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Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. She is the author of our brand new Ramsey. Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem, The Real Reason You're, Roke, and What to Do About It. A whole 57 pages. You can jump through it at one.

setting. These little quick reads we put out, I've got several of them on entre leadership to sub-subjects. I got one coming out on real estate. We got a couple of others running around. Dr.

John Deloney did one on anxiety. that did real well. We got a lot of these little, if you want to do quick little, it's basically a chapter,

Sorry about that. Don't bring her up short. There's a lot of quality there in those other 20 pages I left out. Don't do that. Anyway, you can check all that out at RamseySolutions.com.

This year, this will be, the next couple of days will be our last live broadcast of this calendar year. We don't work between Christmas and New Year's, so you guys get best ofs. That's how that works. This year, we will have done 242 live shows.

We will have taken over 3,200 callers this year and 184 debt-free screams, totaling $36 million of debt-free yells on the air. Not bad. Pretty cool stuff. Yesterday, we discovered that The Ramsey Show is the number one podcast in the entire world on Apple. All of Apple, not just one of the little nuanced corners, the whole thing.

However, many 3 million podcasts there are, or something like that, you guys have spread the word. You guys have let your friends and neighbors know, and you've subscribed and shared and done all the appropriate five-star reviews. You got it for us. Thank you. Thank you for getting us to number one.

We appreciate you very, very much. We appreciate how many of you that are out there and that we're here to serve. The phone number here is 888-825-5225.. Sarah is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Sarah.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Yeah. Yeah, the off season, if you will. What does he do? He plays baseball. Oh, okay.

That makes sense. All right. Ding, ding. All right.

Contract being renewed, just basically he's got to make the team again is what it amounts to, right?

How long has he been playing?

This will be the sixth year with the org that we're in.

So do you have objectivity on his career, or are you emotionally involved and don't know what's really going on? I mean, where's he headed? Is he going to make it to the big show?

Let's see, last year ended his first season in AAA, so we've been moving up. I mean, everybody hopes they make it to the bigs, but he's not like a top.

Basically, the answer to your question is, what do you think? the probability is that you're going to need this house? And you don't know the answer to that question, and neither do I, listening to you. I can't make an intelligent guess, because it just depends on how his seasons go, and how well he plays, and whether or not he continues an upward trajectory with his career. That's what it amounts to.

Otherwise, he's out of baseball in two years,

What's the downside of selling this house, letting the money sit in a high yield, or wherever you put it,

Our mortgage is about $750 a month, and rent in the area would probably be a little closer to $1,100 for the months that we rent. But then we'd only have to pay rent for less than half.

Well, I currently have a job, but I'll continue working. And he, in the off-season, works in town as a coach for a gym. And he could pick.

I'd keep the house. Because there's a probability, there's a high probability, at some time in the next three or four years, you're going to end up back there. Just based on normal professional careers. That's a good point. Okay.

I hope he is in a smaller probability that he makes it to the bigs, and everything goes big, and you guys are cashing serious checks, and you sell the house, because you got you a place that's 80 times bigger and all that. I hope that happens. But the vast majority of sports professionals are done, you know, at 30 years old. And you're approaching that. So,

yeah, unless he's in the bigs, he's done in three or four years, on average. Now, he might not be. He might play on out five or six years, but that would not be the normal statistical pattern of the pro athletes that we've worked with. Okay. So, I'm just trying to think this through in a cold and calculated way, not really reflecting on your husband's talent, because I have no idea how talented he is.

I'm just listening to the story. I'm keeping the house, because I think you guys, you need it four months a year, and you might need it 12 months a year when baseball ends for him. And so, and you start your new life, and you're going to start it in that town, and you need it. Yeah, I'm going to keep it. We'll keep it in this case.

And it's not super, super expensive either. It's a reasonable, modest home. It was an interesting discussion, Sarah. I sure hope he does great. Me too.

Be cool to have you call me back someday and go, hey, he made the bigs. Now, what do we do with all this money?

That'd be great. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Today's question comes from Nate in Ohio. I'm learning.

I have over $100,000 in debt from college, and I do not believe I can pay that off by the time I'm 30, but I don't want to wait until I'm 30 to start investing. What do you think? I love this question, and I wish I knew what his income was, because I would tell him, listen, the average person is getting out of debt in two years, and let me just add to that, because this is just personal. This is me talking. Even if it took you longer, my husband and I, when we paid off our debt, it took us seven and a half years to pay off the debt.

Then we turned around and saved up our expenses. Then we turned around and bought a house. We were in our mid-30s before we started investing, and I'm telling you, we're going to be okay, and you're going to be okay too. You're not only going to be okay, you're going to be a millionaire.

Here's the thing.

What you are talking about in your life, Jade, what you and Sam did, was you freed up your most powerful wealth-building tool, which is your income. Compound interest is very important, and getting started early is the reason we put those charts out, is to motivate you to get yourself out of debt so you can get started early. What you lost in compounding interest during the seven and a half years of you getting out of debt, you will more than make up doing that, because you're putting a whole lot more into investments instead of freaking $465,000.

