If You Want To Be Wealthy, Do What Wealthy People Do!
2024-04-02 01:55:12
The Ramsey Show believes you can build wealth and take control of your life—no matter what stupid mistakes you've made with money. Join as Dave Ramsey and his team of experts answer your questions on the top problems holding you back. Listen now or ask your question live by calling 888.825.5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET. Learn more at www.ramseysolutions.com
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, and number one best-selling author. George Camel is my co-host today. His book is Breaking Free from Broke, he's a Ramsey personality, and we're going to be answering your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225..
Letitia starts this hour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Letitia, how are you?
Hi, Dave. Hi, George. I'm great. How are you?
Better than we deserve. What's up?
All right. Well, I'm in an interesting situation that I kind of feel I already know the answer to, but hearing it from you guys definitely will make it make more sense. So I failed you about six months ago and did your entire total money-maker book and started immediately implementing the baby steps. Paid off about $10,000 in consumer debt over the course of credit cards and a car loan. Good for you.
Thank you. And what is remaining now are my student loans, and I got my bachelor's as well as my master's, and it amounted to about $160,000..
What's your master's in?
I got my MBA.
Good. So what do you make?
Yes. So I make about $120,000..
That's good news.
Yes. So big shovel, but big debt simultaneously. And I did what everybody did, sort of pre-COVID, like right before it hit, and God offered the opportunity for them to consolidate it. And my mom said that makes perfect sense because over the course of seven years between my undergrad and my graduate degree, it was like 14 different loans between subsidized and unsubsidized. So right now, they are consolidated down into two.
So I've got $51,000 of subsidized and $110,000 of unsubsidized.
And you're single.
Now I'm married.
You're married. What's your husband make?
$7580.
Oh, so, you have a $200,000 household income. Yes. What other debts do you all have?
Like, he's got a car for his son, and I am about two months away from paying off my daughters. So we've got, you know, 20 and 17-year-old kids. So those will both be paid off here this summer. So then the only thing...
Okay, so if you make $200,000 a year and you have $160,000 of problem, and you paid $80,000 on it, that would have your household living on $120,000, not counting taxes, and you'd be debt-free in two years, right?
The numbers sound great when you say that.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you make $200,000.. I've got you living on $120,000, minus taxes. Mm-hmm. And that's less than you've been living on ever in recent memory.
So, you know, I'm pretty much boiling your lifestyle down to nothing.
What's your question, Letitia?
Well, so we are currently renting, and I obviously, like, the goal is to buy our first home. And we're a little bit older, so I'm 42 and my husband's 45.. So it would be like a first-time home-buying situation. And what we currently pay in our lease, I feel like we could do in a mortgage and actually, you know, own the home instead of just renting. But I know, like, just from listening to the show, the idea of taking out a $200,000 mortgage on top of $160,000 in student loan debt doesn't make much sense.
But I worried about trying to prolong getting a house if I fully, fully waited until the student loans were paid off.
If you're going to take 20 years to pay them off, that might be a discussion, but you should pay them off in two years.
Two years.
And then the emergency fund, and then the down payment. And so we're saying this is going to delay it, but you weren't ready to buy a house today anyways. You guys don't have any money. Do you have any money in savings?
Yes.
How much?
So I've got about $10,000.
Okay. Have you guys combined bank accounts?
No.
How long have you been married?
Two years.
Okay. His kid's car, your kid's car, they're still separate discussions. You're still living two separate lives. So we're going to always recommend, because the data shows us, this is data driven, that couples that combine their money and work together towards a goal have a huge increase in probability of actually hitting that goal. That goal being getting a house, building wealth, having a real solid nest egg, all of those things.
Trying to do it as two separate individuals acting as roommates, it very seldom occurs statistically. More. That's a data thing. So we're going to have you guys combine that. And so we have two kids with cars we've got to clean up, and then we have my student loan debt that we need to clean up, so we can buy a house.
And that's what we would do. So George has got his nose to the ground, he's figuring out what's really going on over there.
I'm Scruff McGruff over here.
Yeah. Oh, my God.
Just wanted to throw back to that, Dave.
This is like, there's an 80s throwback, there, an 80s reference.
Not as young as you thought.
I'm telling you, you're getting older every day. But the, yeah, that's what we would do. And I'm going to tell you to really lean in, and both of you, the faster you get this cleaned up, the faster you're on your way to not only home ownership, but wealth building in general. And so I'm going to absolutely go crazy for two years, and have this done in two years. Because 120 minus taxes, stop your 401k temporarily during that time.
Don't do anything. $1,000 is baby step one. Everything else goes towards this. We're going to attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. And the two of you working together.
Right now, you've been kind of working this, and he's been standing over on the side watching you do it. So we're changing the whole discussion, not just simply answering the one question.
And as you guys budget $200,000 of income, it changes the numbers. It changes how much margin you have to throw at this debt. And I think largely it's felt like a solo journey, trying to tackle this debt, making 120.. Yeah. And that's not a fun way to go.
And so marriage, it's we. You got to change the pronouns here, and start looking at this thing as a singular goal we're attacking together.
Yeah. Jade says, have a vocab rehab.
Ooh, I like that.
That's pretty good. She's much cooler than you and me.
Yeah. I got to work on my rhymes. I'm not there yet.
We got to hang around with Jade.
I'm mentioning Scruff, McGruff. Jade's out here with vocab rehab.
Yeah. That's my point exactly. Right there.
Well, back to the data, Dave.
Back to the data.
It's true. Couples build wealth faster when they combine their life, their goals, their vision, their bank accounts, their budget. It's just a better way to live. Yeah.
But I saw on TikTok that women ought to protect themselves. See, there's several problems with that statement. Number one, you were on TikTok. That is right there. That defines a whole lot.
That tells us a whole lot about you right there. This is the Ramsey Show.
I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief?
It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids, that I'm like so big on for people to get, because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much, because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much.
You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. to get a free quote, call 800-356-4282.. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com.
