My Girlfriend’s Pregnant and I’m Scared

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From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show.

I'm George Campbell, joined my best-selling author, Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your

calls at triple eight eight two five five two two five.

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Thomas kicks us off and Oregon, what's up Thomas?

Are you with us?

Yes, I'm here.

In here?

Yes.

Hi, my situation is rather complex.

My, I'm a 24 year old, from Oregon, who's doing college, have two years left for a business

administration degree, my, my girlfriend is five weeks pregnant.

I found out about it three, three days ago.

And to be honest, her both rabbits scared.

I have no outstanding debts.

I don't know if she has any outstanding debts, but I don't believe so, however, she is

not in the best financial situation, just overall, physical living, expenses and other

things.

Wow.

Well, that's scary, did you, you have a right to be rightfully spooked by all this?

I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are the father.

Yes, I'm the father.

Okay.

How long have you been together?

We've been together around a year, we live, we don't live together, unfortunately.

So there's even more scary, because we need to find a way to move, find a way to move

together if we decide to have the child.

Okay.

Let's, let's roll back once, one, one moment before we even think about that part.

Was this somebody that you plan to be with, or is this something that's like, oh, dang,

now I definitely feel like I am stuck?

This is someone that I was considering marrying, her and I both get along amazingly, we

have never had a fight in the entire time we've ever been together.

I mean, it's been 12 months, man.

That's not like getting married and everything.

Okay.

So it was somebody that you were thinking about a future with?

She is.

She's the one that I was thinking about having a future with.

Okay.

That is good because that way, all of, what I would hate is for you to just be thinking,

oh, I got this girl pregnant.

Now I'm stuck and now I have to move in, now I have to get married and be forced into

something that you never saw a future with that person, but it's good that you did see

a future with her because now she's having your baby.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you've got two years left of college, what about her?

She is currently, she's not in college or nor is employed and that's, I think, the

biggest scary thing for me is she's going to have to find a gel.

I said, I should grow up really fast now and I've never worked a full time job because

I've just been so focused on school all my life.

So you're 24?

Really scary.

Yes.

Did you, did you take some of the computers?

There was one gap here, but there was a lot of jumping around, unsure of what career

I wanted to go into because of the fact that our world is changing so fast.

Okay.

So why business administration?

I chose business because my psychology was that it would be like just so generalized

and so useful wherever I go that I could use it and I chose it because of that reason.

Okay.

That's on the other side of this.

Let's say you do finish the degree, what kind of job are you looking for?

That's kind of a more difficult thing.

I personally am really interested in architecture and I was also interested in psychology.

However, I've had family numbers push back against that and say no, you should be doing

this or you should be doing that.

Okay.

Also, I've been so unsure.

Well, here's the truth.

You might need to put a pause on education and just get to work doing anything.

Yes.

And the truth is, you could probably make as much now as you would with the business administration

degree on the other side.

The degree could help you long term, but in the short term, now we just got a stat cache

and get ready for this new life of being a dad and you know, does she have insurance?

She covered through her parents?

I'd leave so, yes.

That would be one piece of homework to figure out is the medical side and then child care

side.

She's unemployed.

She's going to need to get to work until she can no longer work and baby is about to

be here to try to at least mitigate some of the financial damage here.

And then is it, is she going to just stay home with the baby and then are you going to

be near her?

How close are you guys right now as far as distance?

I'm in three hours.

Three hours.

Oh gosh.

Okay.

I understand a little bit more of what you were speaking about.

Is there, since she's kind of unattached in the way of school or work, is she able to

come closer to where you are?

Would she be willing to do that?

She's been currently working towards that.

She has been trying to find a way to move out, where she's finally lived.

Where does she live?

Is she with family?

She's a financial part.

She's living in a home with other roommates is what she's living in.

How is she affording it?

I think it's very personal, but I think it's like something regarding she's a case manager

and that kind of thing.

Okay.

So she's just getting government assistance?

Yes.

I think so.

She's getting quite a bit of assistance.

Okay.

Okay.

She's 21.

Does she have family nearby that you guys could move closer to to have some help and would

they be willing to help?

Have you had that conversation?

Her family is not very in her life.

My family, unfortunately, is six hours south of me.

Got it.

Okay.

So thing number one on the list, I think, is you guys need to get together and you need

to create a plan for you guys living near each other, especially if you think the plan

might be to get married.

So that's thing one, thing two is verifying the whole insurance business because if she's

a strange from her parents, maybe she's not and if she's getting government assistance,

there's a lot there.

And then the third thing I would do is once you figure out the living situation, I would

start, I would find a local church and I would start premarital counseling just to see

if you guys are a fit, like if you could do a marriage together, if you could.

Yeah, I would have a hard time saying get married immediately because I'm not hearing

in your voice and even in your vicinity that that was the plan, per se, this, I don't

know if I'm right or wrong on that, but I don't want to just say to you, go get married.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

And then what is your financial picture?

Do you have any savings right now?

Do you have any debt?

I have a large college fund that was set up by my family.

I come up from a rhetoric, from a rhetoric grid which background, I believe my college

fund is technically it's owned by me, it's around like 50 to 70 thousand dollars, maybe

up to 90 at the most.

Okay.

But what about other cash?

Not a lot.

Unfortunately.

Okay.

Well, you, hey, you've got a nine month runway here and so I would heavily consider pausing

school, moving closer together and you getting to work full time plus a side job, her taking

on a full time job until babies close to being here and then you just save up cash.

And then we'll figure out the debt later, but right now you're in stork mode, stocking

up cash and figuring out the life plan, then we'll figure out the financial plan.

And don't do anything really crazy until the doctor says a lot of times people don't

even tell people that they're pregnant until like what around the 12 week mark.

So keep this close close to your belt for now.

Make sure that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any

at all.

I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something?

Well, I used to be one of those guys.

I didn't even think about it and one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have

life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids and I immediately went and got termed

life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

Oh, you're telling me for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.

They've lost somebody important to them and they don't know what to do next, right?

I mean, you're going to have a crisis here and you know, you got two options while you're

sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this

up or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

That's exactly right.

These are the two options.

And take care of your dad-gump family.

And term life insurance can replace income of dads, cover funeral expenses so your family

can actually have the opportunity to just be sad to just miss you.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

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Sarah is in Washington up next.

Sarah, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Absolutely.

How can we help?

And then a bit of an unusual position where my parents did well in life and now at the

end of their lives, my mom is facing some decisions with life insurance or an estate

strategy plan.

Okay.

The team wants her to buy $500,000 a year in life insurance.

And I'm trying to convince her that there are better products available, but I'm not

short.

But I'm not short.

She has a financial planning team.

Okay.

How big is her estate?

What is her net worth?

Probably about $60 million.

Okay.

Now there are at this level, there are, you know, there's life insurance strategies

that a lot of advisors use to protect the estate.

So I don't want to just go in going, this is a rip off.

They're trying to screw her over.

That may not be the case here.

When we talk about life insurance, we're talking about, you know, whole life policies for

the average everyday American when they're getting ripped off at $600 a month.

So when we have a $60 million estate, there are situations where paying a half a million

a year to protect, you know, for $20 million savings could be worth it.

So have you got any intel from the advisor or from your parents?

Yeah, I've got a couple of policies.

She has a 1.5 million whole life policy that's $100,000 a year and then two $10 million

policies that are each $100,000 a year and they want her to buy an additional policy

for an additional 300K a year.

Goodness gracious.

It just feels like now they're just grabbing commissions, you know, and so that's where I go.

This is not as black and white as it may seem, but if you are getting red flags, I would

have the conversation with them.

Are they willing to hear you out?

Yes, but when they, for example, I'd like her to get rid of the whole life policy, their

argument is that in seven years it pays for itself, so why would she not keep paying

for a few more years until it's paying for herself, paying for itself?

I don't have a very good question.

How does it pay for itself?

The paid up additions eventually get reinvested and then the investment inside the whole

life policy pays the premiums.

Yikes, well, that plan can implode pretty quickly with how high these premiums are and

how awful the returns are.

And so if I'm in your shoes, I would contact a third party advisor on your own and get

their take.

And then at least you have some hand.

To go, hey, I talked to an advisor, here's what they said about this.

Will you hear them out?

And maybe they go, yep, I understand what they're doing, all good, or they go, no, here's

what I think is happening and here's the tweaks to make.

Okay, I've gone that route and that has given me some ammo to push back on her team.

In a lot of ways, it feels like they're operating on her fear and that she's not going to take

good care of her areas, which clearly she's going to beyond anybody's wildest imaginations.

It's even more like a, oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, I would just look into, I'd be really interested in finding out what

type of whole life policies those were.

There are some instances where if it's like a variable life, it could be something that

is available to her.