I don't want to pay off debt. I want to make sure I'm getting that investing in. We find that when you don't do this thing right, when you keep that debt around, debt equals risk, so there's now more risk in your life. There's more that can go wrong. If you don't take the time to build up that three to six months of savings, when you have an emergency, because you will, you will have to look to your investments, your 401k, and all of that to cover your emergencies.

We're seeing that actually right now, more and more. More and more people are borrowing from their 401ks for hardship, and they're pulling out $5,000.. I'm thinking to myself, listen, if you had just followed the baby steps, you wouldn't have to pull out $5,000.. You'd have it in baby step three. Exactly.

Pretty simple. It's a very simple, primitive equation. There's something that happens here. It's the loss of focus when you're trying to do two things at once, and you end up sucking at both of them. That's what it amounts to.

You're trying to do two different things at the same time, invest and get out of debt. You're really not good at either one. The end result is not the same probability of becoming a millionaire, the same probability of having a substantial net worth. When you have gotten clear of permanently and never go back to debt, it's a big boost for your wealth building. It's the reason that we've taught it this way for 30 years.

Then the reason has been borne out in the actual data, as we've studied the millionaires.

In other words, at the end of a 20-year story, seven and a half of which you were getting out of debt, 12 and a half of which you will be building an emergency fund, buying a house, paying it off, and meanwhile dumping 15% of your income into retirement, at the end of that 20-year story, you will have more money than you would have had had you steadily invested a small amount while you stayed in debt for 17.

You have not said no to debt, so you're continuing to take on debt in different ways that have the ability to adversely affect your net worth and offset what you might be putting away in retirement. Does that make sense? Yep. Because you're still taking out vehicles. You're still utilizing debt in a way that's.

Here's the problem. It just hit me. Here's the core issue in this email. I have over $100,000 in debt from college and I do not believe I can pay that off. There it is.

The reason you're wanting to do this is you don't have hope.

It's a lack of hope. It's not that you really think the numbers are better. It's that you don't think you can do it. That's the thing. It's a hope thing here, honey.

It's not a math thing.

It took me a second. It was down there in that sentence. That hopelessness, there it is. The power of hope is something else. When you believe, you can run through a freaking brick wall, man.

You're the Hulk. There's nothing stopping you when you believe.

It's good. That's good, Dave. It's good. Good stuff. All right.

Patrick is with us in San Diego. Hey, Patrick, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you for taking my call.

We have a home that we bought in 97.. We're in Encinitas, real close to the beach. Paid 274.. It's been evaluated at 1.9.. Wow.

I would have guessed more. Wow. Okay. Okay. Well, it's a townhouse.

Good for you. Good for you. Anyway, it's free and clear. We've been listening to you for years. I was a self-employed clinical psychologist, retired.

My wife's a special education teacher, retired. So what's your question? We have no debt. We're thinking about selling this house because the neighborhood has gotten, you know, it's crazy at the beach. We want to know if we, and we want to downsize, um, should we buy an overpriced house in California?

We're staying here because our grandkids and our children are all in California. Um, that's unfortunate for us because we'd move someplace else. Um, and, uh, should we, we're kicking around, should we buy or rent?

Good for you. Good for you. Well done. Yeah. I would buy.

He's getting off.

I'll probably just sit right there. Given, given what you told me, there's too many things that you like about this. And only one thing you don't like about it. This is the Ramsey show.

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How are you? Good afternoon, Dave. How you doing,

Got about $40,000 in debt, 23 of which is a new car I just bought last Saturday because I needed a vehicle to get back and forth to work.

Trying to get in a situation to provide for my wife and two kids, and we're expecting a third in May. Well, congratulations. Thank you, sir.

It's credit cards and personal loans. What do you do for a living, sir? I work two jobs, seven days a week. I work five days a week at a heavy equipment dealership in the parts department. And then I work weekends for Advanced Auto Parts.

About 50..

Okay. So thing one is you're selling whatever you can get your hands on. You're looking at your wife and saying, listen, I know you're at home with the kids. Is there any work that you can pick up? that's from home?

And you guys are getting resourceful in order to get this $1,000 saved. Now, just something to light a fire under you. Most people can get it in under 30 days. So let that be your goal. $1,000 saved, that's first thing.

Now, after you've got that, now we're working on this debt. So what I want you to do is list them out from smallest to largest. So you said you had the credit cards, you had the personal loan. Each one of those cards, list them individually. Same thing with the personal loan.

What's your smallest debt?

$50,000, that's a great income, but when you have $40,000 of debt, it's tough. It's very, very tight. So you've got to find ways to get the income up. Have you and your wife thought about any ways that she can contribute in that area?

Does that make?

the truth is, that car you purchased is a serious dumb butt decision.

Oh my God, you shot yourself in the foot. So I'm going to go back. It was a week ago. I'm going over to the dealership and say, guys, can I give you $1,000 to let me out of that deal? And let me just undo it.

Just see if they'll tear the paperwork up and take the car back.

So I've done a lot dumber things than what I'm calling this. That's why I'm willing to call it dumb. I didn't say you're dumb. I said what you did was dumb and it was seriously dumb. So it's going to set you back.

It's going to add a year and a half to two years to you getting out of your mother-in-law's house. It ain't worth it. You need a $3,000 car to limp over to work and the guys in the parts department make fun of you. And besides that, you probably know how to turn a wrench so you can keep a car running. You just got car fever and fell off the wagon into the dead gum poop.

