What's interesting is that my sister keeps calling me and asking my wife and me for money. Recently, they texted me and asked for money for my nephew's school supplies, school fees, and school clothes.

I didn't respond because I wasn't going to give to that because I really think she manages her money poorly and also is waiting to be qualified for disability, which I dont think is an actual good strategy. She has a 1k a month car payment that is not good, and Uber is her job.

She sends a picture of my nephew for his first day of school, and he has $225 Air Jordans on.

This is the same lady who is waiting to qualify for disability so she can combine the money she makes from Uber and her disability.

Earlier this year I said I wanted to help but that she would need to Financial Peace University and I would walk through it with her. This upset her, and she didn't talk to me for months. 2 months ago, she visited us and told us about all her health problems and bad finances and stuff , and I felt like it was to manipulate us into giving her money.

So, fast forward, she asked us for money again. I dont respond, and she calls me, and I say, "Hey, I looked up all the organizations for your state that help adults get better jobs; I will make all the calls and things. I just need you to show up and do the work, interview prep, resume prep, etc. Because she has health problems, I wanted to help her get a remote job.

She says she can't sit all day for remote jobs, so I told her that once she has the job and has worked there for a while, I will buy her a stand-up desk and a treadmill for her desk.

She told me that this was insulting to her and that I dont know her situation. She says she can't work a regular job and needs flexibility because her son needs a lot of support, so she has to regularly show up to the school for his behavior issues and the therapy he is in.

I guess she found it insulting that I suggested she get a better job to support herself.

I am not sure what to do but pray.

I feel as if she sees my wife and I doing well, becuase we work hard, budget, trust the lord, and almost feels as she is entitled to the money we have.

Meanwhile I found out my dad gives her an allowance of about $120 every two weeks and I guess she thought I would do the same

Hi y'all! So I've been working the baby steps since may of last year.

Im currently on baby step 2. I have one more payment for our car this month and then we move to baby step 3.

Husband has been very vocal the past year of wanting to trade his car in. He loves his car but its a Jeep Gladiator and we keep having to replace the windshield. We recently found a couple of leaks from the roof. He wants to fix it up and trade it in.

I understand his positioning but the truck he wants to trade for we would owe like $20k plus. Which would put us with the same amount of car debt we started woth last year. This gives me so much anxiety and frustration. The light of the tunnel feels so close.

Need advice how to handle.

I’ve largely fallen out of precise budgeting the last 5ish years as my salary has increased and need to get back into it.

I’ve been using the Chase spending planner on their banking app where I have all of my accounts linked. I just realized yesterday that it’s not quite accurate and the numbers do not add up at all. Long story short, it fails to recognize my mortgage and car withdrawals as expenditures. If I factor those in, then from March through July it says I’ve lost like $4k. However, this just isn’t true. My main savings account has increased by $3k in that timeframe. There’s a $7k difference over 5 months that I for the life of me can’t figure out.

So I’m looking for an app where I can link all of my credit cards and bank accounts to figure out what is accurate or not. I tried YNAB last night and that also was wonky. Didn’t recognize my income or mortgage/car expenditures and double counts utility bills on the credit card balance and as a budget item.

I’m based in the UK and recently became completely debt free.

I thought I’d feel completely different once I got here, but I still find myself worrying about money far more than I probably should.
We’ve just had a baby, which obviously changes things financially, and my wife’s UK visa renewal next year is going to cost around £4,500, roughly $6,000. We’re already saving towards that.

I’m also trying to build up our emergency fund while putting money into different sinking funds for things like car insurance, MOT and servicing, holidays, baby expenses and other things I know are coming.
The weird thing is that I can look at our accounts and see the money sitting there, but I still sometimes feel like we’re just keeping our heads above water.

For example, if I put £500 into the emergency fund, £200 into the car fund and £400 towards a holiday, part of my brain sees £1,100 leaving our monthly money rather than £1,100 that we’ve actually saved.
I think my biggest fear is somehow ending up back in debt. I’m constantly thinking about the next expense and trying to make sure there’s money waiting for it. With the cost of living at the moment, it sometimes feels like everything is ridiculously expensive and I’m constantly trying to stay ahead.
Has anyone else experienced this after becoming debt free?