I don't know if this many policies would be it, but that's what I'd be looking into if

I were you.

They can be utilized by ultra wealthy people, folks who have no debt and have really, really

high net worths, especially if they've just maxed out all of their other opportunities.

So I would really go into this with a spirit of curiosity versus these people are trying

to screw my mom.

You might be right, but it also could just be something that's gone outside of your

pervium knowledge.

Yeah, definitely as well outside of my knowledge being, and I just feel like one of the things

I love about the RANDY program is that the goal is to live like no one else.

Now they're facing that, hopefully Dave develops another segment where people can talk about

these kinds of issues because we're hoping that lots and lots of people get to this place

right.

I know that's not the reality.

It seems like a really weird problem to have, but it's not a, yeah, I want to look out

for my mom.

Absolutely.

And she's trying to steward this wealth as best as she can and using pros and experts

to do it.

But there are some people out there who can take advantage of people like this who have

giant estates.

They're happily going to write giant checks, which gives them big commissions.

And so that's where I want to know, are these bad apples or are they just doing something

that is just an extremely expensive way to transfer the inheritance?

And that's, that's the big question mark because the state tax could be 40%.

And so I understand that you don't want to pay 40% of 60 million when you pass away.

I don't want to give the government any more than I already have.

Yeah, no, definitely.

And so there are things like an irrevocable life insurance trust or eyelets, they're

called where, you know, the trust owns the life insurance policy.

So the death benefit is not counted as part of your estate.

So that's probably what they're trying to do is that once she passes, there's millions

and millions protected from the government, which means less taxes to pay.

Keep her up cool.

So I would.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you can contact a smart investor pro on our website.

Just jump on aramsysolutions.com and say, hey, I need a consultation.

My mom's working with this advisor.

Here's the kinds of things they've been telling her, can you help me understand this more?

Number one.

And then help me understand, is there a better way to do this?

And are they taking her to the cleaners or not?

And our smart investor pros are, they're going to have the heart of a teacher explain it

to you and no BS, they're going to, they're going to just tell it to you like it is.

Thanks for the call.

Malcolm is up next in North Carolina.

Malcolm, what's going on?

Hey, how's it going?

Good.

How are you calling me?

I'm doing great.

I was calling in about a question that I had regarding my income directly decreasing.

I recently joined the military, which has required my life almost to have to be a stay-home

mom.

She can only really do our job as she was doing before.

So our income went from around, I would say, $180,000ish, down to $31,000ish.

Oh, gosh.

And yeah.

Thank you.

Why did you make that?

Why did you guys make that series of choices?

I wanted to go into the military.

My wife has always been very supportive of me, and I recently sold a business.

So I kind of a little lost, so I didn't have anything to do kind of.

So I kind of always just joined the military.

So I took a leap and my wife joined it.

We didn't necessarily think that well through it, I don't think, but I'm in it now.

What was the, what's the end point?

Was there like a point where you said, hey, our income is going to go down for a small

period of time, and then XYZ is going to happen.

Like what's the end point?

Once I've finished my training, which is going to take about two years, I'll receive

my real estate bonus, which were my real estate bonus, which was about $45,000ish, $5,000.

My income should jump to around $100,000 in the military.

And then I also, if I choose to be in this, I believe our real estate category is around

$90,000.

So we didn't mention it.

I just didn't realize how long the training would last, before I started making

a better income.

And because we don't really, we've been very fortunate financially.

So we didn't necessarily, I never really think about our lifestyle changing significantly.

And yeah.

Are you going to be on base?

Are you going to have base housing?

Yeah.

So we're going to, we're going to be on base housing.

She will be moving with me within the next month.

Okay.

So that helps.

You're not going to have that expense.

I mean, the way that you live on $31,000 is that you'll live on $31,000.

So you've got to get your head around what that means.

And that's going to be a humongous, huge humongous.

Whatever your life was before is no longer.

This new chapter is going to look like they're broke college students.

That's the interesting thing that we're having right now, because we do have a decent

amount in investing for savings, especially after telling business.

Okay.

So the basis kind of wanting to live the same lifestyle recently, the reason this

pop up is like, you're savings.

So that's not an option.

Basically.

Well, here's the thing.

Here's what I want to tell you before we go to break.

Number one, if you have money and retirement, do not touch it.

Do not move it.

That money is locked in.

And if you have savings right now, how much savings do you have real quick?

So we do the regular three to six months, so certainly we don't have that much.

And that's what that's there for.

That's only there for emergencies.

That is not there to skim off of every single month to have the lifestyle you want.

So you guys made a very clear choice.

Sounds like you didn't think through it very well, but like you said, you're here now.

So you've got to live that life and be thankful that you've got three to six months of expenses

and a little money saved for retirement on down the line.

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Christian is up next in Fort Lauderdale.

What's going on, Christian?

Hi, George.

Hi, Jay.

Thank you for taking my call.

Absolutely.

What's your question today?

So, my dad was recently had a surgery that went bad.

He had three strokes during surgery on power of attorney over him, and I'm trying to

sort out his finances.

I just pulled a credit score and I discovered that he's $90,000 in credit card debt and obviously

not working.

He's now just on workman's comp insurance, so he has limited income that he'll never be

able to pay back the $90,000 in credit card debt, and I was calling to get some advice.

Man.

I'm so sorry.

That sounds horrible.

What's his prognosis?

So, he had three strokes.

He was blind about a week ago after the strokes, but he's currently able to see and talk but

not walk.

It looks like he'll be in rehab for about a month minimum.

And then we'll see.

We've gotten much better in past weeks, so we're hopeful, but for now he's going to be

an hospital for quite some time.

Wow.

How old is he?

65.

Okay.

Does he have any other debts outside of the credit cards?

Well, it's found about $86,000 in credit card debt and $5,000 medical debt in collections

along with a mortgage.

Okay.

And is anyone living in that house right now?

No.

It's an empty condo.

Okay.

Is it paid?

I mean, who's paying the mortgage right now?

So, this just happened in the past week.

I just took over its finances, so I will be paying the mortgage out of the money that

he's making from workman's comp insurance.

Okay.

That's enough to cover it.

Yeah.

It's enough to cover the mortgage and he's also laid on H.O.A.

fees, so they're in the process of suing him, but I was able to make his payment plan

with them that they have agreed to.

Okay.

And you're paying that payment plan out of your money?

Currently, I've not made a single payment yet, but I'm intending on paying it out of

his money.

Okay.

Does he have money?

Well, he has retirement.

No.

He might have a 401k, but he has no money, and he's accounts currently overdrawn by $50,

but he has $5,000 a month coming in from workman's comp insurance.

Wow.

So, what is he, oh, on the condo?

What's it worth?

It's worth about 200 and years, 204.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

And what's the plan?

What do you foresee the play?

Is it just him?

He's married.

Not married.

Okay.

He has a girlfriend overseas that he sends money to.

Oh, boy.

Are you sure this is a real person, Christian?

I've heard this story before.

Well, unfortunately, or fortunately, yes, she actually is real.

What's the plan when your dad gets out of rehabilitation?

Is he, do you foresee him going back to this?

Can you put it like this?

Do you foresee him living alone or do you foresee a situation where you all have to take

care of him out of your place?

No.

I foresee him living alone.

The workman's comp insurance will stop, of course, once he's out of the hospital.

And my hope was that he would get some form of settlement from workman's work.

Right.

Because he would have ended up on the job which led to this.

I'm sure that he won't be able to go, but I mean, I'm just assuming you tell me, based

on what you said, I can't see this guy going back to work in a couple of weeks.

I don't think so.

Okay.

I don't think he'll ever work in them.

Okay.

Right.

So then there'd be some sort of payout?

Yeah.

I would assume so.

And then he'll start collecting social security at that time.

I would believe.

Okay.

Do you think, do you know, do you have any idea what his social security would be at this

point if he started to draw it now?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay.

That'd be some homework that I look into.

If I were you to know, is he going to go from 5,000 to 2,500?

What's he going to go down to?

And then figuring out.

Is he going to have the ability to stay in this condo situation and really think through

what that means for him?

What's your financial situation?

Well, I'm single.

I make great money.

I run a company.

I mean, I'm not a millionaire.

I make enough money to live on my own and my family.

And there's no world where he would move in with you or you would become his caretaker?

I sure hope not.

Okay.

So you would, you know, it would be Medicare and try to get him care otherwise.

Yes.

Yes.

So your homework is to figure out his full expenses and then figure out does he have enough

money monthly to pay for that sustainably?

And if not, we need to make some really hard choices here and go, hey, you need to sell

the condo, maybe at a loss, because otherwise it's going to get foreclosed on.

Yeah.

