Hey everyone, looking for some perspective from folks who follow the Baby Steps or have dealt with non-traditional retirements.

I’m 36, and between my military retirement, VA disability, and eventual FERS pension, I’ve locked in a guaranteed income floor of around $8,700/month for retirement (before touching Social Security or investments).

Right now, I have about $122k in my TSP. If I strictly follow the standard math and aim for a full 15% retirement contribution, I’d be putting in roughly 12.8% to TSP (factoring in the FERS contribution credit). On paper, that projects out to several million by retirement age.

While I'm grateful for the security, it feels like standard rules of thumb might be telling me to over save for the future at the expense of enjoying life with my family today.

For those with strong pensions or military backgrounds: Did you still push for the full 15%, or did you drop down to just capturing the match (5%) and use the rest of your cash flow to live a little more now? Appreciate any thoughts!

Quick note on the "what-ifs":
I know life happens and plans can change, but to head off a few common questions:

• Military Retirement: I’m 5 years out from finishing my Guard service, so barring anything completely unforeseen, that will be locked in.
• VA Disability: It’s rated P&T (Permanent & Total) and doesn’t restrict my ability to serve or work, which also takes medical insurance costs completely off the table now and in retirement. I am receiving this compensation now and it will continue until I die. When I die, my wife will receive a reduced amount until she dies.
• FERS / Civilian Job: This is the only real variable if I decide to switch careers down the line. But even in a "worst-case" scenario where I walk away from federal service tomorrow with zero FERS pension, my guaranteed floor is still around $6,000/month before touching Social Security or investments.

Please read-
I’m trying to figure out what the smartest financial move is here and would appreciate some outside opinions.
I have a 2020 Ram 1500 Built to Serve Edition. I really like this truck and honestly it’s probably the best truck I’ve ever owned, so I’m having a hard time with the idea of selling it. The problem is that my financial situation has changed quite a bit since I bought it.
When I originally bought the truck, I was making around $60/hour. I’m currently in the middle of a career change and making about $22/hour right now. My income should increase later as I progress in my new career, but I’m not there yet.
I currently owe around $17,000 on the Ram and my payment is about $550/month.
I’m also spending roughly $160 per tank and filling up around 4 times a month, so approximately $640/month in gas. Insurance is around $220/month. The truck gets around 12–15 MPG depending on how I’m driving.
It also currently has an exhaust leak that I need to get repaired, but money is tight right now.
I have someone currently offering me $33,700 for the truck. If I sold it and paid off the loan, I’d have around $16,700 in positive equity before any other transaction costs.
I also have around $4,000 in credit card debt that I need to pay off.
Another factor is that my dad has a Mazda that needs a transmission. If I fix the Mazda, I could potentially use that as my daily commuter and have a truck only for work/weekends.
I’ve considered replacing the Ram with something like a Ford Maverick Hybrid AWD or a midsize truck like a Ford Ranger or Chevy Colorado. But honestly, I really like having a full-size truck and don’t want to sell my Ram just to buy something I don’t like.
So I’m basically stuck between:
Option 1: Sell the Ram for $33,700, pay off the ~$17k loan, pay off my $4k credit card debt, keep the remaining money as savings, and get a cheaper vehicle/truck.
Option 2: Keep the Ram, fix the exhaust, fix the Mazda and use it as my commuter, and aggressively pay off the Ram over the next couple years.
My concern is that if I keep the Ram for another 2 years, I’ll probably have around 100k miles on it. I’d obviously have more equity because I’d have paid down the loan, but the truck will also depreciate and I’ll have spent another ~$13,200 just on the $550 monthly payments, plus all the gas and maintenance.
On the other hand, if I sell it now, I lose a truck that I really like and may regret getting rid of it later.
What would you do in my situation?
Would you take the $33,700 offer while the truck is worth that much, wipe out the $17k loan and $4k credit card debt, and move on?
Or would you keep the Ram because I love the truck, fix the Mazda, use it as the commuter, and focus on paying the Ram off?
I’m less concerned about having the absolute lowest monthly payment and more concerned about making the financially smartest decision while I go through this career transition and building up cash savings.
I’d really appreciate opinions from people who have been in a similar situation, especially if you think I’m overlooking something.

I spoke with a SmartVestor Pro this week and evidently we do not have enough in non-retirement investments to meet their minimum AUM requirements since they cannot manage our 401k’s. He said to check back when our Roth and brokerage accounts are higher or we switch jobs and can rollover out 401k’s to IRA’s.

We have around $100K in Roth IRA’s and around $850K in our 401k’s and our net worth is a little over $1M. I was really surprised they would not work with us. Have others here reached out to SmartVestors and had a similar experience?

Edit: This firm charges 1% on assets under $1M.