And you just, you got it all over, you, man. So that's the first thing I would do. Second thing I would do is what Jade said. Let's do anything we can do to get our income up. Third thing I'm going to do is we're going to put scorched earth on the old family here.

You guys are not a bunch of spending nuts once we get past the car, but you guys are not doing a bunch of stupid things. You don't have enough money to do a bunch of stupid things. So I know you're not. But even with that, I don't want you eating out. I don't want you going on vacation and I want you spending money on anything except getting these debts cleaned up.

because, Isaac, if you had zero debt, do you know how fast you could save money? I do. Wow. Wow. That's what I want for you, man.

That's what I want for you. And Hey, I went bankrupt when I was 28, with a brand new baby and a toddler, because I was stupid on steroids. Millions of dollars of debt, not 23,000 on a bad car. So I got your stupid beat. I got, I was way more stupid than you.

Okay. Or did way more stupid things than you did. Either way you want to look at. So I'm not picking on you. I love you.

And I want you to win, prove it. We're going to put you into financial peace university, which is our nine week class. And we're going to give you the every dollar app with the upgrade. So you guys can get on a hardcore budget. You and your wife, start watching those videos tonight.

And, and before Christmas, get back over to that dealer because you're still inside of a week. And that dealer may work with you. They might have mercy on you. And you give them some amount of money to compensate them for the trouble of tearing up the paperwork and taking that stupid car back and the 14 miles you put on it or whatever it's been in a week. So I that's what I, man, because then you just do what Jade said and you tear through this stuff.

We're going to give you all that. All that is a gift for the, for you, the new baby. I want you out of your mother-in-law's house. I want you to rent and something, saving up money, getting out of debt, having a life, and then work on your career and get your income up to, you don't want to be in the parts department when you're 38.. It's okay.

When you're 27,, but 11 years from today, who's Isaac going to be? And how's he going to get there? So start aiming at something. Let's kick this up in gear, because part of the problem, and it's not the whole problem, but it's part of the problem is, you know, it's, don't make any money. You don't make enough money and you can go make some more.

You're, it's not, I'm not shaming you. I'm just saying, dude, if you made $70,000 a year, $80,000 a year, it changed this equation real fast. You didn't have his $23,000 car. It changes his equation real fast. And I'm about changing the equation fast.

So you win.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm talking about doing some radical butt stuff for a short period of time. So I never have to, again, live like no one else. So later you can live and give like no one else. That's the plan, man. Hang on.

Austin's going to pick up. We're going to gift you with everything. Merry Christmas and call back. Anytime you need abuse, we're here for you. This is the Ramsey show.

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Merry, Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. Jade Walshall, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. She is the author of the brand new quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem. We've got that book in the Ramsey store.

We've also got Rachel Cruz's new book. I'm glad for what. I have, a children's book about contentment. And it is, if I do say so, myself, fabulous. Laura Gallegos, I can't pronounce her name.

How do you say it? I think that's right. Anyway, she did the, I met her a couple of times. She's a wonderful lady, did the illustrations. And this thing, it's a huge, it's a bestseller, children's bestseller.

George's new book, Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. George, we had to develop a whole new font for his sarcasm. We have a sarcasm font that we have now, no, I'm kidding, but not much. The guy is a snark king. And this, you will laugh, it's laugh out loud, ripping on the financial ripoffs.

George is like the ultimate consumer advocate. And funny, fun, and you will learn a lot. This book is incredible. It comes out in January and you can pre-order right now for $20.. And guess what?

You get about a hundred dollars worth of stuff when you do the pre-order on it. Thank you for doing that, folks. All of that stuff and a bunch of other things are on sale right this second at the Ramsey store. Obviously, we can't get it to you by Christmas. Sorry about that, but hey, it's going to be there and we'll get it to you.

And just in time to start the new year, you can do that. That way, we can do it. All right. Cliff is with us and Raleigh. Hi, Cliff.

Welcome.

How can we help? Okay. So I'll try to be brief here. I have been two kids that are 19 and 23.. My son is a rising sophomore at college and my daughter is in graduate school.

She has one more semester to go. And, thanks to you and some other good advice, I've been saving in a 529 plan since they were babies. So I had plenty of money to pay for most of the tuition, especially for my daughter, because he got scholarships as well. But anyway, but now there's two years left of my son being in college and one more semester of my daughter in graduate school. And with my ex, I had it set up so that I paid half, like one full year was mine.

The other full year was hers. But now she's saying that she doesn't have the money, or she's telling my son that. And so she's trying to force me to use all of my 529 saving, which is totally in my name. And in addition to that, my son, who's worked for the past four summers, he saved about $10,000.. He was trying to force him to use, to drain his entire savings to pay for this last semester.

she makes over $100,000 a year. I've never made that much.

That's why she's.

Well, I didn't tell her this, but I actually paid for my son's last semester fault semester. I told her that he used all his money so that she can't keep coming back to me to keep paying. So because if I'd have told her that, then she would say, well, your dad can pay for this semester coming up. You see what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. All right.

And then, when it's out, if she doesn't pay, how are we getting out? That's my thing. I don't want them.