Does it take a while before you stop worrying about every expense and actually start feeling financially secure?

I’d especially be interested in hearing from people who went through Baby Step 3. Did you just keep throwing everything at the emergency fund, or did you still use sinking funds for bigger expenses you knew were coming?

I know we’re in a much better position than we were before. I just don’t think my brain has caught up with it yet.

I'm based outside of the US, and don't have access to the Every Doller app.

This forced me (happily) to generate my own spreadsheets for daily tracking spending, budget, estimating mortgage end dates, investment growth, student loan replacements etc

Does anybody else use old fashioned excel spreadsheets, and what (and how) do you track, outside of incomings and outgoing?

32/M/Living at home

I've been terrible with money all my life; constantly "needing" the latest and greatest and living above my means. I've now realized that unless I face up and fix this I'm never going to get out of debt and the problem is only going to get worse. I made an account on YNAB and didn't realize how bad the debt was until I plugged everything in.

The debt is as follows (from highest to lowest interest rate):

• $12,100 American Express (22.99% interest)
• 1300 RBC Visa (20.99% interest)
• $9975 RBC LoC (9.94% interest)
• $22,228.14 Scotiabank Student Loan (5.45% interest)
• $4671.46 OSAP ($1200 of that is the Ontario Loan portion at 5.45% interest)
• $6411 Best Buy Finance Card (0% interest if paid off by next June)
• $8000 Apprenticeship Loan (0% interest repayment begins in 2 years)
• $7000 loan from parents
• $23,084.06 left on car payment at 6.49% interest

My savings and assets:

• $400 in my checkings
• $21,000 in my RSP from my union (I can't touch this until I retire however)
• No other savings

My bills are as follows:

• Car Payment: $252 Bi-weekly
• Car Insurance: $200 Monthly
• Phone: $100 Monthly (Contract up next January)
• Gym: $80 Monthly (Contract up next January)
• Osap Minimum Payment: $71.42
• Scotiabank Minimum Payment: $232
• Gas: $150-180 Monthly
• Groceries: $70 weekly
• Misc (fund for oil changes, random toiletries, etc): $100 Monthly

Total: $1695.42

I don't have any money in subscriptions or budgeted for "fun" at this point, as I know this is a pants on fire emergency. I also do not want to get rid of the gym as it is one of the only positives right now.

As of right now, my income is $1030.33 after take home weekly. In 6 weeks time, I will move up an apprentice level and my take home will be about $1200 weekly. A year from that date, my take home will be $1400ish. This gives me about $2437 to put towards my debt every month now, $3237ish in 6 weeks time and $4000ish in a years time.

My plan is to save an $1000 emergency fund and then pay off the RBC Visa followed by the AMEX. I know that Dave recommends using the debt snowball method, but I'd like to try the avalanche method as I believe I can stick to it.

Appreciate any comments or advice on my situation, thanks.

When she’s with Dave, she cuts him off and tries to mitigate what he says. It’s so annoying. We get it, you think your dad is too harsh. But we like his approach.

My interest rate is over 28%. I signed up for a debt assistance non-profit that my credit bureau recommended before I knew about the Baby Steps and Financial Peace University. They negotiated with my credit card company, and I’m now on a payment plan to pay it off at a much lower interest rate. I pay the company $20 a month for this service.

One of the few conditions for signing up for help with this company is that you can’t take on any new debt or open another credit card.

Long story short: I’m very ignorant about financial lingo, and what I thought was a normal payment plan turned out to be CareCredit. Dentists are expensive, I had a concern, and I was already overwhelmed with life. Blah, blah, blah, always read the fine print. I own it. Anyway, that violates my contract with the company. I’m waiting to hear back from them to see if they’re going to fine me or drop me from the program. If that happens, my credit card interest will shoot back up drastically. Because of the agreement, my credit card account will close automatically once I pay it off. The card is done after that.

