You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people with their money, their relationships, their work, just about any and everything. I'm John Deloney, joined by my great friend, Jade Warshaw, and we are taking your calls today.

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Okay, let's go out to Sacramento, California, and talk to Julia. What's up, Julia?

Hi, good afternoon, guys. Hey, I really, it's such a pleasure to be able to speak with someone and get some advice. You got it. Well, it's an honor to talk to you today. Thanks for calling. What's up? Oh, thank you. I'm calling to get some advice on retirement, please. I'm 66. My husband, 67, and he's an automotive service director. So we do okay, but as you know, we're

California is so expensive. We bought a home and it appreciated in value, luckily. So we have a little bit of equity, but we still owe $300,000 on it. And

And we didn't buy it at a high price. You know, the thing is, we're still paying it off. He's working. I teach school. I'm not working right now, but I thought maybe it would be a good idea to move out of state and, you know, get somewhere less. And I could work, you know, as a teacher. Maybe I'm older, so it's harder to get a position. I already had an offer in Texas, Texas.

I'm certified there for fourth grade. I turned it down because we were here and, uh,

I don't know. He just refuses to think about retirement. We have no savings. He's thinking he's going to get social security, keep working, put that money into the house payment. I said, well, what are you going to live on? You know, I thought maybe we could start a little business. I'm not talking a dealership. I told him, cause he said, oh yeah, you have money for that. But I said, well, I like the idea of you guys coffee shop or a daycare. Sure. I,

I like the idea of you guys moving out of an expensive area like California because the truth is that that's a cost of living you may not be able to maintain, but maybe living somewhere less expensive. You mentioned Texas. That could, you know, depending on the part of Texas, that could be good. The problem about living in Texas is you're going to have to figure out how to spend that extra money because there's no state income tax there. Hey, hey.

I don't know how you're going to spend all that, Julia. This is a very high property tax. Yeah, they do. I know. There's the other side of that teeter-totter, but I'm just taking my digs where I can get them. I don't know. The thing is, he's also afraid that he won't be able to get a home at our age. I know. He won't get a job. Well, let's look at the

facts like let's look at the money because right now it's like a bunch of question marks around our head um so you mentioned that he kind of has this plan of living off social security do you guys have any clue like you're 67 or he's 67 so you're eligible but if you begin taking it now obviously you're taking it at as at a cut as opposed to waiting so when you wait and take that that later distribution do you know how much it'll be

No. He's thinking about 35, a little less. Okay. So let's say it's 35. You know, you can check in and find out what you think, what that number is going to be on the IRS. But then let's look at your budget.

And so it's really about taking these numbers out of the air and getting solid facts of what it will be. Can it work? If it doesn't work, how much do we need to be earning? Does that make sense? And I think that's going to give you a lot of peace when you can find the facts around it. It won't work. You know, you're right. It won't work. I told him, what are you going to work on? Do you know that or are you guessing that? Julia, do you know or are you guessing? Do you have a budget?

No. Okay. That's what we need. So before we get off the call, we're going to set you up with, Christian's going to pick up and get you an every dollar budget. And it's really just going to be you plugging in that income and then plugging in what you guys spend money on. You've got this mortgage. How much do you pay a month for the mortgage? $3,000. What? Okay. You're right. It's not going to work. So, Julia, here's a common thing. I want you to know this. You're not crazy. Your husband's not crazy. Okay.

Y'all are facing a very common dilemma that millions and millions of 60 plus year olds are facing, especially married couples. Is A, there's an ecosystem that has descended upon you the last 25 years telling you that everything in your life is coming down. Everything's going to end. And you grew up in the era of Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw, folks that people trusted.

And now that same ecosystem is telling you you're not going to have enough money. You're going to die. You got to move it all into silver and go. The whole world has shifted on your generation. My generation just assumes everybody's lying to me. Even the people telling the truth, your generation is stuck assuming these people are telling us the truth. It's all coming down. So number one, I want you to know your fear is, is, is, is okay. It's normal.

But also, as Jade said, here's what you desperately need with your husband. You all need actual facts. Remember this line, facts are your friend.

You have made up a story in your head that you're too old to be a teacher. That is false. My mom is in her 70s and she's still a college professor. My dad's a teacher. He's 70. You can do it. Really? Okay. Yes. It's just a story because when you were a kid, 60 years old felt like a million years. And now you're there. You're still fun, exciting. Your students love you. They could definitely use your wisdom. It still feels like a million years. I know. I know. But listen, you and your husband, this idea of like, I don't know. I think social security, that's not enough.

So instead of talking about, what are you going to do? We have to move. I want you to sit down and use this line with your husband. I need to know what our money situation is because I'm scared to death. Will you help me be less scared? And very few husbands will look at their wives when they say that and go, nah, I don't care. If you say, I need to know. He thinks he's got it all planned though. Then he needs to show you the plan. And if you use the words, I'm scared because I don't know the plan.

I need to see the plan. Okay, that's a good way to phrase it. Okay. Thank you. Because you're scared. My parents were factory workers and children's workers. I mean, we grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Yeah, of course. So, you know, everything was, I don't know, I want to say easy for lack of a better word. Well, hold on. You grew up in Detroit just like I grew up in Houston, and you grew up in Detroit when it was all golden and great, and it all went away overnight. Right.

And I grew up in Houston where Enron was the greatest thing in the world until one morning Enron didn't exist. And so you have both of those things going on that it's just going to all work out. And then you also have that, that like understanding in your nervous system. There's a day when everything, the factory shut down.

You've got to address that fear with him. And then, yeah, it's a math problem. You want to move to Texas? You want to move to North Carolina? You move wherever you're going to move. Jade was right. You can't afford $3,000 more. I thought about Houston. I applied to Houston. I got a call. Listen, the world is desperate for great teachers, especially licensed teachers. So you're not going to have a problem getting a job. What you might have a problem doing is convincing your Californian husband to move somewhere else. That's a whole different story.

And just remember, wherever you move, whatever housing situation you choose, you don't want that payment to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. That's right. That's what's scaring the pants off you right now. It's just too expensive. So we're going to send you every dollar. We're going to send you the budgeting tool, and we're going to send you Financial Peace University, the whole digital class. It's nine lessons, and you and your husband commit to watching them together. And then you can sit down and talk about your plan together.

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So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. It's easy to join no matter where you live. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Are you ready? Tomorrow night is Ramsey's biggest free live event of the year.

Take control of your money. It's a live stream coming directly to your house. 350,000 people are registered and ready to do something different with their money and their lives. Jade Warshaw and Dave Ramsey are going to give you the practical steps and motivation you need to find more margin in your budget and get out of debt so you can start building incredible wealth. Here's the deal. Election's over.

You woke up and you looked yourself in the mirror and you are still you. And you got online and looked at your checking account. It is still what it is. You look at your savings account. It is still what it is. You look at your savings and your heart stops.

I understand. I've been there not wanting to call anybody, not wanting to ask anybody's help. We are bringing the live stream to your living room. There's no excuse. It's free. We're going to bring it to you. So go right now, sign up at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream. We're also going to give away several different iterations of $4,000 in cash up to 20 grand. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. So five times, different iterations, meaning five different times work.

