set up your first budget in less time than it takes to go through the Chick Fil. A drive thru. It's fast. And the best part, with unlimited budget categories, you can customize it to fit your life. Grocery runs, coffee runs, or planning your next family trip, whatever you have going on. Everydollar helps you see exactly what's happening with your money. You'll know what's coming in, what's going out, and what's left over for some fun. Because let's be real, you need some fun in your budget. Everydollar keeps budgeting simple and stress Free, just the way you want it. So go download the app for free and get started today again, go download everydollar today. You're listening to the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, George Camel. We're taking your calls, your life, your money, your relationships, your career, all of it. Your budget. Yeah, that's a big one. All right, let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Seth. He's in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Seth?

[George Camel]

Yeah, hi there.

[Caller]

Thanks for taking my call. Big fan. First time caller. I am 45 years old. I have about 690,000 in my 401k and I owe about 460,000 in my house. Would like to considering paying off the mortgage, living life completely debt free, and then reinvesting the monthly mortgage payment into mutual funds, stocks, IRAs, along those lines. I know the taxes and fees are significant, but so is living life debt free without a mortgage payment. So I wanted to hear your thoughts.

[Jade Warshaw]

So you're talking about taking the money out of your 401k at a penalty to do that?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh, no, I definitely wouldn't do that. Why are you feeling. Why are you feeling the rush? Tell us more.

[Caller]

I think I'd just like to not have the mortgage payment there and be able to have the freedom to do more investing with the. With the same money every month?

[Jade Warshaw]

Essentially, yes, yes, but you're taking. I mean, I have not run the numbers on this. But you would be taking such a hit, plus the penalty and that time, that, that amount of money over time, what it could have been versus you investing just your mortgage payment. Does that make sense? I'm thinking about that. Tell me, have you run like, tell me about the numbers you've run or is this just a piece play?

[Caller]

No, I've, I've kind of run them a little bit. I ran them by my tax accountant. She said it would cost me probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about another 50 grand maybe to pay off the taxes and fees, penalties involved. So we'd have to take out probably somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe she's.

[Jade Warshaw]

Not thinking about opportunity costs of that money, the growth of that money over time.

[George Camel]

Have you plugged that into an investment calculator to see what half a million left alone. If you don't add anything to it for the next 20 years, from 45 to 65, what that'll amount to.

[Jade Warshaw]

I'll do it.

[George Camel]

Jade's gonna crunch the numbers. Let me talk to you while she's doing that. I want to Talk about this mortgage. It sounds to me like maybe you bit off more house than you could chew. Is this mortgage payment a big chunk of your take home pay?

[Caller]

Take homes about 11 and the mortgage payments about three.

[George Camel]

So, okay, reasonable. We recommend 25%. You're a little above that, but nothing's on fire. Why not just chip away at it every single month with as much as you can throw? So if you're investing 15% of your income to retirement, how much extra could you throw at the mortgage?

[Caller]

That's a good question. Yeah, maybe a few hundred.

[George Camel]

Only a few hundred bucks is the margin you have on 11 grand.

[Caller]

Well, there's a lot of things in the budget, and I have four kids, a couple of them starting college fairly soon, so I'm doing some saving on that side of the things.

[George Camel]

Okay, are you helping them? Cash flow, College?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

Okay, when will that end? That's the season of trying to get through the kids through college.

[Caller]

Well, I've got one who's in now and he's got probably three years left. And then I've got a 14 year old who will probably start in four years. So we're probably nine or so years away from that.

[George Camel]

Okay, and have you been investing money into a 529 or is this just straight savings and cash flowing payments from each paycheck?

[Caller]

Yep, just serving where we can as we can into more of a traditional savings.

[Jade Warshaw]

Can I jump back real quick? Seth, you may have said this, but let's pretend that you did your deal and you took this money, paid off your house. How much would you be investing every month at that point? Because I just want to line this up for you.

[Caller]

Probably some in the neighborhood of the 3,000, I would think. Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so let's just run this comparison side by side. If you were to keep the money where you have it and put 1500 aside every month, you'd end up with around 4.5 million. Right. If you were in that account, if you were to drop it down to zero and just say, I'm going to invest 3, $3,000 for the next. The same, the same term, 10 years, at the same rate of return, it would be 2 million, 2.2. You see what I'm saying? So that's a big. That's a big drop off.

