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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work. that they love and create actual amazing relationships. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.
He is a big star on YouTube on the George Camel Show and also, of course, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour and author of the brand new book that comes out next week called Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. There it is right there. All right. Courtney's with us. Courtney is in Colorado Springs. Hi, Courtney. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Sure, what's up?
My question is, how do I protect or how does my husband and I protect our finances against his money-hungry ex-wife?
Money-hungry ex-wife. Why would she have any access to your finances? She's called the ex-wife for a reason.
Basically... Our main concern is could she pull more child support when she finds out that he's been married?
I'm sorry. Would she get child support increased because he got a raise? Is that what you said?
Because we got married, could she take more?
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Chapter 2: How can I protect my finances from an ex-spouse?
Those kids are still going to be in his life, so you're going to have to learn to manage it.
It's a thing. Christian's in Missouri. Hi, Christian. How are you?
Hello. I'm good.
Good. How can we help?
Um, I joined the Navy and I'm leaving for bootcamp in June. Um, they cover most of your expenses. And so I have most of my five foundations covered after I get my $500 emergency fund set up. Am I ready to start going to step five because I paid cash for my car, they pay for college and I don't have any daily expenses that most civilians have to pay for.
What should I do with the $2,000 paycheck I get?
So you're 18?
Yes, sir.
Thank you for serving your country, sir.
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Chapter 3: What should I do if my husband’s income increases?
Yes, sir. Okay, but now you're going to leave high school and enter the land of grown-ups. So we're going to put you on a grown-up plan, and that's going to be an emergency. So your first goal is going to be a $5,000 emergency fund. You have no debt, right? Correct. Okay.
And you paid cash for the car. And so beyond the emergency fund, you can begin investing with earned income and maybe fully fund a Roth IRA, and there's probably some retirement options through the Navy, I imagine.
Okay. Maybe a TSP. My next question is, is in this curriculum we learn everything interest rates based on a 12% interest rate for compound interest. How do I actually get that good of an interest rate?
Look at your TSP in the Navy. It's the Thrift Savings Plan. They have a Roth version. You'll do that. If you look at the C plan in that, it's north of 11%. It's not quite 12% right now.
Chapter 4: How can I manage the financial dynamics with an ex-spouse?
average at the c plan the c plan it's the common stock plan okay i wouldn't put it all in there i would put some in the s and in the i the i is international s is small cap c is common stock those three and i'd probably put 80 in the c and 10 in the s and 10 in the i and that's your retirement plan roth thrift savings plan the tsp with the military okay
Okay.
And when you leave the military, you can roll that out to an IRA if you want to.
Okay. How much would you recommend me putting in that retirement fund?
15% of your income after you have your $5,000 set aside.
Okay.
You're very wise to get ahead of this, Christian. I want you to continue all the way through boot camp to make sure you are writing down each month before the month begins where every dollar goes because there's a lot of really stupid stuff 18-year-olds in the military do with money, and I don't want you doing any of that. A lot of crazy crap out there, son. So just be careful.
Continue to be calm and wise like you are right now, and you're going to do really well. You'll be so wealthy, my friend. Thank you again for your service. Well, George, it's this week. 300,000 people already know it's this week, and some of you apparently didn't know, but we're going to let you in on the secret. You're invited. 300,000, you're invited. Easiest sales pitch ever because it's free.
What percent of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck? The answer is generally, for 30 years since I've been doing this, around 70%. So if you drive down your street, somewhere around 7 out of 10 houses have too much month left at the end of the money. And too much car in the driveway. And too many boats and Sea-Doos. And Sea-Doos all need a sister. So you got two of them. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What motivated the guests to start their financial journey?
So what happened two years ago that put you on this Ramsey journey?
Well, COVID kind of hit us and then we kind of started selling things in the house. We sold the whole basement. We just put that on eBay marketplace and everything. And we just sold, sold, sold.
People were coming up and down our driveway every night. Our next-door neighbor thought we were selling drugs, but it was my brother, so he knew we weren't selling drugs. And we live in Michigan, so there was just a cornfield between me and my brother. I love it. So we're out in the middle of nowhere. So you sold stuff like crazy. But what caused the switch to flip to cause you to do all this?
Well, we were looking at our finances, and we figured we could retire.
We couldn't retire.
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Chapter 6: How did selling items impact their financial situation?
We couldn't retire until we were 67.
Mm-hmm.
And that didn't appeal to us at all. So actually, we just retired. We both just retired. Oh, wow. So you paid off everything and retired. How old are you? I'm 61. 59. All right. You beat that 67 over the head. Way to go.
Chapter 7: What strategies did they use to become debt-free?
Yeah. Way to go. So how'd you get connected up with us?
podcasts and and i prayed we were praying about it and every time we prayed the name dave ramsey just kept coming up we couldn't go anywhere without someone mentioning dave ramsey so so um that's a little scary that's a haunting prayer right there yeah so yeah we really felt like we need to open the book okay you know there we go and game on anyway this makes sense let's try this yeah what are the properties worth
About each property is about $250,000. Way to go. How much in your nest egg?
$250,000.
So we have about $500,000 in retirement. All right. So you're millionaires. Yep. Look at you. Baby steps millionaires. Yep. Just like that. Who would have thunk it? Yep. Yep. People were making fun of us because we're driving old cars, and the hubcaps fell off a raised car.
He was driving a 2009 Malibu, and he wasn't going to replace them, so people were laughing, and he wore his shoes until they had holes in them. I wasn't quite that good, but...
right you're just cheap it was cheap yeah i was cheap it's like you upgraded the shoes i don't see any holes no holes but yeah we had um eight different jobs in addition to our teaching jobs wow so we just went out and really worked hard and you know if somebody needed help in the restaurant i would you know wait tables yeah if somebody needed help bartending lana would bartend yeah and we just rolled with that and
And then we started doing side businesses. We both have a boat. Well, we have a boat and we've had it for a number of years. And I would wax the boat and paint the bottom of our own boat. And during COVID, you know, other people needed that services done. So we started doing that and we started a nice little business now. And we're going to use that, like you say. To help finance our retirement.
Until we get Social Security. We're going to be washing and waxing boats.
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Chapter 8: What advice do they have for others struggling with debt?
Well, why not? We've got a side business.
So we're semi-retired, really.
It's not glamorous, but it's a lot of fun. Good money, too. It's good money.
And steady work. And steady work. And it's funny. We'll be washing a boat in a slip, and then two other people will come over and say, can you come wash ours? And then we pick up new clients that way. Free marketing right there.
It is.
Yep.
Way to go, you guys. Way to go. So what's the first big thing you're going to do now that you're 100% debt-free to celebrate? We're going to come to Nashville and do the Debt Free Streaming. Oh, wait. Who knew? Yeah. We listened to those podcasts, sometimes eight hours. We were in the barns alone while we were washing and waxing bolts. It would be a beautiful day.
Our friends are out on Lake Michigan sending us pictures of their toes in the sand and drinking margaritas and saying, where are you guys? So we would listen to the podcast. The podcast was our lifeline. Wow. And we really said, you know, we just hoped we could be here one day.
And now you get to have your toes in the sand. Yeah. Living like no one else.
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