And he needs to see still sending money overseas as we speak.

No, I've cut all, okay, good expenses off 100% you have enough money to make the payments

that I've arranged for the HOA and pay the mortgage and the electric bill.

Okay.

And my intention is to stop paying all the credit cards except for American Express and

the small local bank because I think they'll be the first ones to come after him.

Listen, they could try to sue him, but he has nothing and it's unsecured debt.

And so if he died with this, they just write it off.

They're not coming after you.

Nothing's going to happen.

Yeah.

All right.

They're literally, I mean, exactly what George said, they can't come after you and honestly

even for him, he has nothing to give.

The only thing would have been that condo, but he's getting ready to sell it and there's

no money that can come from it.

So in that way, he's sort of, and they can't take his retirement.

So I think at this point, it's just trying to minimize the future damage and make sure

the four walls are covered for him.

And the debt is a far, far away thing that we need to worry about.

You wouldn't file bankruptcy, you would just stop paying everything and then let them

come after him.

I would get current on everything you can.

We don't want it in collections if we can avoid it.

But the credit cards, you might make minimum payments to keep them off your back if he can

afford it out of his checks, but there's no way he's going to pay off 90K at this stage

of life.

Right.

All the credit cards are current, the mortgage and the HOA are behind.

That's what we need to flip it.

We need the mortgage and HOA to be current and the credit card companies can kick rocks

and pound sand.

Okay.

So that's your focus for him is making sure that we're current.

We're not behind.

We're keeping up with the four walls and we'll, let's see what income we can get from

where and how long this workman's comp's going to last and then what the next steps are.

But it's going to be a day by day thing, man.

This is a really difficult thing that you've been thrown into and you're a good man and

a good son for handling it.

Should I try to settle these debts for the credit card companies in a year when I inevitably

come after him?

Well, if you stop paying now, the longer you wait, the more they're willing to settle.

And so one year may not be long enough for them to go, yeah, we'll take 20 grand instead

of 90.

Eventually, they will though.

But the truth is he has zero money to give them.

So just let it play out.

Okay.

It's going to be the same.

If you were to file bankruptcy, his credit's going to be completely decimated.

It already is.

I'm sure.

And his days of, you know, getting a great income and buying a property are, it doesn't

seem like that's going to be happening.

So for him, like George said, four walls, whatever transportation he might need is really

going to be what he has.

Okay.

Unfortunately, this is just sad.

Decades of compounded, terrible financial decisions.

And then you have the health situation on top of all of that, which puts all of this

just straight to a halt.

And so there's, there's nothing that you can do to undo the decades of bad decisions.

All you can do is help him take the right next step and make sure that he's got food

shelter utilities and transportation.

Yeah.

What's his rent and HOA and everything like that cost every month?

The more you just 1250, the HOA is supposed to be 450, but I've arranged to pay 700 because

he's so far behind on that.

And then he's also about a year behind on Alimony, my mom, which is, you know, it is what

it is.

He doesn't have the money.

Is there a, is there a, is there a living situation in his area that's less than $1,700

a month that you could get him into?

No.

No chance.

In South Florida, I don't know whether it be possible.

Yeah, you're right.

And where are you?

Are you in South Florida as well?

I'm in Fort Lauderdale.

He's on the west coast of Florida.

Okay.

I'm just wondering, I mean, at this point, does he need to stay there?

Can he move somewhere that is more affordable?

I think he's best to stay there.

He does have family there, and I'm only three hours.

One more question.

If I have time.

Five seconds.

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

Well, I wanted to know if I start working on these credit cards if I'm going to be liable

to the debt.

No.

None of this is in your name.

So it's not going to pass to you to deal with.

So don't, if they try to scare you into it, say you got to pay their line.

That's not how the law works.

If the debts in his name, he's got to pay.

If you co-sinder your, you know, you're on that account, then they can come after you.

But otherwise, you're safe, man.

Best of luck.

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Kayla is in Texas up next.

Kayla, welcome to the show.

Hi, how are you guys today?

I'm doing great.

What's your question to that?

I'm looking for some guidance on how to, what the smartest way is to utilize the remaining

money that my husband and I will have after paying off our debt and putting money to

emergency funds.

We're about to receive $200,000 from a trust from my grandparents.

We owe about $30,000 on the car so we were going to pay that off.

And then put about $30,000 into an emergency fund so we'll have about $140,000 left over.

So we were wondering, should we put that all towards the house?

Should we invest some of that?

A quick little add on is we don't know that we want to stay in this house long term.

So we're just trying to get the best way to move forward with that leftover money.

Yeah.

Well, you're speaking very wisely and you're filtering this through the baby steps,

which is let's knock out the debt first.

Let's make sure we have savings and then we can explore the options from there.

Are you guys currently investing?

Yes.

When to our retirement problem, my husband is, he puts about 7% in my, and then his employer

matches at 3 and a half percent.

I'm currently not, but my employer does contribute 11% for me.

So you guys would be in a baby step 456.

You already have a home.

You have a mortgage.

What's left on that?

320.

320.

All right.

So is the trust available now?

And it's going to do like the final paperwork, the rest of the business area, they're signing

and they want all that paperwork is finished and the money will be distributed so that

it's expected in the next, we month to six weeks.

Okay.

And it is a lump sum.

There's no restrictions, taxes, timelines, like $200,000 will show up in your town.

$200,000.

My uncle paid all of the taxes that were owed on it from like the capital gains and the

interest, you know, taxable interest that was all paid already.

So at the $200,000 that I will be getting is what is mine.

Wow.

So tell us about a little bit about the home.

You said that you're in this house, but you might not stay.

Tell us about what your plans are regarding possibly moving and when that would be.

Well, my husband, I have some currently looking at other opportunities in another state

so that we can move closer to where my father is and then to like the neighborhood is kind

of going in a direction that we're not truly happy with.

Okay.

What's the timeline?

We might want to move anywhere from, I'd say, one to three years, I mean, it depends

on if I had already to get a job in, you know, six months or, you know, a year we would

move.

There's also some kind of changes going on to maybe trying to, like, the neighborhood

back around, but I don't know how long that would take to see if it starts moving in

the opposite direction.

Um, I'm also wondering, would you be trying to keep the same level of house?

Would you be trying to move up in house if you were to move?

How is the time the same level and where I'm, I'm happy with this, with this house,

you know, um, you've got three, forty when we purchased it.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you know, we're, we're happy with, with it.

What's your household income?

Um, about 150,000, so we bring home about eighty six, eight seven hundred after taxes

and, um, deductions I took with health care.

Fantastic.

Uh, real quick.

You said you bought the house for three, forty, and now you owe three twenty.

Yes.

And you're worried about the neighborhood going down?

Yes.

Um, there's just, I, um, I mean, if I were in your shoes, if you, if you really are talking

about a, your horizon, I'd probably be inclined to just keep it in a high-yield savings account

until you want it for a couple of reasons.

Number one, if you piled it all into the house and just for some reason, the house took

a long time to sell or for some reason went down in value, that might make you feel some

type of way.

Number two, moving is expensive and it's just nice to have cash on hand to make a move.

Yeah.

Um, uh, if I were in your shoe specifically, if you were on a year horizon, I'd keep

it in a high yield and wait for the right opportunity.

And then when you move, places house on the market and you've got your down payment, um,

it's readily available for you.

Yeah, that's a nice part of it.

It's a short time horizon that 140 becomes your down payment without needing to sell the

house first.

And so that puts you in a better position as a buyer.

But if you're talking three years, put it into the house, the money's not disappearing.

It's just a forced savings plan and it stops you from using that money for other things

that might not be as wise.

Uh, and, you know, you want to be a good steward of this money and you guys becoming debt-free

mortgage and everything is a great goal to have.

And so 140K chunked at that 320, man, the interest savings alone, if you calculate now, how

much more is going to principle versus interest, it would blow your mind.

Yeah, we did that.

It was, I think upwards to like the 60 year mark, so we have no issue with putting it towards

the house.

We just weren't sure like with us potentially moving like should we hold off just for a

little bit and then see if we haven't moved by the end of the year, then just dump it

all in.

It's the house.

Yeah.

I think that's great.

You can enjoy some of it too.

There's nothing wrong going, hey, you're debt-free with an emergency fund, maybe use some

of it for enjoyment.

And you go on a fun trip.

I'd probably like to hear you say that because I'm definitely a, uh, a, uh, flavor.

Yeah.

I think because you're paying off the debt, you're stocking up the emergency fund, it would

be good to do something fun with some of this money as well.

That's a huge amount, but you can take a, you know, $5,000 awesome trip and still have

$135 left and you can give some of that and then you can save some of that and that includes

paying down the house.

That kind of fits in that category.