Give away $4,000. And we had a rehearsal today. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be good. Very cool, dude. So get in there, create a free EveryDollar account to get a bonus entry into the giveaway. We'll be using EveryDollar during the live stream to show you how to take control of your

money. And again, can I restate this? It's all free. It's free. And I would just like to add, because I know we have like repeat visitors, like maybe you went to the live stream last year. I also want to say we're showing life. We're showing every dollar, but we're also answering all your money questions. Like we're talking about how to get out of debt. We're talking about a little bit about investing. George and Rachel are joining us later and we're going to do a Q&A. So this will be worth your while. Trust me, it's going to be really, really, really good.

And I don't care how much money you have, how much money you make. Okay. This is for you. Yeah. All right. Let's roll out to Pittsburgh and talk to Emily. What's up, Emily?

Hi, I'm so blessed to be speaking with you guys today. I've been kind of struggling with this question. It's more of a family matter than mine personally, but I'm really looking to get your insight on it. So we had estranged family members for like the last 15 years that recently reached out within the last two weeks because one of them passed away and the other needs financial support, but they're not explicitly looking for it. So basically what it looks like is...

The relation to me is that my grandmother passed away and my uncle had been living with my grandmother and it was just the two of them for the last period of time. And my uncle basically had no job. So they were living off of her social security and her life insurance that we found after she passed. And essentially there's nothing left. And he's dropping hints to us as the family saying, well,

I don't know how I'm going to make these payments. I don't know where my grocery bills are coming from. He's not explicitly asking for things, but it's the way that he's phrasing things that is making us concerned that he's looking to us to be his savior. I wouldn't be concerned at all because I know how I can get his groceries paid for. He can get a job.

Ta-da. Yes. Right? Well, he says that he can get a job. He's not sure that he's going to be working because he does have a health condition that is prohibiting him. I'm not exactly sure. I don't know all of the details on exactly what it is. I personally don't even believe that it is a health condition. I think he's just trying to use it as a guilt trip. Exactly. But that's my personal view on that. I don't have the facts. You're probably right. So let me ask you this. Why are you letting this person you haven't talked to in 15 years go?

suddenly have a voice at your kitchen table about your integrity, your character, what you do next? Like, why are you giving him a voice?

it's a moral issue like um I I always want to try and be like the the best that you can be right and so I can see this person that needs help because they they were honestly just poor planners they put themselves in this position and I get that but I'm also kind of like the person that's like well I do have a little bit that I could contribute towards this what would you I don't want to what would that be yeah I don't what would that be if you did help him what would that look like

It would probably look like, well, maybe I can give you like so much money towards like her burial or something like that because they're struggling even to come up with funds for that. Okay. Listen, if you wanted to, this is grandma, right?

That we're talking about. If you wanted to help, you know, grandma's funeral costs. I think that that's fine. I don't that part. I don't have an issue with but Uncle Boo Boo is the one that I'm like, okay, what would it look like for you to help him in your mind? If you thought this is my job to step up and help him? What would that have been? Or what would that be in your mind's eye?

I think what I'm looking for would be just like knowing that I didn't just leave him and that he's just withering away with nothing. No, but he hasn't even asked you. No, he hasn't. And I guess that's kind of where part of my struggle is coming from too, is that he's not asking for it, but I think he's too proud to ask for help. But I think he needs it. And I don't know another direction to point him in. How old is he? He's probably, I want to say 62. Where's your parents? Where's your mom or dad?

They're right there with him, and they're trying to kind of keep distance as well. They don't want to be the ones that are saving him either, but I think they're looking at it, and they're asking the same question. What is our obligation? What should we be doing as Christians? What should we be doing just as family members? I mean, to me, he truly is a stranger, but even a stranger on the street, it's like the same I would help. Yeah, there's two things that are going through my mind here. Number one, I would take my cues from...

a struggling uncle's brother and sister that would be number one so i would look to my mom and dad because they're going to know whoever he's related to they're going to know better than i do right the second thing is is i am all about helping and supporting and walking alongside and being there for the people in the margins in our world i also have been humbled dramatically over the last 20 years because of my arrogance and my savior syndrome

Okay. And so when you see somebody that you in your head tell yourself a story that he needs this, this and this, and I could be the person to come. That's less about Christian value. And that's more about you in a weird way, using him to make yourself feel whole and okay. He hasn't asked you for help. He hasn't said we need your help. He's done some passive aggressive e dribbling of things here and there.

And I would leave that to my mom or my dad, his brother or his sister to step in and say, hey man, what do you actually need? Like let them have that communication together. And maybe if I was in your case, I'd probably reach out to my dad or to my mom, whoever's closest and say, hey, we're in a position where we could contribute 500 bucks or a thousand bucks to the funeral if y'all need that. And I'd go that way instead of going to some, basically a stranger, a guy who opted out of his niece's life for a decade and a half

before I need to go in there and feel like I need to save the situation. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. It does make sense. There's also an issue of this just on the financial side of it that the reason I was asking you before what would that look like is because sometimes we get in moments where like, oh God, you know, if I'm going to help them and what we're trying to help them do is really not sustainable in long run, it's not helping at all. Like if the issue is he doesn't have income coming in and he's not

looking to get income coming in, you stepping in and paying an electric bill one month long term is not really a sustainable thing. So it's like, okay, what can we do? What would it look like to help in a real way that's long term? Well, that's probably going to help him find options for him to work, right? So just reframing if you did want to help what that help would be, it might not actually be financially, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And I think that that makes a lot of sense. I think that's kind of what I was kind of sitting on, but I was really debating because like, I feel sorry for him because of the situation that he put himself in. Right. And I, and that's what I'm struggling with. Like he did it to himself, but I can help sometimes, but I don't want to help all the time. Like you said, I don't, I don't want this to be a long-term thing because as he,

so nicely put. He did opt out. So it is kind of like this struggle, which again, which is why I was blessed to be speaking with you today because it's just such an internal struggle for me. I would work through my parents and just know that feeling uncomfortable does not mean your decision is wrong. That's right. Thank you. If you're a person of compassion, like hopefully all of us are, anybody who's hurting,

And we'll go one step further. Okay, so we'll help out here, Emily. Hang on the line. We're going to send you an electronic version of Financial Peace University. If the call ever comes that, hey, I need some help with some of this stuff, you can say, hey, we got you. I'll send you Financial Peace University Uncle for free.

And here's all nine lessons. And it's going to walk you step by step how to take control of your financial future. And that way you're giving him a fishing rod and some bait and a place to fish. But he's going to have to bait the hook and actually throw the line. And thanks for the call. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Hey everyone, listen, we all have stories. The family and cultural stories that we were born into, the stories of the things that have happened to us, both the good stuff and the challenging stuff. And we have those stories that we constantly tell ourselves. And none of us can go back and change any of our old stories, but the world is waiting to see what each of us is going to write next.

As we enter 2025, I encourage you to examine your old stories and be intentional about the new stories that you're going to write. And I'm not talking about making goals that are going to be long gone by February. I'm talking about writing new stories that will change your life and the lives of those you love for the better forever.

If you're like me, therapy can be a great place to explore the old stories and heal from them and begin writing new ones. If you're thinking about starting therapy, I want you to consider my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, and you can talk with your therapist when it works for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch at any time for no extra cost.

So start writing a new story this month with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Mary Mary. What's up, Mary? Hey. Whoops, I pushed the wrong button. I'm not the smartest guy. That's all right. What's up, Mary? Hey.

