Chapter 1: What financial challenges do callers discuss?
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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell, taking your calls on your money, your relationships, your work, everything, anything you got going on in your life. We're here, 888-825-5225.
Let's go right down the street to Nashville, Tennessee and talk to Ethan. What's up, Ethan? Hi, can you hear me? I got you, man. What's up?
Well, thanks for having me on today. And I was calling because my wife and I were in baby step number two, and we've made some pretty good progress. But we've made it to our final, we call it the big dog. It's our final big payment, and it's a student loan of $118,000. That's one loan? Yeah. Yes, my wife's an occupational therapist, and that was her graduate, like, degree. That is a big, big dog.
Yeah, that's why we named it that. But to name my question is, it's at a 6.1% interest rate, and it makes me sick to look at the balance, and, like, it goes up, like, I mean, like, from the last time I checked it was sometime this week to, I think, last night was, like, $70. Do I save any more money by, like, paying that weekly or –
or monthly, or I just didn't know if I saved more if I paid every single week versus like every month, just one big.
I mean, the faster you bring the principal down, the less interest you're going to pay, but the simplest way to do it is just apply extra to each monthly payment.
Monthly, okay.
How much are you guys making?
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Chapter 2: How can I effectively pay off my student loans?
I think one or both of you get hustling. As soon as this baby is healthy, let's get this income up because that's your greatest shot at getting rid of this debt faster than the interest is growing because it's just one loan, so there's really no debt snowball here. It's basically you're trying to knock out a mortgage. Correct.
Can I say something cruel to you, Ethan? I'm going to put a worm in your ear, and you're going to have to promise me that once you've paid this off, you're going to take that worm out. Are you ready? Yes, sir. So one time I was me and some buddies were going to a concert and one of my buddies was an attorney and we were all meeting at his house.
And I got there early, which has never happened in human history. But I got there early and we just plopped on the couch and we ate some and we watched an episode of Seinfeld. And we got up after that 30 minute episode. And he goes, well, that cost me $300 or something like that. Cause his billable hour rate was 600 bucks an hour or whatever it was back then.
And I remember looking at him thinking that's a terrible way to live. Right. And here I am now I'm on a hundred percent commission. I had that same thought sometimes like, well, I just watched a whole football game and I could have been right. I want you every time you're not on the clock. And you're not fully participating in your house, right?
But I want you to think, man, that hour just caught, I just donated this much more money in interest to that bank. and use that as fuel to say, I'm going to pick up two more extra hours in overtime today. I'm going to do an extra hour tomorrow.
I'll come in for a half day on Saturday because sitting on the couch, I refuse to sit on the couch and pay them 50 bucks in interest for the privilege of watching whatever dumb show I just watched. You can't do this forever. It will melt you and your family. But for a season to get this stupid student loan out of your life, man, let that thing just wormhole its way into your brain. Yes, sir.
I'm not going to pay these banks. I'm not going to exchange, you know, kicking my feet up to pay these banks some more money. I want them out of my life. Do you guys have any other debt?
No, we're currently renting, which our rent's only like... Okay, so here's what I'm thinking.
You guys, if you make, let's say, $150 this year, if you really get after it, which is very doable, you probably clear, what, $9,500 a month in take-home pay?
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Chapter 3: Should I help family financially even if it sets me back?
And so the breaking it down into small chunks that you can see on paper is if we live off of three thousand, we will have six thousand left over. Yeah, that's the fact. So I love focusing on the facts because debt is emotional. It's scary. You're going, we'll never pay this off. And they go, wait, you guys make amazing money. What if you just took control of that?
Did a budget, got in a plan, held each other accountable and made it fun.
I know this is cheesy, but we had our Excel spreadsheets and we had all our stuff. We did this before the EveryDollar app. But we went old school and made a construction paper chain.
Yes.
And I hung it in the bedroom.
Arts and crafts, baby.
