How to Escape Living Paycheck to Paycheck
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Camel, number one best-selling author, host of The George Camel Show on YouTube. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Tony is in Chicago. Hi, Tony. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, so I manage a special needs trust for my mother, who's 67.

And currently the money in that account is about $170,000 and it's all sitting in cash. And I got a call from the bank today asking if I...

They kind of encourage me to invest it in different ways. And I recently saw a video of you talking about the risks of bonds, and I wanted to call and ask your opinion on how I should best feel about this. Yeah, I would not do any bonds for sure. Your mom is in a special needs trust? What's her issue? She has multiple sclerosis, has had it for 30 years, and is in a nursing home. Oh, wow. Okay.

And the $170,000 is all the money she has in the world? Plus about $10,000 in checking account, but yes. Okay. That's it. All right. And how much are you using? Is there a burn rate on it? Are you using it for her care? I have not touched a cent of it in the few years it's been active, well, since I established it. How is she being cared for? Medicare, Medicaid. Okay. All right. Cool.

All right. So to the extent we can leave it alone, we can invest it in something that has a longer time horizon to be safe. So just like a good growth stock mutual fund, if you leave that alone five years, you're pretty safe. Okay. So I certainly wouldn't put all of it there. I'd be looking for a mix between high yield savings for...

a big chunk of this. And then the other chunk, I might do something as simple as an S&P 500 or sit down with a smart investor pro and just pick out some very, very calm growth and income type funds. But all of those funds would be, you know, in the last year, they would have paid 20%. But the last year, the market was up 30, which is crazy. That's not normal.

But in an average, they would probably pay out $10 where the market's paying out $12 where a high-yield savings is paying out $4. So, you know, I'm going to invest some of it, not all of it. I'm going to invest some of it, not all of it to the extent I'm comfortable I can leave my hands off of it. Okay. What does the next one to two years look like as far as short-term costs?

I really don't know how to answer that question. I don't foresee any major costs. But, you know, for example, she just had a bunch of dental work done that wasn't covered. But we were able to pay that without having to dip into this special needs trust. So things like that maybe, but otherwise I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, I mean, if it was me, I'd probably put in like $100 in some mutual funds with a SmartVestor Pro.

that have a very low volatility, very calm funds. Okay. And then I'm going to put the other like 70 into just high yield savings, but that will at least change your income instead of making a $4,000 on that a hundred, you might make $12,000 on that a hundred, that kind of thing. Okay.

I understand. Okay. Outstanding. But you want to be able to access it when she needs it because that's the primary thing it's for. So, yeah, click on at Ramsey Solutions. Just click on SmartVestor Pro and find one near you that you like and sit down with them, and they can teach you some things you can do. Bryce is in Dallas. Hey, Bryce, what's up? Hey, Guy. Thank you so much for answering my call. Sure. How can we help?

Well, I ran into a recent situation. Let me just get into it. But basically, I've driven a 2018 Ford F-150 for about seven years. We ran into an engine issue to where the second cylinder within the engine busted. After taking it to two mechanics, I got the same verdict that it's going to cost about $15,000. It's going to require a whole brand new engine replacement. And so just considering my options, these two top things have been entering my mind, either one...

One, I paid $15,000 to go ahead and get the engine replaced. This is an F-150 that has about 127,000 miles on it. Or I can go toward

getting a new vehicle. Uh, and the one that I'm currently, let me, maybe I have a lot of numbers that I've just been working through, but let me just give some details, but it's the exact same vehicle, exact same model. The only difference is it's a brand new year. Um, considering the down payment that I would make and the vehicle trade in value that I got from a dealership, um, comes out to about $25,000 going in, uh, the vehicle price on it is quoted at is about $40,000. Um,

And the current APR rate is 1.9% over 60 months. So ballpark, that's $15,000. You want to go buy a brand-new truck? Is that what you said? Yeah. I'm considering either buying a brand-new truck versus getting into it. You're broke. You don't go buy a brand-new truck when you're broke. No. Okay. Okay. This 2018, if it was running, is worth what? 2018, I mean, if it was worth running, I mean, it's –

If it was running, it's $10,000, $11,000 ballpark. Yeah. So that's what you get. You get a $20,000 or $10,000 truck. You got notes on this truck, right? Before it paid off. Okay. And so you want to use this as an excuse to do something stupid and go in debt and buy a truck you can't afford. No. How much money do you have saved up? About $20,000 saved up. And what's your income? $95,000 a year. Okay. Yeah.

And that $20,000 you have saved, does that include your emergency fund, or is this just your car savings fund is $20,000? That's emergency fund, $20,000. Okay. Buying a new car is not an emergency, honey, by definition. It's a Bryce wants a new truck is what this is. That is true. There's no emergency here. All right. So let's backtrack a little bit. If you get a different car, you need to get about a $10,000 car.

that you can pay cash for. Okay? Okay. That's the wise thing to do in your situation because car payments are a mathematical ball and chain that will 100% cause you to not build wealth and stay middle class the rest of your life. If you invest into a good mutual fund, what you were getting ready to put into that truck, you'll be wealthy.

Okay. That's what I want you to do. And I'm not against truck. I got a nice truck. I drove a nice truck to work today. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's not the point. Now let's backtrack on one other thing too. $15,000 for a new engine in that truck is as a nine. Somebody's running you up a flag.

So you need to look at a couple of other things. Number one, I want you to hit two more good mechanics, and I want you to consider two possibilities to fix the truck before you make the decision to get rid of it. Number one possibility is buy a salvage engine from a junkyard on a truck that was totaled, but the engine's perfect.

and the engine has 10,000, 15,000 miles on it, and you can buy that for pennies of what you're talking about, or do something like a factory-rebuilt motor, not a brand-new motor like a Jasper brand. As an example, they rebuild them, and it's half of what you're talking about. So you do not need a brand-new engine in a 2018. That's asinine fix. That's a bad repair. So you need a used engine or a rebuilt engine in a 2018. Then you decide if you're going to keep it or not.

No new trucks, Bryce, if you want to be rich. This is the Ramsey Show. You know, I love when I get to talk about this each year during the holidays. As in years past, this December, Zander is donating 25% of all ID theft protection sales to Team Rubicon, an amazing veteran-led disaster relief organization that brings assistance across the country after major disasters and storms.

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Bill? Hello, Bill. Hey, how are you? How can we help? I'm good. How are you? Good. How can we help today, sir? All right. So my wife and I combined, we make about $500,000 to $600,000 a year. But we still somehow are unable to save as much as I believe we should save.

So, you know, so that's my problem. I mean, our monthly expenses are about $30,000 a month. And, you know, then add taxes to that. So we pretty much even out every year. And I believe when we make $500,000 to $600,000 a year, we should be able to save more. I would agree. I think the $30,000 a month expense is your clue. How much of that is debt payments?