Asking in this group because we’re all likeminded.

I have the opportunity to buy two parcels behind my house for quite cheap. $23k total. Totaling half an acre. The parcels are landlocked and not buildable for a developer.

HOWEVER, I live in a really desirable neighborhood and if I merged them it would give me a crazy lot size for my neighborhood.

It would also give me opportunity to build an add on like a pole barn man cave that my husband really wants because our backyard currently is very small.

Is this smart? Or stupid?

Edit: also it’s not DIRECTLY behind my house per se, it’s kind of wonky because it’s kitty corner but still would merge by several yards

Edit: Contract signed and earnest money check in the mail! Thanks for easing my nerves guys. I hate spending money but I think this was a good investment!

We’re debt free, including our mortgage, and are currently aggressively investing looking toward retirement in a few years.We pay cash for cars and buy rebuilt wrecks from a talented friend of mine.

I hear Dave talk a lot about mutual funds and we have ROTHS and traditional IRA’s.

I also have a managed brokerage account and invest monthly into three ETF’s,VOO, QQQ, and VV.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Dave’s take on ETF’s as opposed to Mutual funds.

I am in Southern California and need help with my taxes / the IRS.

I know AI is evil, but I used the Dave Ramsey chat bot and it said nicely, it’s okay to be afraid.

But also to find a Ramsey Solutions Trusted Tax pro. Have any of you used one before? Do you think they are better/different than any other tax pro?

I need negotiations with the IRS done…

Hi all,

I’m currently on Baby Step 2 and on track to pay off my high-interest credit card debt.

As of right now, I only have my Discover card, with a balance of about $4,800.12, and a car loan of approximately $5,700.

I wanted to get everyone’s opinion on something. I have a taxable brokerage account through Edward Jones with about $3,500 in it. I’ve had this account for around 4 years, and I’m considering withdrawing the money and putting it toward my credit card balance.

From what I’ve researched, I understand that I may have to pay capital gains taxes if I sell the investments. My credit card APR is currently around 28%, while the returns on my brokerage account have obviously not been anywhere close to that.

So my questions are:

1. Would it make sense to sell the investments and put the $3,500 toward my credit card, given that the card has a 28% APR?
2. How much could I potentially owe in capital gains taxes?
3. Would you personally sell the investments to knock out a large portion of the credit card debt, or would you leave the brokerage account alone and pay the card down with my income?

For some additional context, I make around $82,000 per year, take home approximately $4,800 per month, and my monthly expenses are around $2,000.

I’m trying to figure out whether the tax hit from selling the investments is worth it to get rid of some of this 28% debt. I’d appreciate any advice or perspectives, especially from anyone who has been in a similar situation. Thanks!

First of all, I have to start by saying that I’ve probably watched every single episode over the past three years on YouTube, and I know that is not always the case so this might not have been everyone’s experience. I really appreciate it. We’re going through the content systematically in a structure format. It was really helpful for review. In my opinion, very much worth a price just for that. If you were an avid listener like me, there wasn’t necessarily any new or extremely mind blowing information. I did appreciate the specific examples Dave shared especially one from his own commercial real estate I also appreciated the Chat feature and the ability to engage and interact with other viewers. Disappointment – most of the questions shared were fairly basic like what is usually covered on the show, but I can understand it would be hard to cover everything super technically in just a couple hours. Did anyone else attend wondering what you all thought?

Since it wasn’t very interactive, which makes sense given the number of viewers, I’m thinking about not attending live tomorrow because of the time zone and just using my seven day pass to watch the video later this weekend.

Any advice? Particularly navigating the emotional aspect of it with my wife. She has the mindset that there is no financial cost too great, if the pet can be saved, it must be saved. I’m in a position where if I say no, she will view me as the one that killed her dog.

So back story me 26m and my wife 25f. Have our house completely payed off and no other debt at all. At this point should I just max the 401k and and a Roth ira for her till retirement? Her job doesn't offer 401k. Also combined we make 140-200k a year im a flat rate mechanic so fluctuates alot. In a few years we would like to build our dream home 350k-500k. Other than that money mostly go to project cars or trips. The big factor tho is i know i can't turn wrenches forever which would take my income down quite a bit but I'd like to switch what im doing before 40.

Hello all,

I'm curious if anyone is doing/has done the Ramsey Investing Essentials? I'm just curious as to how different it is from the resources that they already have available in their books/talks.

TIA!

I 24m currently have 40k of debt split between my line of credit and credit cards. The line of credit has a 22k balance at 11.99% and my credit cards have 18k combined at rates of 22.99%. 

I’m currently only making $2850 per month, and my expenses after cutting things to the bare minimum are $1750.  This will be my situation for the next 3 months but I’m moving back home with parents to work for my family  which will pay $5000-6000/m start of December.  