George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Elizabeth is in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Elizabeth. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Hi, how are you today, Dave?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
Okay. Well, I worked very, very hard to get where I'm at. I met my husband in my early 20s and I had about 20 store credit cards and 6K in debt and he helped me get out of that. We worked super hard, saved every dime, didn't go on vacations for decades, put a lot of money towards the mortgages. Now we live in a great area, our dream house, great location, but I literally have no idea how much money we have and we're still not going on vacation or living life, and I'm just a smart person that's doing really dumb decisions by not finding this information out and every time I ask, it's not going anywhere.
and it's not that I don't trust him, because he's very, very good with money, it's just. I think we're going overboard in what we were doing and I don't know how to kind of get out of this merry-go-round of just my head stuck in the sand.
Why is it that he won't share with his wife the money that you have?
I just never in the beginning, because I was the one in debt coming into the marriage.
How long have you been married?
20 years.
I've been married 43.
. If the stuff I did stupid in the first 7 years of marriage was still counted against me, I probably wouldn't be alive.
I know, I know.
So what you did 20 years ago doesn't count. Why is it that, 20 years into your marriage, you don't know what's going on with the money? Why does he not think you're worthy of that?
Probably because I haven't pushed it. You know, every time I push it, he just doesn't want to get into it and I just kind of back off and then I don't fight it. and to the point where I have to know this stuff. If something happened to him, I would have to know how to pay the mortgage.
Okay, so how can we help you?
How do I get out of this? I don't know if it's a mindset I'm stuck in or if it's just I'm scared. I just kind of want to get out of this behold of just not knowing.
Well, I guess, I mean, I don't want to be smart, aleck or anything, but the way you get out of the hole of not knowing is you start knowing, which means Bozo is going to have to open up his mouth and tell you what the flip's going on, and you're going to have to demand it as a part of him continuing to live.
Okay.
Yeah. Hey, dude, I'm going to duct, tape you to the bed and beat you with a baseball bat. You're going to tell me what the flip's going on here, okay? I'm kidding. Don't do that.
But, I mean, you really are, you sound sweet and you sound so apologetic, like you've done something wrong for asking about your life, and you don't owe anybody an apology for that. You don't need to be a jerk about it, but you do need to lean in hard enough that he decides he's going to share with you and say, listen, I am terrified because I do not know what's going on. It's not okay that I don't know what's going on. And starting right now, I'm going to know what's going on or we're going to have other problems in this house.
Okay.
Can you find that much roar in your voice?
Yes. It's like a five-year-old that throws a fit. He goes into that mode.
Yeah, you sound like someone who's a subject of domestic abuse, the way you're verbalizing it. It's all your fault that he's misbehaving.
I think it's the way I grew up with money. I'm the youngest of five kids and there's a huge age difference between me and my siblings.
How old are you?
I am 47.
Okay, it's time to grow up then.
Yeah.
I don't give a crap. what happened when you were a kid. As of right now, you're like a 47-year-old grown woman.
And he needs to grow up too.
And yeah, walk in there and say, Bubba, this ain't going this way anymore. We're not doing this. Not happening.
Okay. You've told us that you trust him, but the truth is I don't think he trusts you. If he's not willing to share any of this and be transparent with you, there's a bigger problem on his side.
Yeah, and he enjoys no one questioning his decisions.
Is he controlling in other areas too?
Just like stupid stuff. like restaurants we go to. We don't like the same food.
I don't like that. stupid. Eating is something we do a lot of. Three times a day, if you're normal.
Yeah.
So I think you don't get a vote in this marriage in every other area, and that's not okay.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I live where I always dreamed of.
There's a difference between having a vote and being a kept woman.
Yeah.
You're kind of tired of being a kept woman. is why you called.
Well, I wish I was a kept woman. I make my own money and contribute to the household. So I mean, it'd be nice if...
You're kind of missing the point, darling. I know. Okay. So are you going to sit down with him and deal with your marriage issue or not?
Yes.
Okay, good. I'm proud of you. And if he absolutely refuses to share with you what's going on in the finances, when you point blank demand that as an equal share in this marriage, then you guys need to go see a marriage counseling, to which Bozo is not going to go, and you get to go by yourself and learn how to speak Bozo. And that's what the marriage counselor will do. They teach you how to speak that.
I know that. That's a fun way to put it.
I mean, they teach you how to come back and do the confrontation and give you.
. Because basically, what we're talking about here is a boundaries violation. And the first thing that happens when someone violates your boundaries, whoever we are, our friend Dr. Henry Cloud, of course, wrote the consummate book on that, Boundaries, but you feel like you did something wrong. You feel crazy.
Which is now called gaslighting. That's the new term for this, when they make you feel like the crazy one and you're the problem.
Yeah, and that's typically when the boundaries are being violated, that's what's going on.
And it's an abuse mechanism.
And it's a manipulation. And so I feel like I did something wrong, but what happens is when you get in the presence of a coach or counselor, or you call us, we're going to come alongside you and go, by the way, you're not crazy. So, as a matter of fact, what they're doing is crazy. So you need to step back up on that boundary again. And this time you need to stand on it and not get pushed off of it with gas lighting, manipulation, whatever it is.
And so, but this open.
. Guys, this is coming up more and more and more. And Rachel and Dr. John Deloney are doing the money and marriage event in the fall. And they're going, they're both have gone down a rabbit hole on this research that's out there right now.
There's fresh research in, but it's old. It's an old subject. I saw the research, similar research 30 years ago, but we used to call it the marriage advantage, because the statistics were that a single man did not prosper financially in his career, in his health, his health. that wasn't as good as a married man. And the idea being that relationships are good for you, good relationships, not toxic ones.
And the idea being that when you have something to work for, for your family, you're serving someone, it changes your demeanor. It changes your character. You lean in, you, you, you prosper, for good reason. Cause you know, when you got kids and dogs and stuff, you know, bills to pay. all of a sudden it's different.
It gives you some purpose. Yeah. And so there was a, there was what we used to call the marriage advantage. Well, now we're seeing it and they're calling it all kinds of different things, but we're seeing the exact same data is still there. We found it again.
When we did all the millionaire research with all the millionaires, we found that, that the couple that is married and has a healthy marriage relationship, meaning that they both have, are speaking into the decisions. They're both speaking into the future dreams. They're both speaking into the sacrifices and prices that have to be paid to get to those dreams. They're speaking into major purchases. They're speaking into major giving decisions.
