It’s Time to Face Your Financial Reality

Jade Warshaw (0:32)

Hey Jennifer, how can we help today?

SPEAKER_2 (0:34)

Hi, thank you for taking my call. Okay, so basically, I wanted to get some advice. I thought I was doing pretty good financially. I don't follow the Baby Steps or do any of that, but I watch you guys, and I know it's good, solid advice that you guys give. But now that I'm getting older, I realize that, I don't know, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to retire. How old are you? I am 53 years old, and my husband is about the same, he's 52, almost 53

We bought a house probably five years ago, and that was our dream. We had a lot of debt, but we've been plugging away, and we were almost there. To me, I was like, hey, I'm almost there. I have a little bit left, I have six more months left on a car payment.

I have maybe one credit card that I have a couple of hundred bucks on. So that's almost done.

Then just recently, my husband had an issue with his teeth. We've always known that he, I mean, he's always had issues with his teeth, but we just put it off, put it off. So finally, it was really bothering him. He went to the dentist. They're like, sorry, buddy. We got to get rid of them. All of them? All of them.

George Kamel (2:08)

Oh my gosh. How much did that cost?

SPEAKER_2 (2:11)

That was about 40 grand.

Jade Warshaw (2:13)

With root canals and the whole deal.

SPEAKER_2 (2:15)

No, no. They just took all his teeth out.

George Kamel (2:20)

So $40,000?

Rachel Cruze (2:21)

Was that your wake up call financially of realizing, oh my gosh, we don't, yeah.

Jade Warshaw (2:27)

And the hard part is you're 53 and it's like the hourglass sands. You're seeing them running out.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (2:35)

Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, to me, health is sometimes it's a little bit more important than just how many things you have and collected. Sure.

Jade Warshaw (2:47)

Yes.

SPEAKER_2 (2:48)

And so we thought about it for a while. And we kind of know it was coming, but we kept putting it off, you know?

Jade Warshaw (2:54)

Well, I mean, let's be honest.

The dental thing and the health part of this, you're right. Like there are certain things that take precedent. And it's like, if it's health, you want to lean all the way in. But that wasn't the cause of what you're feeling now. That was one of the many dominoes that started tipping over. And when you have, you know, 10 or 12 dominoes in a row, you feel the weight of all of those tipping over on you. And so I think that's what's taken place. To your own point, it sounds like it's kind of just been years, maybe even decades of kind of knowing what you need to do, but not leaning into it. And I think that's what you're feeling right now.

SPEAKER_2 (3:30)

Yeah, I feel that, you know, because, and the thing is I've always been the one in the marriage who's taken care of all the financial stuff, you know, paying the bills, you know, all that kind of stuff. And we've always been on the same page.

Jade Warshaw (3:45)

But where has it left you? Where are you guys today? Like, what's the picture?

Rachel Cruze (3:49)

Yeah, how much do you have in retirement?

SPEAKER_2 (3:51)

Okay, so this is the sad part.

I have an IRA and I have a ROP and I have a savings account. All of them all together are about 24,000.

Jade Warshaw (4:03)

Okay.

Rachel Cruze (4:04)

And that's it.

Jade Warshaw (4:04)

What about him?

SPEAKER_2 (4:07)

He has a, where he works, he just, he just been there for five years. He just hit his five year mark where he's been working. And so he is eligible for the pension.

Jade Warshaw (4:20)

Okay.

SPEAKER_2 (4:20)

But I don't, I don't know what that's going to be. You know what I mean?

Jade Warshaw (4:23)

Like, sure.

SPEAKER_2 (4:24)

From what he tells me.

Jade Warshaw (4:24)

But does he have any money saved? So, but basically what you're telling me is he got saved by this pension because there's nothing else there. That's what I took away from what you just said.

SPEAKER_2 (4:33)

Yeah. Because we've always put everything together. So like, yeah, the IRA and I mean, yeah, the, the retirement it's like, it's under my name, but it's both of ours. You know what I mean?

Jade Warshaw (4:43)

But the total is 24,000 for all of you between, for the both of you between IRA Roth and savings.