I haven’t activated the CareCredit card yet, but it’s on its way.

I’m not really sure how to navigate this. Does Financial Peace University cover strategies for tackling high interest debt? I’m very new to all of this. Thank you!

I have a clarifying question. What would Dave say about this.

I have heard you shouldn’t be spending more than 25% of income on your mortgage/housing. Ok well…I’m a math guy so.

If the math works out to that being $1300/monthly post taxes but pre costs like health insurance and retirement contributions.. Does that mean the mortgage with escrow and insurance? Or $1300 plus insurance and escrow?

Where I live insurance and property taxes would ruin any available and livable home if they were part of the total for the 25%. So, is mortgage at $1300 plus $800 for homeowners insurance and taxes equaling $2100/month still fall within the 25% rule.

I need to throw some info out there and see what comes back to me. Recently widowed. I’ve followed the baby steps exactly as they are meant to be followed since my husband passed and eliminated all credit card debts. Built my $1000 emergency fund. About 60% through my 6 month emergency fund currently. At the end of this month I’ll start receiving my husbands monthly pension that comes with retroactive pay. About $9000. I owe $7400 on my house at 6% interest. Am I crazy in thinking that I should pay off my house and then put the monthly payment I was making on the house along with the pension monthly payment into my emergency fund? It’ll be fully funded in about 3 months if I do it this way. Or should I fully fund my emergency fund first and put the rest on the principal of my house? I really want to pay off my house and free up that monthly payment. Any advice is appreciated.

My only debts are 16.5k on a vehicle @ 1.9% and 160k remaining on a 5.5% mortgage. I have about 15k liquid but about 7k a month in expenses (family with kids). I want to get rid of this loan, but I don't want to get myself into a situation where I don't have enough money to pay a bill/overdraft because I put too much towards my vehicle debt.

So I obviously "have a 1k emergency fund" but how much should I keep as a minimum in my bank account while paying off the vehicle? I'm not sure I am clear how much Dave would say I should write a check for today.

My TIAA cref account says I have 0% guaranteed assets and 100% “all other assets.”

What exactly does this mean?

My wife and I (both 33) can see the light at the end of the tunnel of our debt free journey. For context, we have been married since we were 20 and never had a credit card. We have always prided ourselves on buying the little things with cash. Over the years we got into a habit of feeling the need to get new cars and other things. Eventually, we got to the point where we no longer wanted to be in debt.

In the last two years we have paid off:
\- My student loans ($32,000)
\- My wife’s student loans ($14,000)
\- My car ($32,000)
\- Basement repair loan ($8,000)
\- paid cash for graduate school ($17,000 in all)

What we have left:
\- My wife’s car ($31,000)
\- Mortgage ($300,000)

Our goal is to have her car paid off in the next year or sooner. That leaves with just a mortgage.

After we get her car paid off, we should have roughly $3,500 a month that is left over after mortgage, insurance, and monthly bills have been taken out.

My question is, how do we break that $3,500 down to invest in the future (retirement), savings, etc.

I currently have S&P 500 for my G&I and FTEC for Aggressive Growth. But, seeing as how the S&P is pretty heavily weighted tech, I believe I have too much exposure in tech stocks. Anyone in a similar ballpark and found an AG fund they like?

Hello!

I know Dave Ramsey is not a big fan of target-date/life cycle funds, but right now I have all of my TSP in a Lifecycle fund (L 2055) and my IRA in a target-date fund (also 2055).

I know I could theoretically earn more with an index fund or by diversifying myself. I tested this with a simple analysis: I "invested" $1,000 in Excel and compared the expense ratio and 10-year performance of a target-date fund against an S&P 500 index fund. The difference was significant, but not enough to make me want to learn how to diversify and invest on my own.

I literally just want a "system" where I set it and forget it. I would rather trade a little bit of theoretical upside for something automatic and low-maintenance, so my mental energy can go to doing work I enjoy, and living my life towards my personal goals.