And the ones that do that together, who can find a virtuous wife, for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain.
Huh?
Gentlemen, you want no lack of gain, virtuous wife, listen to her. Now, wives, Larry Burkett used to remind us that that does not give you permission to become the Holy spirit. That's his job. So a virtuous wife understands that. And so it's, you know, thoughtful, wise input into life.
You live longer, better, and you prosper more. It's a pretty dumb formula, but it's kind of obvious. This is the Ramsey show.
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You want to break free from broke? Well, you would get the book breaking free from broke. then by my cohost today, George Camel, Ramsey, personality, number one, bestselling author. Very cool. And Ken Coleman has been helping people do better at their work and do work in different places.
So they make more money and have a better quality life. He's been doing that for quite a while. He's one of our Ramsey personalities. He's had a couple of number one bestsellers and he developed a several, a couple of years back, a, an assessment called the get clear career assessment. The get clear career assessment.
Now, what it does is it helps you figure out what you're good at, what you love doing. And then it starts molding that into a process and starts pointing you in some possible ways. You have never taken an assessment like this. It is powerful. I took it and I'm obviously settled in my career.
And I was, it was very interesting how it just completely, we did such a good job with the assessment. It,
it reads your mail.
It read my mail. That's exactly what it is. Dave, you should be like in talk radio. I mean, it was like crazy, but so the get clear assessment has had about almost a hundred thousand people. take it.
Now it's on our website. at Ramsey solutions.com. We are launching a new book with Ken called find the work you're wired to do. Now it will have as a part of the book, the get clear assessment. As a matter of fact, the book is a quick little read to help you understand and implement the get clear assessment.
So you get the assessment with the book and it shows you exactly how to do everything. The book actually comes out in may. It's on presale right now. And again, you'll get the audio book and the ebook with it, which means you're going to end up with three codes to do three different assessments. So you can give it to friends and family.
That'd be pretty cool. And, and it's a great bargain when you do all that together, you can pick this up anywhere. books are sold, but you can certainly get it. at Ramsey solutions.com April the 16th, the day after dreaded tax day. Rachel Cruz is coming out with her second children's book.
Our first one was, I'm glad for what I have about contentment. This one is I'm glad for where I am great bedtime stories. And this is about gratitude, because we have found that as you teach children gratitude and contentment, those are the antidotes to entitlement. Go figure.
Humility is coming next, get ready, but yeah, the, I don't know if it is or not, but probably. And so I'll, kind of all falls in the same bucket, right? Children that know how to say please and thank you. And don't think that they are the center of the universe. They don't think the axis of the world runs through the top of their sweet little heads.
These are children that become prosperous adults.
And because everybody wants to be around them, as opposed to the guy or gal who, at a party, is a taker rather than a giver. And so I'm glad for where I am. The latest in the series by Rachel Cruz comes out. Both of these are in pre-sale right now. Yeah.
You need to steal that for your baby.
I got a seven month old little girl, and these are the problems I'm having, Dave. How do I not destroy this kid? How do I not raise an entitled brat in this wild digital age? And so I'm excited to read this to her every, every, now and then, just to remind her. I got it out.
I got Daniel's little boys for, I got it out. I got Papa Dave Reed, Papa Dave Reed, Papa Dave Reed. Oh, that's fine. Don't get me started. I'll definitely read to you, because we know that children that are read to their intelligence level goes way up.
So always be reading to your kids.
Especially if it's a good kid's book like this.
Yeah, go.
Check out all those books. It's exciting times around here.
The junior books have been selling very well for decades, but these books by Rachel are just, they're the world-class illustrations as well. Laura just did an incredible, Lauren did an incredible job with that. So, George, changing gears from a sweet little kid's book that you can get pre-sale at RamseySolutions.com to a not-so-sweet story.
Something a little more sinister, if you will. Sinister. That was good.
It was pretty good. All right.
You've got that villain thing down, Dave. A little scary. how good that was.
FTX co-founder, Sam Brinkman Fried, in so many ways. Sentenced to, it's freed, probably, but I love fried.
Fried is, yeah.
Sentenced to 25 years in prison for his misbehavior with the old Bitcoin.
So. this was the former cryptocurrency billionaire, co-founded and led as CEO FTX, which famously collapsed back in 2022.. 25 years behind bars for his role in perpetrating one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. He was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, along with other charges of conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud at the ripe age of 32..
He went from multi-billionaire.
If you launder Bitcoin, does it rust?
Is this like if a tree falls in the forest riddle?
This is a thought, yeah. I mean, when I put other coins in the laundry, they rust.
It was never really money. It was never really there.
Oh, that's right. It was just air. Who knew?
Nothing happened. This is wild air.
His conviction last fall followed the startling 2022 collapse of FTX. Why was it startling? We predicted it. The cryptocurrency trading platform he had co-founded and led as CEO, amid an $8 billion shortfall in funds.
Oops.
Eight billion. Oops.
That's a lot.
Oh, it's a shortfall. Is that what we call it? Oh, yeah. It's called 23 years in jail. At trial, he was accused of using depositor money to prop up his struggling hedge fund.
No kidding. As well as using the funds to buy luxury properties in the Caribbean and make donations to a range of causes. FTX, which was mainly the Democratic Party. FTX was one of the second largest crypto exchange in the world, allowing users to buy and sell dozens of virtual currencies. His wealth was estimated at more than $30 billion.
The collapse of cryptocurrency prices crippled FTX and exposed the shortfall of $8 billion. So when the tide goes out, you can tell who was skinny dipping.
Love that.
That's what happened, right?
So he took people's money to invest, claiming it was still there, but instead he was funneling it into crypto and keeping a little bit on hand in case people wanted to withdraw. Then, when crypto bit the dust, everyone frantically tried to withdraw, the money's not there, and it all collapsed on itself.
George, the advantage of crypto is it's not regulated by the government.
I thought it was on the blockchain, man.
It's not the government, man. It's off the grid, man. There's no regulation on it, man. It's the advantage. Dave, you would like crypto because it's like you, don't like the government, man, right?