Hi. How's it going? I pushed the wrong button. Sorry. James is rolling his eyes in there at me. I'm getting better, James. I promise. What's up, Mary?

Hi, it's going good. So we moved to Dallas, Texas last summer. My husband's work relocated us here. There was no way out of it. He tried to find another job in California and wasn't successful. And so now we're here. We're in the Frisco, Texas area. I'm just wondering if this was a good move because the houses are expensive here. It just seems...

Expensive, and we're currently renting right now, and we rented our house in California, and we have some savings, but the houses are just expensive. Did you guys do any research before you loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly?

We did, but I mean, it was, we move or my husband doesn't have a job and then I would be the breadwinner. Yeah, this doesn't sound like it's about houses though, because it's expensive in California too. This sounds like you haven't found a community or a connection or there's a cultural fit or something like that. It's okay to say we moved and we tried something and we don't like it. That's okay. That's also true, yeah.

Well, I'm trying to like it. My husband likes it. He likes Texas. So what is it that you don't like about it? Well, my family's all in California. And then just the prices are here. They're in the $600,000, $700,000. Well, you're also in a very, very expensive part of Dallas.

Yes. Very expensive. And so it's both true. Frisco, Texas is a very, very expensive place to live. And it's not super all the way 100% honest when...

You can move over to Arlington 30 minutes away or 40 minutes away. There's places where you can move that are less expensive. And I think I heard you say that you kept your California house and you're renting it. So there's, I'm assuming there's equity there that would have gone into rolling over into a house. Is that playing into it too? Like, were you planning on selling the California house and using the equity to buy a home in Texas or what was the plan there?

No. So our plan was to just keep that as an investment. Um, so we owe about 289,000 and the house is worth about 620,000. Okay.

And we're renting it out. We don't make very much. We come up making about maybe $300 every month. But we just wanted to keep it as a rental property. And we do have about $294,000 in a high-yield interest account right now. And then about $40,000 in our checking and savings. So we don't...

I don't know. So hold it. If you just pay off the house in California, I use that for a down payment. Yeah. Yes. Your money issues are not money issues. Just hold that because you are investing in your right hand and in your left hand, you're renting. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right? So you have this one dream like we want to have a rental property as some people in America, like so many people think that that's- But it's at your expense. Yeah. But you're the one suffering from it.

And so you could sell that, have $400,000. Plus you got a couple of hundred. You could write a check for a house where you are right now. And so it's not about the money. What is it about Texas you don't like or about your area that you don't like or about the changes in your husband that you like? What is it besides I miss my family or I miss the weather or I miss. Which are big things. I don't know. Those are all real things. But be honest about what you miss.

I missed my job back in California. There you go. I was making a little bit more over there, too, than I am here. Okay, so have you had like a, this sounds cheesy, have you had a funeral for what was? Because it sounds like keeping the house in California also allows you to keep a foot there. It's kind of like you broke up with an old boyfriend, you're dating somebody new. But you kept the photos. You kept all the photos and you all still talk all the time.

And so you're never going to give this new boyfriend a full shot because you're still longing for the old stuff. And the old stuff was great. It was awesome. Right. Hello. Yeah, we're waiting on you to sift it out. Bear it out. I mean, I want to ask the question. So you made this move. The purpose of it, was it just, tell me the full purpose of it, what you were trying to accomplish. Yeah.

Okay, so my husband's job, the headquarters is moving to Dallas, Texas. And he kept telling me, you know, it's going to be great over there. You know, you'll be able to, I'm a nurse practitioner, so you're going to be able to get a job. You know, we'll be able to rent this house in California and it'll be our investment property and then we can buy something else over there. It'll be good. It was, you know, this big old dream. So it's working for him. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Because he didn't lose his job. He has his job. And he's still loving his job. No, he doesn't like his job. He doesn't. Listen. The job market right now is so bad that he's having a hard time trying to find something else. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about the first thing John said, which is you try something, it doesn't work. That's okay if it doesn't work. Yeah, call it. Call it. You know, but I do think you're talking about, let me leave you with two thoughts. A,

When my husband and I moved here to Nashville for this job from South Florida, we've been here two and a half years and I'm just married, like just starting to be cool. Like it's, it takes time, right?

So I want to say that, that they're like, you're not going to move from an area uproot your whole life, leave your family, leave your friends and be good in six weeks or six months. Like it takes time to like get in and get settled. So there's that side of it. But then there's also the side of it is if you're looking at him and he's looking at you and you're like, listen, we made a mistake or I hate my job. You hate your job. We don't even like the price of the houses. We don't even like the people. Like if you're really checking all those boxes, like,

I like I'm the type of person John I'll sit down and make up a checklist like old school style and check the things that are positives and check the things that are negatives and like weigh it out literally and see okay

Of all the things that we said are important, we're not checking any of the boxes or we're only checking one. And California was checking nine, you know, and that helps you get a clear read on what's really going on, like real time and not just how you're feeling in a moment because something happened at work. And sometimes when people say the job market is so bad, it's so bad. It might be in your field or in his field.

And that's when you have to ask yourself a bigger question. And you got to do what I did. You got to do what Jay did. And that is shift your entire career trajectory into another job. The job I have right now did not exist. There was no such thing as a podcast or YouTube when I graduated from college. And so the world has shifted, right? And so y'all might have to ask yourself that question. I love Jay's. You know what would be awesome? If y'all just went on a

a year one retreat. Yeah. I just did a retrospective. I love you. You love me. We're on the same team. We're going to make this, we get to pick whatever we want to do with our one wild and crazy life. We have half a million dollars in equity and a quarter million dollars in cash. We're okay. Hmm.

Let's be honest and don't, you can't be deceitful, Mary. You gotta be honest about what you have loved about this move. And you gotta be honest about what you don't like. And both of y'all make your list. You'll talk about it. And then you can put your hands together and say, all right.

I've been a nurse practitioner forever. I'm going to start looking at home health or he's been, I don't know, he sells oil products or something and now he's going to start selling jackets. I don't know, but that's because our priority is we want to go back to California. Can I also throw one other little variable in there? Yes. Mary, you there? Yes. Let me throw one more thing in there. When I left my childhood area of Houston area and I moved out to West Texas and the first big giant storm came through Houston,

I remember being glued to my phone because those were my people and that was my home. And I felt so powerless being that far away. And if you are finishing up year one and you've been glued to your phone for the last month watching these fires ravage parts of your home,

then I want you to be honest about it just feels weird not being there with your people and with your family and being able to put eyes and hands on those that you love. And that's normal. That doesn't mean you uproot everything if everything else isn't need to be uprooted. But that feeling of powerlessness because you're not right there with it, that's real and that's good and that's holy and that's right.

and you just have to acknowledge it. So y'all go on a one-year retreat. Go through it all and say, what do we love? What do we not love? I love Jade's idea there. And then y'all make some fact-informed decisions about what you're going to do next. You get one shot at life. Go live it well.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by...

One of the greatest people on the planet, Jade Warshall. Today's question of the day is brought to you by WhyRefi. WhyRefi refinances defaulted private student loans. Defaulted means when the borrower can't make the required payments.

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I'm engaged to a wonderful woman. We earn about $150,000 combined. We have a joint bank account because I want it to be our money and not my money. Love that. The problem comes up when we have our monthly budget meeting and she sees that we have $1,000 extra in the account once everything is paid.