[Caller]

Big difference. Yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

So I hope that kind of mathematically frames up the equation here.

[George Camel]

I think you've got good intentions and heart behind it. You're not trying to do something frivolous or stupid. But nothing is worth giving the government an extra 35% of my retirement and unplugging all that growth just to have a paid for house. And trust me, I want you to have a paid for house. But I would find other ways to do it with future income savings, anything else you can do, and you're going to make more money over time. The kids will get through college and so you'll be in a season where you can throw a few grand out of your 11k, take home, pay toward the mortgage and get this thing knocked out. So what I would do is sit down. You have a wife?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

I would sit down with her and go, hey, we want to pay this thing off. Let's have a six year, seven year, eight year plan to get rid of this mortgage. Here's what that looks like. And year one might be slim because the kids are going through college. Year four, maybe we're putting away 50 grand a year at the mortgage, maybe more. So I use our mortgage payoff calculator and start crunching the numbers. That's the tool I would rather you use to figure this out versus looking to the 401k or any other retirement plan. And as a reminder for anyone out there, if you withdraw funds in most cases before 59 and a half from these retirement accounts, the IRA, the 401k, you will be dinged with a 10% early withdrawal penalty on top of the full income taxes, maybe state income tax as well. So I, you know, just cross opportunity cost. You could lose half your money from this retirement account. You pull out 200, you pay 100. I would say that was a bad trade.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, that's not good. That's not good. So listen, he's trying to solve for peace. I get what he's trying to do, but it just was the wrong, the wrong method. Thanks for the call. All right, let's see if we can take care of Chris in Boston. Real quick. Chris from Boston, Massachusetts. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey guys. Thank you for taking my call.

[Jade Warshaw]

You bet.

[Caller]

So I guess the quick of it is about a year ago I got an inheritance about $350,000 and I fell in love with it. But I don't know if that's the best use for some of that money I'm looking at the payments per month is about 3,000 and it's just a scary number to look at. And I'm not sure if that's the best place to put it right now or if I should keep it invested.

[George Camel]

We. You broke up on us when you were telling us. What did you fall in love with.

[Caller]

This condo I found just outside of Boston.

[George Camel]

What's it cost?

[Caller]

I don't know if I should. Outside of Boston, Massachusetts?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

What does it cost?

[Caller]

$300,000?

[Jade Warshaw]

350. So you would essentially use the. Would you use the whole inheritance to pay for it in cash?

[Caller]

Well, that's the thing. I don't know if I should use the whole thing because it's all invested in mutual funds and ETFs right now. But I don't know if that's the. If it's better to not have a mortgage payment or if it's better to just put the 20% down and try to go just off of what I make.

[Jade Warshaw]

What's the rest of your. What's the rest of your financial snapshot? Do you have any debt?

[Caller]

I've got 13,000 left on student loans and about 8,000 left on a car.

[Jade Warshaw]

And do you have three to six months of expenses?

[Caller]

Yes, I. Right now I've got about 35,000 saved up.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so just walking through the baby steps with this would be you paying off the debt first, clearing that out, stacking up three to six months. And then with this condo, I mean, you're going to be. There's going to be some tax implications, I'm sure, on the growth. And when you pull that out and then see there's probably going to be some fees, so you could get pretty darn close. What's your living situation now?

[Caller]

So. Right. I moved back with my parents just to save some money so I could stay here for, I mean, a couple more years, but it'd be nice to kind of be out on my own again.

[George Camel]

Yeah. Who left the inheritance?

[Caller]

It was my uncle. He had passed away a few years ago and left to just myself and my sister.