What do you make? Right now I make about 70, which I, in the past few years I've made about half that. So I'm just now starting to make a little bit of money. And your son, and your son has how much? Well, he had $10,000 saved, which he still has it,

Yeah, because he's got 10.. She, you got 28,, that's 38.. You need 40.. You're done. You're done.

It's not even a problem. You're done. Because here's the thing, you pretty much know, I know, and I've only been talking to you for about 80 seconds, that she's not going to pay.

So I just need to get my son to drain his savings. Is she going to do it?

I don't, I don't know what she's going to do. I really don't. And, and hold on a sec,

I don't think she has displayed her colors and they are very clear, but, um, but, you know, so what I would do is make a run at getting her to pay, but be mathematically and emotionally prepared to start writing the checks out of the 28 and out of the 10.. Okay. That's helpful. That's painful, but that is helpful. Well, something is, listen, here's something else.

Your kid goes in debt because his wife, because his mother's an idiot.

Basically. No, that's not okay. Yeah. Not. when he's got 10 and you got 28 and you need 40 to finish.

You can do it. He can do it. Y'all can pull this off. It's not okay. So we're not going to leave the third, the option of him going in debt because his mother goofed up is not on the plan.

So he doesn't have to drain his savings. No, he uses his savings. Like Jade said, it's called an investment in your education. You're paying for college. Well, that's okay.

I paid for part of my college. Most of it, as a matter of fact, I think almost all of it, but yeah, there you go. It's like, yeah. And I worked all the time.

I'm going to be a grownup and adult and take care of my part of the bargain. I'm going to have integrity, but nothing you described about this woman indicates she's actually going to do that. Um, if you have any hope of that, you have more hope than I do. Everything you described about her describes someone that's not going to follow through on this. So she might, but I, and again, I'd give it a shot at getting her to do it.

I don't care if she's mad. I mean, let's get her going.

She's the X for a reason. Yeah. X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, you know, as a reason,

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, Jay wash, all Ramsey personality and author of the new quick read money's not a math problem. She's my co-host today at open phones at triple, eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. Merry Christmas.

Thank you for being with us. We're so glad you're here. Megan is with us. Megan is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Megan.

Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Thank you. I'm getting married on the 1st of January and I'm so excited. Yeah, you should be. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

Um, so, my fiance is amazing. He's incredible, but, um, he's not that great with money, which is why I'm calling.

Sorry. So, um, we've been together for a while and, um, over the course of the last maybe year, um, he revealed that he's in a lot of credit card debt, um, about $58,000 worth. Yikes. Yeah. Um, so in February of this year, I actually took out a home equity loan, um, at prime rate.

So what is that? 8.5, I think. Well, wait a second. You said he's not.

to me to pay on that. Lord Jesus. Okay.

So, um, he commits to about a thousand dollars a month to paying that off. And, um, we're predicting about a four and a half year to five year payoff. Oh no, no, no. What do you make? Oh, I only make $60,000 a year and he makes 120..

Okay. So you make $180,000.. You have.

We, we have made some mistakes. He had a bunch of credit card debt and was overspending. Apparently he has stopped that. I hope it sounds like you made a mistake of financing someone that you weren't married to's debt. You're getting ready to fix that in about a week.

Thank you, God. So you'll be safe at that point. And, uh, we don't want to spoil the wedding with too much of this talk, but as soon as you guys get home from the honeymoon, now it's, we have $58,000 in debt and we need to pay that off with our $180,000 income as fast as we can. And that means we ain't doing nothing till we get this mess cleaned up. You guys have any, either.

one of you have any money?

In other words, his spending stays above his income and the credit cards grow back because the habits didn't change. Then the advice we just gave you might not have been smart. Agreed.

I understand. I completely understand. I'm just listening to your verbiage, kiddo. So yeah. Okay.

You hang on. We're going to give this to you as a wedding gift and a Christmas present. And since we abused you right before your wedding, we just yelled at her right before the wedding. It's just, but she's picking up her wedding dress, calls from the cleaners and we yell at her. So we're nobody yelled at her.

Oh, my God. They both did stupid things. There you go. Come on. Own it.

There we go. It's okay. We love her and she's going to win. She, she's smart. She makes good money.

He makes good money. If, but listen, the thing is what we want for you, this is the number one. money and money issues are the number one stress point in marriage, Megan, and you're getting married. So we want you guys to have real, clean, open, honest dialogue around this. Both of you.

We don't want touchy subject. We don't want you, you know, you're not shaming him. We both are looking at this and saying, okay, from this point forward, we're not using credit cards. from this point forward. We're going to agree on a budget and we're going to stick to the budget that we both agreed to.

It's a, it's a marital contract. From this point forward, we're going to save up and pay cash for things, because you're dumping $60,000 of money that you brought into the marriage against his mistakes. Yeah. And so the two of you together need assurances that the two of you together are going to move forward in very clean stuff. The old wedding vows, most people know, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poor, in sickness and health, the old wedding vows in the book of common prayer say unto thee, all my worldly goods, I pledge.

Ooh. And so that indicates this unity, this oneness in the marriage where we're sharing everything, not your debt, my debt, not your checking account, my checking out, not your income, my income. It's our, our, our, our, our, our. When you get married, you are French. We, we, we, it's ours.

