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Chapter 1: What financial advice is given for managing a car lease?
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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we are here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw. Taking your calls, 888-825-5225. Let's go to Charlotte, North Carolina and talk to Alyssa. What's up, Alyssa?
Hi, you guys. Thanks so much for taking my call. I appreciate what you guys do so much.
Of course. Thanks for calling in. What's up?
Okay, so the simple question is we are wondering, my husband and I are wondering if there is any way and how you might suggest the best way is to get out a car lease early. We have no consumer debt other than this car lease, which we refer to as our stupid tax. But we are expecting... Okay. How much is the lease? What do you pay every month?
We pay $499 a month, and we have about 22 months left on the payment schedule, and the buyout amount is about $29,000. Okay.
And do you have any money saved anywhere?
We do, so we have about 15,000 liquid, but two things with that. One, we are expecting, and I am a high-risk pregnancy, and so I have type 1 diabetes, so there's just some interesting things with pregnancy there. And then two, we do have, of that 15,000, we have thought, well, if we are able to get out a lease, we'll need at least a portion of that to purchase drugs.
So those are kind of our only two thoughts there.
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Chapter 2: How can you prioritize between buying a car and a house?
Oh, it's brand new.
What's your husband earn?
He is in sales. He earns about safely 80. But, you know, this past year was actually closer to 100. So but safely, you know, 80,000.
And you're high risk. Are you able to work through the pregnancy or any portion?
I'm working. Yeah, I'm work. I work from home. I work remote and I'm able to do that throughout the pregnancy. Our plan, our hope is for me to go part time. If the only thing that is preventing us from me going part time is this stupid lease.
And what do you make when you work full time? I think about 70. Okay. So we're just stacking cash right now. I mean, that's our plan. Yeah. What other debts do you have? Nothing. Oh, that's the only debt. Sorry. Besides a mortgage. Besides a mortgage. Okay. So... Is it possible that on $150,000, you can cut back a couple of areas so that paying this lease feels a little more tenable?
And in the meantime, you continue stacking cash, whatever extra margin that you have? Because I don't like the idea of you going down to no emergency fund and then feeling the pressure of having to stack that up very quickly. Do you see what I'm saying? Because you are going to have to get a new car if you do that. Right. Right. And that's the part I don't like.
Which I have a feeling you're going to say no. We do have both of us do have Roth IRAs.
No, no, no. It's not desperate. You're not in it. It's not desperate times. Right. You're annoyed.
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Chapter 3: What should you do if you're facing financial difficulties?
Yeah.
Well, you at this point, listen, if you called me today and there was no baby, I would consider saying, hey, go down to the credit union, you know, get a fifteen thousand dollar loan, you know, so that you have the money. You can buy this thing out. Yeah, I would do that in a heartbeat. But even I'll be honest, even with your numbers, it's. It's close.
And the reason I say it's close because I'm like, okay, you'd have to take out a $15,000 loan. Then you'd have to turn around and take, I don't know, five or 8,000 more just to get a vehicle. And you'd end up at the same, you'd end up pretty, pretty close to where you are now. So that's the only reason I don't even know that I would mess with it.
I think that I would just start stacking up the cash to buy it out.
Yeah, and we have stripped out our budget to bare minimum. I mean, you know, once we hit that store, we were like, okay, everything goes. YouTube TV, you know, our car wash subscription, like everything goes. But, you know, it's just this pesky, it's just a lingering amount that we're just hoping to... you know, get rid of, but that might just be our stupid tax.
Honestly, it is because when you really run out the math on both sides, it's not really worth it to go and get that loan from the credit union and then have to add more cash to it. It's just at that point, I'd say, hey, just pay the thing off. Because here's the thing. In the time, in this next nine months, you're going to stack up a bunch of money.
And as soon as this baby is born and everybody comes home healthy, you're going to completely buy this lease out. If you want to, you might by then you might think, well, we'll just run it out. And then from there on, we'll just buy a car in cash. We're going to turn it in and buy a car. Yeah, that's exactly our plan. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, it's a good question. And I love that you're thinking about it.
I would just take a chill pill, push pause for now and get it rolling in nine months.
and never lease a car again. I know that's, you already know that.
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Chapter 4: How can you balance financial responsibilities with family needs?