[George Camel]

Wow. Quite the legacy. That's impressive.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[George Camel]

I'm with Jade on this. You take your 35 savings, let's knock out the student loan and the car loan today. That leaves you with 14 grand. Sell off a big portion of this inheritance and be aware of the tax implications of that. I would check into that with the Tax pro and whatever you can throw at the condo, I would throw at it to get to as completely debt free as possible. Because then what's going to happen, Chris? You're going to have a mortgage payment freed up that you could then invest. And so either way you can crunch the numbers and do the math all day. I think the freedom and peace that will come with not having a mortgage payment at your age. Dude, you're going to Be so unbelievably wealthy if you just use your income to throw into investments, then on and.

[Jade Warshaw]

Therefore, two calls in a row where people are trying to buy their homes completely outright. I love that. To have no mortgage payment. Come on, speak to that. George.

[George Camel]

Ultimate flex in today's world, I think is having no mortgage payment and telling your friend, oh, you got to 2% mortgage interest rate. How about 0% with no payment? That's what I'm signing up for.

[Jade Warshaw]

Mic drop. Listen, I'm getting there. George, let's go.

[George Camel]

And Jake, let's go.

[Jade Warshaw]

This is the Ramsey Show.

[George Camel]

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[Jade Warshaw]

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[George Camel]

Today's question comes from Amy in South Carolina. We saw a financial advisor recently who recommended putting part of my husband's 401k into an annuity. He recommended this so we do not lose money and my husband would be able to draw up to 8% during a seven year period. I would assume you do not think this is a good idea. Correct. But we do not understand stocks or mutual funds at all. Tells me your financial advisor is not a great educator. He is 65, his health is failing and he's afraid that there if there's a dip in the stock market, something happens to him, he will not leave me with much. Can you advise as to what we should do with his 401k to secure it better? Okay, number one, fire your financial advisor yesterday. This person is an insurance salesman, not a wealth strategist who exists to help you understand what you're investing in.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, a financial planner who's advising an annuity that's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I feel like.

[George Camel]

Oh, yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the different pieces of this. So an annuity is a contract with an insurance company with a promise of a stream of income. And so who do they prey on for this? People who are scared. Annuities prey on fears of market risks under the guise of protecting your nest egg. But it's less like a bank vault and it's more like a prison that you're paying to be in. Annuities are very expensive, complicated products. There's fixed annuity, variable annuity, indexed annuities. And I've talked with Dave about this offline and he said, hey, the only one that we would be okay with in very unique circumstances is variable annuities. And that's only for the ultra wealthy who are trying to diversify their risk. But for this situation, this person is saying, I'm not making money from you investing in your 401k, but I can make money if I use some of that money for an annuity and I can get a commission off of that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, I was going to say there's fees associated with that. And the rate of return is so poor.

[George Camel]

Terrible rates of return. You can do way better investing on your own. And that's where you need education on stock markets and mutual funds and index funds. Because here's the deal. If you make 8% on an annuity, you think I'm crushing it. The s and P500, the overall US stock market did 24% last year.

[Jade Warshaw]

Let's go.

[George Camel]

And you're gonna go, why is my portfolio not making that much? Well, it's because you have crappy investments in there.

[Jade Warshaw]

But even over time, let's say, you know, obviously this year, the year before, those were just like, really benchmark, like amazing years.

[George Camel]

It could be negative 24 this year for all.

[Jade Warshaw]

Sure. But even over time, you're gonna find that if you're, you're invested over time, you're gonna still be around 10 to 12% if you're invested in good mutual funds. So what's wrong with keeping it where it is? I'd be interested. George. She doesn't say how well their, their performance has been in his current.

[George Camel]

Yeah, we don't know what's in here. We don't know if there's. Hopefully there's term life insurance. I, I have a feeling there isn't because she's saying his health is failing. He's afraid that, you know, he won't leave me with much. This is where term life could be a game changer. On top of getting self insured, which means from, you know.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

In your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, you're following the baby steps. Getting rid of debt, investing for the future, getting the house paid off to. When you're 65, you should have a sizable nest egg there. I don't know their situation where they're at, but. No, the financial advisor is screwing you over here. I would fire them. I would Jump on Ramsey Solutions.com, click on Trusted pros, find someone you can trust who's not going to sell you crappy products that you don't need.