Well, it's on two properties. One is primary residence and one is an investment property. And the debt payments on the mortgage are added to about $12,000 a month. Why do you need $18,000 a month to run your household? Well, about $8,000 to $9,000 go to charity. Okay.

for a good cause. And then the rest, like I would say about $10,000 is for groceries, utilities, for the car payment, and a little bit for, you know, towards... Why do you have car payments when you make $600,000 a year? Say that again? Why would you have a car payment when you make $600,000 a year?

Well, one of the cars is paid off, or the other one is a lease, so we make about $750 a month for that one. We have a bigger family, five people, so it's a relatively bigger SUV. Well, which you could have written a check and purchased and should have instead of leasing and renting your car for $700 a month. Okay. So, yeah, you're giving away $100,000 a year in that $30,000 a month budget. You said $8,000 to $10,000. Yes.

So there's where $100,000 of it goes, right? Yeah, easy. Yeah, it could be more than that, $100,000 to $120,000, yeah. Okay. And you've got a car payment. Yes. Which we would not have. And what do you guys do for a living?

I own a business, and my wife works with a company. She makes about $100,000, and the rest is my income, and I own a service-based business. Okay. All right. The way you're discussing this, the language you're using is very general, right?

It's not precise about the numbers, which tells me you're kind of just throwing this over there and just shocked that it disappeared. So if I woke up in your shoes, you've got a level of disgust, says this is not okay, is what you're saying. We make this kind of money. We shouldn't have no money. We shouldn't have a car payment. When we make 600 grand, we should have just bought the car. Then what I would do is simply...

do a detailed budget with your spouse and come into agreement of what we want to give, what we want to save, and what we want to spend and what we want to spend it on. And every month before the month begins, every dollar has an assignment exactly. But it kind of feels like, Bill, I went through a period of time in my life where I thought I could out-earn my stupidity, my lack of organization, my lack of detail, and you can't.

If you had a person working in your business that was managing a section of your business as poorly as you are managing your finances, you would fire them for incompetence. And so you got to kind of treat it that way from an emotional standpoint and do a detailed budget. And it's funny, Dave, as people make more, especially people who are good at making money, like...

Bill's good at making money. You're good at making money. You think you can just solve the problem by, well, I'll just make more money. As long as we don't overdraft, we're doing okay. But when you do that budget, you realize if this was a business, you go, we are wasting a lot of money in this business. We could be doing a lot better if we cut the spending, get out of this debt. We might need to sell this investment property. It's not a blessing right now. Might need to downshift some of our giving a little bit until we get back on track.

So that's the kinds of things the levers you'd be pulling if this was a business. You need to treat your household the same way. You need to detail it out and then stick to it. And both of you, you and your wife, have an agreement. You're both looking at it. You're not bringing it in, slapping it down on the table and declaring, I have done a budget. You people will live on it. That won't work.

Now you get your wife involved in the disgust. It's not okay that we make this much money and we have no money. It's not okay that we make this much money and we don't invest. So generosity is awesome. Investing is amazing. Enjoying money, yes, you should. All three things. But very, very, very, very, very, very intentional. And right now you're not intentional.

You're kind of throwing a bale of dollars over the fence and then coming back to see what's left later and after the family devours it. And so it may be you downshift your giving. Your giving is pretty heavy. I'm not against generosity in any form.

Tell folks to do it all the time. But if you're doing zero investing and you're giving 20%, you may need to adjust that, at least temporarily. But I think you got some lifestyle issues, and I think you guys just kind of walk around and do whatever you want because you make enough money. And I think if you'll just actually pay attention and say, no, we're not doing that.

No, that's crazy. We're spending what on that? Yeah, and you start actually telling the money what to do. You'll very naturally tighten this up a little bit. Dane is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Dane. How are you? Hey, I'm doing good, Mr. Angie. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up?

All right. So me and my wife, I'm the only one that works out of the family. We've got two kids. Only debt we have is our house. We owe about $141,000 on it. And we were going to continue paying towards the house and paying it off sooner, but we were wondering, should we sell the house now?

and move farther inland away from Galveston Bay so our insurance ain't so expensive. My flood insurance is about $3,000 a year. Homeowners with fire is about $2,000, and my windstorm is around $1,500. Should we sell the house that we have a 2.7% interest on and move farther in for a more expensive house with a higher interest rate or stay? Well, in a sense, you have a high interest rate now because you have a hurricane tax.

That's true. In a sense, because of the location of the property. Yes, sir. You know, it's causing you pain, which is why you asked the question. I mean, the only thing wrong with moving is that you're not going to get the same rate next time. Well, whoopee doopee, when rates come down, you can refinance. We marry the house, we date the rate. So rates are temporary. Right.

Yes, sir. And if you're going to pay this thing off in the next few years, if it's at $140,000 and you go, we're going to aggressively get this thing down to zero in the next five years, the interest rate's not going to matter that much. Right, yeah. We planned on paying the house off that we're in now within the next five to ten years. Yeah, and if you bought one at a similar price range, you could do the same thing, but you didn't have all the insurance costs.

Right. So I wouldn't go just upgrade and house and get a way more expensive house and get a way bigger mortgage just to get out of this tax and insurance situation. It's not necessary. Yeah, buy a similar price range. If your payment goes up a little, so what? But I'd buy a similar price range and make the move. Here's the way. The best way to handle this sometimes is look out 10 years, 20 years and say, where do I want to be?

Okay, if you have this house paid for 20 years from now, what is that insurance cost going to do? It's going to go up every year. Yes, sir. Or it's even going to be worse. It's going to be like Florida. It's going to be hard to get at all. Right. Right. And the house is going to go on up in value. There's no question about that. But you live in this constant, you're in a storm zone is what it amounts to.

So 10 years from now, if you move inland and you pay it off, you're going to have more normal taxes, more normal insurance, and you're going to see appreciation just as well. So where do you want to live 10 years from today with a paid-for house? That'll answer your question. This is The Ramsey Show.

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defense sprays, and body armor are also 10% off for Ramsey fans. See why Burna has more than 15,000 five-star reviews. Just go to Burna.com slash Dave to learn more. That's B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Dave. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host. Abby is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Abby. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Happy to be here.

Good to have you. How can we help? Well, I need help with this credit card situation that's a part of a bigger problem. But my husband and I separated about three months ago. Two months ago, we stopped paying credit cards, and I just found out that before they go into collections that we might want to start paying them again.

We just owe so much. We just have been overwhelmed and have not had good advice. So that's why I called you. You're currently still separated? Yes. Why? Well, we were working together in his construction business, and let's just say, like, everything came crashing down.

His anger and my not feeling safe from past trauma all happened at once. I moved out to my cousin's house, and when I came back home, he had moved back to his home state. And we're talking. We're having weekly finance meetings, and I believe God will restore our marriage, but we've got a lot to work through. A big part of it is finance. He shut his construction business down and moved away?