And so I like this plan overall, I would just kind of keep it loose and put it in a high

yield savings account when you have it and just park it at, you know, three and a half percent

right now.

We're not trying to make a bunch of money off of this.

We're just sort of buying ourselves some time to make the next decision.

I think so.

Would you, would you guys think about it all like investing any of it into a mutual fund

or?

I probably wouldn't because you are putting plenty of your paychecks aside and remember

real estate is an investment too.

So don't narrow your mind to think that just because it's not in the stock market, it's

not, it's not being invested.

If you guys had the house pay it off, I'd say absolutely.

That's kind of a baby step seven item is to then invest outside of retirement.

And so you guys will get there no doubt.

You'll just use your future income to get there and this trust is going to help you get

rid of that house payment even faster and then you can invest that amount.

So, way to go.

What a blessing.

Awesome grandparents.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And it's fantastic.

I have one more question if I could.

Sure.

Very quick.

We got them in the left.

Okay.

So the emergency fund, does that count towards like the maintenance of the house, if something

were to happen to it or is that just simply, you know, one of us would lose our job.

They were recovered until the other person, you know, gets another job.

If it's an emergency that it can go towards household items that are emergencies.

So if it's something that's urgent, if it's unexpected and if it's necessary, that's

what an emergency is.

So for instance, there's a storm and you didn't know it, it blew a tree onto your roof.

Now you need roof, like roof repair.

That would be an emergency.

Dishwasher randomly goes out.

But if it just maintenance, just set up a sinking fund outside of that and just set it aside.

I wouldn't put it with the emergency fund, it gets too convoluted.

And so you can just set aside, you know, 100 bucks a month, 200 bucks a month, whatever,

you know, some people's homes need a lot more work and more maintenance.

So buying new furniture, not an emergency.

Yeah, I would just put it in every dollar.

You can, here's what I do.

I have a line item and you can mark it as a fund.

And that way I can save 100 bucks a month.

And at the end of the year, I've 1200 bucks a year marked for the maintenance and repairs

on the house or the car or whatever it may be.

And that helps me not get spooked when I'm like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

It's $1,000.

You know, we have it.

I treat the emergency fund like I treat the HSA, I never touch it.

You just don't want to touch them.

You just don't touch it, man.

I will cash flow whatever I can to not touch these monies.

Well, it's amazing.

Once you're not broke anymore, you kind of stop having emergencies.

That's true.

It just becomes inconveniences that you can cash flow instead of, oh my gosh, what are we

going to do?

Yes.

So it's expensive to be broke.

That's for sure.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio.

I'm George Campbell joined by Jade Warshall and we're taking your calls at AAA 825-5225.

Emily is up next in Nebraska.

What's going on, Emily?

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

So I am a stay-at-home mom and I'm trying to get out of an abusive marriage, an emotionally

abusive marriage.

My husband's basically a bandiness.

I've got four small children, they're five years old and under and I'm trying to figure

out how to create some margin, hire a lawyer and I'm just trying to figure out what's

the next best move to file bankruptcy or take out a second mortgage on the house or something

else.

And I've got all my financial information written down if you want that.

Is there any support near you, family, friends, church?

My family all lives about three hours away and they're doing what they can to help me.

I live in kind of a unique area where there's not like, I can't just sell the house and

go rent.

There's nothing for rent near me and jobs are feeling far between.

Is your house in your name?

Yes, it's solely in my name.

I bought it before we were married.

Okay, how long have you been married?

Since 2018.

Okay.

And what's your household income?

Right now I am a disabled veteran and I'm receiving disability benefits of about $2,600

a month.

Okay.

And then is his income covering any expenses for you guys or is he kind of cut off access?

He's, I think he's rerouting his paycheck someplace else.

He's an over-the-road truck driver.

He's an owner operator.

I've done his taxes forever.

He'll gross about $225,000 from last year and I was only able to move over $29,000 to

help pay household bills out of the last 13 months.

I've paid for the entirety of the bills six months out of the year.

Wow.

Okay, so he just kind of up and left, is that?

He, well, being over the road, he's gone a lot.

But he's not called me since September.

He's showed up at the house and announced a couple of times for a few days at a time and

it's just been weird.

Like just to crash?

Yeah, like over Thanksgiving and Christmas, otherwise he usually parks at a friend's house a couple

of hours away.

Oh, gosh.

I'm sorry that you're going through this.

So tell us more about, so you've been covering the bills just out of your money.

Correct.

And is there, was there any margin, sorry, say it again?

Oh, I received a lump sum back payment from the VA a year ago.

How much was that?

42,000.

Okay.

And what did you, has that allowed you to be current?

What did that allow you to do?

I was able to put six months worth of bills and savings.

You know, I had a Christian of six months.

Okay.

And then I paid off some debt and I started a business in May.

And that's actually been helping a lot.

Okay.

So how much debt do you have left?

I owe 34,000 on the house with about 58,000 in equity.

I've got 41,000 in student loans, 22,000 in credit cards, and I owe 6,000 on my vehicle.

Okay.

And how much is in that emergency fund?

I've got enough to fund February.

How much is that?

I'd have to look, I think it's down to 4,000 right now.

So you burned through the emergency fund.

So you've got 4,000 left to your name, essentially.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

$58,000, $58,000 of equity, 41,000, okay.

And tell me again, did I hear you say, I wrote down a lot of numbers.

Did I hear you say your income at this point is it 2,600 a month?

Is that what I heard you say?

2,600 a month and then my business, I just started in May.

So the numbers have been different about every month.

But right now I'm grossing about 1,600 and nothing about 1,000 to 1,200.

And I'm hoping that it just continues to grow, especially as we get into the summer.

Okay.

So fair enough, like around 3,600 is what maybe you could count on.

Pervert.

Do you have your own bank account that is not at the same bank your husband has?

I do.

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

Is that what you've been routing all of your money?

That's correct.

Good.

What do you pay?

$933.

Good.

Good.

Okay.

So tell us right now what's on fire besides your marriage, financially, what's the thing

that you're like, help me understand this, Jaden, and George.

I don't know how to pay bills after February and I need to hire an attorney.

Okay.

So I think that you can pay the bills after February.

Tell us how much the deficit is.

When you take your 3,600, you pay the 900 in the mortgage, you pay your debts.

Is there a pay for fooding and transportation?

Is there anything left?

I've got life insurance payments and then OGs, what else, electricity and propane and

normal stuff.

So it's usually about my budget's about 4,500 to 5,000.

Okay.

Okay.

And that's an every dollar.

I'm using you need a budget at the moment.

Okay.

I want you to pop into every dollar because every dollar is going to help you find margin

anywhere possible.

You'll be able to tell it about your specific situation and it's going to work over time

to find you money anywhere.

So right now you're a $1,000 deficit every single month.

So that's why this is dwindling.

So quickly I can see.

But there's also a path to get your income up, right?

With the business?

Yes.

It's been very slow.

I mean, it keeps changing, but I see it being capped at some point with the market becoming

saturated.

Okay.

So what I don't think you should do and I don't think that you need to sell your house

right away.

I think you're actually, you're paying a little less than $900 a month.

I think I heard you say you're in a good equity position with it.

You don't owe a ton on it.

I don't think you're going to find anywhere cheaper to live for a family of five, do you

agree or disagree?

I completely agree.

Okay.

What I would do is change the locks.

Once you file for divorce, I would change the lock so that he's not just coming up in

their willy nilly.

Right.

Okay.

And then is there anybody in your community who can set you up with a good attorney or

who could recommend a good attorney?

I've been shopping for three months now.

We live so rural.

I've been told that I live too far away.

What's that?

The attorneys don't want to drive to the courthouse in my location if they had to.

Got it.

Okay.

And are all the debts in your name solely or is anything joint or is anything in his

name solely?

The ones that I named are either in my name or are joint.

He's got his own mess.

He's been opening up credit cards for the last two years and he's got.

Have you frozen your credit yet?

Because my fear is he's opening debts in your name.

I have frozen it and I check on it.

Okay.

Well here's the truth.

The faster we get through this process of divorce, the faster we can hope for some

alimony and child support, which means you can breathe again.

And that'll get you to fight another day and hopefully clean up some of these debts.

Okay.

Yeah.

I wouldn't try to pay anything off just yet.

I wouldn't try to sell your house or anything like that just yet because once this goes

to court, who knows how this is going to get split, including the house.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the laws are in your area.

He's been living there since 2018.

So I'm not sure if any of that will be up for grabs.

But yeah, change the locks, freeze the credit and file for divorce and figure out how to

pay for it because you got to divorce this guy.

Great.

I can't imagine.

I'm so sorry you're going through this, Emily.