Okay. That's what you're doing. And there's a oneness to that. And, by the way, not only is that a beautiful and romantic and wonderful marriage thing, where the communication is very high and the quality of the relationship is very high. The interesting part also is the data tells us from studying millionaires, that it increases the probability of you becoming wealthy vastly.

The number of people that become wealthy while dragging a misbehaving spouse is almost zero. It's almost zero. So this, this idea that you work together, it's like, we're going to do this together. We're going to raise kids together. When you, when you argue about what, how to treat, you know, how to make the kids behave, the kids are the only ones that lose, you know, and you argue about how to make the money behave, the money loses, you know?

So you're getting on that same page is a big deal. And that's not just aimed at Megan. That's aimed at all of you out there. This time of year, some of you are home for Christmas. You got a little time on your hands.

You need to sit down with each other and go, Hey, this is what's going on. This would be some confession is good for the soul time. For some of you, some of you got to come clean on. I'm kind of ashamed. I've been doing this and I'm, I'm really been doing some stuff I don't like, and I know you're not going to like it.

And I don't even want to talk about it, but we're going to talk about it. That's the, that you need to do. some of that during the holidays, some of you, but hang on, Austin, I'll get you signed up. Jay just gave her financial peace university and every dollar, the world's best budgeting app. This is the Ramsey show.

Jay Walsh. all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Sam is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Sam. Welcome.

Hey, uh, so just a quick kind of background, a wife and I got married, uh, end of July. Um, and around. that time is actually when we first kind of discovered you guys, the show, and I've been listening to it ever since. Um, we've been working our way through financial peace, um, have paid off about 21 grand of debt since then. Good for you.

Things are going real. Thank you. Yeah. Things are going really well for us. Had a lot of debt going into the marriage.

Um, but right now, uh, kind of the question I have is our biggest debt is a truck that I bought about a year ago that I definitely shouldn't have. Um, safe to say it was before I had heard of you guys and kind of how you guys went about things with that. Um, no, I need to sell it. Um, but my biggest issue right now is I have it out on the private sell market and it's still around, are looking at 33 to 36.. Um, and we owe 36, five on it.

Um, my biggest issue right now is I'm having a lot of trouble selling it. Been out. probably for about three or four months. I've been putting it on all the, you know, marketplace, um, eBay and all that stuff. What is your household income?

Um, right, around a hundred.

And that's the reason we're getting rid of it. So my point is there's no panic. It's okay. If it takes a little while, don't give the truck away. Okay.

You don't have to give it away. Yeah. Cause you'd have to give.

they're offering her from 28 to 29,, but it's about six grand under. Yeah. So it's probably not worth 36.

what have you got it listed at?

Um, right now I have a listed at on marketplace and on Craig is about 33, five.

Somebody's going to need a truck. Okay. I mean, it's okay. You don't panic. I mean, if it takes five more months, don't, don't get, don't sell it for 28..

Right. Just drive it and pay the payment. Okay. All right. That seems simple enough.

Yeah. Cause, you're not panicking. So you don't have to, you, don't, you know, like we don't, we don't discount a house 50,000 bucks to sell it, unless we really have to sell the house.

Yep. My view is like you said, it's kind of accelerate their process a little bit and everything, but I want you to, I want.

Cause it's a big old truck. I mean, you know, selling, selling the 20,000 hour trucks, a lot different. selling a 40,000 hour truck. That's true. It's a, it's a lot different marketplace for that.

So, um, and you know, the economy's bouncing around, interest rates are bouncing around. People are deciding whether they're sitting on the bench or whether they're coming into the game. You know, they're jumping back and forth on real estate, on car purchases, everything else. It's not been a good season for car dealers. This last fall has not been like car.

So let's get it on down to 33.. And then, you know, we'll keep bumping it down a little bit at a time, just a little bit at a time. Because we're trying to find the price. We're trying to find the actual value in the market. We're not trying to bring people to the table to get a deal.

Right. That's different. And, uh, so it might take four or five months. It really might. Kyle is with us in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Hi, Kyle. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Merry Christmas.

So, um, I was going to college in Asheville and I moved back in with my parents. and, you know, I'm not going to live with my parents forever. So eventually I have to be able to buy a home and all that fun sort of stuff. How old are you? I'm 23 years old.

Okay. What do you do for a living? Uh, so, I work for. my dad's construction company is a, they call me a gopher when they.

I make anywhere. So I'm also a salesman. So, um, I make anywhere between 35 and 40, depending on, um, you know, how productive the year is.

Oh, yes, yes, sir. Absolutely. But I mean, I, I give them $150 for groceries in a month here. And so I'm just saving up as much money as I possibly can while I'm here. Um, I just feel like kind of throwing away the thousand or $1,500 a month.

Well, it's not, it's not a thousand or.

Okay. Yeah. So I want you to go do that sometime in the next six months. I want you to find a place to live. And then, and then I'm going to just start building up cash.

And there is no, uh, back to your original question. we picked up Kyle. Uh, there is no mandate that you go with, that you use debt. There is no mandate that you have credit. Uh, as a matter of fact, the people that are the wealthiest are the ones that don't.