Man, isn't that how it works, man? Well, guess what? Dumb butt. When you have zero regulations and a guy's supposed to be treating something like a bank and instead he goes and buys his own stuff with your money, there's no regulations on it. There's no guidelines.
There's no oversight. Listen, I don't want the government doing checkups on my body parts either, but I'll just tell you, this is the exact thing that makes crypto, as a stupid idea, easy to outline here, because it didn't have any government oversight, man. It's like, cool, dude. You're sticking it to the man. Yeah, well, this is what you get.
You go to real prison. You don't go to prison in the metaverse here, Dave. You actually go to real prison.
It's not an MTF prison cell. I wonder if he could sell MTFs of his prison cell.
That would be something else. That might be his way out.
It's not a way out, but it's a way to make somebody money while he's in there.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I guess, you know, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. That's the motto here today. Oh, my gosh.
Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people.
That's his defense lawyer. Yeah.
Kosky described his client as an awkward math nerd.
You're just a sweet kid, Dave.
He's just a sweet kid. He just stole $8 billion.
He tried to return the money.
He used $8 billion of other people's money to buy him stuff, and sweet kid didn't know that wasn't his money. He didn't know that he, you know, he just used $8 billion of other people's money to buy him some stuff.
Yeah, that's offensive to awkward math nerds.
That's just a sweet math nerd. I mean, all the awkward math nerds in America and around the world ought to rise up and not be put in this category. Because, you know, he, you know, it's amazing. how he's actually devoid of ethics is what it amounts to. He's actually has, he's like a psychopath.
I mean, he probably is a sweet kid. I mean, in all honesty, I have no idea. I've never met the guy. But I, you know, I wouldn't doubt it that he's a sweet kid. But he's just completely on a psychopathic level, devoid of ethics.
Led to gristing.
It. probably, he's so far astray from normal human function that he probably didn't occur to him. he was stealing people's money. That's how stupid and sad this is. And here's what's really stupid and sad.
Some of you thought it was awesome to put money in there. You remember Matt Damon? Fortune favors the bold. Don't you remember the commercial for?
It was a crypto.
com for that one?
Crypto, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
Fortune favors the bold.
Well, sometimes boldness gets you in prison for 25 years.
Sorry. There it is. Ding, ding. This is the Ramsey Show.
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George Camel, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. James is with us in Chicago. Hi, James.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi. How's it going?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
So I recently discovered you guys' show last week, so I've been to watch probably 80 of your episodes on podcasts.
Wow.
Whatever my debt, and I'm, like, probably $80,000 in debt, and I don't know, one, where to start, because it's just so overwhelming to just, like, pick one and go with it. And then my other second question is I'm up for a new job that will triple the income that I make now.
Yay.
Because I don't want to make poor financial decisions ending up into where I am now. Money was never really talked about growing up, so all this is, like, all the $80,000 is, like, figuring out on my own type thing, if that makes sense.
Wow. So how much do you make now, and what will you make if you take this job?
So currently, right now between I have a full-time job that I make, I think, like, $35,000, and then I have a PRN, like, part-time job that I do, like, on the weekends. I get some training for it. I'll bring in an additional $30,000.. So I bring in roughly about $60,000 a year. If I take the new job, it will increase my income to about between $130,000 and $150,000 a year.
And then I can just go down to one job. I don't have to have two jobs because my one job, the new job I'm going to, I'll be traveling all the time.
And what do you do?
So currently, right now, I work in investment at State Farm, and I'm a patient care tech at a hospital that I do, I think, a travel job for. And then the new job will work in the catastrophe department at State Farm.
Oh, the catastrophe department. So you'll be traveling for State Farm, going to the disaster areas and helping the folks there, issuing checks and so forth, right?
Correct.
Okay. And you're how old?
33.
Okay. And what's your degree in?
I don't have one.
Are you single?
Yeah, I'm single. I have a kid, though.
All right. Are you – is the child traveling with you? No, he's 13..
I just had visitation.
I see. I see. Okay. All right. So let's reframe this, if I were in your shoes, is what I would want to do.
I'm going to just make up something bizarre, which is not happening, okay? But I'm going to pretend I was trying to – I was offered the opportunity to buy a company that was an engineering firm, and I could buy it for one-third of what it's worth. Now, I have zero engineering knowledge. I've never run a zero engineering firm. I don't know squat about that.
I could make a real mess with that. Do you believe me?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
But if I could buy it for one-third, then my new job would be to figure out enough about engineering to run the firm and enough about engineers and processes. for running an engineer firm. I would have to go to school, so to speak, not real school, but, I mean, I'd have to learn all I could learn about engineering if I wanted to engage in this bargain that I got in front of me. Does that make – you see what I'm doing? Mm-hmm.
So you've got a bargain that's in front of you, but in order for that to be a blessing, like buying an engineering firm for one-third of what it's worth – and, again, it's just a stupid, bad metaphor, but it's a bargain, but it's not a bargain if I go screw it up and bankrupt the thing because I don't know what I'm doing. And that's kind of your question. I don't know if it's a bargain for me to get a bunch of money, since I'm not good at it. So that means your job is not to not take the money. Your job is to go learn how to handle money, and you've been binge-watching, Ramsey, which is a good start.
Mm-hmm.
So you have a – you're getting ready to come into some money. It made you nervous because it made you realize you don't know what you're doing, so let's get you on a path to knowing what you're doing. Let's make you competent in this area, so that this blessing is a blessing and not a curse, which is your fear.
Right. I don't think you're going to destroy your life over this, and here's why I know. You have the wisdom and self-awareness to call us going, I might destroy my life over this, please help me not destroy my life. Yeah, I agree. So part of it is pre-deciding.
you're going to do wise things with this money that you are going to be managing.
I don't know, and the lack of knowledge scares me. That's a better statement than I'm a bad person, I'm going to screw this up.
Because that reflects your character, and I don't think you're that guy. You don't. You may have made mistakes in the past.
You know, if I was going to give you a nice car and you didn't know how to drive, it would be your job to learn how to drive.
Right.
But it had nothing to do with. I wrecked my dad's car when I was 13.. Well, so what? You still can learn how to drive. Right.