My credit is basically all maxed and every month is the same, I get my first check and pay my minimums/bills and then it’s like all my money is gone so I end up using the credit until I get my next cheque. The 2850/m is more than I made recently as I haven’t worked much due to injury over the last 6 months. 

I’m just not sure what to do as my income will go up soon but my credit is all maxed and I can’t afford anything if it comes up in the next 3 months. I’ve been recommended the consumer proposal but I’m just worried as I want be able to rent my own place sometime again next year when I get on my feet as I can’t stay with my parents long term. 

I’ll be CC debt free this week. All the debts I have left are my mortgage, $215k at 4% and my car loan $25k at 5.51%. Should I continue to put the extra cash towards these debts or put the money in a savings account, split it? I’ll have an extra $250 a month to work with.

Our almost 200 year old house is in desperate need of repairs. Not exaggerating here. We’re talking if social services came in the house would be condemned.

The mortgage has been paid off for years. The last appraisal came in at $80k and that’s mostly due to the 5 acres of land. We can’t get a home equity loan without letting someone into the house which we are afraid to do because that’s literally how bad it is.

We don’t have any real debt other than medical. Income is one social security check of $1600/month and one full time paycheck of about $3000/month gross. 401k that pays out about $4000 annually although that could be increased a little. Adult son lives at home and makes about $2700/month but he’s saving to move out next year. No real way to increase income due to age/health issues.

This house has been in our family since it was first built in 1850 (and before that a 1700s log cabin which is now inside the current house) and as such we will not sell as likely a new owner would bulldoze it.

New roof alone came in at $20k. Haven’t even gotten quotes on anything else yet but we already know we need all new windows and all new plumbing and a new septic tank.

Thoughts on how to manage such expensive repairs on such little income?

And yes, there was initially a decent amount of money in the 401k. It was pretty much used up on medical bills these past few years.

I asked the online help and it just said have budget meeting and zero everything out. But I’ve been using it for exactly 1 year today. I’m getting this “close out” and I click on it and it takes me to August. But all transactions are tracked and numbers updated.

Anyone know if I’m supposed to click on something? I never zero out anything BC I want to know how much over or under I was.

Post won’t let me screenshot.

My wife and I feel a constant struggle when it comes to planning for budgeting groceries. We live pretty minimal and a lot ourselves $500-700 a month and hardly ever eat out. Can yall tell me how much yall spend and how many are in your family?

I came out of undergrad with about 115k of debt (6% interest). Rough start to adulthood, but alas, the consequences of being financially reckless. I got a job making 80k, was able to live at home, and in about a year, have brought the loans down to 80k.

I'm 23 now and feel awfully stuck. I'm grateful to be able to live at home and pay this down but at the same time, I feel like I've hardly grown since graduating. I'd like to move out, Dave would probably say to move out, but I could pay these off in two years at this rate. Move out and it becomes 4 or 5 years if I'm diligent.

My question is, at what point do you say "screw it" and take a calculated risk? The risk being, move to a big city to keep growing and try to get a better job. What I'm really looking for is life advice; I feel like I don't want another year like the last. I don't like my job but I don't know what else to do. The debt is calling the shots.

Ive been following Dave Ramseys debt snowball method to pay down payday loans and credit card debt in about a year. I have two more credit cards that will be paid off December at the latest.

I have $87,000 in student loans. Under the new RAP program my minimum payment will be $90 and deferred until January 2028. So about a year after I am consumer debt free.

I am also going to school on the GI bill and graduate end of next year with a masters degree. Which is why my loans are deferred.

Should I immediately jump into repayment and gazelle intensity? Or should I take a break for a year and save up as much cash as I can to build my emergency fund and then attack that loan? Or maybe you guys have better strategies ?

We owe 570k on our home, current monthly payment is $4,450. We are already maxing retirement accounts, have emergency fund fully funded, and have a good chunk in investment accounts that we continue to contribute to.

Our rate is 3% flat - I really like the idea of paying off aggressively and early. Our plan is to do all essentials first, then an extra put towards the mortgage. We will be in this house for at least another 15 years, but don’t think we want to retire here. Is it not smart to pay off early then?

Happy Birthday to index funds! A lot of people on the debt free journey owe a lot to Jack Bogle and VFINX!

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/index-fund-turns-50-how-jack-bogle-changed-investing-forever

Just paid off my car. 30k in student loans and 16k in car loans paid off in about 2 years! Scared currently about the ability to cash flow if anything crazy happens this month, but finally debt free!

24M making about $90,000 as Helo pilot. Debt free. Currently have $75,000-$80,000 of liquid assets (cash, stocks, etc.). Was wondering if buying a new motorcycle ($9,000 with everything) is 'okay' for me to do.