And so, staying away from payments, like you have wisely done, you paid cash for a car. I kind of think you're a cheapskate. I like you. You don't want to spend money on rent. You know, you know, you, it's cheaper to live at home.

You like piling up the money. You didn't want a car payment. You saved up and paid for a truck. I like that. That's all good, wise decision-making.

I think you're thinking the right way. And so just continue on down that path. Don't let some of your, crazy friends or cousins or something, convince you that you need to go get credit, or go get a credit card or go get payments. You don't, uh, those that don't are the ones with the most money, because they don't give banks money. When you quit handing banks money, you have some money, as long as you make some and you know how to work and make money if you're in the construction.

You rent for a little while until you can afford to buy a home. And then you buy a home like that's just, I mean, it, it makes sense. And it's logical when you rent, it's not for life. It's not forever.

It's like these extremities. It doesn't have to be like that. Who cares what they say. It's not, they're not, it's not, they're not real people. That's just avatars.

I mean, they're humans walking around, acting like avatars. They're just extreme, crazy. And so just use some common sense. Think about your grandma, you know, think about how this makes sense. And yeah, when you first get married or you're first starting out of your mom and dad's house, renting something is normal.

It takes you a little while to get your feet on the ground, save up some money, buy your first house. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing, nothing out of line about that. And live, but living at home to your 28 and your mama doing your laundry, no, you need to get out on your own, young man, young lady. You need to get out there and be like a grownup and stuff.

Hey, let me just tell you, an eagle that fails to leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey. This is the Ramsey Show.

Jayde Washall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. The phone number is 888-825-5225.. Dinah is in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Hi, Dinah,

Merry Christmas to you and your team, and thank you so much for having me on. I've been listening for a lot of years. I just want to tell you that I certainly have been trained by my parents to pay off my home, and that's what I plan to do this coming August. Yay! Yeah, I know.

Thank you. We owe about $41,000, and I'm a school teacher, so what I plan to do is I have a tax-sheltered annuity that I've had since 1995, and there's not a lot in there, but it's roughly around $28,000, so I was going to use that to pay off my house in August. Great. Okay, and I've been doubling up on the payments to get it all cleared out, but here's my dilemma. I have plans.

I have a home that's about 24 years old, and it is in need of renovations as far as it needs. probably the siding removed and put new siding up or fiber cement or something like. that is what I really want to do, and also possibly put a little sunroom on the back of the house, and we have no debt, my husband and I. We drive very old cars. We don't eat out a lot, so we kind of want to do something, you know, to the house like that, but I'm kind of scared as far as I want to retire at 60, but I don't know if I can swing all this without...

I don't know if I have to get a HELOC.

Yeah,

How much is the sunroom? Get a bid. Save and do one, then save and do the other.

It's just.

Yeah, you don't have to retire at 59 and a half. One year for the sunroom, one year for the siting. You make $158,000 as long as you're working. I didn't get the quitting work part until just now, but yeah, work a little bit more. Who cares?

Well, she's like, I care, Dave.

You have to choose. You got a choice. Do you want a Florida room or do you want to work a year?

It's Christmas. We're supposed to be nice. You're making it hard.

You're turning.

How many square feet is your home?

It's roughly 1,800.. Okay, all right. So $20,000 does the siting?

Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, and you can have $20,000 into the siting by this time next year.

Six more months, you got a Florida. And then you're done. Just plan it out. The problem is you've got these things floating around with no actual numbers attached to them, and they're floating around in your brain, in your emotions rather than in your math brain. Use your math brain and it'll calm you down.

Okay. Go get some actual bids and timeline this out in your actual budget, like I just did, and say, okay, based on being done in August, oh, wait, a minute, we could be done in July or June. Oh, wait, well then, oh my, by February, we've got a sunrise. Oh, okay. And you start, when you actually get the actual bids and get two or three bids, so that you're getting good contractors and quit entertaining these crazy butt ideas that you know are crazy butt.

Yeah. Oh my God. Reverse mortgage. You've got to be.

It just may not be to the extremes that it once was, right? Being debt-free doesn't.

Hi, big fan. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. How can we help? I have a whole life insurance policy.

I'm sorry. I know you hate that. My mother took it out for me when I was a baby, and it is now a cash value of about $13,000 and a death benefit of about $21,000.. Wow. That's what you get when you get one out as a baby.

Wow. I'm sorry. It was only worth $5,000 as a baby. It accumulated over the years. What's your opinion on what I should do with that?

Cash it tomorrow. Really? Wow. Put.

What you actually have is $8,000 in insurance. $21,000 minus $13,000.. You put $13,000 in your pocket. If you need some life insurance, go get some life insurance, the proper amount in term to cover your kids, your mama, your family, your wife, whatever. This is a joke.

A, it's a super small policy. B, it's a horrible rate of return. C, when you die, they're going to keep the $13,000.. You need to get it out of there before you die quickly, like this week. Go ahead and turn it in and get your money and put the money in a good investment or pay it on wherever you are in the baby steps.

This is. ... I don't know if we'll ever get rid of all of those.

He's probably, I'm going to guess and say he's 30 or 40 years old. That was sold 25, 30 years ago. Most people now know that that's a horrible product. The vast majority of the public has a knowledge base that says whole life, life insurance, universal life sucks. It's horrible.