And that's what this is. So you're getting a vehicle, you know, money that can take you some places that you couldn't go otherwise, and so you need to learn how to drive. And we'll help you with that. That's what we do every day. And, you know, that's the reason you've been watched.
That's why you got really interested is I don't want to screw this up. I want to get better at it. I need to put some tools in my belt that aren't in there now for life. Right. I'm with George.
I don't think you're going to mess it up, because you're asking the question. If you were arrogant and didn't know what you were doing, then that's a dangerous combination. But you're humble and don't know what you're doing. And that's a fabulous combination. That's an opportunity for growth.
Right.
And what I love about the baby steps in budgeting is it forces you to make a goal for your money, because otherwise it disappears into stupid decisions like you're talking about. So the wonderful thing is this new income has a very specific goal. It's going to pay off $80,000 in debt.
You can go and say, all right, I'm going to make 130 after taxes. Let's call that 90.. That's 7,500 a month. I want to pay this off in 18 months.
Do they pay your travel and housing when you're on the road?
So they cover, you get a company vehicle. They give you the stipend, I think that's what it's called, when they pay for all your food.
Is that in addition to the 90? Or in addition to the 130, I'm sorry?
Yeah.
Okay. So basically, you can almost live free as a single guy and almost put all your income on this debt.
Yeah, correct.
That's amazing. So what if you could put six grand out of the seven towards this debt every month?
I don't have, I can do that. If I get accepted for it, I'm just,
previously I've been poor with money and during COVID I made like 150 grand during COVID. But I was off in a relationship.
Where did you spend it?
And I don't want to go.
Bad relationship.
Where did I spend it?
Was it on the relationship?
Traveling, yeah. Relationship, traveling. I ended up buying a new car. that ended up being like a horrible deal that I thought I paid it off.
So, James, 100% of the people listening to you right now, including George and I, have done stupid stuff with money. My only goal is to not do the same stupid thing twice.
Exactly.
And so you've got some stupid stuff already under your belt. You know what it looks like, new car, traveling, trying to walk around and be something you're not in a relationship and using money to do that. You've got those stupid things in your belt. You know what they look like. You won't do them again, hopefully.
If you do them again, there's no hope for you. I mean, you've got to stop doing stupid stuff. But you're going to do new stupid stuff. probably. I have done new stupid stuff over the years.
So my stack of stupid stuff that's in my rear view mirror is just taller than yours.
Dave's innovative. like that. He always finds new ways. He's a genius.
So we're going to put you through Financial Peace University and teach you how to handle money. And that includes putting you in the world's best budgeting app, the premium version of EveryDollar, which hooks to your bank and allows you to track every one of your expenses. And I want you to treat the next year and a half to two years like a game that if you're 100% debt free and have $50,000 in the bank, at the end of the game you win. And so you gamify this and you just watch every penny in this budgeting app and every penny goes towards your game goal. And the game is the game of life.
And it's not the one with the little spinny wheel. That was a fun one. And the little get married and have little babies in your car thing. The game of, remember that?
Oh, yeah, I love that game. Your original show was called The Money Game.
That's true.
That's true.
It had nothing to do with the game of life. No, it didn't. It just was catchy. So, James, you're going to be fine. And, hey, as you're going along, if you need some help, more than that, if you've got another question, you call.
We'll help you. It's what we do, man.
FPU will be that game changer for knowledge, though.
Yeah, I think, if you'll just do what we teach you to do in there, it'll work, man. It's worked for 10 million people. This is The Ramsey Show.
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. The phone number is 888-825-5225.. George Campbell, number one bestselling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Ramsey, personality extraordinaire. Again, the phone number, 888-825-5225..
Eric is in Chicago. Hi, Eric. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Hello, Dave. Hello, George. How are you?
Better than we deserve. What's up?
So I had recently got married, about a month ago.
Congrats.
Appreciate it. So we have been pretty much on the same page financially. We want to combine everything together, and I just want to make sure that I'm following the right steps when doing that. Obviously, this is not something I've done before. So, yeah.
Okay, cool. So what are you combining exactly? Does she have a checking account? You have a checking account? How simple is this?
So, yes, we both have checking accounts. She has considerable more investments than I do. She's been very good with her money.
And then we both have houses currently as well that we bought separately when we were single. And then we're essentially right now thinking about renting one of them while we're living in the other, but we do still have mortgages on both of those houses.
You guys have any debt?
We currently have no debt. No, only the two mortgages are on the debt, which is great.
So, when you're talking about combining finances, it's also how do we combine this real estate situation? We have her name's on one mortgage, indeed, your name's on the other mortgage indeed?
That's correct.
Okay.
Well, I don't know Illinois law, but in most states, when you get married, your primary residence is automatically shared, whether you change the name on the deed or not.
Okay?
Okay.
And the other residence doesn't matter. I'm more concerned than the names on the accounts. Number one, I would combine the operations of the household into one checking account. That's what you and Whitney did when you got married.
Yeah, and you actually don't need to shut down your account. You can turn your checking account into a joint checking account, and then she can close hers out and move the money over.
Or vice versa. Exactly. And even the name. on the investments, I don't worry about the names, on the titles of these things. I'm more worried about the way we start using our pronouns and that we are considering our rental house, our primary residence, instead of like, well, I can't talk about that house over there.
That was his house before we got married. No, you get to talk about it. You're now married. I can't talk about her investments. She was doing good with investments before we got married.
No, it's now our investments. The preacher said, and now you are one. And the old wedding vows said, unto thee all my worldly goods, I pledge. Nobody says that stuff anymore. Maybe they should.
But that's what you should be doing. I don't care if you go change the names on the deeds. That's irrelevant to me, unless it just makes somebody feel better. The only thing I do care about changing the name on is the checking account. Shut down one, dump everything in the other one.
But, you know, we have one mutual fund that is in Sharon's name only because it's some money that was given to her when a family member passed away. And she said, I want to put that in a mutual fund. So I just put it in a mutual fund in her name. I didn't think anything about it. But there's no question in the Ramsey household that everything that we have is ours in spirit.
And so that's the main way I want you guys to start looking at it instead of, like, you know, I feel guilty for the debt I brought in. I feel guilty that she brought in more in investments than I did. So I don't feel like I have the right to speak up into that. Oh, yeah, you're married. Yeah, we're definitely combining our decision making.