This fact that this guy's not even covering the expenses for his own children and just

abandon the family just breaks my heart.

And I know you'll get through it.

You're a survivor on a warrior, but it's going to be a process to get to the other side

of this and see some life.

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Lender.

Sarah is up next in New Jersey.

Sarah, what's going on?

Hi, there.

How are you?

Doing great.

What's your question today?

So I am trying to figure out how much I need for retirement.

I see where I'm trending right now in terms of my retirement progress, but I feel like

it's falling short of what I'll probably need.

Okay.

So I'm struggling to figure out what I should aim for.

I know I watched a segment where someone with about 3.5 million.

I don't know if that's accurate or where it should be and what I would need to adjust

to get there.

Okay.

Well, usually when we think about retiring, but I'll tell you what's in my head.

I'm thinking about my entire nest egg and I'm thinking based on my annualized rate of

return, which is about 10%.

Can I live off of 10% of my income and can it feel like the lifestyle I have now or better?

Does that make sense?

Yes.

What do you currently have invested?

So I have, let me see, in terms of my 401k, I have about 146,000.

And then I have a brokerage account with a couple of EFTs, which is about $7,000.

I have a separate Roth IRA, which I just opened up that has $1,000.

And then the other money that I have is just an emergency fund.

Okay.

I have student loan debt, so I have a student loan that it's in forbearance, but every

other month I make $1,000 payment towards that.

Okay.

What's left on the balance?

$130,000.

And what's your income?

It's 210.

Good income.

Is that just you?

Yes.

How do you go?

All right.

So how much are you currently investing?

So currently I invest via my paycheck, and so about 600 goes into my 401k every paycheck

and then my employer matches that.

What's the match?

7%.

Good.

Okay.

So if you follow through, I have $300 that I was putting into, I was putting into like

capital, which is like a money-saving app, I was $300 every paycheck, but I just recently

moved that into the, the, an EFT to start putting that into there.

Okay.

And why are you investing outside of the retirement right now into those ETFs I imagine is what

you were saying?

You know, I don't know.

Okay.

Just to feel like you're doing something.

Yeah.

That's very honest.

And so, and then also the other thing too is that does it make sense to mess out the 401k?

I think I've done it in the past and the thing that I'm kind of most worried about is,

you know, what are the, the tax is going to look like and so if I can find some other

place to do it or the taxes might not be as much and just, just try.

So can we, let, let, let, let, George and I tell you what we would do and as we're doing

telling you that you tell us your objection so we can help you get past it.

Would that be all right?

So I'm looking at what you're doing and I, I hear what you're saying.

It sounds like you're just doing everything you can to feel like you're doing something,

but I would argue that you're doing too much and because of it, you're not making the

progress that you want to make.

The way I would do it, Sarah, is I would focus on clearing out these student loans first

so you can have the fullness of your income and so that these things don't follow you under

retirement.

Because what a pain in the butt to still be paying off student loans when you're retiring,

right?

You're not even working anymore.

You're not even using the education anymore at that point.

So I would really focus on that and that's going to require a mental shift.

That's why I asked to go ahead and tell us what your reservations are, but let me play

out the plan first.

So you pay off the student loans, then instead of thinking about it as I'm going to max

out my 401k or I'm going to max out my Roth IRA, we just say, hey, let's just invest 15%

of our income.

Because if you did that, you'd be putting $2,625 into retirement every single month.

That's a lot of money.

If you did that, let's just pretend I know that you've got the student loans to pay off,

but just let's say you did that for 20 years at the rate that you have now, I mean, you're

going to be over $3 million at that point.

So if we can kind of reverse engineer that to make that happen, it's going to start

with, yeah, we've got to have the student loans paid off.

We've got to have some form of cushion between you and life, some sort of emergency fund.

That way we can invest and not worrying about having to pull it out for emergencies again,

right?

And now we've created kind of the sustainability, I mean, think about it.

Making $210,000 a year with just you, how quickly could you pay off the student loans?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I was unmarried, but I do have a toddler.

You do have a toddler.

Okay.

It is only my income.

Well, great.

You and your toddler, $210,000 a year, how quickly, if you really got intense, because

I think mentally you are intense about being prepared for the future, how quickly could

you pay off that debt?

You're like, I could probably pay it off in a few years.

I think so.

I think so.

Two years.

So here's the math on 130 grand, 24 months, you're talking $5400 a month, not 1,000 every

other month, we're going hard in the paint at this debt.

And here's what that does, 24 months from now you're 50 years old, right?

Yes.

And you've paused investing for those two years, all investing, which scares you.

But here's the truth.

Now you have freed up so much of your income and focus and energy.

Now from 50 to 65, let's say, you invest that 26, 25, that's 15% of your income every

month.

Like you're going to have $1.8 million sitting in there, and that one account.

Okay.

And that's a 65.

If you want to keep working, you ride this out till 67, you've got 2.2 million.

And like Jade said, you continue this down the path, you'll have more and more.

And so retirement is not an age, it's a financial number.

And so we don't just get to retire because, well, we're 65.

It's time.

A lot of people get there and go, I don't have enough to cover the expenses.

And getting into retirement debt free is your best bet at reducing the amount you need

in retirement.

The only other thing too is that I've also been looking to purchase the home because

I've been not paying.

And so trying to factor, I don't want to delay purchasing a home because I'm finally

in and I think a good financial position to do that, but I don't know how that factors

into, you know, kind of increasing what I'd be contributing to the student loans at this

time.

Well, I do love the idea of having that line item on your budget set once you're in

retirement.

I would hate for you to be renting then.

So at that point, the order of steps would be still focusing on getting the debt cleared

out first because again, we don't want debt, especially that sort of debt following

us into retirement.

Then next, yeah, you still need some sort of emergency funds, some sort of cash position

to keep you between, you know, a barrier between you and life.

Then from there, yeah, now you could start to do both at the same time.

You could start investing 15% and start putting aside for a down payment.

And I would really, at your age, I would fight in the budget to do both simultaneously

rather than put off investing any more years in order to save up for the down payment

faster.

So you're investing 15% into retirement and then any money above that goes into a savings

account for that down payment.

Even though that might make it go a little slower than you want, you're going to want the

years.

So you're going to want that time of compound interest growing for you and your retirement

accounts.

Okay.

I think it's on solid.

You've got a lot of great goals.

You do.

We just got to get focused on one thing at a time and you'll clean this mess up fast.

And if you keep making $210,000, I have no fear that your life is going to look very

different a decade from now.

Yeah.

Is your income going up anytime soon?

I hope so.

Good.

I would plan for it to go up, right?

Why would it go down at this point?

You're kind of going into your highest earning potential years.

So a lot of people in their 50s earn their highest amount.

So really, really good.

I'm proud of you, Sarah.

I think that's been on track.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

So it's time to ratchet up those student loan payments because here's the truth.

130 grand, you know, six or seven percent interest.

You're probably, the balance is moving upward even as you're making $1,000 payment every

other month.

You might be accruing over 1,000 in interest every other month.

Absolutely.

So you really got to get ahead of it.

And that means throwing huge chunks of money.

And we get those calls where people go, hey, I owed 80 and now I owe 100 because it was

in four barons.

And I didn't understand what it meant.

I just thought they were helping me out.

Now I have an even bigger mountain to climb.

Yeah, for some reason, student loans rest differently in people's minds.

If you had $120,000 of debt and it was credit cards, cars, all these other things, you

think, oh my gosh, I have to get ahold of this.

But for some reason, when it's just one block of student loans, people tend to push it

aside and forget it about it.

Well, society told us, it's an investment in your future.

And yet you can't bankrupt on the thing.

It will just stick around until you decide to get rid of it.

I love entrepreneurs, don't forget guys, I started my company on a car table myself.

So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention

your customers.

And when you're the one signing the paycheck, you can't afford to fly blind.

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Today's question comes from Shannon and Florida.

That's the range to show question of the day brought to you by YRIFI for private student

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Okay, okay.

Today's question comes from Shannon and Florida.

She says, what's your opinion on how much to help kids financially after they get married?

My son and his fiance are getting married this summer.

They're in their early 20s and have a young daughter.

They're both in college, pursuing degrees.

Our plan is for them to live in our basement for free until they graduate and start working

full time.

I plan on continuing to pay for my son's college and provide help to his wife as well after

they get married.

I'm getting mixed opinions about whether I'm helping or hurting them by supporting them

after they're married, even if he's married, he's still my son.

And I think it's my responsibility to help both of them get through college debt free

if I'm able to.

Friends and families say they need to be independent once they're married, even if that means going

into debt to finish college and pay rent so they can live independently.

What are your thoughts?

So it sounds like they started a little earlier than most as far as having children and because

of that, it's kind of set a course of events into action a little earlier than maybe planned.

