I'm 65 And Made Horrible Decisions With Money My Whole Life (This Is Your Wake-up Call)

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I am 65 years old. I have made absolutely horrible decisions with money all my life. I have no nest egg. My wife has maybe 10,000 or 401k and I've got maybe a couple thousand. And we have started the steps. Just last payday we got our $1,000 emergency fund paid and we also got $200 paid down on our smallest unsecured debt. So now it's only $150 left. I've got two other credit cards and a car loan and a mortgage. Total debt including mortgage is $137,000. The mortgage is a 15-year fixed rate. It's set up to be paid half a payment every two weeks. So in 12 months I've actually paid 13 payments instead of 12. And since my wife, since we don't have anything lined up for retirement, I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way for me to go. Make sure I get out of all debt with everything I've got. I found out that if I pay just $425 towards my principal each month on my home, I can have it paid off in five years. What's the balance on your mortgage? $115,000. Okay. Well, you're scheduled it. How long are you into the 15-year? Eight months. Okay. So it's a brand new mortgage. All right. Well, doing a bi-weekly, you'll reduce the 15 to about 11 just on the bi-weekly thing that you're doing. That has the same effect of paying an extra payment a year, as you said, because 26 halves is 13 holes. And so you end up with an extra payment a year. So that's cool. So you've got $22,000 in other debt. Correct. Are you both working still? Yes, sir. I'm sorry? Yes, sir. What do you make? The two of us together will make about $105,000. Good news. Okay. First time we've ever broke $100,000. Good for you. Okay. Well, what I would do is just leave the bi-weekly mortgage alone, let it run, and let's work the baby steps. Your $1,000 is there. Baby step two is listing your debt smallest to largest, the $22,000. You need to be done with that in under a year. Well, I can have the unsecured debt, which is minus the mortgage, minus the car, done in three months. Okay. That's good. And so the car is the bulk of the $22,000 then? Yes, sir. Okay. It's $15,600. Yeah. I'm saying $22,000 a month is what you need to be putting on your debt, or more. I'm sorry, I'm not following. $2,000 a month, at least, needs to be going on your debt, not counting your house. That's $24,000 a year. So what Dave is saying is- You'd be done in a year, and $24,000 out of $105,000, you've got plenty of room to eat. Okay. So I want you on beans and rice, rice and beans. In one year, you're 66, and you're debt-free. Then you build an emergency fund, debt-free except the house. You build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, and then we spend the rest of the time finishing off the house and starting to build a nest egg. So basically, you're like 72 years old still working, and you'll probably have about $200,000 in your nest egg, the house will be paid for, and you'll be debt-free. But you're working a while. Okay. You're working a while because you're broke. Yes, I am. Yeah. So just plan on that part. As long as your health allows you to do that, then that's what we're going to do. But yeah, Work Coast Baby Steps, exactly the way they're laid out, Mark. Let me send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, to help you get there. But it sounds like that you're very serious about this, and it sounds like you're actually going to do it. Yeah. The best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is today. And I'm glad you're going, all right, I'm going to start plowing away at this debt, start investing. And you're doing a lot of good things at once right now. But like Dave is saying, when you do it with focused intensity, you're going to get through it faster, make more progress. And then when you do get to building that nest egg, you'll make serious progress fast because you got six figures of income. When you don't have a house payment, you don't have a car payment, you don't have anything, and you start chunking two or $3,000 a month away in the nest egg, that's $36,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year going into that thing. That's how I'm saying you're going to be at $200,000, $250,000 pretty easily if you follow through. But you're going to be in the early 70s when you get there. But you're going into your retirement years then debt-free with a small nest egg. And $200,000 is a small nest egg. But you can get there. That's your best fighting chance. Yeah, you hang on, Kelly will pick up and we'll get you a copy of Total Money Makeover. It shows you, it's the baby steps on steroids. It shows you exactly what to do when and work your way through it. Kelly, also sign him up for the new EveryDollar because that's going to help him guide him through those stuff. It's going to ping him and tell him to do this and do that, show him what to do. And that's more than just doing a budget now. So good stuff. Very good stuff. George, those are sobering calls. I'm 65 years old. I have a car payment. I have credit card debt. I have a mortgage and I have no money. That will keep you up at night. So if you're 35 and you're listening, that should be a warning shot across your bowel. Listening to Mark and what he's facing, you need to determine you don't want to be where he is. And so don't show up at the doorstep of 65 broke with a car payment. And where that comes from, and Mark, thank God, he's got a very good tone to his voice. He's got a very good... He knew his numbers too. The sense of, he's already changed. He just got, he just needed an implementation plan. He's doing it. So to Mark's credit, way to go, Mark. The wake-up calls there, that's the hardest part. Yeah, touchdown. But gang, you know, when people say stuff like, well, you're always going to have a car payment. If people say stuff like that, just go, I can't hang out with you. You're dumb. I'll end up like you. I don't want to be as dumb as you. Or you have to have a credit card to run off. You have to have air miles and you need a credit score. Ask Mark about how valuable that is right now. You think that matters when you're 65 and you got no money? It don't matter. It just shows how stupid those ideas are that people talk about all through the culture. And if you believe those ideas, then you end up, you know, so you, some of you, this is your, this is your warning shot. It's your, this, this is, you know, God putting this call right in front of you, begging you to straighten your crap up out there. Come on. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.