So you see what I'm saying? It's more the spirit and the decision making flow and the way we discuss it and the way we feel about it than the actual names on the deeds that propel people forward. You follow me?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we both are on board and we want to get to that point. But, you know, you definitely tell when we speak about it, we still say your house or my house. And kind of getting out of that mentality, you know, it takes a little bit of time, maybe.
Well, I mean, we still say whose car are we taking to church? Your car. Are you taking your truck to church? You know, and so. but we both understand, we both own it.
And so, you know, I would never buy a car without my wife present. I would never buy her a car, for sure, without her present. And so on. You see what I'm saying? So it's the function, more than it is the label and the spirit behind the function that I'm looking for.
That's what causes people to prosper. It's not the technical retitling. But I think it will take some time for you to say, to start saying ours and we instead of yours and mine.
Now, if the dog goes, you know, goes poop in the floor, it's definitely your dog. That's the key. It's not our dog. I was told that this morning. So I'm just telling you.
That's your dog. Your dog, tore that up. Your dog, just tore that up. And I went, my dog? Why is it my dog?
I'm going to tear something up.
It's your job to clean it up.
That's it. So, but I mean, so. my point is it never quite goes away. But, you know, if you work at it and you say our goal is to be a functioning unit, a great partnership, not one domineering or one shamed or one whatever toxic version. See, that's relational stuff as well as financial stuff.
Is that making sense?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think kind of a follow up question, too, is that, since we both still have our mortgages on our houses, you know, selling one and pulling the equity and putting in any other would get us closer to not having a mortgage. Obviously, it's not something that we need to pay down, like consumer debt or anything.
I like it.
Is that, would that be something that would probably be the best idea?
It will propel you forward in your wealth building more than keeping it.
And everybody thinks owning real estate's the answer to everything. And I'm a huge advocate of real estate. But we know from the data that we've collected on millionaires that getting their personal residence paid for, becoming 100 percent debt free was one of the huge arcs in the story that caused them to become a millionaire mathematically. And we know that. And so, you know, but you've just been married 20 minutes.
So, you know, if you guys want to sit in this for a little bit and say, OK, we're going to visit that decision next spring, a year from now, we're going to. we're going to rent it for a year. And we may have to clean it up a little bit after the renter to sell it.
Can't just be, well, Dave said I should.
Or if you're both just gung ho and you want to sell it, sell it. I don't care. But if it's uncomfortable for someone to do that, then you can sit on it a little bit. But the point still is moving in the right direction.
And having that alignment that will help you build wealth so fast.
That's a big deal. How long did it take you and Whitney to get aligned?
Oh, my God. Well, she worked here at the time. So it was a snap of a finger. OK. We were lucky in that regard.
She was smarter than me, better looking and better with money.
So. So you were lucky in that regard. Yes. I'm catching on. All right.
That's how that works. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Every dollar is our world class budgeting app that helps you manage money the Ramsey way.
It simply works wherever you are. IOS, Android or online. You can start every dollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money. You get organized, personalize your budget, stop overspending and save more money. New to every dollar will show you a long term financial road map, track your net worth, your debt free date, your retirement date, your baby step, progress and more.
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George, the number of people, it's like 10,000 a day are joining this. It's crazy how it's blowing up. The number of people using this and starting to use it, brand new. This app, we've had it around, but we've added a bunch of features in the last 18 months. And the popularity of those features and just the idea right now in America that I need to control my money with the budgeting process has caused this just to explode.
That's so true. The financial road map is just one. We've got the paycheck planning tool. So for people who need to know, hey, am I going to run out of money before the end of the month, this will help you figure that out. And some people that have the spouse or maybe they're that person who they're like, I don't want to budget.
You're not budgeting just to budget to be a nerd. You're budgeting to accomplish these goals.
And you're not budgeting to punish your spouse. We are making a decision with our money, like two grownups, because we want to go somewhere. That's what this is. It's telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That's all it is.
It's not, I don't really want to budget. It's restrictive. No, it's grownup for you to tell your money what to do and to not intentionally go into overdraft every month because you can't do sixth grade math. That's just being a grownup. And so it's a couple years ago, the millennials, they're not cool anymore.
That hurts. But you guys said adulting.
Oh, that's right.
Adulting, you can't say that. It's not cool anymore. You made you sound cool if you said adulting about two years ago, three years ago. Now it's like you're just a boomer trying too hard.
Now there's loud budgeting. Gen Z made that one up.
Loud budgeting.
Have you heard about that?
It's better than quiet quitting.
Exactly. It's the opposite. It's just loudly saying I have boundaries with my money. I'm going to make a plan for my money. Really?
What you made cool 30 years ago is now cool again, Dave. The trends come back around.
It's probably on every dollar. If you want a loud budget, every dollar will do it. We could turn up the volume, I'm saying. There we go. Rhonda is in Seattle.
Hey, Rhonda, welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it.
Sure. What's up?
I wanted to ask some advice. Over the last few years, my husband and I have really been having a lot of trouble with keeping up with adjusting our withholdings. every year. We end up paying thousands of dollars come tax season, which is now. Again, this year, we owe quite a bit.
I feel like I'm saving all year just in expectation of this huge tax bill that we have to pay.
Why are you not calculating your withholding correctly?
I don't know.
What are you doing incorrectly?
I think I just wasn't aware of how much I needed to do that. I do feel stupid admitting this because of the importance of it.
The answer to how do I stop doing that is to become aware?
Yes.
Then go calculate it, right?
Yes.
Technically speaking, here's your math. If you knew at the beginning of the year, in January, what your income is going to be approximately for the year, and what your deductions are going to be approximately for the year, then you could calculate the exact amount of income tax you're going to owe in total. Does that make sense?
Yes.
If you divide that into each paycheck, we know what should be withheld in the paychecks then.
Yes.
Let's just be real basic. Let's say it's $24,000 as your tax bill every year total. Then your withholding should be $2,000 a month.
Right. I think our problem is the withholding doesn't keep up with the raises.
