How Can I Pay Off Debt At My Age?

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Beverly's in Dallas. Hi, Beverly. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I'm a little bit different than a lot of your callers. I'm 74 years old, and I wish to goodness I'd started listening to you 20 years ago, but I didn't, so I'm starting today. I have about $32,000, $31,959.26 to be exact in credit card debt, and I know that I want to get busy, and as you say, gazelle-like in paying that off, but I also have $57,623 left on my house. Dave, I'm 74, and I'm in good health. I want to pay off all this credit card debt, but is it okay if I just continue making payments on my house while I'm still young enough and healthy enough to travel and do things and then pay for it? I mean, obviously, continue making payments, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, but the sooner your house is paid off, the more stable your last year's will be. Right. And so that's the trade-off. Obviously you need to clean the credit card debt up before we talk about travel. Right. Okay. Right. And do you have any money? I do. I'm retired, and I have like $425,000 in an annuity with a, it's a fixed-indexed annuity with a lifetime rider. Yeah. Pay both the loans off tomorrow. Do what? Pay both the loans off tomorrow. Okay. Out of that annuity. And I have about $40,000 in stocks, text-from and computer-share stocks. Okay. I would cash that out and then take a little more out of the annuity and make sure you have an emergency fund set aside, and you're 100% debt-free by the end of the week. No mortgage. No credit cards. Cut up the credit cards, Beverly. It's time for plastic surgery. Not because you're 74, but because you use credit cards. Well, here's, I haven't used those credit cards in about three years. Good. Then cut them up. I asked my sister to help me. And at the time I asked her to help me, I had about $23,000 in credit card debt. And her suggestion was to get a credit card and have all my bills just go to that. So your sister's not very good at this. Well, she and her husband are millionaires, which is why I asked them for their help. Her theory took you from $23,000 to $32,000, so her idea sucks. Yeah. For me, it sure did. Well, I'm just saying. For me, it sure did. You need to cut up the credit cards completely, get you a debit card like I use and like Ken uses. And that's what I use now. And a debit card is you have to only spend money that you have, chop up all the credit cards into little bitty pieces. Take out those stocks and enough out of the annuities to pay off your mortgage and your credit cards this week. Be living on a budget where you don't spend more than you make and you never grow any debt back and travel the world and have a wonderful life. We're so glad you called. Wow. That was easy. Yeah. Good for her having that money set aside. There it is. She's going to feel so much better about traveling tomorrow morning.