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Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken. Common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey personality, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones here as we talk to you about your life and your money. The phone number is free at 888-825-5225. And some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. John is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey John, how are you?
Doing good, how are you?
Better than I deserve, sir. What's up?
I guess we'll get to a little backstory, I guess, first off. I'm 26 and my girl— fiancée, I should say— is 31. We don't live together. I have a home in a— right across the state line. She lives with her parents. I have no kids. She has 3 with 3 different fathers. And me and her are just trying to get on board with the Dave Ramsey plan. And I guess you could say struggling with that.
In what way, John? What does that mean?
Well, just I presented to her I was following that route when I met her right at 2 years ago. And we've tried to do that. On Baby Step 2 for the both of us. And, um, I guess you could say just a few problems, you know, not living together, different households, and overall just ain't on board with the plan completely, I guess you could say.
She's not?
Yes.
Okay, so what you're saying is, is that she's okay with her money problems and you're not?
Right, yeah. I ain't gonna say it's completely based on, you know, hot and cold, I guess you could say. But yeah, that's pretty much overall that.
'Cause what are the things specific, John, that you're like, okay, I want to do this. I want to get out of debt and I want to live debt-free. And she's, what, in debt, doesn't care to get out, and is okay with it? Like, is that one of the main rubs? You mentioned Baby Step 2, which is part of the plan of getting out of debt. Or is it saving? Is it investing? Is it giving? Is it all of it? Just a certain part of the plan that you guys are having some conflict with?
Well, to be honest with you, it's more so, hey, you know, we talk, we want to go down this road, we want to, we want to be here and do this. And for, say, a good example, we, we talk about this, and then a couple months down the road, which was a few months back, she goes and purchases a new car. You know, that in— I would say we didn't need, you know. Yeah, uh, just overall not, uh, following, I guess you could say.
Okay, well, here's the thing. If someone doesn't follow the Ramsey Plan and you do, that's the— you know, we're not— we're not the Bible, you know. We just teach biblical concepts. But, um, but, but You know, you don't judge somebody based on that alone. But what this does indicate is something deeper that is disturbing. So here's the numbers. The number one cause of fights and divorce in marriage is money and money problems. And it's not really the money. It's what the money represents, because it represents your fears, your dreams, what you believe about life, who you believe is in charge, whether you're in charge or somebody else is in charge of your own life. Do you control your own destiny? And the way you handle money indicates all of those things, and that spills over then into your— it is your value system, and it spills over into your relationship. And so if we say the number one cause of— if you said the number one cause of death in your neighborhood was snakebite and you saw snakes, Well, you're worried if you're smart, you know. And so the number one cause of marriage issues is this, and you've got this issue on the number one thing.
And she's tried this at some level 3 times at least before.
Right.
So I'm— that's worrisome. And so if I'm coaching the two of you and you're sitting in front of me, I'm going to say the way you can tell if your potential marriage is going to work is to the extent you guys can get on the same page and stick to the page, whatever page it is, whether it's got Ramsey written on it or whether it's got something else written on it.
Yeah, and the big subjects of life that we see eye to eye on: in-laws, faith, sex, money. I mean, it's the big stuff. And when we can see eye to eye on the value system, you're just gonna have a— I don't wanna say easier marriage. It's just, it's gonna probably cause less tension because you're walking the same direction together instead of fighting against each other always.
In-laws is one of the 4 things that kills marriage. It's one of the top 4. And so, you know, her mother won't shut up. You know, that'll kill a marriage, right? And she lives with them, by the way. So I'm not saying that's in the equation. I have no idea if it is here. And the same thing with religion. If one of you says, "I hate God," and the other one says, "I believe in God and I do everything he says," well, that's gonna be a problem, you know? You can argue about who's right or wrong, but the fact that you're not on the same page is gonna be a problem. So these are the types of things that the data that tells us mess up marriages. And if I know that going in, I don't want to take all the data and remove all romance and love from the equation, but love's not gonna overcome those things for 10 years.
Well, and there's also, John, and this is not to be judgmental on her by any means. I don't know her story. You gave us no context except that she's had 3 kids with 3 different people. You're the 4th one that, you know, you're starting this life with. And so, any level of pattern that you see in your life, And hopefully, for her to look back and just say, "Hey, what are patterns in my life that maybe are not the best things, not the best choices?" And so, and what that can indicate, those character qualities in general feed into other areas of our lives. So, the fact that she says one thing and then goes and— it's not like she ordered something on Amazon. She went and bought a new car. You know what I mean? Like, it was a big purchase. It's very different than what was discussed.