[Jade Warshaw]

And let's talk about this angle real quick, because when I see this, and I don't know, I'm reading this in into it, when I see this, I see a couple who's probably been married forever and they're facing a health crisis and it's scary and it's easy to kind of panic and go, what do we need to do? And do this and do that. And it's quite possible that someone is taking advantage of that. Oh, you need something to do, here's what you do. You know what I mean? And so it's just a reminder. And she did the right thing by asking the experts, but it's just a reminder that, you know, move slowly when you do, when you're going to make big moves with your money, make sure you're seeking wise counsel, that you're not doing things out of fear and out of the circumstance in the moment, but you're really getting the right information.

[George Camel]

Yeah, it's very sus. And here's how you know it's us. These are the same people that always send you those flyers in the mail. That's like, we have a free dinner for you at this steakhouse and all you need to do is sit through a little presentation at the end. These are pitching annuities.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[George Camel]

So if you've got one of those in the mail, it's. It's not unlike timeshare presentations.

[Jade Warshaw]

True that.

[George Camel]

Where it's like, hey, I get it. We got a free steak dinner. We'll listen to the pitch while we eat. And all of a sudden they do 12 people out of fear into buying into these annuities. So.

[Jade Warshaw]

And the dinner is not very good.

[George Camel]

Yeah, you can do better. All right, one cocktail. Come on, let's go to the phones.

[Jade Warshaw]

We've got Wade in Salt Lake City, Utah. What's up, Wade?

[Caller]

Good afternoon. I'm looking to protect a home for my wife and it requires a little bit of explanation, so if you could bear with me for just a moment.

[George Camel]

Sure.

[Caller]

After a loss of a business and our home back in 2003, my father in law graciously acquired a home for us to live in with us, making the payment amount to him as rent. But eventually, because of Parkinson's, I was forced to retire in 2019. And I had only worked about six years for an employer where money was set aside in a 401k. Prior to that, it was all self employment. But along the way we managed to clear most debts. But we fell behind in rent to my father in law due to some smaller payments than agreed upon, or at times no payment at all. In 2024, I pulled about half of that 401k out to catch up a little with my father in law. And he recently proposed that if we could arrange a second similar amount, he would be able to finish paying off the house and he would then relabel our arrangement as a rent to own agreement. That was fulfilled and he would sign the house over to my wife.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, what does it Cost. What do you have to give him for that to happen?

[Caller]

I took the second half of my 401k, was only about $40,000 at that point. After the COVID period and stuff, it took its toll and it was. It was meager. And so I. I took the rest of. A couple of weeks ago, I drained that last part of my 401k and gave that to him. I felt that was in exchange for a house that was a good investment.

[Jade Warshaw]

Is. Is that the amount that your father requested? 40,000. Or was that all you could give? How much did your father say he needed to close this deal?

[Caller]

That was that. No, that was what he. He asked for. It was. I had taken out half in 2024. And he told me if I could give that same amount to him again one more time, then he would consider things fulfilled.

[George Camel]

And how old are you, Wade?

[Caller]

I am 61.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so you gave him the money, and he should have been able to pay off the mortgage and sign it over to you. What happened instead?

[Caller]

Well, here's the thing. In addition to progression of my Parkinson's, I've had one kidney removed due to cancer, and my remaining kidney is failing, as is my liver. And I worry that I may find myself faced with a transplant procedure or worse, that it won't happen until after my wife has to retire, and that our insurance will be limited to Medicare only at that point. So I'm a person who likes a plan B, C and D. And before my father in law signs that house over, I'm concerned about how to protect it for my wife. I have nothing to leave her except to leave her debt free and a little bit of life insurance.

[George Camel]

Are you saying there's collectors coming after you guys?

[Caller]

No, no. But what I'm worried about is that in if this home is in her name only, which it will be as I undergo future medical procedures.

[Jade Warshaw]

I see what you're saying.

[George Camel]

Against the clock.

[Jade Warshaw]

He's concerned that if they rack up debt for his medical, that it'll go against the house.

[George Camel]

I would look into a homestead exemption and I would talk to an attorney in your area who knows your state laws because it differs wildly. And I'm not here to give you legal advice on that, but we are wishing you the best, Wade. It's a lot. And I don't want your father in law taking advantage of you. It's giving me some red flags. I would proceed with caution.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yes. This is the Ramsey Show. Best of luck to you, Wade.