The first thing I'll tell you is there's some... there's some, what I've called nerd work. There's some research data that some researchers went down the rabbit hole and trying to see if, was there a causal or a correlative link between couples who shared their accounts and couples who didn't. And not to our surprise, but to surprise out in the world, there was.
Couples who shared a single account were forced to make planning decisions together. And
um because there was the artificial like uh environment that was the research study there wasn't a way out of it so they'd agree to do this and so that forced them to sit down at a table and figure out what do we value organic foods or non-organic foods um this kind of car that kind of car the the temperature at 78 or the temperature at 72 which is going to cost us an extra this much money every month they were forced to have those kind of conversations that so many couples just blow by and um
their relationship quality was higher. And so I think the, in and of itself, sharing the account That isn't the magic sauce. What's the magic sauce is it forces you to have big, real, authentic, deep conversations about how y'all are going to do life together. And that leads to your next question. The fact that you already have this level of self-awareness is pretty impressive.
Most people call us seven to 10 years into their marriage and they're like, we hate each other because he always tries to hit me over the head with his spreadsheets or, you You know, she wants to look at spreadsheets, and I just want to go, you know, buy Pokemon cards or whatever.
And so the fact that you already know, like, oh, I can be a lot with my spreadsheets, and she likes to have really nice things all the time. The fact that you already know that now, that's a good thing. Dave has taught this for years. And he passes this wisdom along, and I'll pass it along to you.
He says, when you're combining it for the first time, and one of you is like a dyed-in-the-wool nerd, and one of you is a free spirit, the nerd makes the first pass of the budget. And then, to quote Dave, they pass it across the table, and then they shut their mouth. And they let their spouse look at it.
And A, there's going to be what I would call principled things like, hey, you have $19 a week for us to eat on. Actually, I've been to a grocery store. Food costs $300 a week. So we have to adjust that. And so there's the practical changes, right? You have $9 a month for water bill. I like to shower more than 32 seconds. And you're like, we're nerd family.
We can get done with showers quicker, right? Yeah. And so then there's a practical, and then there's the, hey, what if we enjoyed our life too? What if we lived? What if we smiled sometimes? And as a nerd, you're like, no smiling, just savings, right? And so, but it's you saying, hey, I made a first pass at this, but your voice at this table really matters.
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Chapter 5: What should I do if my spouse is hesitant about financial changes?
I'm going to ask you to do that. I want you to go stay with your family members, step out of this situation for a minute, and I want you to call an attorney, and they'll walk you through getting to the bottom of the mess. So sorry you're going through this.
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Chapter 6: How can I effectively communicate my financial goals to my partner?
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Chapter 7: What strategies can help manage irregular income during winter months?
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Let's go out to Lexington, Kentucky and talk to Lisa. Hey, what's up, Lisa?
Hi, how are you all doing? Thank you so much for taking my call.
You bet. Thanks for calling.
Chapter 8: How do I balance paying off debt with saving for future expenses?
What's going on?
Yeah, so how do my husband and I have the conversation or should we try to have a second conversation with my father-in-law about the importance of getting life insurance? Just a little back story, he's the sole income earner for their family. My mother-in-law has been a stay-at-home mom for the last 20-some-odd years.
And my brother-in-law, who has some disabilities and is unable to work, lives with them as well. My father-in-law, he's kind of of the impression that, you know, you can always get it later. It's not important right now. Just doesn't have a good opinion on it. And so as me and my husband, we have life insurance. We see the value of it.
My mother-in-law, she was like, hey, tell me about life insurance. What should I be looking for? What should I not be looking for? And so we're not just wanting to give unsolicited advice to them. But how do we have a second conversation or how should we approach the subject?
Well, it sounds like there's two things going on. One is mom is feeling exposed. I'm worried about dad. And then dad is saying, I don't really care if she feels exposed. I'm not doing this.
Yeah, they don't have any consumer debt. They just have their mortgage. She said that they've been shopping for life insurance. They have a person that's looking for them. They, you know, brought up the idea of mortgage insurance, but the value that they were being told and that he's convinced about, you know, it's not even going to cover their mortgage.
Well, yeah. And the problem, the problem with that is you still have a stay at home mom and a special needs son.
They need incorrect.
Right. So I'll tell you this. This is going to sound like an ad, but I was using Zander insurance for my term life insurance for me and my wife for years before I even thought about coming over to Ramsey because I trust them. And then when I got to Ramsey, Xander's who we endorse and who we've been talking about for years and years and years, but that's where I would go.
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