I know by the next payday in two weeks, there will be zero. We have gotten our total debt down from $75,000 to $35,000, but I want to get that to zero. What can I do to regain some financial peace? So if I'm understanding this correctly, John, they've got $1,000 of margin, but it sounds like it's just getting spent.

on whatever. And in two weeks, it's zero. That thousand bucks isn't getting a sign. Yeah. So exactly. John just hit the nail on the head. When you do an every dollar budget, let me just clear up a common misconception. A lot of people think that when they do their budget, the budget is just for the things that I'm

supposed to plan for. The things that make me an adult, my rent, my electricity, my phone bill, I got to plan for groceries. But then they see the extra money and go, okay, that's treat yourself. That's up for grabs. We can do what we want. And in a way, it is up for grabs, but you decide what you're going to grab it for, if that makes sense. So when you do an every dollar budget, you decide how you're going to spend every single dollar ahead of time, not just

the important dollars. Does that make sense? So I say to people all the time, it's not to say that it's gotta be like this negative thing,

When you're planning every single dollar, you're still planning the fun stuff too. So if your wife has a fun category, although in this phase, I would say not yet because you're paying off debt, but let's just pretend, yeah, you're spending that thousand dollars as well. So you're saying, okay, $70 is going to go to get nails done. $100 is going to go towards entertainment. $200 is going to go towards restaurants. And you're deciding that

How all of that is spent that way. If your wife rolls out to Target, she's got a $75 line item that says, yeah, this is like my blow money at Target. Right. And then you walk away from all of your spending for the month feeling fine about it because you didn't break any rules. Right. Because there were guardrails there.

How important is it, Jade, as you're talking, this is probably the worst analogy I could think of, but I'm thinking back to like middle school and high school with the youth pastor who says, you need to make a decision about your boundaries before you go on the date. Because if you wait until you're on the date, it's too late, right? It feels like it's important to make a decision with this quote unquote thousand extra on the first day of the month. Because if you just know it's in there,

It's so easy to go out to eat and be like, let's get appetizers and drinks too. Yeah. Because, and then you wake up and it's gone, right? You spent it on stuff that you wish you hadn't spent it on. So it feels important to when everybody's of sober mind and they're being less emotional and more rational, we're just looking at a budget. Let's go ahead and assign this to where it goes. That way on the 21st, when we're out of eat out money, we got to figure it out. We've got to eat at home. Yes. It's too hard when there's a thousand bucks is there.

Absolutely. You're exactly right. Taking it out of the heat of the moment is great because nobody makes good decisions when they're feeling the emotion of like, I want this now. So that is a great thing. Also, I feel like when you do that ahead of time as an espousal relationship, for sure, it helps.

it takes the sneakiness out of it. Do you know what I'm saying? When there's just a lump sum there that's up for grabs, anybody can do it. If you get to it first and you spend it, you kind of feel this thing of like, I don't want to show them that I did it because they're going to be asking questions. So I'm going to hide it over here. I'm going to like bring it in, in pieces into the house, right? You're doing all these things to kind of hide that you've spent the money as opposed to being a grown adult and saying, no, I have $200 I get to spend, or we assigned this to that. And then you're like,

you're golden after that. You don't have to be feeling bad. Now, in his case, he's like, I want to use all this to put it towards the debt. My guy, Mark is absolutely correct. And baby step two, now's not the time to be spending on a bunch of extras. Margin should go towards debt, the smallest debt. It's funny you mentioned that in my marriage, when there's extra money like that in the past, I was such an idiot. I might spend $40 of that.

And then if my wife spent $60, I would somehow feel superior. Like you did better? Where are you spending all this money? Yeah, exactly. I'm keeping score. It's so stupid. But people do that. Just budget it and budget it, and you can spend whatever you want to. That's right. All right, good deal. Let's go out to Little Rock, Arkansas, and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark, what's up, man? Oh, not much. How you doing? Good. Sorry I messed up the phones there on an earlier call. What's up, brother? Yes, um...

We're trying to get out of debt, get about $250,000, including our mortgage and doctors and credit cards. And so we're working on that. And we're just wondering, I'm 51, wife's 48, so we know in the next 10, 15 years or so we'll retire. So is it still wise to hold off on investing and investing?

pause that and pay the debt because also we have an opportunity that if we can sell our house we can move on to some family land and put a trailer there uh to cut down on calls so just didn't know what the best plan is okay so we've got a couple of things on the table we're talking about debt we're talking about investing and we're talking about future home settlement right like living on land living in a different house okay i love this question because i think what you're facing is a a

flurry that all of us are facing, right? What do I focus on first? They're all really, really important things. Enter the baby steps because it really helps us focus on the right thing at the right time because everything that you're talking about are important things, but you got to prioritize them in order of importance. So first off,

in order to be able to do the things you want to do, you want to be able to invest in this land one day, you want to be able to invest for retirement, that takes cash, that takes money. And Dave Ramsey would say all the time, your income is your biggest wealth building tool. Therefore, how can we get more of our income back in our pocket? Pay off your debt, right? Because you're probably giving away. I mean, if you were to calculate how much you're giving away every month in payments, what do you think it would be?

Oh, it's close to 60%. We've already done that. Yeah. So that's a lot. So that points to your first answer. Yes. I think you should clear the debt first. So how much is it? About $240,000, $250,000, something like that. And is that including? Including our mortgage. Okay. So let's pull out the mortgage and tell me what you have in consumer debt. Well, it's about $180,000 out of that. I'm not good with math. I'll stop there. Okay. That's fine. And so tell me what type of debt it is.

Credit cards, a personal loan, and medical bills. Okay, tell me how much the credit cards are, tell me how much the personal loans are, and tell me how much the medicals are. The credit cards are, they're probably close to $20,000. Okay, and that personal loan? Personal loan's probably about $23,000. Okay, and then that medical debt? I don't have an exact number on the medical debt because I just figured it all up as one, because there's a bunch of little different doctors for probably say $20,000.

If you had to guess. I don't know, probably about $2,500. Okay, so of course that's going to go first since it's the smallest debt in this whole thing. And tell me about what you guys earn. What's your income combined? Combined, we make about $115,000. That is if I don't get any overtime or anything. Okay, so monthly, what does that look like? Every month, what does it look like you bring in? Uh...

Probably about $3,000, $2,600. Okay. $2,600 plus $3,000, so about $56,000. Okay, good. So off the bat, my first like,

thing for you. And it's always going to be the budget. I want for you to know these numbers, the budget's going to make you know the numbers like the back of your hand, there's not going to be any guessing, there's not going to be any, because you're going to be so dialed into it. Because you're focused on taking every little bit and throwing it at this debt is what it's going to amount to. So with your income, assuming that your current housing situation is in its proper place, what are you paying every month for rent or mortgage?

Uh, about 1600 a month. Okay. Yeah, you're good. So there's no reason that you shouldn't be knocking this debt out going very quickly. 2500 on that medical debt should be gone super fast, right? How many kids do you guys have?

We have three still at home. Okay. So this is going to be everybody, the whole family. We're sitting down together. Dad and mom are saying, here's what we're doing next. We've got to get out of debt because we've got to get our life together. And here's how we're going to do it. You guys are going to see us cutting back big time. Once you cut that, once you knock this debt out, you're saving up three to six months of expenses. And then you're going to start investing 15% for retirement. You're in your forties. I promise you it's not too late, but you've got to get on this now. And don't,

go move into a trailer on family land just yet. This is the Ramsey show.