Um, well, we were at the end of a really long project from not heaven. He shut his construction business down and moved away. Yeah. And how are you working? I am now. Yes. What do you make?

Well, I'm working three part-time jobs now. Just got offered a full-time job, so right now I'm making like maybe $2,000 a month, and I'll be making like five or six here in January. Good. Good for you. Okay. Thank you. And so you're going to get your own place. You're currently living with your cousin, but you're going to – is that right? Yes.

I am kind of couch surfing. Yeah. But I mean, if you're making five grand a month, you're not anymore, right? Well, the thing is, is my credit just went from like 750 to the 500. So I don't even think I can get a place. Oh, I think you can. Like a rental. You think so? Sure. Okay. You're making five grand a month. Yeah. And you need to, you need to, you don't need to be homeless and divorcing and broke.

We need to get a stabilized situation where you're safe and you have a home of some sort, a little one-bedroom studio apartment. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but get some stability. And then you've got five grand minus rent, minus electricity, minus food to work with towards your debt. And now we've got a thing we can project into the future. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Couch surfing doesn't project into the future.

No. That's what I'm saying. So how much credit card debt do you have? Let me look at my spreadsheet. And is your name on all the cards along with him? Yep, $42,000. $42,000. And what's the plan for you guys to pay this off since you're separated right now? Have you talked about that? Is it equal split payments or what?

Yeah, we're talking about it, and the talks have been like 50-50, but the other major debt is owing subcontractors, and so that's where we've struggled. Like, who do we pay first, or how do we even, like, make a plan? So when he closed his construction company, he was not profitable. Well... If he didn't pay his subcontractors, honey, he wasn't making a profit. Okay. Unless he has a pile of cash somewhere.

No. Okay. If he has no money and he still has bills outstanding, that means he lost money on the deal, right? Right. Yeah. Did he just blow the money and never paid the crew? How much does he owe subs? He owes subs $30,000. All right. So here's what you need to do. Do you have a car payment also? No.

I do, but my car just, I owe five. It's worth five. The repair is seven. And where I'm considering moving, I can get everywhere around on a bike because it's warm enough all year. So I'm like, I might sell it. Wait a minute. Where would you move this warm if you have a $5,000 a month job starting next month? So that's where I would be moving to, the job. Why would you consider you are doing it?

You don't have to consider moving. You're going. Oh, thank you. No, I mean, you take the $5,000 job. Where is it? North Carolina. Okay. Coastal. Why would you not do this?

I am. This weekend I visited. I just got the offer. Talking more details this week, I've just been. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Not really considering. I mean, you're couch surfing, working three part-time jobs. You have another option to move to North Carolina and have a $5,000 a month job. Yeah, you're going. You're broke. So you've got to get your life back. You've got to get control. You have control of no variables right now. So this has got to be the anxiety. The stress must be horrendous for you, honey. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so here's what we're going to do. We're not going to worry about the subs, and we're not going to worry about the credit cards right now. You need to get moved, and you need to get into an apartment, a little one-bedroom studio of some kind, something basic, and you need to figure out your transportation. When you've got food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities covered, then we can talk about how to settle these credit cards. But you don't need to start making payments on them. You're broke and homeless and divorcing. Okay?

We've got to fix some of those things before we worry about a stupid credit card, okay? Okay. So just put those on the back shelf right now. They're not going anywhere. They'll definitely take money when you call them back six months from now or four months from now. Then you and your husband start talking and decide what's going to happen with the marriage. If there is a divorce, you'll have to split these bills up some way or another. I don't know what. And the divorce decree, the divorce judge will say,

approve your all's plan or tell you what the real plan is if he doesn't like yours and then you can go in and start working your way through this debt and you can probably settle it for pennies on the dollar at that point you're going to be six months behind but you don't need to be paying these bills while he sits at his cousin's house doing nothing and while you're couch surfing no

Now, I wouldn't pay any of these bills until it's in an agreement of us getting back together or in an agreement of the divorce, how the divorce is going to go down. Yeah, we're kind of in a storm mode and there's a lot of unknowns. Until you have an agreement one way or the other on this, you don't pay it because you're going to be the only one paying it. He's not. Yeah. You're not going to make much progress trying to do this on your own in the midst of this storm. Exactly. So just pause until you got the next step.

Yeah, that's exactly how it works. Well, folks, we just launched a brand new tour. Dave Ramsey, that's me, and Dr. John Deloney are hitting the road, coming to a city near you. It's the Money and Relationships Tour. We're putting a new twist on these events. Before the event starts, you're going to tell us the subjects you want us to talk about, and we're going to talk about those subjects that night. We're going to custom build each one of these.

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You're going to laugh. You're going to learn. You're going to cry. You're going to change your life. Come to one of these events. They're going to be a lot of fun. It is the Money and Relationships Tour. Dr. John Deloney and me, Dave Ramsey, ramsaysolutions.com slash tour. Check it out, or if you're on YouTube or a podcast, click the link in the show notes.

show notes and make sure you get out there. These are going to be really, really fun. They're selling like crazy, by the way. Tickets are not super expensive. If you want something for a stocking stuffer for Christmas, just order this and print off the ticket and stick it in the stocking and that'll be a nice thing. Hey, honey, look what we're doing. And it's a gift that keeps on giving because then you go, oh my gosh, I forgot we bought tickets to the event six months later. Let's go. Yeah, yeah. And they're selling really, really fast. So if you want to go, you probably need to go and get your tickets or you'll get that other thing called FOMO.

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George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's Ramsey Show question of the day is sponsored by Y-Refi. When you're trapped in a maze of defaulted private student loan debt, it's hard to find your way out. But Y-Refi can offer you a lifeline with custom refinancing based on your ability to pay and a lump sum payoff option that you could qualify for at a discount after 24 months.

Go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Carl in Wisconsin.

My wife and I are looking for guidance on how to best allocate our investment funds. I'm 50 and self-employed. She's 35, currently a stay-at-home mom, and has an IRA that was rolled over from her previous employer. We're wondering if it makes sense to max out both of our IRAs or if we should just focus on my IRA and invest the rest in a non-retirement account. Could you give us some advice on the best strategy to balance our retirement planning in other investment goals?

A lot more details I'd love to know here, but I guess we can assume they're in baby step four. They don't have debt and they have an emergency fund. Fair assumption here? Fair assumption. Okay. So they both have access to the IRA. I would love for them to be investing on the Roth side. And 15% of your gross household income is what you want to be investing. So if it's a hundred grand household, we would be investing $15,000 total.

