Kel / Rose

Yeah.

So I have, I was content, you know, and this was a long-term goal. And I just, you know, starting to feel like, okay, I think I'm ready.

So my question is financial, but it's also affected by like relational stuff. So my question is, is it the right decision for my boyfriend and I to move out from living with his family when the lease ends, knowing that our rent will double and we're still on baby step two. And then we also have two colleges we have to pay for starting in the fall. For some background, I'm 31, he's 27.

And we're currently going through like an intense disclosure process in therapy. So we're thinking of being with families, like adding some stress. And then at the same time, we unexpectedly got custody of his niece a year and a half ago when she was 17.

So we got her late in life, so we know we won't make it to baby step five in time to save up for her college that we have to start paying for in the fall.

We would have to stay living with family members, which the rent is cheaper. And it's not with his parents. It's with brother, nephew, family.

It's just... Right now, me and my boyfriend are each paying $550, but if we move out, getting an apartment near the D.C. area for a one-bedroom or two-bedroom with our niece would be double what we're paying now.

We're in the suburbs. We're in Springfield. We're in a big house, so we split it between six people versus if we go out on our own, we'll be paying double for ourselves. Okay.

Okay, so I make about $86,000 per year with multiple jobs. And then last year my boyfriend made $20,000 because he was part-time in college. He's about to take a break on that. So together it's about $106,000 total per year. And then the rent that we're paying right now is $1,120. But if we move out, it'll increase to about $2,500, which I think is still in the 30% monthly income.

But we're nervous about that we're going to be cash-flowing colleges starting in the fall.

um so okay well that's the the little part um but yeah so we've been together almost six years and we were about to get engaged but um he had a relapse and so that's why we're in the intense therapy process what do you mean without getting into the nitty-gritty what kind of relapse um like a full relapse don't want to get into substance are we talking about substance abuse No.

But I am on a 12-step program.

Yes, and him, too. He's in recovery now, and then we're in the disclosure process.

Oh, no, we're pretty sure we're going to make it through the process.

Hi. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So my question, so I have A bit of problems, me and my husband, we recently purchased a house over the summer, and we've gotten into a lot of pretty much debt, even more than we had before, just from purchasing the home with renovations.

So we want to know what steps should we prioritize to manage and pay off our current debt, given we have, you know, the renovation loan that we took out, our student loans and car payment, and even with credit card debt.

Okay, so the car, we owe about $15,000. Okay. Student loans, it's about $130,000 for the both of us. Okay. Yeah. And that's just our undergraduate loan. And then our renovation loans, we took out about $70,000. Okay. And then with credit card debt in total with both my husband and I, it's about, I would say, $70,000.

Yeah, so we used the credit cards. Just a little bit back story. When we took out the loans was to pay a contractor to do work in our home, but the contractor did not finish everything that he did not actually complete what he promised to do. So we ended up having to use our credit card to cover a lot of the other expenses.

We had other contractors and even people to come in and fix some of the issues that he had left with the house. along with just buying appliances and everything. All right.

It would be close, with his two jobs, roughly about $180,000. Okay.

But one, he ended up getting a part-time job and it's just been a lot where all of our money is just going towards bills where we find that we don't have any other wiggle room to do anything else. Yeah. And then we just... On March, we'll make a two-year anniversary since we've gotten married.

So we're a pretty young couple, and my husband would like to go back to school eventually and go into medical school. And he has that dream since he was a child. So essentially, we would love to pay off our debt so we can start living our lives again.

Right now, we're just drowning.

I'm doing well. I sent an email because I didn't think I could get on, but then I called and got on. There you go, Kel.

I have a two-part question. One about investment, and the second part is about beneficiaries.

All right.

I started watching Dave Ramsey heavily last year. I love his advice. All of you all, your perspectives on life and your sense of humor. It's just amazing. Thank you.

I've always been doing well financially, like pretty decent, but there is definitely room for growth and improvement, and this show has really helped me. As a social worker, I make about $88.6 annually, and I get about $4,200 a month for my rental properties. I own the rental properties outright. I manage them myself, so there's not a whole lot of overheads.

There was this one episode Dave talked about being able to charge low rent, give grace, and et cetera due to circumstances, and that just really resonated with me. But also I have quite a nest egg in savings, and that comes from a financial insecurity that I once had that I'm now healing. So now I'm open to spending some, you know, leisure, having fun, and just investing more.

I've always wanted to – the properties that I have, they're all single-family homes. And so I've always, a long time ago, I was like, hey, I'm done with that. I want to do multi-unit. And I think I'm ready, but I'm really not sure about the best way to – go about doing that. And some of my ideas just don't align with your principles. I know that I'm just going to save them anyway.

Um, so I'm not sure if I should finance the multi-unit, get a HELOC on my personal residence where I owe one-on-one and it's worth about 300. Um, my next bag is 175 cash. Um, that's not quite enough to purchase outright. And the prices are just rising. And sometimes I feel bad for not doing this a couple years ago when the prices were lower, but I was scared and all of those things.

They're not worth a lot of money. They're in Alabama. They're not worth a lot. Okay.

Different savings accounts. One is an account where I put all the money from the rental. That's about $100,000. I just pay insurance. I just do the repairs. And then the other one is just regular savings. But recently... One account had $30,000 in it, and I was just looking, and it was gaining like 25 cents a month. And just listening to you all, I listened to the mutual trust, I believe.

And I went with LPL Financial, and I invested there. just to see where that goes, but that's new. I was, you know, nervous, but like I said, I'm trying to be more open. Yes, totally. No, I hear you.