It's the payday lender of the middle class. Most people know that. People aren't running around buying $5,000 policies on their babies anymore. much. Gerber's still selling them.

I mean, seriously, that's just straight up. It's like, I'm going to the transmission store to buy cereal. Unbelievable. This is the Ramsey Show.

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates, but when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey Trusted Agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey Trusted Agent near you at RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

Jay Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Merry Christmas. Janice is with us in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hi, Janice, how are you?

We have four children, a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old, 25-year-old, and 26-year-old. The older two are children from my husband's first marriage. My husband took out parent plus loans for the two older children. that amount to about $130,000..

And now we're in the process of trying to figure out how to pay that back, while trying to make sure we provide for our younger children and look towards retirement. We've got a couple options that I don't really like, one of which is we sold our main home because I was temporarily on an assignment and we weren't in the house. We could use the proceeds from that sale of the home to pay off the loan, but that would make us without a real home. We have a second home that we're currently living in that he would prefer if we sold the second home. But I don't feel like some of this is being paid off of money that I saved or saved to be able to pay for the second home.

So one, I want to know what my obligation is. And two, we're looking for the best option of how to pay off these loans. This is interesting.

So you got to clean it up. So what are the proceeds from the sale of the other house?

It is my opinion that we should live here and save money and pay off the loan. My husband would prefer not to. It's close to the beach. There's nothing else around. He doesn't think he'd be happy to live in this home.

Can you go buy something for $350,000 that you will both like?

It would be tough. And I say that, but I feel, as I've gotten older in life, that I can't live in a smaller, smaller home. It would be hard to do, but-.

Okay. Well, here's the thing. What would I do if I woke up in your shoes? All right. I would write a check today and pay off the student loans.

That's done. Okay. Now you've got $100,000 in the bank and you've got a $250,000 paid-for house. Then the two of you, you and your husband need to sit down together. And what I'm now hearing is that you are not in agreement on where you want to live.

You're fine with where you are. He's not. You're not fine with where $350,000 with these two sources would take you, but you're perfectly fine in this $250,000 house. So somewhere in there, you guys got to find something that the four of you can live in, that you pay cash for, that is $350,000 or under. And then you're set up to move into retirement.

well. But you got no doubt. at that point, you got your income. house was paid off. That's where I want you to end up.

You don't go out and take out a debt. You don't go out and take out a mortgage, because that's the same thing as borrowing on your house to pay off student loans. Then we're not doing that. You got a hundred thousand plus this and you got to hold an emergency fund out. Of course, if you don't have that separate already, and then you guys need to be investing in your retirement.

Once you get the house purchased, but you know, you guys need to talk about, okay, we have $350,000 to deal with to. I'm comfortable here. You're not. So where is it that we can talk about going, that both of us are going to be okay, this $350,000 and under. And y'all start looking and talking about that.

And maybe that shuts him up and you stay where you are, or maybe that you find something that fits that and does both. Okay. I'm currently building a home in a neighborhood. I personally would have built a home on my farm, but my wife wouldn't live there. So I would be by myself.

And so these are compromises you make when you're married. And so we're building a house where Sharon wants to build a house. And I'll be okay with it. I'm okay with it, but it's not my first choice. It's my B choice.

Yeah. Right. And so you do that sometimes and you guys got to look at that. So is this his B choice, but it's okay. But there's not a choice in this discussion.

That's 500,000 and you go in debt. That's not a choice. So you guys, I'd write a check today, pay off these debts. And the two of you then sit down and say, we've got 350,000.. How are we going to live out the rest of our life?

Real estate wise. I'm wondering if there's a world where the?

And Janice is like, what's my obligation? Freaking obligation. You married a guy, borrowed 130,000.. You're going to pay it. That's your obligation.

So yeah, that's when you hear words like that, that's when you know, you got to, yeah, it's not, you have to pay it. Even though it was, that's what parent plus is. That's why it sucks. so bad. Parent plus should be called parent minus, but it's not.

Brandon is in Philadelphia.

What's up? So, basically, I started a new job, and the new job offers a 401k, and my old job offered a simple IRA, and I'm not allowed to transfer my funds from the simple IRA into 401k. So I'm just not sure what to do with the money.

Regulations allow you to, but maybe your 401k doesn't, but I wouldn't do it anyway. So it doesn't matter. You simply roll it to an IRA. Just get with a smart investor pro and sit down and open an IRA and do a direct transfer rollovers.

So it's probably, or probably it's traditional. Whatever it is, you just do an IRA. that's the same. If it's a Roth, you roll it to an IRA Roth. If it's not, you roll it to an IRA traditional.

Either one's fine. And you just, and you set it up. How much money's in it?

Okay. All right. It's very easy to do. It's a, you know, six or seven pieces of paper. Sit down, though.

It's a good experience for you to pick out a good smart investor pro. click Ramsey, solutions.com. Find the people we endorse in those areas and they'll sit down with you. And Jade, you've done it. I've done it, right?

I've done it. Yeah. It's worth it. They'll help you through it. Yeah.

Because if you cash it out, I mean, they're going to take a government's going to take half of it. Exactly. Because you're,

And yet you've got to put a hundred percent in. So you're not going to have, but about 10,000 bucks and you've got to put 12 in. So that's why you do a direct transfer. And the 20% withholding is not enough to cover the problem that you're going to create. So it's a weird, weird dichotomy.

