64-Year-Old With No Retirement Savings. Dave Ramsey Admits: “I Don’t Know How to Fix Your Situation”
Dave Ramsey ran out of answers when a 64-year-old pastor with a stroke, heart attacks, and cancer called about retirement. Two options nobody mentioned on air could still change the outcome.
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A nearly 64-year-old pastor with almost nothing saved for retirement recently called The Ramsey Show. Dave Ramsey, whose standard prescription for retirement savings is to work more and spend less, explained that his usual playbook wasn’t going to work here:
“Well, I, um, my magic wand is low on batteries. Um, and so I don’t have an easy way to fix this. The only way I know how to fix it is, uh, that you guys have to do things you’ve never done before in your life. And that’s work a lot more than you’ve been working.“
After hearing that the caller’s medical history wouldn’t allow him to work more, Ramsey added: “I do not know how to fix your situation except add money to the equation.”
At 64, There’s Almost No Margin for Error
The caller was nearly 64 and had pastored while working as a machinist for decades. He owns a home with a mortgage balance remaining after refinancing to cover medical bills he faced while uninsured. His wife receives Social Security and cannot work. His own projected benefit, as he told Dave, is $1,500 a month.
In his own words: “I’ve never had a retirement. Everywhere I worked, there was never no retirement offered. So yeah, I’ve just lived from hand to mouth, actually.” On why more hours are not available: “I’ve had a stroke and a couple heart attacks, and I got cancer, so it is, uh, it limits me and what I can do.” He told The Ramsey Show he is already getting about 30 hours out of each day.
Here are two ideas for the caller not discussed on the show:
Lever One: Claiming Age and the Survivor Benefit
If a deceased spouse delayed claiming past full retirement age, past 67 and up to 70, the survivor can receive the full delayed benefit amount, including the delayed retirement credits the deceased earned. When one spouse dies, the survivor collects the higher of the two benefits, not both. Survivor benefits also must be applied for separately because they do not switch on automatically.
Since his wife cannot work, her own benefit is presumably the smaller of the two. His claiming age effectively sets the floor for what she lives on if he dies first. Given his health, this is the single most consequential financial decision on the table, but it wasn’t discussed on the call.
Lever Two: His House
The HUD Housing Counseling Program Handbook explains what a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage can and cannot do. For HECM loans, the minimum borrower age is 62, which the caller now exceeds.
A borrower with existing mortgage debt must either pay it off before getting a reverse mortgage or use an immediate cash advance from the reverse mortgage to pay it off. That is how a HECM could retire his monthly mortgage payment and free up cash flow.
Dave Ramsey is a longstanding public opponent of reverse mortgages, which is likely why the option wasn’t presented on the call.
Key Takeaways
Some situations do not have a clean fix, and this may be one of them. The age the caller claims Social Security will shape what his wife lives on after him. Additionally, a reverse mortgage could pull more equity out of his house. Both levers fall short of a full rescue, but they could improve the situation.
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Thomas Richmond is a financial writer and content strategist with 5+ years of experience covering stocks and financial markets. He has published over 500 articles focused on individual stock analysis, helping investors better understand business fundamentals, stock valuations, and long-term opportunities.
Thomas previously served as a Content Lead at TIKR, a stock research platform, where he helped scale the company’s blog to hundreds of articles per month and contributed to a weekly newsletter reaching more than 100,000 investors.
Outside of work, Thomas enjoys weight lifting and soccer.