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Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's the Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw. We are taking your calls on money, life, building wealth, your savings and checking accounts, your relationships, your work, whatever you got going on in your life. We are taking your calls live. 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Orlando, Florida. Orlando, Florida. I was just making up stuff. That's right. Orlando, Florida.

I called it Orlando, James, because it's snowing there right now, which is very strange. Let's go to Orlando and talk to Jessica. Hey, Jessica, what's up? Hi, how are you? I'm fantastic. How are you? I can't complain. Well, I can, but it does no good. Right? I was going to say, lots of people complain. Just don't do anything. What's up? Okay, so my question is, my husband and I, we were in the process of buying a home, and

Found out we can't do that. We let our apartment go so we could save up for clothes and cloths. And now we are, I guess, technically homeless. How can we... Wait, why can't you buy a house? Or get another apartment.

Right. Well, he had an eviction from a few years ago. We let our apartment go, which is, I guess, technically, according to the courts in Florida, like an eviction. When you say you just let your apartment go, you mean y'all just moved out and quit paying on it with a signed lease?

We broke the lease because the lender that we were working with completely assured us that there was no problems. We were going to be in our home in 30 days. Just make sure you have the closing costs. We had the down payment covered. Yeah, but that doesn't answer the previous question. The department would have sued you because you broke your lease. You have to pay the lease out. They actually were very, very good about...

the whole situation except that except that they have y'all y'all y'all have a broken lease on your credit eviction yeah right um help us understand because what john and i are hearing is that you're saying hey we let the lease go and it's all good but at the same time you letting the lease go is what caused the eviction which caused you not to get in your house and people might have been nice to you but you can't just walk away from your lease

Right. Well, we explained the situation that we were in, that we, you know, we weren't going to pay the rent for the last month. And they said, okay, as long as you're out by a certain date, it'll be fine. So... Do you have a name and number of the person who said that and the date they said it? And in writing? Yes. Yes. They sent you something in writing?

Yeah. Then I'd go back into the office, into the main office and say, hey, I have this documentation here. It says it's good. Y'all filed on my credit report. You have 15 days to remove it. Okay. We're going to have to get an attorney because y'all are violating what you told us. Okay. Yeah. I think it's as simple as that. I mean, if you have any writing that said that your lease is terminated and it's all good and you owe zero dollars and it's terminated on this date. Yeah. That feels simple to me. I don't know why, but I feel like there's more to it than that. Yeah.

Is there? Okay. Not really, no. Because here's the thing. A bank, if they pull up your credit report and you've been evicted from a house, you have just bailed on a lease because you don't want to pay it anymore. And somebody somewhere told you, no, it's cool, man. It's cool. It's totally cool, dude. Of course they're not going to loan you money because your track record says you just don't really care what you sign your name to. You just do whatever you want to do.

Right. So that makes sense. So yeah, you need to go fight for your credit report on that front end. And then I don't know what your husband does about the eviction. Did he actually get evicted from a house? He did. Yeah. Okay. How long ago was that? 22. Okay. And what caused that? Was this before you entered the picture? No, we were together at that point, but the apartment was in his name. Okay. What happened to cause that?

It was like right at the end of COVID. Okay. So his income wasn't... He couldn't afford the apartment. Right. He couldn't afford the apartment. He had qualified for rental assistance, but the place that we were living in just refused to take it. Okay. So they were just like, all right, you guys got to go. Okay. I hear what you're saying. I want to make sure...

I would just check and double check that this home purchase that you're making coming up is a great fit, that you guys are crossing all your T's and dotting all your I's, because I don't want a pattern. I see a pattern. Yeah. I don't want that pattern either. And I, you know, I'm a stay-at-home mom, and we only have one income. So, yeah.

I just want to make sure because when I go to buy a house, and don't get me wrong, when you buy a house, it is an eye-opening experience. You're learning something new at every turn. You sign a phone book's worth of papers, and it's a whole thing. But there is also a level of due diligence that you want to do ahead of time before you start getting other folks involved. And a lot of that is reviewing your credit, reviewing what your numbers are, looking at the income, all of that stuff. I want you guys to take so much control of this process

and not make rash decisions like getting out of your lease before you've even checked your own credit, right? Because you would know that that eviction is there, you know, and that's kind of what I mean by that. I want you guys really dialed in, doing your due diligence, getting ahead of things and not letting it just kind of happen and not making rash choices like, we love this house. Let's get out of the lease. Forget the payment. We don't have to, like,

I just, John, I'm not trying to read too much in. I just, I feel like I'm hearing part of the story. Jessica, is there another layer to this? No, there isn't. I mean, you know, the lender that we were working with,

You know, we asked all these questions. Is there going to be a problem? You know, can you assure that we are going to get into this house? Because otherwise we were we weren't going to do what we did. Yeah. She was like, no, no, no. Everything is fine on my end. Everything is fine. OK. And then, you know, it wasn't.

So tell us. OK, well, if that's it, then it's as simple as John said before. I mean, I'm not going to beat a dead horse. Yeah. Go to them. Say you need to remove this from my credit contested on your credit. And then once it's removed, go back through with the situation. If you want my advice, which I know you didn't ask this, but I would not be buying a house unless I was completely debt free.

with three to six months of expenses saved in a high yield savings account. And I'd want to make sure that I'm putting down anywhere between five to 20%. You could do more, but no less than 5%. And the payment doesn't need to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. That's wisdom in this situation. I hope that you take it. Well, and here's one layer deep. Again, you didn't ask for this, Jessica. I hear something in your voice and man, I don't mind being wrong.

That you know you're married to a guy who all of your eggs are in this basket, not just relationally, but financially. You're at home, and for a second time, he assigned his name to a piece of paper and just walked away from it. And rarely does that pattern of behavior exist in only one sphere. That you're a person of integrity everywhere, except when it just comes to leases. I don't really care about them.

And so if that's the case and you have just doubts in your gut about buying a house, because, dude, they will come for both of you if you buy a house. They'll take your home from you, right? And that's a scary, scary proposition. So before you buy a house, make sure we got the money. And if we sign a 30-year note, we're prepared to be here 30 years or pay this thing off. Or a 15-year note, we're prepared to sign this thing and not leave because you can't just walk away. You can't just walk away. Jade, it's...

It's frustrating when life changes and I have a new idea, but I've signed my name to a contract. And the right thing to do almost always is to, I said, this is what I said I was going to do. And I'm going to honor them. It almost always comes back to bike show. Yeah, that's right. We'll be right back. This is the Ramsey show.

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We'll be there too. We'll be talking about how you can make real progress on your money goals. Maybe you're wanting to knock out some debt. Maybe you're ready to start saving for a house. Maybe you want to build for the future. Or maybe you just want to stop cringing every time you need to buy eggs. This live stream is for you. It's your time to ask us whatever you want about money.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Are you ready? Yes, we are. Tomorrow night is Ramsey's biggest live stream and it is totally free. It's the Ramsey team, Dave and Jade, in your living room, on your phone, on your iPad, on your big screen, however you consume it. 350,000 people have already registered and they are ready to do something different with their money.