So the direct transfer and sit down with a smart Mr. Pro, they'll show you how to do it. Good question, man. Merry Christmas. That puts us hour of the Ramsey show in the books.

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. Jade Washall, Ramsey personality, host of, well, host of the author of the new book, math's not a money problem. A 76 page quick read, a, um, well, it's a major, major chapter and you'll be done. Yeah.

The best. And you'll learn a lot about life and about money. She's my cohost today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225.. As we draw near to the end of our live broadcasts for the calendar year, update on the show for the year, we did 242 shows this year.

Live ones. We've talked to over 3,200 people on the air doing this show. this year. We did 184 debt-free screams totaling $36,059,064 and 47 cents. Uh, that's a ton.

So, um, we generally have about $40 million, 35 or $40 million worth of debt-free screams a year on the debt-free stage. Um, and we've done that for many, many years. So, if you want to add that up, that's like a lot. Um, I'm guessing we're over a billion in debt-free screams alone, not counting what everybody else did off camera, off camera, off mic, but, uh, pretty incredible. And, uh, what a great year.

What a wonderful year we're celebrating around here. Uh, we've yesterday hit number one on Apple podcast. Uh, so it's a big deal for us. Thank you. And, um, literally, thank you.

Cause you guys out there did that. I mean, you've been subscribing and sharing and leaving five-star reviews. Thank you for that. That makes a huge difference. And we really do appreciate you.

Uh, and that way, when somebody's sitting around during the holidays, bored, and they just open up their phone and go, I'm going to look at a podcast. Well, there's what's this number one. I wonder what this thing is. Well, they'll just stumble their little butt into here and learn about money and life. who knew.

And, uh, that's how that works. It's great promotional item and we appreciate it. Listen, beating those true crime.

podcasts. Yeah, I know, but there are. no, I don't think there's any in the top 10.. Yes, exactly. I mean, there's some news stuff and the crime stuff and my buddy Hooberman, that's a great podcast.

I love his. And, um, I mean, there's a few others that bump in and out of there and my wife listened and Blake Thompson, our producer on the network, could do a lot of those true crime. Do you do?

I.

I get scared. I do too. And I don't like being scared, and I feel sorry for you to scare the pants off of me. Yeah. I don't get it.

I just, I'm a, I'm a wuss. I can't do it. No. Well, Merry Christmas to you, America. Triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five.

Lindsay's with us in Waco, Texas. Hi, Lindsay. How are you? I'm good. How are y'all?

Yesterday we closed in our house. Um, we will take home a little over 33,000 on it. You sold your house. You paid for,

Our current.

And I keep telling him no. And he keeps saying, I, we, we have money. now. I'm like, we don't, we don't have money. Well, not if he spends.

He's just kind of going along when you tell him to do something until he doesn't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So this is not a money problem. This is a husband problem.

I agree. Okay. So how old are you two?

But he's a mechanic by trade. What do you do? I'm an occupational therapist assistant. We, I grow, um, and what other debts do you have now that his truck has paid off?

I have, we have a camper that we bought and we do use it. We use it like almost, I don't care. What are the debts of you guys? No, you don't care. Um, I have a camper and student loans.

That's it. How much is the camper debt? Uh, 60, $60,000.. Yes.

Is that what happens? What he does is he says, I'm going to go buy this.

And he goes and he does it. He goes and does it anyway. He does. Okay. We have a side by side.

It's paid for. I said you, you already have a paid for side by side.

Yes. Um, 22, and it's used. Yeah. Okay. And what, how much student loan debt do you have on?

That's.

I don't want to be married to a little boy.

who has to ask his mommy to make decisions. I want a man who stands beside me and looks into the future and says, how can we prosper as a family? and puts his own little selfish desires to the side of the good of the family? I need a man. Would you please find me one?

Am I right? And especially yesterday.

But that's what men do. What grownup women do, not little boys and little girls who buy toys that they can't afford. And this is the discussion that two of you need to have. Hey, I've got a side by side, nothing wrong with them, but quit buying crap, you can't.

Hey guys, Rachel Cruz, here. You know, some people think budgeting means they can't have any fun with money. And I know this because that was me. But the truth is, budgeting doesn't limit your freedom. It actually gives you freedom.

A budget is simply telling your money where to go. And the best way to do this is with EveryDollar, my favorite budgeting app. It'll help you create a plan for your money that fits your lifestyle. So, whether it's a spontaneous date night or an epic Disney cruise, budget for some fun. Download EveryDollar for free today.

Charles is with us in Evansville, Indiana. Hi, Charles. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas. You do.

How are you guys? Better than we deserve, man. What's up?

I kind of just need, like, a plan on how to tackle this.

So, right now I am probably making on average like five, six hundred dollars a week. Okay. Doing what? I'm actually on my, I'm a dropberry technician. I bury cable.

Okay. So I'm on my two week notice actually right now. So what happened?

It's me and the manager butting heads just every single day. I just kind of felt like it was just escalating. So what are you going to do now for money?

I have a few places that I'm going to an interview with. One is Aerotech. All right.