So she's got an IRA, you've got an IRA. He's saying, well, should we just focus on mine and do the rest in a non-retirement? I would rather you take advantage of those retirement accounts, which means maxing out both IRAs if you can before moving to a non-retirement taxable account. And then focus on getting your house paid off so that by the time you hit retirement and she hasn't,

you know, you're 50, so you got nine and a half years, 59 and a half, right? To start withdrawals without any penalties. By the time you get there, nine and a half years from now, you have a paid for house and somewhere along the line, you might look up and do some non-retirement. But right now you need to be putting 15% in Roths. That's simple and good growth stock mutual funds. I agree, George. So people say, Dave, you know, well, Dave, is it 15% of my income and 15% of her income? How do you go about splitting what goes where?

Absolutely. Is it just, you know, we both do 15%? Yeah. And that becomes 15% of our household? It's 15% of the whole household. Yeah. So you add everybody's income up times 15%, and somewhere that number has to go. So in your case, it's like, in this case, she's a stay-at-home mom, so it's one household, one income. And she can do a spousal Roth IRA. Yeah.

So go ahead and fund that. Fully fund two individual Roths. But if you're working and you've got a Roth 401k too, whatever you've got to do to get to 15%. If you can't get to 15% and you've maxed out everything, then you would do some non-retirement because it's your only other option. But do we not take advantage of a Roth and do some non-retirement option because it's age differentiation? No, no, absolutely not. Wouldn't do that. Jamal is with us in Washington, D.C. Hey, Jamal, what's up?

Hey, hi, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve, man. How can I help? I'm new to the country. I'm 25, married. My wife, she's 22, very young. I came two years and a half ago from Italy, and between things that happened throughout our engagement, this and that, and my lawyer payment for the green card, we racked up around $10,000 in debt.

She has her student loan that will not kick in until like 2026, which is like around $30,000. I'm very hardworking and I hate debt. I just picked up your book. I'm already on page 40. So I just wanted to know how to get out of the situation to start like bumping more cash flow into our pockets and make sure that everything goes well from now on. Is she also from Italy? No, she's an American citizen. She's born here in D.C. Okay.

I think I would just begin a marriage conversation about what our dream is. What's our dream? We had that. We had that, and she came from money, and her idea is like people have debt. She never got very educated on money, so it was always given to her. So people have debt. It's normal. That will be fine, and I just hate that idea. I don't want to owe anybody anything. I didn't owe anything to my parents when I was growing up. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. That's not a dream. People always have debt, and I'll always have debt. That's not a dream.

That's a hopeless person. That's not a dreaming person. Exactly. I hate debt, and I try always to get out of debt. That's not the point. Why is it you hate debt? You hate debt because you don't want to steal your life, because you want to be able to build wealth so you can be outrageously generous and have a wonderful life. Yes. That's the dream, not we're always going to have a car payment. That's not a dream. That's a surrender. My dream is always to...

My dream, honestly, is to give my kids what I didn't have the chance to have. Yeah, but you led the conversation with your young wife, your young self, by saying, I hate debt. That was your dream. That's not a dream either. I hate debt because it steals my dream. Now, what is your dream? I want to be a multimillionaire, and I want to be outrageously generous, and I want to be able to change our family tree. I came to this country, the country of opportunity, for that reason. I want to go big. That's my dream.

Not I hate debt. You see the difference? Yeah. She

She says, debt's always going to be here. You say, I hate debt. And this is what you discussed when you're trying to have a dream. That's not a dream. Neither one of those are a dream. And you're not going to get very far with just saying, I hate debt. And so the point is, it's not persuasive. You need to cast a vision. And that's what Dave's saying. You need to do for your own marriage. Sit down with her, maybe a dream date and go, here's where we want to be. We want to be debt free millionaires. I'm an immigrant. I want a different future for our kids.

Is that what you want? You know, we're 20. When I'm 35, I want to be worth $2 million, have no debt, and be able to give money away and change our family tree and send our kids to school with zero debt. Because you're sitting here looking at $30,000 worth of debt because your family didn't have a big dream. They had a crummy vision. I don't want to live like that. I want to live big and get our own board with that. Then you say, okay, how do we get to be 35 and a multimillionaire?

Oh, we get out of debt. Oh, we increase our income. Oh, we watch our spending. Oh, we're generous in our current world. All of that. That's how it works. Jordan is in Salem, Oregon. Hi, Jordan. How are you? Hi, I'm well, thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I was wondering if compound interest still works the same across multiple accounts as it does in one account. Exactly the same.

If they're invested the same, then yes. Okay. If you're earning, and here, you can do the math. If you're earning 10% and you have $100,000, 10% would be $10,000. Does that sound right? Yes. If you had a single account that was only $10,000 and you had 10 of those, 10% on $10,000 would be $1,000. Does that sound right? Yes. If there were 10 of those, that'd be $10,000, right? Yes.

Yes. It's exactly the same as if it was one lump. Okay. You see how I did that? I do. I like to hear that. Okay. Some people call him a genius. I call him my boss. Well, I saw the video where if you have $100,000, it starts to grow exponentially. So then I was like, oh, we're really close to that, but it's all spread out. So does that still apply to us? Absolutely. Now, George's point earlier makes a lot of difference.

That's assuming they're all invested at exactly the same rate. So if it's spread out on a bunch of different mutual funds and some of them are underperforming, then that's a problem. But that's not a compound interest equation problem. That's an investing problem. An allocation issue. Yeah. So if I've got 10 different mutual funds and they all earn, they all grow at a 10% rate, that's the same as having one mutual fund that grows at a 10% rate.

to George's point earlier. But if you add it all up in one nest egg and everything's invested equally, it's going to grow at the same rate. Exactly. Exact same rate. So yes, if you've got $100,000 total across a bunch of accounts, you've got $100,000 growing for you. That's awesome. Yeah, very good for you. Good question. You're going to be great. And by the way, rule of 72s tells us if you divide an interest rate into the number 72, it tells you how many years it takes for it to double for a lump sum. So $100,000 at 10%, 10 into 72 will be 7.2 years to double.

So if you got $100,000 and you're invested at 10%, in seven years, you'll have $200,000. In 14 years, you'll have $400,000. In 21 years, you'll have $800,000. In 28 years, I'm doing this quickly, you'll have, what, 1.6? 1.6. Yeah.

I told you he's a genius. 30 years from now. So that's how you can start to run the numbers out in your head pretty quick and go, yes, this is all worth doing, boys and girls. And very little of that money was the money you put in. Compound growth did the heavy lifting. And 90% of what's in your account at retirement, if you start now, boys and girls, will be growth, not money you put in. This is The Ramsey Show.

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build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of Breaking Free from Broke, host of the George Campbell Show on YouTube, the Ramsey Networks, and of course, Ramsey Personality. He's my co-host today. Christopher is in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Christopher, how are you?

Hello, Mr. Ramsey. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I've heard you yell at quite a few people about whole life policies. I have a universal life policy, and when I started hearing how terrible the whole life is, when I looked into it,

and I don't think it has all the same bad things to what their whole life does, like the cash value doesn't go away when I die. Yes, it does. It would pay out with the policy. Yes, it does. I called the company and asked them. They said no, it does not. Yes, it does. Well, they sometimes will claim they can set it up in such a way in very few policies. Do you have a universal B or A? I think so. What?

