I Feel Like I’m Parenting My Wife Over Money (Hour 2)

**Dave Ramsey** (0:28)
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where dead is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they really love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is The Ramsey Show. George Kamel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions. Phone number is 888-825-5225.
Allison is in Anchorage, Alaska to start off this hour. Hi Allison, how are you?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:03)
Hi, I am doing great. Thank you guys so much for taking my call. It's an honor.

**Dave Ramsey** (1:08)
Sure, what's up?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:10)
So I feel like my husband and I are missing out on an investment opportunity of owning a home because our employer provides housing. So we're kind of at a loss, no goal oriented in mind for saving our money. Should we be saving to buy a house?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:29)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:29)
Should we pay cash for that house?

**Dave Ramsey** (1:32)
It'd be fine. You need to be saving in good mutual funds at a minimum, or you need to go buy a property so you're participating in the real estate market. What kind of employer, what's your husband do?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:43)
He runs a lodging business.
So, we did purchase 10 acres and it was $60,000. We did 10% down, we got it down to $40,500 a month, but it's interest free.

**Dave Ramsey** (2:02)
Doesn't matter. Get it paid off.
Go ahead and get it paid off. Yeah.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:06)
Okay.

**Dave Ramsey** (2:06)
At least then you're participating in the real estate market. Because here's the fear. You sit in the lodge rent free for 40 years, and think about what house prices were 40 years ago.
Yeah. The market just kills you, right? So you want to be riding that wave up as a part of your wealth building even if it's not a property you live in. So the 10 acres was a good move. And you could add to that after you get the 10 acres paid off, you could go buy a rental house and pay it off.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:37)
Okay. So you would accept that we could go ahead and buy a rental property, even though it's not our main dwelling, it's our only mortgage we would have, do it 10% down.

**Dave Ramsey** (2:49)
Well, I don't like it. I want you to pay cash for everything.
Because it's the shortest distance between now and getting out. I mean, you're camping on that $10,000 or that 10 acres over there like it's something fun just because there's no interest on it. You still need to get that stinking thing paid off. So I don't like any of that. But because the reason I like it is it keeps you from getting rich. You pay other people all your money.

**George Kamel** (3:14)
So how quickly could you pay that off and then save up and put even 20% down on a property?

**SPEAKER_3** (3:21)
I could throw 30 at it today and still have my three to six month emergency fund. So that would bring us down to 10 I can save two grand a month. So five months I could have it paid off.

**George Kamel** (3:32)
That's amazing.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:33)
And then start the saving process over again to pay cash for help.

**George Kamel** (3:36)
You free up those payments.

**Dave Ramsey** (3:37)
Yeah, and then start the savings process and let's either put a large down payment or pay cash for the rental. There's no hurry. The point is you don't want to go decades and not on real estate.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:47)
Correct. Correct.

**Dave Ramsey** (3:49)
That's the only thing I don't want you to do. And I wouldn't want to do it. And I run into this with pastors and parsonages all the time. They've been in one church for 25 years and they've had the housing furnished in the parsonage. And then they retire and now they're homeless.
And so because they didn't have any kind of game plan for the end of that story. And so you're very smart to be, as you said, goal-oriented and be ready for the end of this story. So very, very good. Lincoln's with us in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Lincoln, what's up?

**SPEAKER_6** (4:23)
Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for all that you guys do.
I, we, my wife and I, I am 27 and my wife's 24 And we have paid off about $30,000 worth of debt since November.

**Dave Ramsey** (4:37)
Great.

**SPEAKER_6** (4:37)
But we still have, we still have 40,000 more and she's actually going back to get her master's in education.