No, it's all screwed up. The IRS is incompetent. They tell you the number of deductions. My daughter, when she first got married, now she's married with kids now, but on her first job, she came over and said, Dad, how many deductions do I need to do? We calculated out what her tax was going to be.
She was a single lady out of college, not making a ton of money, and we had to claim seven deductions. She had no deductions, but we had to claim seven deductions to create the proper withholding so that the proper amount was withheld, so that she didn't owe any tax and didn't end up short like you have, and didn't get a big refund either one. That's dumb. Obviously, their tables are screwed up, right?
Right.
You can't really go on. The IRS says you should have some. No, you've got to actually say, this is the amount of tax I owe. It's almost like you do your tax return a year early.
Right.
That's the most precise way to adjust it. Now, if you hadn't had the trouble you've had, it may be, but let's say, if you had a steady thing for the last three years, you've got around $3,000 that you've owed every year, but nothing has really changed, then we probably know we just need to adjust it by $3,000 a year, right? $250 a month.
Right. Easier.
Yeah. That's easier than going and doing your whole tax return and figuring out exactly what tax is owed, because nothing has changed. But now, if you got married, moved states, income went up or down, bought a house.
Had a kid.
Had a kid. There's all kinds of stuff that can throw that off, right? In which case, you would need to go and run your calculation. So, what's your household income, Rhonda?
This year, well, last year, it was about $200 combined.
What's your husband do for a living?
He's got a federal government job and then he's also got military retirement.
Homeland security.
Okay. What do you do?
I work for the state.
Doing what?
We both have government jobs.
I work for the court system.
Okay. I'm trying to learn about you guys for a second before I made this suggestion. Right. Here's what I would do. It sounds to me, and you tell me if I'm wrong, okay?
But it sounds like this whole thing just makes you want to throw up.
All the time.
I just don't want to deal with it at all. Right. I'm afraid I'm not doing it right and it scares the crap out of me. and I don't want to keep doing it right because I feel ashamed, and that's kind of what I think I'm hearing. And so, if that's the case and I'm in your shoes, I'm just going to go get some help.
You make $200,000 a year. Spend a little bit of money and go see a tax professional. Go to Ramsey Solutions and click on ELP, Endorsed Local Provider, for some of the tax pros we have. Have them sit down and calculate this for you and tell you what to do. And make them show you the numbers.
Don't just do it blind.
Right.
But that way you don't have to go, God, I don't even know where to start calculating this crap. Right. And I don't want to do it wrong again. And I kind of hear all that. And it's okay.
Now, the trick, anytime you're hiring somebody to help you because of that feeling, is to make sure you lean in enough to where you understand why they're telling you to do what you do. Right. You don't just blindly go, well, my tax guy told me. That's when you get screwed up, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So, learn enough, but that way you don't have to do it. It's worth a couple hundred bucks. Let somebody else do it for you.
Yeah, definitely. I think that's the other way to go. And I think, just moving through the transitions of all the other things you mentioned, this is our first year without a dependent and getting raises. And I had a side job. Yeah.
And they didn't take hardly any, pretty much any, federal taxes out. So, I knew that I was going to have to save some out for that. Yeah. But in the end, it's like, okay, still.
Or you could just adjust your withholding at the state or at Homeland by the amount that the side job is generating, right? Yeah. Either way. As long as they're getting their money, they don't care, right? Right.
Yeah. Have somebody help you calculate.
Jump on ramseysolutions.
com slash tax. I just went through this this weekend with my tax pro, and they showed me all the math and numbers, and it was super helpful to break it all down. So, worth reaching out to a pro and have a peace of mind there and fully understand what's going on.
I always see how much I'm paying, and it just pisses me off.
I would love to be your tax guy, Dave. That would be fun.
Yeah. It's like you're doing taxes for the Grinch. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Be proactive and leave a nice five-star review. All this stuff affects the algorithms. It really does. We, you know, honestly, don't mean anything. We don't really need the affirmation, but it does affect whether these algorithms push the show forward when someone's searching stuff.
So, really, it does help us a ton, and it's a big deal. And also, if they've got a Share button on your platform, use it or just tell people about it, or click a link and send it to your friend and cut it out and cut and paste it and say, This is a show you need to be watching. This is information that's life-changing. These guys and gals are fun and funny and helpful, and those are the things we are. Sometimes we're mean, but most of the time.
it's just because we love you.
Sometimes all at once.
And it takes that to get your freaking attention.
You've been funny and mean at the same time. That's one of your trademark moves.
What?
Yeah.
David is in Phoenix. Hey, David, how are you?
Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Thanks for taking my call.
Sure. How can we help?
Dave, I've got a question about a Roth conversion. I'm trying to figure out whether or not that's something that would be right for me. I'm 69, still working full-time. I'll be working for a few more years. I've got a self-directed traditional 401k and then a small traditional IRA.
And again, just trying to figure out whether or not, tax-wise, it makes sense.
How much is in all of those?
Those two, about $605,000.
Okay. All right. And what will happen? What are you going to do with that money, that $605,000, in the next 20 years?
In the next 20 years? Well, when I stop working, probably in a few years, it'll just start supplementing.
I've got some retirement pensions, but it'll just supplement the money that we'll be living on.
Okay. So here's why I'm asking. There's a couple of things that go into the answer of the math on this. The longer you're going to leave the money alone, the more sense it's going to make to convert it and go ahead and pay the taxes.
It's not going to make any sense to convert it and pay the taxes out of those funds. Let's take the $600,000.. It's maybe $200,000 in tax. Do you have $200,000 in addition that you would pay the tax without messing with this?
Yeah, we've got some other mutual funds and things. Okay.
Yeah. Because if you just reduce it by the – let's say, you reduce the $600,000 by the tax amount, and then it becomes tax-free, it's an exact wash. There's no benefit to doing that. Well, there's no benefit mathematically. Now, if you pay the money outside, number one.
And number two, the longer you leave it alone, the more it's going to make sense. Then there's two other factors for you to weave into, whether you want to do this or not. One is, you've got mandatory withdrawals on it now, beginning at $72.50..
Okay.
Your required minimum distributions, your RMDs, you're aware of that, probably. Correct. It used to be $70.50.. They just moved it to $72.50.. Okay.