I don't know if it's A or B. Okay. A B, a universal B works like this. You pay, let's say you bought a $100,000 policy and you build up a $20,000 cash value. Okay. Universal B charges you for $120,000, the face value plus the cash value worth of insurance. Okay.

So you're purchasing extra insurance that makes it look like you get the cash value upon death, but you don't. You're just buying more insurance in B. That's all that you're doing. The equivalent of the cash value amount. The cash value amount in 100% of universal policies disappears at death 100% of the time. Okay. Always. It's how they're structured. It's how they're structured. What?

The other thing you said was that whole is 20 times as expensive, and I just did some comp shopping, and my universal policy is about the same as Act IX. It would cost me to get termed right now. I've had it for a while, but...

Well, there's one of two possibilities there. One is you did your comp shopping with the same stupid company that sold you the universal, and they generally have very expensive term. If you go to Zander Insurance and comp shop, you'll probably find it to be a lot less because they're shopping among a bunch of different companies that specialize in term, and it's much, much cheaper. The other possibility is universal life works like this.

The premium go that the portion of your premium that you're paying monthly that buys your life insurance goes up every year. Your premium stays the same. But let's say that just make up a number. Let's say your premium is $100 and the first time the first year you bought it, you were 26 and you're

And of the $100, $10 went to insurance cost and $90 went to the investment. Later on, as you get older, the amount going towards insurance goes up, okay? Okay.

Because every year you're older, you're more likely to die. And so what can happen with a universal policy that's worse than a whole life even is the lines can cross and actually the insurance cost becomes more than the premium and they'll start using part of your cash value to cover the insurance cost because you're upside down in the policy. And then that thing, it'll actually disappear. It'll actually deteriorate and kill itself.

it turns in on itself mathematically. So what's happening is that you were

doing more investing in the old days and now almost all of your premium is simply buying insurance now in the term insurance world christopher there's a thing there's term life insurance which means the length of the term so you can buy a one-year term a five-year term a 10-year term a 15 a 20 a 30-year term and if it's level term the poly the premium stays level throughout that period of time which is an average of all the years before

Pure insurance, technically speaking, would be annually renewable. Once a year, the insurance premium goes up because you get older, and every year you're older, you're more likely to die percentage-wise. Does that make sense? So an ART is what that's called, an annual renewable term, and the cost of insurance goes up every single year. It's not level when you buy an ART, and that's what's built into the universal policy.

is an ART. And so the universal, the cost of insurance, more of your premium is going to insurance every single year, thereby less is going to the investment. And that may, if you've had it for many years, now you're just buying insurance. You're not putting anything into investment. Or worse, you're not even covering the cost of the insurance, and they're using up some of your investment to cover the difference because you've crossed the lines on it.

And if that's the case, then that would also explain why you find term insurance to be about the same cost, because really all you've got now, honey, is term insurance. Because the ART is raised in price every year and caught up with the actual premium that you've been paying. I'm dizzy. It's exhausting. And here's the thing. I've never heard of someone who isn't selling insurance, say, their whole life, or universal is good. It's only coming from the salespeople.

And so the people that get swindled by this, it's usually from a friend who explained to them the wealthy do this, they invest through their insurance policy and you can borrow against your own money tax-free and they explain all these crazy loophole quote, quote, quote, unquote advantages. So in the financial planning realm, fee-based financial planners, investment advisors like our SmartVestor Pros, anywhere you go to for financial planning help,

The only people that tell you to buy cash value insurance are people that sell it. No one else tells you to do it. No one in the entire, the rest of the financial world looks at it and goes, buy inexpensive term insurance, 10, 15, 20-year level term, and do your investing anywhere else. Don't put it in this crap. Because what ends up happening, see, let's go back and revisit the barrel of fish hooks I just unpacked a minute. Because it's frustrating as crud.

When you were 26 and you bought that $100 premium, I was talking about a minute ago, and I made that number up, okay? You bought that because you wanted some insurance and because you wanted some investments. And the irony is that the rising cost of insurance through the years eats up all of your premium so that the very reason you bought it instead of buying term was to have an investment

And it doesn't occur. The longer you hang on to it, the higher chance it will implode on itself. Yeah. It eats itself out. And so the very reason that you did it is systematically annually disappearing.

That's the irony of how bad this is. It just sucks. And with Universal, there's flexible premiums. But here's the thing. If it's not enough to cover the insurance, they take it from your cash value. Yeah. So you're not winning. They always win. And again, the insurance is going to go up every single year because it's the equivalent of an ART built in. Now, the truth is on a 15-year fixed level payment, right, you're paying more.

in the early days than you would for an ART because all the 15 year is is the average of the ART but less because ARTs have low persistence. Very few people keep them and they drop them because they go up every year and they get, oh God, I gotta get out of this thing. But they keep the 15 so it's cheaper for the insurance company to run the 15 so they give you a break. So it's less than the average of 15 ARTs.

And it's simpler to manage. There's no investments and cash value to deal with. But you're still paying it. You're still paying for the coverage. This is the Ramsey Show. You want to leave happy memories for your loved ones when you pass away? Not a mess. Your family will be grieving, so don't make them spend days trying to access your computer or sift through drawers full of junk. That's the Ramsey Show.

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The Total Money Makeover is 30% off. Building a Non-Anxious Life is 30% off. And Georgia's number one bestseller, Breaking Free from Broke, is even on sale. So check it out, including the classic Questions for Humans card decks from Dr. John Deloney for couples, friends, and parents, $12. All at ramseysolutions.com slash store, or click the link in the description on YouTube or podcast. Nicole is with us in Denver. Hi, Nicole. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, good afternoon. I wanted to ask you about prenups. I'm very recently engaged and I'm walking into this marriage with about a $400,000 Schwab investment account. Okay. How old are you? 30. How long have y'all been dating? Three years. My fiance and I are in very...

different financial situations. He doesn't have much of a savings account. And the reason I have this investment account, my father passed away, left me quite a bit of money. And my mother has helped grow this account to a significant amount. So,

By adding to it? I don't know if that's something. By adding to it and investing and things like that. Well, my money that she has invested. Very smart lady. But I don't know what I should do with that account or if I should bring it to the marriage or not. Okay. When I first started doing this show 35 years ago, I told someone that if you need a prenup, you don't need to get married. If you can't trust them with $400,000, you don't need to trust them with your life. Right. And I don't want to...

Coming to this marriage, feeling as though I'm harboring a resentment or being perceived as noncommittal or anything like that. The reason I ask you, two reasons. I feel like this account is not mine. I think it would be set up for me in case of an emergency. I have a significant health condition that may... Why is it not yours? You told me it was yours. Just because mine...