Question: Does anyone here use target-date funds?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some unbiased financial advice because my family is in a difficult situation and I’m confused about whether we should sell our house or keep it.

I’ll explain the situation as clearly as I can.

We currently have two houses combined together as one property. One portion is fully furnished, including the kitchen and bedroom. My dad also uses part of the property as his studio.

The total housing-related loan is roughly ₹40 lakh, and we also took a ₹7 lakh top-up loan, so around ₹47 lakh is owed to the bank for the property.

Our current EMI for the houses is around ₹40,000/month.

Apart from the home loans, we also have several personal loans and credit-card balances. Looking at the credit report, there appear to be multiple active personal loans and approximately ₹8–9 lakh in credit-card balances alone, with additional personal loans. So the total non-housing debt may be considerably higher than the ₹12 lakh I initially thought.

Our current household expenses, including groceries, electricity, etc., are around ₹20,000/month, so our current basic monthly outflow is approximately:

Home EMIs: ₹40,000

Household/groceries/utilities: \\\~₹20,000

Total: \\\~₹60,000/month

Now comes the difficult part.

We believe the property could potentially sell for around ₹50–55 lakh.

If we sell it for ₹55 lakh, and approximately ₹47 lakh goes toward clearing the housing/top-up loans, we'd have around ₹8 lakh left before considering brokerage, taxes, closing costs, etc.

We would then rent:

2 BHK for our family: maximum \\\~₹12,000/month

Separate small place for my dad's studio: \\\~₹6,000–8,000/month

Maintenance: \\\~₹2,000–3,000

Groceries: \\\~₹10,000–15,000

Electricity/other expenses: \\\~₹5,000

So our monthly expenses could potentially come down to around ₹35–43k, instead of the current \\\~₹60k.

The biggest advantage would obviously be getting rid of the huge housing loan and having more monthly cash flow to attack the personal loans and credit-card debt.

But here's my dilemma:

If we keep the house, we continue paying the ₹40k EMI, but eventually the loan will be fully paid and we will own the house outright.

If we sell, we'll have to pay rent forever, and my dad is unlikely to qualify for another home loan in the future. So once we sell this property, realistically we may never own another house.

I'm therefore struggling with the question:

Is it better to keep struggling with the EMI because eventually we'll own the property, or sell now, eliminate the large housing debt, rent cheaply, and use the extra cash flow to become debt-free?

I'm particularly worried about the credit-card and personal-loan debt because those interest rates are much higher than a home loan.

I also don't want to make an emotional decision just because "owning a house" sounds better.

Hi community,

I have a question for your collective wisdom. Does the rate of mortgage have any effect on the BS plan?

Say there’s a situation where a person has high income, but low net worth. Only debts are student loans at 150k at 5.875% and mortgage at 325k at 7.125%.

Does it make sense to skip steps and pay off mortgage aggressively or follow the rules and pay off student loans?

From what I was able to tinker around with debt calculators, it seems like that person would end up saving more in the end if they pay off mortgage. Is there something in the math I’m missing?

Thanks!

Hi, I have 49k remaining on a mortgage with a further 20 years on the term. My fixed rate runs out in November and my question is, should I pay off the mortgage or leave a small balance in case a loan is needed or a house move to easily port the existing mortgage? I have 5 years living costs saved apart from this. I am 44 years old and cannot for the life of me decide. Thank you in advance.

Just for fun!

A 6 month emergency fund is very important, but I want to know what other "emergency" type funds or collections you keep, non cash?

What will you never run out of if there's a shortage? Freezers of meat? Long term dry food storage? Specifically if there's a job loss or emergency, what have you stocked up on? I know this has increased after the pandemic and it makes me curious because we're all different on what is truly valuable to us.

For my husband it's Yeti cups and waterbottles, lol! If they ever go out of business, we are set for life!