So I'm with you, Shannon, on the education part.

I think that if it was your plan to pay for college, especially for your son, and he's

still willing to go, I think it's great if you're still willing to pay for college.

Now did I read you said that you were paying for hers too?

I think you're just supporting her.

I'm fine with you paying for college.

I think that's great.

Now the living in the basement until they graduate and start working full time, if you tell

me they're 20 or 21 and they have no money and they have a kid.

I think that is okay.

There has to be clear guardrails and time frames on this.

It can't just be, oh, live in the basement and I'm supporting you financially until you're

ready.

And the part of you being ready is just kind of like this vague ambiguous thing.

They're probably not leaving at that point.

If mom still folded my laundry and covering all the bills, so there is that word independent

is the key here.

If they are, what does that mean?

If they are codependent and now you're enabling the codependence, that's on you.

And so we need to make sure that number one, we're not artificially propping up their life.

If this was a marathon, you don't want to be carrying them over the finish line.

Now if they're running and they're doing a great job and they've trained, it's okay

to give them a little boost and that's what you want to do here as a parent.

It's okay to help them financially after they get married.

I think that's awesome.

If you want to pay for the wedding and you want to help them with a down payment and

give them some money for that, that's great.

But only if they're already employed and working hard and able to take care of the bills

on their own.

Yeah, I think they should be paying you.

I think you need to sit down and have something very clear here as far as what are they

going to pay you and rent?

Because if they're just living for free, that's not going to help them when it does come

time for them to go into the world and try to get and try to lease a place.

They're going to need to show some form of history of paying rent and so that's good.

Even if it's 500 bucks, come up with something so they have some skin in the game.

So set very clearly, how long is this agreement going to last?

If he's out of college in two years, is that the cutoff point?

Is it two years and six months?

Like be very specific.

What are the parameters while they're there?

Must both of them have at least part time jobs?

Must they be paying a certain amount of rent, right?

Make that so, so clear so that there's no question.

When the time comes for them to leave the nest, they're not thinking that you're kicking

them out.

They're going, oh, yeah, this is exactly what we decided.

So whatever you set, make sure you're talking about it early and often and make sure that

you don't get caught up in this as the rescuer and their drama triangle.

If you've never Googled a drama triangle, you should.

The triangulation.

The triangulation.

Yes.

All right.

Good question, Shannon.

Frank is in Boise up next on the line.

What's going on, Frank?

Hi.

I have a question ask here.

I've been talking to a financial advisor here at Boise recommended from you guys and I

had three, four, one case because my contractor, I worked under, they keep changing companies

so it changes to a new four or one case and they're pretty small.

So I think the three, they total around $73,000 and I want to know what to do.

Should I roll them into the new four or one case by this April this month or should I roll

them into a personal IRA, which the financial advisor recommends that and I brought them

up about the large cap, mid cap, small cap and international companies that they ran,

ran the recommends, but I'm 57 years old and they said they need to make a portfolio for

me, just for me because of my age that they would do it differently or something like

that.

Yeah, I'm guessing they're saying, hey, you need to start including some bonds and sort

of tone down the aggressive investing as you get closer to retirement, which is normal

in the financial planning world, you'll hear that a lot.

So that is okay.

Do that.

I don't need to be a large cap, mid cap, small cap or international companies exactly like

that.

We still advise it.

Dave Ramsey is a big fan of just keeping it 100% equities and letting it ride because

it's over the long haul.

I mean, you could live to be 97 and so you're talking, you're still, I got 40 years of

that money sitting there and so they're just going to be a little bit of a drag when

it comes to the bonds starting to enter the picture with much lower returns, but also

less volatility.

And so it's a really personal decision for you and you're, you know, you can talk with

your advisor on what they recommend for your situation.

We don't have all the facts on what your expenses are and what the nest egg is going to be

so they may have the reasons there.

But either way, you want to do a direct rollover to the new 401k or to the IRA and so you

never should touch the money and you want to keep it in kind.

So if it's traditional 401k, you want to move it to a traditional 401k or traditional

IRA instead of Roth because that old trigger a whole, you know, host of penalties and taxes

there.

So that's what I would do.

There's nothing.

If you have a strong 401k, you can just roll it all into there.

My guess is the advisor is saying, Hey, if you roll into the IRA, he can help manage

it.

They don't have access to help manage your 401k.

And so he's basically saying, Hey, you're on your own in that regard.

Do you feel like you need help?

He said there's more, there's more mutual funds in a IRA than versus a 401.

You might have 20 options with your work 401k and IRA, the world is your oyster.

You have access to everything.

So there are some, there's some pros and cons there.

And so you do, you do your own due diligence there.

You're still still in the ship when it comes to investing and you do whatever you think

is best for your situation.

But there's really, there's nothing wrong with doing either.

And so don't overthink it.

Got you.

Okay.

Then he said the 1.5% of advisory fee in that office, 73,000, that's about $95 a month

that correct.

Yes.

And doing something wrong.

That's normal in the financial planning world.

There's something called AUM assets under management and that's basically how they make

their living is managing these portfolios and one to one and a half percent is normal in

that world.

And so you're talking 73,000 if it just sits there and you've got, you know, you're

right, $1,095 a year divided by 12.

And so that's the price you pay for making sure that someone is managing it for you and

you have access to them, advice all year long, all of that.

And so you really want to make sure your advisor is looking at a holistic picture, not just

a fund picker.

And so I would be utilizing them for way more than just helping you do this all over.

Okay.

I got you.

So what you say you recommend it.

I mean, if this guy he's telling me I'd do this, do this and start going to go forward.

If I were in your shoes and I looked at my current 401K that's being offered and I really

liked the funds and they were growing at a rate of return, that's what, you know, what

it should be.

You might say, okay, I'll just roll them over to the new company 401K.

But if you're looking at the options and you're going, hey, like based on what I'm seeing,

this isn't really not performing well, I need access to the full market, then that totally

makes sense to roll them over and let somebody help you pick some better funds.

And sometimes the 401K has fees as well.

So you want to look at that and see what that's costing you inside of the account.

So a lot of homework and research to do and it never hurts to have the pro look at over.

But again, you're in the driver seat.

And so if you're like, hey, no, I don't want to give it all to the IRA and have you manage

it.

That's your decision to make.

But I'm proud of you for taking that step.

Just don't let the money sit there.

You want to move it and have it working for you invested and not just sitting.

You asked and we listen, guys, the live like no one else crews is back by popular demand.

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events.

Tom is in LA up next.

What's going on Tom?

Hey, how you doing?

Great.

What's your question?

Yeah.

I was just calling in.

I'm a PhD student over here.

And my wife recently lost her job back in like July.

And I'm just wondering, and we're looking to get some advice on how best to get through

this stage of my career and my situation, whether that is pushing harder and just getting

out as quickly as possible, um, yeah, or trying to work extra jobs.

So what's the life of that?

What money is coming in with you doing your PhD?

So with being on UCLA, we have like a full stipend, it's about three grand.

So in LA, it covers about housing costs and a little bit of food.

But beyond that, before I had worked a full time job as an engineer and saved up enough

money where I haven't had to cover anything.

So I have like this little message that's just doing them down, but there's about 24,000.

Okay.

And you've been basically using that to float the gap for the last six months.

What did your wife do?

So she was a, like, IT trainer over at UCLA.

Okay.

And so it's been since July, has she gotten any bites, what's up with that, do you think?

So she's gotten a few bites, um, in the tech center, it's just been really quiet for the

past few months.

And then she recently started working with some family members and starting up, moving

up business, that's, they start over Mexico over here.

And so she's not paid yet.

And so they're just starting and so I'm hoping that will she be paid when this is moved or

how does this work?

Because I wouldn't, we're not doing volunteer work right now.

Yeah.

Um, I think once it gets moved, it would be paid.

I'm just not sure about, I've been trying to get like a good timeline, but it's very

mysterious at this point in time where she looked at just other fields in the IT world

that she would be qualified for.

Yeah.

So she's been applying around, um, I think that she's just very much kind of also chasing

a bit of a dream of this job and this kind of like entrepreneurial spirit.

And I want to appreciate that and also love that because I'm kind of doing that.

And I'm like, yeah, there's going to be a season where it's, it's Tom's turn.

And he's chasing this PhD.

Now, I'm hoping this PhD is going to turn into a big pay raise on the other side.

What's the goal with the PhD?

So I'm sitting by engineering.

So the goal is to hopefully, yes, have a big pay raise and be working for one of the

big biotech firms like Neuralink stuff, things on those lines.

So we're talking on high six figure salary once we're done with this.

So when is the PhD done and how soon would you be working after that?

Yeah.