It is, but not because my mother has grown it so significantly. Are you going to stay married to your mother, or are you going to marry him? No, I'm marrying him. Okay. Then maybe it's time to be married to him and not your mother.

And you and him manage your health condition and your future and your money for the good of you and him and the next 40 years of your life, 50 years of your life. We're managing that together. It's very sweet that mom has been helpful, but her days of controlling your life at 30 years old, you're a grown woman are over. Sure. So now that changes it. So I would want to share every bit of my life. If you're going to get married, you've got to go all in.

Okay. Okay. And that's what you asked. That's my opinion. And that's my opinion. I would tell you to do that. The only time I tell someone to get a prenup is if there is an extreme amount of wealth on one side and 400 K is not extreme. But if you had, if you had $15 million and he had not a nickel, then I tell you to get a prenup then because not because of him, but because of his crazy relatives, the crazy relatives come out of the woodwork when you marry a rich woman, you know?

And it's like, um, and so you, you control them with a prenup. You go, I can't do anything about it. I mean, it's not, I don't have any access to it. The prenups. And it just shuts down the crazy relatives and sends them back to the cave they came out of. And so, um,

That's the only reason I do that is it gives you some relationship management stuff. And I'm trying to keep someone from getting just conned completely. But I don't think you're being conned. You've got three years in this relationship. You're 30 years old. You're not a baby child.

And you're not been, you know, we go, you know, I met him in Las Vegas two weeks ago. And well, that's a whole different story, right? That's not you. You're very precise. You're very wise. You're very even. You're very careful. Does he know about this account? He does. He doesn't know the exact amount that's in it. And I was also thinking maybe we would reserve this account for our children in the event that we did get a divorce. Well, let's talk about it.

Sure. Let's talk about it. Let's say, hey, if something ever happened, I'm going to claim that I brought this money into the marriage if you divorce me, and I'm going to try to keep it. I'm going to make sure you don't get it. But you don't need a prenup to do that in most states. In most states, it was assets you owned when you came in. But I think there's something to be said here for it makes you think about, okay, are there parts of the way he handles money that you don't respect? Well, see, that's a red flag. That's something to be handled in a pre-marriage. Okay.

I see your point. Not at all. Just we have different finances, so I don't know how to combine or not combine things. I want to be smart. Well, when you say different, you don't mean he's irresponsible and you're responsible. No. He has quite a bit of student loans. Last, he just entered the workforce after being in the military and getting his doctorate degree. So he hasn't been working. Cool. Doctorate in what?

He's a chiropractor. Okay, so he's getting ready to start making some money, and he's got $200,000 in stinking student loans. Yes. Yeah. Well, I would not want to use the $400,000 to pay those in the next 30 seconds, but four or five years from now, I might use some of it to knock the rest of that out if you haven't knocked it out. But I think you guys need to roll up your sleeves and knock it out and then leave the $400,000 alone. That'd be a plan.

That's a good plan. Yeah, but hopefully you can do that. But if he's saying, oh, I'm going to be in debt for the next 30 years just because that's the way it is if you're a chiropractor, that's a different discussion. That's not a pre-nup discussion. That's a I don't get married discussion. Yeah, if your financial responsibility gets him to be lazy or entitled, that's a whole different discussion. He doesn't sound like lazy and entitled. He goes for it. He went and got his dadgum doctorate. He's been working his tail off, so I hope.

I'd go into this with arms wide open right now unless you have reason not to be. Yep, yep. Eyes wide open and arms wide open, you know. Just like Creed said. All in. All in. All in. All in. Leave it all on the field. All right. Danielle's in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Danielle. How are you?

Hello, Dave. So I am just stepping into the Ramsey way. I'm about to start my budgeting and I now have a stable income of 42,000, which includes my housing and my food for at least half the year. I have side hustles, which I haven't calculated is going to be at least 15,000. I have 16,000 in credit card debt, seven in my car. I have a

and $35,000 in school loans. My question is, now that I have this new job, previously I was on Medicaid insurance, and they're offering health insurance, but I really don't want to do it. It just seems too expensive. I'm 31 years old. I'm healthy. You don't qualify for Medicaid, honey, if you're working. Medicaid is welfare. Yeah, I know. So that's what I was before. But you can't get it now.

Exactly. So you have to have health insurance. I have to. Yeah, you'll go bankrupt. Okay. You have your appendix out and, you know, you're going to get a $62,000 bill. It'll bankrupt you. So, I mean, it's just like car insurance. Just because you haven't had a wreck doesn't mean someone else is going to hit you. Right. You can be a great driver. And so you need health insurance now and always. And do you know how much it's going to be? Is it $600 a month?

Yeah, something like that. They're offering us UnitedHealthcare. I mean, you can shop around with our friends at Health Trust Financial and see what the marketplace insurance would be versus the employers and see what's the better deal for you, but it's a non-negotiable, and it just has to go in your budget. And if other things have to be sacrificed because of that, then that's what you'll have to do for now. If they have four or five different plans under United, and they probably do, just take the cheap one.

and the higher deductible and all that kind of stuff. That's all fine, because I'm not worried about a $5,000 or a $4,000 deductible. I'm worried about a $62,000 problem. The number one cause of bankruptcy in America is medical bills.

Okay. So you have to guard against it. So look for that HDHP. That's a high deductible health plan. It'll come with an HSA, which is a great way to save for those health expenses. And that'll be your best bet. Keep the premium low, but it'll transfer a little bit more risk to you with the deductible. Yep. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. I'm coming to a city near you with Dr. John Deloney on the Money and Relationships Tour.

This is a brand new event where you, the audience, will get to vote live from your seats and choose the things you want me and John to talk about. You'll be picking from over 20 topics that impact your life, like saving for the future, leaving a legacy, money, stress, and marriage, and so much more. We're getting real and digging in deep on the things that are important to you, and you never know what might happen when me and John get candid.

It's an event unlike anything we've ever done before, and it's going to be a whole lot of fun. We'll be kicking it off in Louisville on April 21st, 2025, and then stopping in Durham, Atlanta, Kansas City, Fort Worth, and Phoenix in April and May. Prices are the lowest they'll ever be right now. So don't wait. Grab your tickets at ramseysolutions.com slash tour. That's ramseysolutions.com slash tour.

Coming up December the 18th, one of your favorite shows, our annual giving show. We take calls from folks who are proud of some giving that they did and want to tell us the story, or they are proud of some receiving that they did. Tell us this, and they're going to tell stories that make our eyes leak. December the 18th, our annual giving show. Don't miss it.

Also, coming up at the end of this segment, we will jump the show over to the Ramsey Network app for

For the remaining portion of today's show, in the Ramsey Network app is a free download. You can do that there anytime you want, and you'll get the entire show there, plus audio, video of everything, and you can search the show. You can send us emails in there. You can search the show by subject, so you don't have to listen to 26 hours to find out what we say about whole life, life insurance, or whatever it is that we're harping on that day. So check it out.