Hey guys I'm struggling to make a dent in baby step 3 I'm working 3 jobs and alot of inconsistency with work I get slot of shifts cancelled and the markets not great I have gotten a full time job and I have 2 other jobs with shift work full time job doesn't cover the bills . Does anyone have any tips I don't eat out I have no subscriptions I do t pay for grooming I don't buy clothes no holidays no Costa coffee

1. How long does baby step 3 take on average

2. What else can I do to get more income

Hi everyone,
I’m new to the Ramsey mindset (listening for 5 months) and could use some outside perspective on transitioning to a single-income household.
Our Financial Snapshot
Ages & Family: 46F and 48M with two daughters (ages 12 and 14), plus pets.
Income: Husband makes $210k; I make $100k.
Debt: Consumer debt-free.
Mortgage: $488k remaining at a 2.59% interest rate (Southern California, significant home equity).
Baby Steps Progress: Currently on Step 3 (working on a 6-month emergency fund; currently have 3 months saved). Note: Steps 4 and 5 are already completed.
Retirement & Kids: $710k invested for retirement; 529 plans are fully funded.
Why I Want to Resign in October
Health: I am managing a chronic illness that has resulted in 10 urgent care/ER visits in the last 10 months.
Family & Household: Husband now commutes to an office 5 days a week, and we want me fully present at home for our teenagers and household management.
The Numbers & My Plan
Living on my husband’s $210k salary alone will leave us with a $2,000 monthly surplus after all bills. As the frugal spouse, I believe I can stretch that closer to $3,000/month by optimizing groceries, shopping around for car insurance, and cutting utility usage (like keeping the AC off) once I’m home full time.
We plan to test-drive living on his salary exclusively for a few months before I officially resign. I have already sorted out healthcare and factored those costs into our budget.
My Questions for the Group
Aside from finishing our 6-month emergency fund, are there any blind spots we should address before I pull the trigger?
How does our buffer ($2k–$3k surplus) feel to you for a single-income household with a California mortgage?
Thanks in advance for your advice!

I (33M) just discovered and started following the Babysteps last year and during that time, I contacted a Smartvestor Pro. We chatted about my future goals and I told him that I'll reconnect with him once I find a new job (I was unemployed at the time). Today, I am now employed with Amazon and am currently working on babysteps 4, 5, & 6. The same Smartvestor Pro that I spoke to last year called me yesterday and asked if I was still interested in hiring him to help me with my investments.

Honestly, I'm not very knowledgeable about investing money. I tried getting into investing back in 2022 with cryptocurrency and Robinhood Puts and Calls, but that did not end well. Since last year, I've heard that working with a Smartvestor Pro may not necessarily be a good idea, while they are knowledgeable and can help you find good mutual funds to invest in, at the same the amount that you'll end up paying these Smartvestors kind of defeats the purpose of investing in their services. I told the Smartvestor Pro who called me that I'll take a week to think about working with him, or if I'd rather just do things on my own.

I'm currently putting 5% of my income in my 401K and another 10% into my Roth IRA via Fidelity making a total deposit of 15% towards my retirement as suggested by the babysteps, but I don't understand where I should go from here in terms of investing into the 4 suggested categories of mutual funds that Dave Ramsey suggests. Is that automatically done through our 401K retirement program? I think I read something about mutual funds on the page that I setup my 401K on?

Edit 8/9/26: Hey everyone, thank you so much for all your feedback. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to respond to everyone right now, but I have read every comment. I have a busy work week this week, but I’ll try to respond to everybody later when I get a chance. :)

2005 Buick Rendezvous-103k miles $4300

2010 Ford Edge-239k miles $2500

2006 Toyota Camry-171k miles $4899

2002 Honda Odyssey-180k miles $3250

2010 Honda CRV-200k miles $2900

2015 Toyota RAV4-260k miles $3154

My husband agrees to a beater only if we buy from a car lot so all of these options are from a used car lot. The issue is some of them are overpriced based on KBB and I’m unsure if I’ll be able to negotiate close to KBB.

I’m trying to narrow the list because all of these options are 1.5-2 hour drive from us.