So that's one of the decisions is I can hopefully be done by early fall next year if I really

push hard, but the other idea is if I need to flow is if I take so much of time and work

like as a tutor and take an extra year, but float expenses.

So fall of 27 or tutor and then it's fall of 28, 2008, 28, oh boy.

So okay, yeah, let's go back to the wife then because you were kind of on this path.

I think you have to see it through at this point.

I think for your wife, she's got to, it's one thing if you want to do a business venture,

but you need to have solid, a solid business plan, something that she can look at and then

be able to say to you, here's what's going to happen and we should be profitable by this

date.

And when we're profitable, this is the salary I should be able to draw so that you guys

can make a plan and kind of have a go, no go of, hey, we thought that we were going

to be profitable by this date, we're not.

So now therefore we're not going to continue on with this.

And if she can't provide that, then that means there is no meat on these bones.

It's just an experiment and you guys are not in a time of life just yet where she can

totally experiment because you're going to look up and this 24,000 is going to be gone.

What's your burn rate every month?

It's about 2,000 a month.

Oh, yeah, you're going to look up and be like, in two years, this money is going to be gone,

which two years is not bad.

I mean, that's you being, you'll be graduated by then.

Do you guys have that?

So we do have some debt just one car loan and then it hurts student loans, which are

about together is about 20,000.

Okay.

That's total with the car loan.

I see what's left on the car loan.

It might be closer to 25 or 30, but definitely below 30 or above 20.

Do you guys have kids?

No kids.

Okay.

So what has she been doing for six months?

Because I'd rather her do something, even if it's not in the IT field, just to provide

some income and some purpose and meaning every day to go out there and do something.

Because it's easy to fall into a low grade depression, just sitting around going, I was

laid off, I can't find a job and you start to question your identity and self-worth.

Yeah.

Just to earn the burn rate, like she could experiment, but she got at least bring in

the couple thousand.

And she's too qualified and talented just to be sitting on the sidelines for seven months

now.

Yeah.

That's what I try to, I've been trying to be encouraging as much as possible.

I think it's just very disheartening for her, the current situation of applying and getting

rejected.

And just feeling that she isn't as talented as I know she is.

So.

That's your job.

You're the biggest cheerleader and you are also her accountability partner going, hey,

you apply for that job, you get that coffee meeting with that person who works in IT.

And so you can help her in support her during this time, but it's time to have the honest

conversation of, hey, we are broke.

Like we won't be in the future, but right now we are in a season where we both need side

jobs at night delivering Uber Eats and DoorDash.

That's the reality.

Because we can't burn through the savings and then be going into debt every month, living

in LA.

And expensive life as you know.

Yeah.

A piece of homework you guys can do tonight that will feel proactive is if you can both sit

down tonight and make a list of everyone you know that might know someone in her space

that could be hiring, right?

That could put in a word for her.

We'll make sure that she has Kin Coleman's career materials so that she can really focus

in and figure out how to do that the right way.

But just reaching out to your network, because chances are there's somebody that's in your

network that holds the key to her next job.

Okay.

Yeah.

Love you.

Very good.

Right?

Yeah.

Try to make a list of 10 names.

She has to create some inertia here.

Because you know, an object arrest stays at rest.

And so it's hard to even have the self confidence to have the meeting or do the interview

when you feel like, oh my gosh, here we go again.

It's like dating.

You're like, well, I've had 19 bad dates.

What's the point?

Love isn't real.

It's easy to fall into that hole if you're not careful.

But you know, this again, this is a season you guys will have an amazing trajectory in

the future.

And right now you're going to look back at this time and go, remember when we both had

to do Door Dash from the side just to make ends meet, that was crazy.

Yes.

This is a very short period of time that most of us go through where it's just, you're

just broke.

You're broke because you were young at that point.

Yeah.

Not so much because you made a bunch of mistakes.

You're just a young and getting started.

But you stack on high cost of living on top of that.

I mean, it's impressive.

They've even made it work on what they're bringing in every month.

And with the savings and the stipend, that's still tough life.

So the reality is we got to live like we're broke college students, which means we can't

eat out.

We're getting the discount groceries and stretching it and meal prepping.

It is just rice, chicken, broccoli, stack them.

Go.

That's what we're eating every single day for a year.

You'll survive.

No one's died from doing that as far as I know.

It ain't pretty.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio.

I'm George Campbell here with Jade Warshaw.

Take in your calls at AAA 8255-225.

Riker is up next in Utah.

Riker, what's going on?

Hi.

How are you?

Great.

How can Jade and I help?

So I'm wondering on how to build a budget with such an inconsistent income that me and

my future wife are going to have once we combine finances.

What do you do that's so inconsistent?

So my fiancee is a hairstylist and so it just depends on what client she can get for

her income.

And then my family owned a fencing business and a ranching business and during the summer

I can make upwards to $10,000 a month but during the winter during ranching I'm making

zero.

Okay.

And what about her, what's her swing of income?

Good to bad.

Right now.

Right now she just started three months ago and she's making about from a 1,500 to a month

to about 2,300 a month.

Okay.

Okay.

So maybe say 18 is right there in the middle.

Okay.

So the way I would do this, when are you guys getting married by the way, when does this

actually start?

June 20th.

Okay.

Good.

So what I would do by then by June, you're going to kind of see what her averages are.

Hopefully they continue to go up.

But you really want to plan your budget based on your worst month.

That's what I would do is I would say, okay, first off, how much does it take for us

to even like what's our bare bones budget?

What does it take for us to operate, keeping the lights on, keeping food on the table,

for walls, keeping our insurance, whatever that is.

And then on our worst month, how far away from that amount are we?

So you're kind of filling in the unknowns there.

And then from there, I would kind of stock up and say, okay, let's pretend we find out

it takes $3,000 for our household to run and we bring in on our worst month, $3,200.

Well, that's great.

That means there's a little bit of margin there, but it also means that you might want to

keep an account, take that $200 and over time, stock up an extra month's worth of savings

that's kind of there to float you in the rough months.

We call it kind of a peaks and valleys fund.

So when you have a really great month, that's the peak.

Well, we don't need all of that to cover the expenses.

So let's move it over to a savings account so that when you have that $0 a month, you

can get by and not feel like, oh my gosh, what are we doing?

And it's not your emergency fund.

So don't get it confused.

It's completely separate from an emergency fund.

The real question is, what are you doing all winter long?

So I do ranch with my dad all winter.

I work probably six hours a day all winter.

But for free.

Don't get paid.

Yeah, I don't, so I don't get paid for the work.

I own cows in our herd and I sell bulls and I sell beef, but instead of me getting paid

hourly, I work off like a seed and hay, so I don't have to pay my dad back for hay.

And I just get the money from the animals instead of having to pay him back for all the

seed and all the hay.

So what are the zero, what are the zero some months?

I don't do farm math, so I need to help you understand this.

Which months do you on paper earn zero and which months on paper do you earn the 10,000?

So I can, so in about from April to November, I can earn 10,000 and then in we sell bulls

in April and that's when it can make money off the ranch, but in between so like mid December

to when we start fencing in April, I'm not making any money, but I'm getting ranch money

during the summer when I'm working full time as well.

So really if you spread it out over 12 months, you're making six, six and a half thousand

dollars a month.

Yeah.

So that's not bad.

It's almost like a teacher.

You just have to account for the summer months.

Yeah.

For you, it's the winter.

And for you, it's the winter.

And for you, it's the winter.

Yeah.

Can you go do something part time or even full time from January through April that actually

pays?

I could.

We was in a really remote part of Utah.

There's only 400 people in my town and the nearest town, like we have to drive an hour

to go get groceries, not a lot of side hustles out there.

We'll do any other places around you need help.

I'm guessing there's other people are are a lot of farming, is that a kind of a farming

town?

Yeah.

So I, yeah, I could go and pick up a ranch and job somewhere just right here locally.

Yeah.

It seems like a little bit in the winter months.

It seems like in a town, I think you just have to put your thinking cap on and think outside

the box because it feels like in a town that small, there's got to be needs that people

have because there's, it's pretty remote you can't get to the things you want.

So I just spend some time brainstorming what is it that during the summer months, or

I'm sorry, during the winter months, I would need help with that it would be nice to

have that service.

And maybe it's a service that you can provide for the folks who live around you during

those months.

Make sense?

Yeah.

Is your fiance in the same town?

Yeah.

We live together.

Okay.

Well, she's got enough hair appointments with a town of 400 to make this work.

So she drives an hour to go to work.

Goodness gracious.

Wow.

Every day.

An hour each way.

Yeah.

An hour each way.

And she's working Monday through Saturday.

She just set the bar riker sounds like you're driving an hour into town for your side

hustle.