So listen, Jade and Dave are going to give you practical tips and the motivation you need to start building wealth, find margin, get out of debt, do all the stuff. We're going to give you a step-by-step playbook. And Jade, I take calls, like personal calls, on my cell phone from folks all over the country who have incomes that I can't even wrap my head around. Yeah. And I can hear the courage. It's building and building, and they say, hey.

Okay, walk me through this budget thing. Yeah. Right? And it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Right? It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be, but it is. Yeah. It is, right? Yeah. And so this is a way you can learn step by step and you don't got to ask anybody anything. But if you do want to ask...

At the end of the live stream, Rachel Cruz and George are going to join you guys for live Q&A. Your questions are going to get answered and you're going to help a whole, whole bunch of people. Yeah, this is good. I mean, to your point, this is one of those almost like asking for a friend, right? That's right. You don't have to put yourself out there. You can put on your pajamas and heat up your lean cuisine and just watch it on the couch and get all the answers you want. But, you know, I hope you do get involved. Get involved in the chat. Ask questions.

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Get right with your money in 2025. Let's go out to Nashville, or let's go right down the street and talk to Johnny Five. What's up, Johnny? Hello. What's up? I have $40,000 in debt, and I have been put on short-term disability, and I'm at a breaking point to where my credit card bills are going to go behind. Oh, man, what happened, brother?

Mental health issues. I had to have medication changes, and they took me out of work for it. And it's been a month and a half. I had $1,000 saved up for it, and I floated all my bills for that month. And I'm out of funds, and I'm at the point where everything's about to run behind. Yeah. Is there any chance you – I'm assuming you've looked into this – any chance you had –

disability insurance through your job? Yes, I'm on short-term disability right now. So you're getting some money, just not enough?

I'm getting $300 a week, and my wife does work, but she's only bringing in $1,000 every two weeks. Okay. What does she do? She works in a factory. Okay. And she's getting $1,000 every two weeks, okay? So you guys are at $3,200 a month. Yes. Is she working full-time or is that part-time work?

No, that's full-time. Prior to me going on short-term, we were bringing in roughly $5,000 a month, but me being on short-term has cut my funds by about $2,000. How long are you going to be out, brother? I'm dated to go back in March, but it could be sooner or they could decide to extend it. I don't really know. It's up to my doctor. How are you feeling?

I'm all right right now, but like I said, this debt's stressing me out. Sure, absolutely. Okay, I'm looking at this, and there's the issue of the short-term disability. You're going to be off of that soon. When are you projected to be back full in action? 3-2.

Okay, so in March, the clouds part and you can start to see a better day. But in that meantime, I still think that there's an income issue here. You know, your wife's working full time to make $24,000 a year.

before, you know, after tax. That's tough right there for 40 hours a week. I'd love to start looking at a trajectory that gets you guys' income up so that you can start making headway on this debt. That's what I would be interested in long-term. So before you get off the call,

I want to get you guys set up with Ken Coleman because he's got a lot of great materials out there just for career projection, whether this is for your wife or for you. I want to get you guys in a better situation to where you're paying off this debt faster, you're doing work you love, and you're really getting to that point of financial peace that we all want to get to. Here's a couple of things, Johnny, you can do, okay? If I'm just trying to project myself, I'm your neighbor, I live here in Nashville. If I'm you, if I woke up and found myself in your exact spot,

The first thing I would do is I'd sit down with my wife and y'all have to figure out a way that at least for the next 30 or 60 days, she can make some more money. Mm-hmm.

And no husband wants to have that conversation, but that's just the financial reality you'll find yourselves in. So if she goes and does this job and then she delivers pizzas in the morning or in the evening and drives Uber, people to the airport in the morning, she can be exhausted in 60 days, two months, but y'all aren't going to get buried underneath this deal. And you can say, hey, I'll take care of the house. My purpose for the next 30 days while I'm getting well is I'll make sure there's, we got breakfast and dinner. I'll take care of that.

But y'all need to get some cash in your home quickly. The second thing I would do is I would call those credit cards and just, I don't know if this and five cents will buy you a cup of coffee, but you can plead and say, I need a 30 or 60 day stay on my account. I've had a medical issue. I'm on short-term disability. I'm scheduled to go back March 2nd. Can I roll these things? And they might do that for you.

See, I did that with one credit card, and they cut my bill in half, but they canceled the card and put me on a 60-month plan. Okay. And by doing that, dropped my FICO score by about 70 points. Could care less about my FICO score right now. That's the least important thing in this equation. Could care less.

Okay, so here's my next question. One of my ways of thinking was I don't care about my credit cards. My house payment's only $300 plus land taxes plus insurance. I'm not counting my debt.

For credit cards, the bills to run the house is about two grand. Okay. Now, I don't care about my credit cards. I don't care about my debt. My house is five years out from being paid off. Great. My car is 10 months out from being paid off. Okay. I want to keep my house paid. I want to keep my cars paid. I was willing to let my credit cards get behind.

and then call them and see if I can get the same deal off them once I get back. Don't do it after it's already sailed, the ship's already sailed. And why would you need to do that? Because you told me as it stands right now, on disability you're at $3,200, but then you just told me it takes $2,000 to make your house run. So what's happening to the other $1,200? It's more like $2,300. That leaves us about $700 for food. Okay. Okay.

When you said it's more like $2,300, what happened to the other money? Because before you said $1,200 for you and your wife brings home $2,000 a week. Or I'm sorry, $1,000 every two weeks. Yeah, she's bringing in $2,000. I'm making about $1,200. The lights, the gas, all that added up together on top of my car payment and my house payment.

Coming out just over two grand. Okay, so what I want you to do, I want you to throw this in every dollar because you're doing the type of budget that I...

the type of budget where you only plan the things that you think are important, but you forget to add the other stuff. I want you to budget every single dollar of this money. So before you get off the line, we'll get it for you. And I want you to put your income at the top, your wife's income at the top, and then go through line by line, every dollar, I'll have some default categories there to kind of prompt your mind and get you thinking of what you're spending money on, but be sure to add everything in there. I'm talking about grandma's birthday. Uh, you know, you stopping off at, at, at,

Wawa to get a snack. All of that. Put it into the budget. And I think you might find that there's more money than you think. And that might give you a little peace in this situation. And that $700 in food for the next 30 or 60 days, y'all are beans and rice in it. Yeah. And you can bring your kids in there to help cook and make the food, but y'all are eating as cheaply as possible. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

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There's no better time to get the clarity you need to invest with confidence. Watch live on March 4th and 5th. Get tickets today at ramseysolutions.com slash events. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by my great friend, Jade Warshaw. Let's go out to Raleigh, North Carolina, and talk to Jake. What's up, Jake?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'll get right to the point. I live in an expensive city, and my question is regarding buying a home. Am I better off liquidating my brokerage accounts to put down a down payment, or should I aim for the, you know, I know Mr. Ramsey talks about, you know, 15-year mortgage, 25% of my income would

which would be a very, very, not a very good place where I live. Okay. So the question is, you know, do I save up and hope that I can save up to buy a home cash? Do I liquidate these brokerage accounts that I've saved up over my years? I'm almost 50 years old, by the way. Okay. To lower that mortgage payment, I'm getting varying advice from friends and family and so forth and online as well. Okay. Okay.

Uh, that's a good question. So how, first off, what are you looking to spend? Do you kind of have a range that you're like between here and here, or does that depend on what we... Yeah. So I'm, I mean...