I want to see this thing. I'm going to tear off a chain every week. And just watching that thing get shorter.
You get below six figures, below 75 grand, 50 grand, 25. It's like an auctioneer in reverse.
Watching that chain get shorter and shorter was awesome.
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Chapter 4: What strategies can I use to align financial goals with my spouse?
I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love you. I love you. And my sister loves you, George.
Oh, that's sweet. Why doesn't your sister love me? All right. I get it. I get it. I get it. It's been happening since high school. All right. So what's up?
So, yeah, I've been having a conflict with my husband. I work full-time, he works full-time, and then he also has a second job, a second part-time, a second job that's part-time, excuse me. And we've been thus far using his income from his...
part-time job as extra principal payments towards the mortgage but he now starting in march wants to use that income towards investing in crypto and i'm not on well that's an oxymoron awesome i'm not on board and we just have a lot of conflict on it um so i wanted to
get your guys's thoughts I'm a bit afraid of being controlling because I grew up in a home where my mother was very controlling and wore the pants in the house and I don't want to be like that you're not being controlling if my wife said hey I know we got debt to pay down I'm gonna go gamble in Vegas instead are you okay with that I think it's wise as a spouse to say mmm that's not a good idea
Those are opposing goals.
What about the last two months with crypto has made your husband be like, you know what, I think I need to get in on this?
I know he has a friend who's in on it, and he claims and this friend claims that he's very successful in it.
Recently successful? Because it went down 50%. 50%.
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Chapter 5: What types of follow-up questions can help with financial planning?
And what's really cool, John, is it analyzes the question and asks me follow-up questions. So it's a real conversation, just like you'd have on The Ramsey Show. And we're going to see what kind of follow-up questions it asks. I'm guessing it's going to need to know, well, how much do we have saved?
Chapter 6: How can I calculate my retirement nest egg effectively?
When do we want to retire?
All right, I want to kick some stuff. I'll kick some numbers to you, okay?
Okay. So it's going to... Yeah, let me scroll to the bottom here. So it's walking me through how to calculate your nest egg.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of using gift money for student loans versus a wedding?
If you want to have this much, here's how to calculate that. And at the bottom, it says, what do you think your monthly budget would look like in retirement?
All right, let's pretend we have... I'll put a big number up there. Let's say we were going to have $7,000 a month in expenses.
Okay. Monthly budget, $7,000.
And let's say between me and my wife, we have $500,000 in retirement.
Okay.
And let's pretend I could go back in time and I'm, I don't know, 35 years old. Got it. Must be nice. And I want to invest 500 bucks a month.
I will invest $500 a month. Okay, let's see if it can figure out how much we really need to create this nest egg, live off of the income once we are work optional or fully retired. And it's working its tail off here. Here we go. Found five Ramsey resources.
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Chapter 8: How should I approach budgeting for a wedding while managing debt?
It recapped our situation, our monthly retirement goal, and it says, here we go. It's calculating based off a 7% to 8% withdrawal here. It's showing us our target nest egg is about $1.1 to $1.2 million, not including Social Security or any other income stream. So it says, are you on track? Right now, you already have $500,000 saved, and it's going to continue to grow.
It will reach about $2.7 million in 30 years at age 65. That's pretty incredible. So it's telling us we are on track. And if you invest more, you could have more. And that makes me feel really good. Thanks, Ask Ramsey. Yeah, not bad. It's that easy. It's pretty great. Not a lot of people can get through the phone lines. And Googling things is going to send you into 19,000 rabbit holes.
That is not the Ramsey advice that you trust. So go check out for yourself. Go to askyourquestionramseysolutions.com. You'll see the search bar there. It says Ask Ramsey. Or you can click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube.
All right, let's go out to Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of my favorite places in the United States, and talk to John. What's up, John?
Hey, John.
We're doing great, brother. How can we help, man?
Sorry, you're breaking up on us, John.
Yeah, you're breaking up for me.
Are you inside of a tunnel?
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