Yeah.

You hop in with her and you go do something nearby.

You drop her off and you go door to ash and you have quality time.

So that's the key.

If you want stable income to make this less stressful, go create some stable income during

those months.

Otherwise, you do the peaks and valleys side where you go, Hey, I made 10 grand.

We only need five.

I'm going to sock away five over here, knowing why you need to float some expenses in the

down months.

You're doing good.

I mean, you're making 80,000 a year, which is pretty sweet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For small town, rural living.

Yeah.

I hope you have low expenses.

Yeah.

We're only, we have to spend about 2,500 a month.

That's not bad.

So when I'm only 18 and when I'm able to, I'm hoping to get my seed yield and during

the winter, I was going to snow cloud guys.

Hey, there we go.

I love it.

There you go.

That's a great idea.

Can you start a Christmas tree farm too?

I've seen that in every hallmark movie ever.

I mean, we probably care to be honest with you.

I like this.

I get creative.

You guys are young.

You can, you can sort of take those risks right now, quote unquote, obviously doing this

hall with cash.

Are you guys completely dead free?

Both of you?

Yeah.

We're completely dead free.

We own our both of our vehicles and we're paying a thousand bucks a month and rent.

I'm ready.

Literally.

And then just food is the only aren't for this boat as well because that really, if you

have inconsistent income, you really got to be dead free and have that emergency fund

because life is already a little bit stressful when you don't know what's going to come in.

And so I'm proud of you for being a really hard worker at 18.

I think this boat's well for your future together and I wish you guys the best.

Yeah.

Knowing what I know about your income, if I were you, every time I got 10,000, I'd keep

6,000 and put the rest away and that's kind of your winter month store until you can

get something off the ground and roll it and just tell yourself that you make $6,000 a

month instead of 10.

I learned a lot on that call.

This was like settlers of Catan.

He was like, all three, yeah, hey, for a brick, dad, I'm like, all right, hey, whatever

kind of arrangement you guys have, you figured out whoever got the longest road wins.

That game hurts my brain.

But hey, I'm not a farmer for obvious reasons.

I wouldn't survive one hour out there.

They'd find my body.

You're three feet from the house?

Oh, boy.

I did my gluten-free snacks.

If you've been paying off debt working the plan and have reached baby step four or beyond

you've done the hardest part, now it's time to celebrate.

The live like no one else crews is back March 14 through 21, 20, 27 join all the Ramsey

personalities and me as we sail to Half Moon Key, Cosamail, Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

Cabin sold out last time and they will again.

Lock in yours with a $600 deposit at RamseySolutions.com slash events.

That's RamseySolutions.com slash events.

We're headed to Orlando up next.

John joins us there.

John, welcome to the show.

Hi, I think you're having me.

Absolutely.

What's going on with you?

Yeah, so I currently, yeah, as I said, I live in Orlando and I have a pretty good job,

but I have a potential career change and unique job opportunity that will take me out of

state.

I bet it would actually be a pay decrease and another big problem is that I'm severely

under water on my mortgage.

Oh, boy.

Oh, you're not behind on payments.

No, no, no.

Okay, so how are you under water?

Like upside down?

Upside down, yes, sorry.

You owe more than the house is worth.

Yeah, quite a bit.

How did we get here?

Yeah, houses.

Yeah, so I bought this house about two years ago and the market was really high.

I'm into the whole home buying things.

I'll probably overpaid for it.

Yeah.

And then yeah, houses in my area, they're really not selling well.

The prices have gone way down since I've bought so you're under water on paper right

now.

As if if you sold today, you would take a big loss and you need to come up with the

difference.

Yes.

And that's the problem with this out of state job.

Yeah.

Do you have any money?

Like do you personally have any money saved?

Yes, I have quite a bit of savings, but I just don't want to dig into it for this.

How much do you have?

But yeah, so I have docs that I get from my company.

I have about a hundred and ten thousand.

Okay.

And then like liquid cash, I have maybe like twelve thousand.

Okay.

Okay, so the good news is if you did choose to get out of this because it's seventy

thousand under water, is that correct?

That's what I'm expecting about seventy thousand.

The good news is if you had to bring the cash to the table to get out of this house,

you could.

However, my question is why are you moving out of state for a pay decrease?

Tell us more about the opportunity that doesn't sound like an opportunity just yet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So do more background.

I'm a software developer currently and I do really like my job and it pays good.

So this job would actually be a completely different career change and it would actually

be in federal law enforcement.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

So something I've been thinking about doing since I was a kid and I finally got the opportunity

to do it.

The process takes a really long time and very few people make it through the process.

So I wasn't really thinking about this the whole time that was just kind of going through

the process.

What's the differences in pay?

What do you make now and what would you make?

Yeah.

So my total, so so big value right now is around $160,000.

My total pay after stocks and everything is being about $210,000 maybe a little bit more

Wow.

Because I get $50,000 in stocks.

Yeah.

And then this new job would start out around like high $80,000, but it does go up after

each year.

Yeah.

It would definitely even long term like the highest paid people in my in the new role would

make slightly less than I make currently and my like slightly less than the one 60 or

slightly less than the two 10.

Uh, slightly less than the two 10.

I think the top people like once you make the GS 13 or whatever, I think it ends up being

around $190,000.

Okay.

Any single?

Yes, I am.

Yes, I am.

I have a long term girlfriend, but no, not married.

What's the, you said, um, the percentage was low to even get into this?

What's the percentage?

Like what's the chances that you'll move and actually get into the program or get to

take the next steps?

Yes.

So right now, so they, they're wanting to get me set up for training right now.

So around one percent of people who apply actually get elected for like training, but I've

actually made it all the way through to that stage.

Wow.

Okay.

So you made it, you made it under the fence.

So what has, what has to happen next?

What's the timeline?

Um, so I haven't fully, um, labeled, so, you know, training would be about three or four

months from now.

They have to get me selected for a training class.

Would you have to quit your job to do the training?

Yeah, I would.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And then the training.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Well, I'm just thinking through this.

So it sounds like this is something you really want to do.

Um, right?

This, this is, you've kind of decided you are doing it.

Um, I haven't made up my mind.

Um, it would be different if I wasn't happy in my current role, but I do really like

my current job.

But at the same time, yes, this is the thing I've wanted to do for a long time.

Well, the truth is, you can always go back to software developing if this doesn't work

out or if it's, you know, I had fun, but, um, ready to go back.

So it'll always be there.

I'm not mad at the pay cut if it's what you really want to do.

Um, the, the, you're going to have to just suck it up and go.

These stocks are gone.

Yeah.

I'm going to use this to, you know, get out of this underwater mortgage.

Uh, you might owe some taxes and then you're going to move and that's going to cost money.

And so just, no, it's not an optim, uh, financially optimal move, but we know life is bigger

than just spreadsheets.

Sure.

Do you have any debt?

Yeah.

No, it's not.

We've got other three mortgage.

Okay.

Okay.

I mean, I think unless you have another reason that you haven't told us about, if the reason

for you strictly is a financial one and, but I kind of like my job, I think we've given

you an out for both of those.

It's just, uh, do you want to go forward or not?

That's, that's true.

And the grand scheme of life, the underwater mortgage is like, okay, that was kind of a stupid

tax.

Well, you know, something you couldn't super control.

Now you could have put more down and had more equity and got out of it unscathed, but here

we are.

And you're a smart guy.

You make great money.

You will recover.

Okay.

Thank you.

So financially, it's not the end of the world.

It's just if it's more about my decision on what career I want to do.

Yeah.

But I could, I could ask you this question.

I mean, there's, there's a chance that if you stuck in this house for a couple more

years, maybe you'd see it go right side up, but will this federal law enforcement opportunity

be available to you in two to three years?

We don't know.

Do you know?

We don't know.

Yeah.

Um, so there is an age limit, um, I'm 32 right now and you have, you have to enter training

before you turn 37, so, um, I mean, it's kind of closing, but not, it's not, and

we close.

I mean, that five years.

So if you, if you said to yourself, I know I can wait three years and I, I, I want to

do that.

You could wait three years and see if you can get right side up on this.

Um, if you know, for sure that that opportunity would be available to you and you wouldn't

be one, you wouldn't be the one percent that doesn't make it to, uh, to training, right?

Mm.

And would you just rent in this new area if you got the job?

Uh, yeah, I would probably be the plan starting out at the new job is to vent for a while.

Training itself takes about six months and then, um, yeah, your housing is taken care

of during that time, but then I would probably rent.

Is the training paid?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

And then the last question, I mean, it's not part of the financial discussion, but the

relationship.

Is it going to survive long distance?

Um, probably not, that's another, yeah, that's another big factor in my decision.

Okay.