I'm in a good financial situation. The houses I'm looking at are probably in the 1 to 1.5 billion range. Okay. And the reason why I can't, I would love to move out rural, but, you know, I have a special needs child. All the resources and the schools are in the city. It's just not realistic to have to drive, you know, 45 minutes or the,

have my kid wake up early sure or and we can't make a lot of business you know appointments that are in business hours so i'm kind of stuck in this range i'm renting right now uh so yeah that's the kind of range i'm at the one to 1.5 million well what's in the brokerage account what's non-retirement uh 500k 500,000 now when you put that money aside in that brokerage account what in your mind was the purpose of it to buy a home or was it for something else

No, this is just lifetime. It was just for savings and to add on to retirement. Got you. And what do you have in retirement?

401k plus IRA is probably around a million. Okay. Nice. Do it today, dude. Yeah. Cash in today. Yeah. I'm with John. I think that this money, of course, I'd keep three to six months. In your case, I keep six months of expenses liquid or in that, you know, you could, I wouldn't keep it in the brokerage. I'd throw it in a high yield savings. Do you have any money liquid in a high yield savings?

Yes. I sold my old home to move to the city. We recently moved here. So that's why I'm asking this question now at my age. Yeah. What's in that? I took that money, about 250K. I put that in a high yield savings, you know, four point something percent, you know. Yeah. Get what you can get. So what else? Any other money we should know about?

No, that's it. That's it. So yeah, just... Just $750,000. You could put that on a house. You're good, homie. You're good. I get it. Now you might decide based on how you're trying to keep your expenses low. It sounds like you are. You might decide, yeah, I'm going to go more for the $1 million range instead of $1.5 because the truth is that's a big swing. That's a $500,000 swing. That's your entire brokerage. So I would...

If what you're looking for is to get as close as possible to a cash home, yeah, you're looking at a $1 million. And you're going to want to keep, like I said, six months of this out. So you got $700,000 to put down on a $1 million home. How do you feel about carrying $300,000 in a mortgage? Yeah.

Well, I'd feel much better. It's just, you know, people are like, why would you give up all that brokerage when you can just do a 30, you know, I know, 30-year mortgage, pay less, you know, long, take advantage of compound in the market, blah, blah, blah. You know, that can go down. Yeah, but you'll be losing compound on the other end with a 30-year mortgage at 6%. Right. You get what I'm saying? Absolutely. So the net compound is...

I call it my sleep tax, my soul tax. If I'm earning 8% on one end or 10% on one end and I'm spending 7% on the other, that 3% to not have a mortgage, I'm glad to pay that. Especially with a special needs kid because no one could take our house away from us.

Yeah, I guess it's just a little scary to lose my non-retirement account because I kind of treat that as untouchable, right? And that was another question. Do I also stop contributing to my 401k? No, you need to continue to contribute 15%. And I want to be really clear here.

If you don't, like if you say to yourself, listen, Jade, I have my eye on the house I want. My down payment is going to be 20%. I'm happy to put, you know, $250,000 down on this and the payment's fine for me. Like you, this is your money and you have the choice. You can make the choices you want to make. Right. So you have to decide what do I value most? Right.

do i want do i like this money in the brokerage sitting there and waiting for you know working for me do i only want to use half of it do i want you know you have options here which is the wonderful thing about your position you're not your back is not against a wall in any way so

you kind of have to decide what am I comfortable with parting with and also keeping in mind that long-term the goal is the goal is to not have a home payment like John said and so run those numbers out and go okay by the when do I want to retire because by the time I want to retire I want this thing paid off right and so you get does that make sense

Yeah, I guess generally speaking, most of the advice I've gotten has kind of been along those lines, figure out what you're comfortable with. But I think a lot of people are like, you would be crazy to liquidate everything and reduce that mortgage. So Jake, let me just tell you, can I just tell you, I just did that. I did that less than a year ago.

I didn't have it in a brokerage account. I had it in a high yield savings account. But I, growing up in the house that I grew up in, was very uncomfortable with money. And I accumulated a chunk of change and I did not realize how much of my identity and safety I was putting in that savings account.

So my wife and I, for reasons not quite similar to yours, but very similar to yours, she's one of these newfound wives that wants cell signal and she wants to not have to drive an hour to drop the kids off in school, stuff like that. And so, yeah, I took that money out.

And here's the thing. I had two or three months of, oh, my gosh, I put all of my faith and all of my safety and security not in my faith, not in my family, not in my work, not in – you have a million dollars in savings, by the way, in your retirement account, right? Yes. And so nobody's starving here. You're good. You're fine. It became, oh, this is all about me and me putting safety in the wrong things. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Maybe you run out, run the numbers out. If I were you, I would sit and go, okay, I've got the million dollars. And what's that going to look like 10 years from now when I'm 60, if I continue to contribute 15% of my income, you already know a lump sum is going to double every seven years, but continue to add your contributions on top of that.

Knowing that retirement wise, you're going to be fine is also going to play into the decision that you make here. And then, yeah, run it out with, okay, well, what if I take, what if I keep 250 of the brokerage in there? What is that?

how, how does that change the numbers? And then ultimately, yeah, run back, run that through. Okay. What's my legacy going to be? I've got the special needs child. What do I need to leave to them? Like run those numbers and you're going to see all of your options and what makes sense, what you're going to feel like, you know, at the end of the day is excess and better serve that,

that would better serve you now today in this new house. So I think that's going to give you a lot of insight. There's not a wrong, there's not a wrong answer here. The only wrong answer is to, you know, go into debt and do it at 30% and do it to the point of you're never paying it off and that sort of thing. So, and I think the other thing that I would classify as quote unquote wrong here, and I don't like to use that language all the time is don't not do something because you're scared. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. You have $1.5 million, not including a cash account with $250,000 in it. And I missed it. What's your take home? What's your salary? After taxes and contributions, about 15K a month. Yeah, listen. So here's the thing. You're playing on house money.

Yeah. And so the thing, I wonder how much of it is just fear. It's just fear. How old's your kid? A lot of it's fear. A lot of it's fear because I don't know how long I'm going to be working and what my daughter's going to need when she's older. How old's your daughter? She's nine. Okay.

And I'm an older parent, obviously. But it sounds like you guys are on board with if I decided to just put it all in, that is not an unreasonable or insane decision to make. If I were you, I would do that.

And I'd keep a good emergency fund, maybe a little bit more because you do have a special needs situation. Right. Yes. I would. Yeah, I wouldn't be all $750K that I have in cash and brokerage. It would be, you know, $650K or something like that. Thank you so much for the call. That's awesome, man. This is why we do this show. So the people who have curveballs in life have options. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshall. Hey, we have this rad new segment on the show. It's called Sorry We Missed Your Call. And here's the deal. People call and leave us messages. Sometimes the messages are hilarious. And sometimes they are...

critical in a good way. Like they, they point out some things and sometimes as they usually are, there are questions like people are asking for help and they try to call into the show. They couldn't get through because so many people were calling in or they called in after hours or they got caught the show, not on radio, live radio, but they caught it on YouTube and they just wanted to reach out and ask a question. So we have a new segment called, sorry, we missed your call. Here is the question from Amber. Amber writes, Hey, my name is

Oh, oh, we're going to listen to it. Okay, we're going to listen to it. Sorry, James. Go ahead. Hey there, my name's Amber, and I just have a question about donating to the needy. I know that kind of biblically and morally it's good to help out those that are poor and needy. I have this one family that phone me all the time asking for money, and I'm just wondering if I should keep giving them money or if there's a limit to...

to when I should be giving them money. So that's my question. Thanks. Okay, bye. What do you think, Jade? Ooh, I always love a generosity question. Listen, I will be the first to tell you that I think that generosity is one of the five pillars of personal finance. Super duper important. And it really is the concept of going through life with an open hand, right? Money comes in, money comes out. It's not too tight of a grip on it, which means it's in its rightful place. I'm fine with it leaving or coming in as it sees fit.