And if you're on radio, of course, stay tuned. Wherever we are on radio, we're still there on radio. And Thomas is in New York City. Hi, Thomas. How are you?

Hello, gentlemen. Great. Thank you so much for taking the call. I just have a quick question. I don't know if I have to get into a lot of detail. I'll answer your questions. My mother's financial advisor has been trying to persuade her to buy something called structured notes. And I've looked into it, but I wanted to get your opinion on how that, if that's a good investment product versus not.

you know, buying a five or 10 year structured note or just taking that same amount of money and putting it into a, you know, a mutual fund that tracks the S and P 500 or something along those lines. Is that something you're familiar with? And do you have an opinion on it though? Thank you. Yeah. Don't do it. Don't do it. Okay. And I'm, I'm real. How old is your mother? My mother is 81. Okay. All right. Here's the thing. A structured note is a bond propped up with a derivative. Okay. And the, uh,

Here's the way bonds work. If you buy a bond and the interest rate on the face of the bond, you buy a $10,000 bond and it pays 3%. Okay? When interest rates go up above 3% to 6%, the $10,000 bond becomes worth less. Okay?

Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And when the interest rates go down, the $10,000 bond becomes worth more than $10,000. So in a rising or high interest rate environment, you have a good chance of losing money on bonds. They are not safer. The financial world has, I'll be kind, has mistakenly said that bonds are safer than bonds.

equities. And in general, they're not, particularly in an interest rate environment that's as volatile as the one we're in right now. We don't know what interest rates are going to do in the next 12 months. With a change in administration, with a change in move in the economy, I hope they come down, which would make her bonds, in this case, worth more. But the derivative portion of this is a high-risk play. And why in the world he's putting her

in a volatile instrument at 81 years old with a high-risk play, it just sounds weird to me. I think that's irresponsible. Well, my best guess, it's high costs and fees that go to the financial advisor. Yeah. That's why I would choose that product. If I was this guy, I'd go, well, I'm going to make more money off this one than putting her in a simple mutual fund. Right. That's my understanding, that there is a high fee involved with that particular product. Okay. Probably. Probably.

I mean, we're not positive. We don't know which product he's got in front of her. But how long has he been taking care of her, in quotes? God, a long time. 20-some odd years. Yeah. And what is she invested in now? Do we know?

Well, she has a 401k that she, and I don't know what that is exactly. And she's just mutual funds. And I don't know exactly what the mutual funds are. She's got mutual funds that she purchased through UBS. And she's got mutual funds that she has in her 401k. She's got a combined net worth in about $400,000. Yeah, I think I would just stay right where she is.

Just stay where she is? Just stay with the mutual funds? Yeah. I might not stay with the financial advisor, but I'd stay right where she is. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. I was thinking about that myself. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. We appreciate you calling. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jill's in Dallas. Hi, Jill. How are you? Hi. I'm good. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Um, okay. I just have a question because I'm new to managing money. I was married for 15 years and, um, recently finalized a divorce. Um, I'd love your opinion. I don't know how much house I can afford or what would be wise to spend on a home. Are you out of debt? Yes, sir. Good. Okay. How old are you? I'm 40. How long were you married? Uh, 15 years. I'm sorry. It's a hard time of year with a broken heart.

Well, it's all good. I just, it was a long time coming. You're surviving, but it's not all good. I'm sorry you've been through this. Thank you. All right. I mean, we teach folks to get their home paid off as fast as possible. And in that vein, we have a standardized guideline that we use, which is super conservative for house payment.

Well, I have cash is what I'm wondering. Oh, how much cash do you have? So I have $1.2 million in mutual funds. You buried the lead there, Jill. Wow. Okay, you have $1.2 million in mutual funds. And what else? $750,000 and a 401k. Okay. Okay.

And my monthly income for the next seven years will be $18,500. Was there a family property that sold? When we got divorced, I got money instead of property. Okay, good. Yeah, you did. And you'll be making over $200,000 a year, and you'll pay cash for this house. Assuming he pays the bill. This is alimony.

And child support. Alimony is, yes, is the 18.5, but I do have the 1.2 and the 750. Yeah. And is he in good shape financially? Can we count on this 18.5? Yes. All right. Are you going to develop a career or what's your plan? Well, 17 of that is alimony. I make a tiny bit, just a part-time job. I have two kids. How old are your kids? They are 14 and 11. Okay.

So what are you going to do with the next 10 years of your life? I really don't know. I'm a teacher by trade in an Oklahoma that doesn't make any money. Okay. Well, it doesn't mean you don't get the alimony if you went into this classroom, right? Right, no. Okay. All right. Just as a part of your healing, I want you to have the dignity of making some money somewhere down the line. You don't need it, but it's going to be good for you.

to feel that you are sustaining yourself in addition to all this money, okay? Okay. Now, how much of the 1.2 are you thinking about spending on a house? Well, I don't know. I don't know what's wise. No, I ask you. You've been thinking about it. This isn't your first rodeo. I mean, some days I think like $300,000 would be really modest and it'd be enough space for us. But then I get kind of starry-eyed and there's pretty homes for $800,000. Mm-hmm.

So I don't really know. My thing is I don't want to put myself in a predicament down the road that I think, oh, my gosh, I bought too much house. I shouldn't have done that. Well, too much house would be a payment you can't afford, and that's not a problem. Okay. The house is going to go up in value, and if you ever want to sell it, usually you can sell a house if it's a decent house, right? You're not stuck in it. So if you pay cash for a $700,000 house and you wake up a few years later with regret, you could sell it. Okay.

And then you still have $500,000 left over plus $700,000 in a 401k plus $18,000 a month, right? Mm-hmm. It feels to me that's very safe to be in the $700,000 range.

Okay. That's very safe. Okay. Thank you. I value your opinion a lot. Well, I mean, you need to work that math out and feel very safe about it, not just because Dave said so. And work with a good agent. Jump on ramseysolutions.com slash agent and start shopping around and see what you can get for that amount and if you're happy with it. Yeah, get a real estate, one of our Ramsey trusted real estate agents there. They'll help you. They'll do a good job helping you work through the decision making on this as well. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Elliot is in Denver. Hi, Elliot. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. So I'm in a bit of a predicament with my kind of housing after the end of the year. I've been going to school.

I've been going to college on and off for the last 18 months or so for meteorology. But in between that, I worked as an aircraft ramp agent, so like a baggage handler at the airport here in Denver.