[Advertiser]

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[Jade Warshaw]

You're listening to the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is George Camel, host of the George Camel YouTube channel. If you've never seen it, you ought to check it out. It's part of the Ramsey Network. If you didn't know, we do have a Ramsey Network app. It's the only place that you can get full episodes of shows like the Ramsey Show. You can download it for free using the link in the show notes or by searching Ramsey Network in your app store. That's how you get the third hour of the show. The full show is there, but if you want to listen to the third hour, you must go into the app. So if you're on the radio, stay tuned after this hour. But everyone else, if you want to finish the show, you'll have to go into the app. All right.

[George Camel]

Into the unknown.

[Jade Warshaw]

I was just thinking that knew you were. And I considered it. And then I was like, those notes are high.

[George Camel]

I'm actually shocked you didn't belt it out on radio.

[Jade Warshaw]

Into the unknown. No, I won't do it.

[George Camel]

And the FCC just took us down.

[Jade Warshaw]

I know what they did. All right. Reagan is in Chattanooga, Tennessee. What's up, Reagan? Hi.

[Caller]

Can you hear me?

[Jade Warshaw]

We can.

[Caller]

Okay. So my husband and I have been married for almost a year and we just found out that we are pregnant. Very unexpected. Thank you. So I kind of have a two part question. My first question is what do we need to do financially to prepare for the baby in the next nine months? And also should I quit school in order to be able to work full time? I'm currently in grad school and I'm working in the evenings. I didn't take any loans to do grad school, but I am. Most of it is being paid for by my university and then I only owe like a couple hundred dollars. I will owe only a couple hundred dollars at the end of the semester. So I'm just trying to get some advice on that.

[Jade Warshaw]

That's awesome. So what are you going to school for?

[Caller]

So my, I'm getting my master's in Bible and theology. I. Up until this point I've been thinking that I want to teach. I don't know if I'd want to teach like higher ed or like junior seniors in high school and just start teaching with kind of a higher paying salary. But I also don't know with the baby if I want to stay at home. So that's part of my contention with, you know, should I keep going if when the baby comes I'm like, no, I really want to stay at home. So yeah.

[Jade Warshaw]

So what would you do? Okay, so if you didn't go to school, it wouldn't be you doing a different career, would just be you should staying at home. What does your husband do?

[Caller]

So that's kind of been a rocky situation over the past couple of months. He left his full time job. He was a director of soccer operations for a local pro soccer team. And it was just a really bad situation. He was like just being treated pretty rough and was not being compensated for it either. So he left in November. He started coaching at a local high school. It's like a private Christian school. And they had told him in his initial interview, like, since you're going to be a head coach, we want you to be on staff full time. We just don't know what that will look like yet. So at the moment, well, ever since then we've been getting kind of stipend money, but we've kind of been struggling because you've been waiting on the full time thing to come and so what's.

[Jade Warshaw]

Your plan on it? How long are you guys gonna wait?

[Caller]

Well, so he just actually got a job because he had been looking for anything after probably a month. It was kind of like, okay, we kind of, we can't really sit around at this point. So he'd been looking for anything, but there he wasn't having much luck. So he just picked up a serving job just to like bring in some money. Okay. So we're kind of just like bare bones at the moment. But December, we got a ton of money for Christmas. We are very blessed with our families. They helped us a lot. And then for the next few months we actually, with rent are getting help from our church.

[Jade Warshaw]

Oh. So it's really, really tight. It's really tight. If you're getting.

[George Camel]

Yeah, you need to get out of school and work because your family needs you to. And this is regardless of the baby situation. I'm going, hey, this is an emergency.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, it's an emergency. Your husband needs to work more. You've got to work more. And I wish it were different, because on the flip side of this, like, if your husband was getting paid and his income was enough to sustain you, I would actually have asked you how much longer until you're done with school? Because part of me. If you're like, listen, I have this dream of getting this master's. I want to be a teacher. There's seasons in life. And so you might want that education for later on after your kids are in high school and you want to go back to work. Right. So there's part of me that's like, you have a really great deal now where they're paying, and you're only paying a couple hundred dollars. If you could take advantage of that, I think that's a great thing. But to George's point, you guys can't eat. Like, there's no money coming in.