I do think that creating boundaries around anything is a wonderful thing. And just having a clear intent on what it is that you're trying to accomplish is a very good thing. So this kind of like limitless...

It's just an open well that never stops could be detrimental at some point. But if you've also gotten yourself to a point financially, let's say you've, John, you've paid off all of your debt. You've got your three to six months of savings. You're doing your investing. You have secured yourself and your family's back.

Then if you say, hey, like a lot of people will decide to give 10% to their local church, love that. If you're not a religious affiliate or anything like that, and you say, you know what, my thing is I just pick a family and I give 10% of my income to supporting these families in need. Fine. I just think that you need to create some sort of rhythm and boundary around whatever it is that that is. And it's not so much of a, hey, whenever you call me up,

I'm here to get what you need. - That's right, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get to bypass reality sometimes 'cause we'll just call you, right? - Yeah. - So I love what you asked. I wanna always go back to that question of why are you giving, right? And if you're giving because you think you're superior to somebody in need, then keep your money, right? If you're giving because you have just been insanely blessed or even a tiny, tiny bit blessed, and like you said, you live life with your hands wide open,

And by the way, we're all in a season. All of us are in a season, right? Yes. And it might be really cold in your season or it might be the harvest may have come in, but we are all in a season. And if you happen to be in a great season and you want to be supportive and you have your eyes open and you can help people, and that could be tipping really well, that could be strategic giving, that could be giving to local school, church, anything.

In this kind of situation, after one, two, three, four, whatever number is in your head, it sounds like she has reached a point where she is no longer comfortable. I'm giving money and it's not helping this family. Yes. Or this person. And that's where the harder thing I think to do is to have a personal conversation. We're going to go to coffee. And you

And you just talk to me about what's going on. And then to say, okay, this is the last time I'm going to give you cash. I'll give you Ramsey plan. I will help you get a job. I will walk you. I'll take part of the time off my job. I'm going to walk you over to a local, one of those like,

day ready places where you can get you a job like i'll walk with you i'm gonna walk next to you um but the the cash atm part of our relationship is going to come to an end and so i think it just expands what quote-unquote help means and giving means um and there is some time um

do like right this second is not the time to get a lecture my light bill's about to get cut off right right there's those moments you step up and you help help out your neighbor yeah the larger conversation is i'm not gonna pay your light bill for the rest of your life yes let's have a deeper conversation about what's actually going on yeah and i think that i mean that that's the whole kind of like nature of benevolence is like hey i'm gonna get you out of this jam but ultimately we're making sure you don't end up in this this jam again there you go so that's kind of how it works uh yeah

Yep. I guess covered it. Yeah. And I guess the last thing I'd say is don't give out of guilt. Yeah. Yeah. The thing here, I guess, is you have to look yourself in the mirror.

That's right. Right. And probably if we took me and you and Dave and Rachel and George and Ken, and we all sat down and said, what's our philosophy of giving and what it probably I'll be different, a little different. And so I think all of us are united, like giving is just a way of being. It's what's, it's a responsibility all humans have to each other, what that looks like day in, day out with each family and each situation. That's just different. And so, um, it's easy in this situation to go around and ask person to person to person, um,

Amber, if it's just you at home, look yourself in the mirror and be honest and then set your own boundaries and then go give recklessly within those boundaries.

And then if you're married, y'all sit down and decide who we're going to be this year financially with what we give and go get it. Yeah. And just another note to that. I think typically, I mean, we could all come up with a situation where that's not exactly been the case, but typically financially, the best time to give is from overflow so that you're making sure you're taking care of your family, your own home situation. And if you're not in that point, there are so many other ways that you can be generous that aren't directly dollars in your pocket.

right like there's so many ways with your time and your effort and your words your expertise yes your expertise you can trade skill sets and things like that or do it do uh you know a trade or something for free for somebody so there's a lot of ways to be generous generous that don't put you or your family um in a situation where you're not paying your own bills it's amazing all right let's go out to atlanta georgia and talk to michael hey michael what's up

Jay, John, how you guys doing? We're doing fantastic, brother. We're up against the clock, so hop in right on top of your question. What's up?

Hey, I was just wondering if I could give you some of my financial life insight and help me figure out the two-part question. You got it. The first question being, how can I budget mine and my wife's irregular income? And the second question being, where should I go next? So my wife and I's income, I make about $80,000 a year.

And she is a stay at home mom, but she has a side hustle where she's watching children. She makes anywhere between a hundred to $400 a week. Okay. Um, and that's, uh, I'm currently working on making more money within the next month. I'll probably be making, um, working on making a hundred thousand dollars a year. Okay. And, I'm saving for retirement at the moment. Um, 6% matches company I'm with now is doing. Okay. And, um,

Uh, yeah, that's where I'm at. I've got a one-year-old and I've got a $1,700 mortgage. All right. Thanks for the information. That's super duper helpful. So you mentioned the first issue is kind of like figuring out how to, to do this irregular income, which is such a common question. It's not, it can be befuddling. So, um, tell me every month when you guys kind of tally up your paychecks, how much is it when you get paid? Um,

So I make no more. Usually every week I bring home about $1,100. Okay. And on most weeks you bring home about $200. Okay.

Okay. So what I suggest when it comes to a regular income is you kind of take and you plug that $6,000 into your budget and you're first starting with the idea of priorities, right? The most important things, we call those the four walls, right? So number one, you're always going to make sure your rent's covered, your utilities, your food, your transportation. And then

quickly after that are the things usually associated with our kids, right? Whether it's childcare, insurance, that sort of thing. And so you kind of have this prioritized list of when the money comes in, these are the things that must be covered. And if I have enough money to cover all of those things, then I can go to the next most important things. I can start talking about, uh, I don't know, uh,

cell phone bills and keep going down that list, right? And if you look and you realize, okay, I have enough money to cover everything, that's a green light. Like that feels great knowing that even on a lower month, you can cover everything. Now, if you're in a situation that you go, hey, I've kind of looked back on 12 months and on my lowest month, I still can't, I can't cover everything. Then you know that when you have a higher month that comes in, you need to kind of pull some reserve and set it to the side. So we kind of call that peaks and valleys. When you have a great month, you

You keep a little extra aside. And when you have a valley, that money is there when you need it. A better tool for you probably to utilize is going to be an every dollar. It's a premium feature. It's called paycheck planning. A good budget tells your money where to go, but paycheck planning tells it when to go. So you're planning when you spend every single dollar. All right. That's the second hour in the books on The Ramsey Show. You can find the rest of the show live on the radio or behind the Ramsey Network app. We'll see you there shortly right here on The Ramsey Show.