For six months at an airline that had high turnover, so I actually worked my way up all the way to where I was a supervisor. But I liked the work, but I liked the work environment or not the things that I would do with the job working with the planes and stuff. But I didn't like the kind of business corporate environment of it. And so I decided to go back to school and that didn't quite work out.

as well as I thought it would. And so now I am no longer getting any financial support for school from my parents, which was previously they were paying for my school. And now I'm being kind of told that I am expected to move out of their house at around the end of the year. And I...

don't really know what to do right now. Um, I have like, things didn't work out at school. What does that mean? Um, I wasn't able to pass a math class that I was taking. Why? Um, and because I, I wasn't good at the kind of managing time with the, uh, mainly like the homework assignments. And, um, I honestly, do you have a learning disability? Um, no, I have like ADHD, but, um,

I'm not sure if that's a learning disability or not. That wouldn't keep you from passing a math class. Yeah. Why did you not do your lessons? It's kind of getting distracted by things that I should realize when you're looking back now I shouldn't have. You're so vague. Stuff like

I have no idea what the crap you're talking about. Are you telling me you've been drinking and smoking dope and partying and you're flunked out of school so your parents are throwing you out? I've never been that kid. It's just, you know, finding it hard motivationally sometimes to just, like, do work. But I have decided that, like, I'm not going back to school. Okay, and you're moving out. So how can we help you?

So was there an agreement with your parents where they said, here's the deal. We're going to pay for school, and you're going to go to class and pass. And that will allow you to live here, and we will pay for school. If not, here's what happens. If not, and now we're at the if not. Sounds like you agreed to this plan. Now you're moving. How can we help you? So I just am not sure.

In terms of with work, getting a job here, I'm able to do that, but none of the jobs that I see that I can get would really pay for the cost of living in Denver is so high. Sounds like you can't afford to live in Denver. What were you making on the ramp job?

I was making $22.50 an hour. You can get a roommate in an apartment in Denver, out on the edges of Denver, towards the airport, which is not anywhere near Denver. Yeah. Move out of town, get an apartment with a roommate. Make it $3,000 or $4,000 a month, right? And then crank your hours up and work your butt off. You can make it. Okay. Can you get back on over there?

I think I could try another similar operation like that. Yeah, jump in, man. For sure. Because that's a known quantity. I'm not saying you need to be doing that when you're 35, but for right now, that'll get some money coming in and let you get stabilized and get yourself established as an adult, working on their own, paying their own bills, which is what your parents are demanding. And then you can reset and say, okay, while I'm doing this, what do I want to study and how can I study it? And start taking some night classes.

to go be something else. But I would get my feet on the ground over there at the ramp, start throwing some bags, making some money, and I'd be working like 60, 80 hours a week because I'd be scared I'd be hungry. And you're going to have to deal with this underlying problem of time management and responsibility. Being hungry is a motivator. You don't have to worry about being motivated. Being homeless is a motivator.

You want to pay rent. You want to pay having the lights cut off and it gets cold in that apartment because you didn't go to work. That's a motivator. You will suddenly be motivated. You don't need to look for motivation at that point. It'll be it'll be finding you. It's called survival, dude. It's called sustainability. And, you know, you don't have the option of not being motivated when you need to eat and keep the lights on and not be homeless. And so that's that's what you're set up for. And that's going to be good for you.

You're going to learn some good things about Elliot that Elliot can work and Elliot can stay on the job and Elliot can keep focused and Elliot can push through because Elliot freaking has to now. And I think it's going to be wonderful for you. It's going to be the best thing that ever happened to you maybe. I kind of like your parents. I think they're pushing you out of the nest and saying, fly, little eagle, fly. Otherwise, like Dave says, you become a turkey.

Yeah, if you stay in the nest too long, eagles become turkeys. That's science. I can't explain it. It is science. It's evolution. Is it de-evolution? It's de-evolution. De-escalation. Fly, little turkey. I mean, fly, little eagle. Fly. You're going to be fine, but you're going to have to get your butt in gear like yesterday.

And if you can't get more than 40 hours at the airport, next door there's a place called UPS, and they'll let you throw boxes. It's Christmastime. They desperately need your help over there.

The Amazon warehouse that's out there in the middle of nowhere, this looming beacon of light for Americans purchasing things, will hire you in a heartbeat to work in their warehouse right now. They are stepping and fetching. It's Christmas time. And so you're not going to have time to worry about motivation because you're going to be at work all the time. That helps. I found that when I'm distracted by work, I'm rarely bored. And I'm rarely broke.

That's a good combination. My grandmother used to say there's a great place to go when you're broke. Toe work. So it's wisdom. You know, here's the thing. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you in your whole life if you decide it is. And, you know, no excuses. No excuses. Go get it. Go get it.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Diane is in Phoenix. Hi, Diane. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. I'm short on time. Go straight to your question.

I hear you. I hear you, Dave. Thank you. I hope you guys are having a blessed day. I have an annuity question. My mother recently passed away. I'm the executor of the estate annuity. The beneficiary was my sister. Not a problem there. However, my question is, my mother, when the contract, the annuity came mature last fall, and my 91-year-old mother had no idea how

what to do or what they were talking about or what they were asking her for, had to make a choice of taking a lump sum or monthly payments for the next 10 years. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She died. When she dies, the beneficiary gets a lump sum.

Well, that's not what they're telling me, and that's why I'm calling. Oh, I'm by God going to get a lump sum. Oh, no, no. They don't have a choice. They're trying to con you. Absolutely, they do not have a choice. They're trying to get you. You can elect to take payments, but you are not forced to stick with her contract. She died. The beneficiary gets a lump sum.

Okay. What is my next step? They're just telling me there's nothing I can do. Tell them there is something I can do. I'm going to the insurance commission and file a complaint on you crooks. There you go. That's what I needed to know, Dave. And I'm walking into my lawyer's office right now as well to talk about this same subject. So, thank you. Absolutely bogus, dadgum insurance people. So, they love to get you on payments rather than giving out the money.

They don't want the money to leave them, their control. And so they're like presenting two options and acting like you only have one. Nope. Now, they will offer you payment option, a contract, again, as a beneficiary. But never, you're not forced to take it and never take it. Time to get out of Dodge, for your sister anyway. Take that lump sum and invest it. Yeah, and do something good with it that's not leaving it with them. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

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What's up, Kelsey? So I've lived with crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember. How do I stop it from constantly coming up in different areas of my life? What does crippling anxiety mean? Paint me a picture of that. All right, so you're ready to jump in? I'm ready to jump in. We're going to check in with Kelsey 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. I cannot even function because I'm just crying.

My mom left us when I was four. I truly felt like for a while I had no family. She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago. Tell me about this boy. He triggers me a lot.

Scared of losing Paul, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of not being enough. It just feels like it would be exhausting to be Kelsey. It is. Whenever somebody's playing whack-a-mole with their anxiety, when it just keeps moving, that tells me the underlying system's not okay. How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? Because I feel like she's running the show. One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off. How is this burden? You're burdened, that's right. To the one person.

Who should carry it? All of it. Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault? I don't know what to do. You either have to choose to let this guy love you or you got to choose to let this guy go.