[Caller]

Yeah, well. Well, I am working at night, so that.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, but you just laid out the whole financial framework. Obviously, whatever you're bringing in at night, thank you for your effort, but it's not. It's not causing you guys to make ends meet. You know what I'm saying?

[George Camel]

So what are your total bills each month? Food, rent, everything.

[Caller]

Yeah, so our. Our food is. I've been trying to stay under.

[George Camel]

Just give me a total monthly number. What is a total? Like, you. Are you spending four grand a month in expenses?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Caller]

So our.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah.

[Caller]

To meet, like, minimum. And I know what you're gonna say. We have not been having insurance. I am adding that, though, because of the baby. So I kind of just. In our budget included an extra $200, because he also will need. He needs vision insurance really bad. So it's. Our, like, break even is about 4300.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[George Camel]

And you're getting just gifted money now, but what is the actual money you guys are bringing in? A few hundred bucks.

[Caller]

So I bring in about two grand. Just serving at nights. I work five days a week. The restaurant's only open five days a week. And then because of the stipend, money we've been getting really been about, like, kind of 3,500. Because he's been also subbing a little bit at the school just over the past couple months.

Okay.

[George Camel]

And you said you guys do not have health insurance currently?

[Caller]

Not the moment, but I'm visiting my family right now, and my mom and I are working on that tonight because we know it is a necessity.

[Jade Warshaw]

Let me just. Let me Just poke a quick hole. I think you said your husband is bringing in 3, 500 and you're bringing in 2,000. That would be enough to cover your bills. So. Something's not right.

[Caller]

I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I meant, I didn't say that right. I meant probably like 1500.

[George Camel]

His portion is 15, bringing the total to 35, which means you guys are underwater every month by about 800 bucks.

[Jade Warshaw]

I see, I see. Okay. Yeah, this is. Is he working 40 hours doing whatever?

[Caller]

Not at the moment.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. He's got to start working 40 hours today. I'm talking about today.

[George Camel]

I needed some fire under his butt. I know he's been through a lot. He's been treated unfairly. But right now it's like, I got to provide for my family and I got a kid, I got a baby on the way. It's time to just do whatever it takes. And he needs to find long term employment ASAP with benefits if you're going to stay home. And so staying home is a. It's a math equation. I wish I could just say, well, you just. If you want to stay home, just.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, it.

[George Camel]

It's going to cost you guys. And if he can't provide and you're going to go into debt to do this, the answer is no.

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah. Do you guys have debt now?

[Caller]

Oh, yeah.

[George Camel]

Okay, what's the total debt load?

[Caller]

Total is about like 110.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay. And is that including your renters, Right. Or do you own.

[Caller]

Sorry, can you say that again?

[Jade Warshaw]

Are you renters or do you own?

[Caller]

Yeah, no, we're. We're renting an apartment.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay, so what kind of Debt is the 110? Real quick.

[Caller]

So our cards are. Credit cards are about almost 14,000. A little under his car. My car's paid off. His car is almost. Also 14,000. And then we have 85,000 in student loans, but we are on the safe plan.

[Jade Warshaw]

Okay.

[Caller]

So. And since I went back to school, I haven't. They put mine on pause. I haven't been paying. But his payment is only like 25amonth, right?

[Jade Warshaw]

Yeah, that's a. That's the weird thing about those student loans. The payments are low, but it's a boogeyman in the cop in the closet. And you feel the effects of it, even though you're not making that monthly payment. And the piper wants to still be paid. Okay. So my advice is you've got to work, work, work and work some more. He's got to work and work some more. And yeah, I would try to work and go to school because you need a degree so that you can get this professor's job so that you can make some money. I don't see you staying home with the baby anytime in the new near future. I wish it were different.

[George Camel]

Hang on the line. We're going to send you every dollar premium. That's our budgeting app that you can use for everyone else. Go check it out in the App store. It's going to help you get a plan for every single one of those dollars coming in.