So with a Roth, you don't have that. Gotcha. The second thing is, when you die and you leave a traditional, the taxes will be paid by the person – the income tax on that account will be paid by the person who inherits it. There's no inheritance tax on it, but the income tax will still be paid. You will either pay the income tax when you pull it out, or they will pay the income tax when you pull it out.
If you leave a Roth to someone, there's no tax, because there's no tax on a Roth.
Okay. I got you.
So it's good for estate planning. It's good to not have to screw with the RMD. But if you're going to turn around and be using up the money in the next four or five years, it's probably not good.
Right, right. Okay. Okay. So what could an idea be then, Dave, is to use – let's say, I went ahead and did that. I retire a few years, and I start living on the money that are not in those vehicles, that are just in regular mutual funds.
Yeah.
And then, when those run out, per se, or what have you, 10 years from now or whatever, then start using the other money.
You could. You could do that. What's your total net worth?
$605 in those that I just mentioned, and then $725,000 in just regular mutual funds.
Your house paid for? Yes, sir. What's it worth?
$750 or so.
Okay. So you got about $2.1 million net worth. Okay. Give or take. I mean, you may have some other assets.
we haven't talked about, but that's about where we are. So I'm 63.. I will never touch my retirement account. I've got plenty of other assets. So I have converted it all to Roth.
So I don't have to screw with RMDs, and my kids don't have to pay taxes on it.
No RMB, no taxes. Okay.
Because I'm not going to touch it. It's going to go to them. Gotcha. Because I'm going to live off of other stuff. I've got a bunch of real estate.
I've got a bunch of other income and so on, right? So I'll never touch that stuff. So it's a pure estate planning and RMD play for me. So every year, my 401k here at the office, I have to match myself. Duh.
But matching a 401k is required to be traditional. It cannot be Roth. And then I flip it to a Roth in December of every year. So I don't own a dime. All 100% of mine has been converted to Roth.
But that's the reason. Because I'm never going to touch it.
Okay. And so it's going to grow tax-free. If I live like into my 90s and I'm 63, it's going to be millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. Just that one account, right? Going to the kids, completely tax-free.
It's awesome. Okay, gotcha.
So that's the way I'm looking at it. But again, if you're going to turn around and pay the taxes by converting it and flip, turn, and take the money right straight back out, the math does not work. Don't do that.
Okay, gotcha.
So that's the way I'm – that's why I'm trying to go through this. And, George, you know, this is one of those things that has changed with me. It's not the advice has changed. But once I got to this age, finally, I started doing this show at 32, right? Wow.
So when I got to this age, we talked about Roth like it was some distant thing in the clouds. It's out there in the mist somewhere. And now this stinking thing is staring me in the face and I'm going, yeah, but I did all this other stuff, right? And I don't even need the money. So I got to start thinking about it, even different yet again.
And so, you know, we used to say convert it to Roth, because it's going to grow tax-free and you'll have all that tax-free money when you get to retirement, which I do. I've got all that tax-free money. I'm 63.. I can access it. Zero penalties, zero tax.
I can get a hold of it right now if I want it, right? But why would I? It's growing for the next 20 years with zero tax on that growth. Nowhere else. I can put it that it's going to do that for me or for them.
And so it's changed my perspective of how important that tax-free thing is when you look at it.
From a legacy estate plan.
When you look at it through the lens of the estate tax or the RMD. Yeah.
And for people wondering out there, should I be doing this? There's a certain spot in the baby steps. We tell you, that's the right point. It's not in baby steps one, two, three, even four.
It's seven.
It's once you have a paid-for house, then you can take the hit and pay the taxes on that. But before that, you should be focused on the home payoff.
That's a very important clarification.
Investing 15% before that.
We were talking to a multi-millionaire baby step seven guy. And I just assumed everybody knew that. So you're good clarification.
I don't want people to go out there, just converting left and right after hearing that call. That man's in a very different place. He's got a paid-for house. He's done the baby steps.
Yeah, he's got extra money laying around. You got extra money laying around, and you're in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, and you're in baby steps seven, and you want to advance your wealth, the way to do it is to get the government's hands off of a big block of it by converting it to Roth.
And the RMDs, these required minimum distributions, the reason they have those on traditional is because the government wants their tax money.
Yeah, and they don't get any tax money out of the Roth. It's done.
You've already paid it.
So they're going to get their money. They're going to get it out of your kid's hide or out of your hide with the RMD, or when you take it out otherwise. So, yeah, or when you convert it, they're going to get their money. So the traditional is going to be taxed. It's just a matter on who and when.
And so you can control all of that with this conversion discussion. So you can talk to one of our SmartVestor pros, and they can help you do the calculations on this. Go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor and get somebody that we recommend in your area.
George Camel, Ramsey Personality, is our co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Kyle is with us in Milwaukee. Hi, Kyle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hey, guys. Thanks for having me on.
Sure. What's up?
So I have a quick question, kind of that my wife and I have been brainstorming. I took a job about a year ago that makes me commute 50 minutes one way, and this is kind of causing a little conflict in work schedule, with her being a teacher and working first shift and me kind of working some days first and second shift, but most days just second shift. We don't really see each other that much, but we're kind of in a pickle because we do have a good deal in terms of expenses. Our rent is only like $400.. It's kind of a deal that we got when we moved in together during college.
What do you make?
What do I make?
Well, we together make about $120.
. We bring in about $120..
What do you make?
I make about $7,000 a month. She's a teacher. She makes about $3,000, so about $10,000..
And if you were to move close to your work, how far is she from hers?
Well, the thing is, she could get a different job. Since she's a teacher, she could get a job kind of in any city. You know, the market for teachers.
Yeah, because she's not making much.
No, she's not. So that's kind of the other thing. It's like she can be flexible with her job, and we can move closer here for time's sake.
What's the difference in rent from where you are now to where work is?
Yeah, that's actually a great question. The closer you get to Milwaukee, the more expensive it gets in terms of taxes and whatnot at the end of the year. So the difference would probably be going from $400 to, like $1,500 plus, $2,000 plus.
You guys make $10,000.
. Mortgage.
That's $1,000 a month. Yeah. $1,000 a month. Yeah.
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