That's rebellious and defiant.
So, there— well, there's just— well, it's just a— Defiant.
It's a lack of—
It's a middle finger. No, no, that's not what I mean.
That's what it is.
It's a lack of—
"We're all gonna get out of debt. I'm gonna go buy a new car." That's what that is.
Yeah, and it's just like, it's a lack of follow-through of what you said, right? And I don't know why she got the new car.
I don't know.
There's probably more details. But that's what I'm saying, though, is the character quality. You have to be aware of things that have caused decisions in your life. And if those patterns can change, then the spouse you're gonna marry is gonna probably be a healthier person too, right? So, it's just—
What do we tell John to do?
It's an overall— It's an overall scope. I would continue to press and to have the conversation.
I would get pre-marriage counseling.
Yeah, I would continue to push it.
I'd sit down with a coach.
And to know the why behind a lot of these decisions for her.
Yeah.
What causes her to be okay, you know, with the subject? You could say debt as the subject. Like, what is in that with her? And actually get to the bottom of it. 'Cause there could be a level of digging that you actually find and you know her more. That's the thing with money. You pull a string and it goes all the way down to people's heart and soul. That's in there for her. So, if I loved her, right, as you do, Jon, like, you would want to know those things about her. And then you have to make a decision though, for Jon and what's best. And when you look out 10, 15 years, does this look like a life that you wanna sign up for, you know?
Yeah, but if my decision patterns cause me to have a new car in the driveway, I'm 31 and 3 kids, and I live with my parents.
I know.
These aren't patterns.
Not great ones.
Yeah. Yeah, problem, problem.
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So, I've changed positions in the company that I've been working for for the last couple of years, and I'm making a significant amount of money over what I was making initially, and it's kind of just piling up in the bank. I haven't invested any of it aside from just the company 401(k), which comes out automatically. Automatically. And, uh, I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to these things. So, um, I've been back and forth reading different things online about what I should be doing with my money. Um, never really done anything with it thus far because I haven't had any professional advice, just what I've read online. So I'm hoping that you can maybe guide me in a direction of where I should be putting my money to work for me as opposed to earning less than 1% interest in a bank.
Good for you. Good for you. Well, the good news is it's not rocket science. It's not that hard. This is not like learning a foreign language. It's much easier. Okay, and so it is a bit of a foreign language, but you just have to learn the vernacular and then you'll know what to do. What do you do for a living?
So I'm in sales. Good.
What do you make?
By myself or my wife?
Your household income. Why is this money piling up?
Probably just north of $200K gross between my wife and I.
Good for you.
Well done, sir. How much money do you have saved, Shane? You said it's just sitting in the bank and piling up.
Yeah, so right now I have about $50,000 in the bank. I've only been in sales for the last 6 months and I probably had $10,000 when I started, so I probably have saved $40K in the last 6 months.
Yeah, that's amazing. Good for you. Well done. Well, as far as investing goes, there's 2 principles that if you'll follow these two principles, you'll find your way through and do just fine. Okay, actually there's three, but I'll give you two. I'll give you all three of them. Principle number one: don't ever put money in something you don't understand. Okay, you have not violated that. Congratulations, you've done very well. I met with an NFL player one time, and I sat down with him and his wife, and he said, Dave, you're gonna kill me. And I'm like, what'd you do, did you blow all your money? And he said, no, I got $10 million. I'm like, what is it? Why am I gonna kill I said, "What do you got, $10 million?" He said, "It's all in CDs. It's horrible." And I went, "That's not horrible. That's so much smarter than all the other people you play football with, 'cause they've all blown theirs or put it in their brother-in-law's pizza company that went broke." So, you know, very smart. Don't put money in stuff until you understand it. So I don't care how flashy the TikTok thing is or what Dave Ramsey says or what Rachel Cruze says, you understand it before you put money in.
Principle number 1. Principle number 2, plan to go slow. The fastest way to get rich quick is don't get rich quick. The tortoise wins the race over the hare every time I read the book. Okay. And I've read it a bunch over and over. He always wins. And investing, you always win if you're slow and steady wins the race. That's the Aesop's fable. Okay. And then the third thing is don't get financial people in your life of any kind, real estate, insurance, investing, tax, whatever, that sound like Charlie Brown's teacher, "Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah." I have no idea what you're saying. You might as well be speaking German to me. Okay? And if they can't speak to you in such a way that they can teach you, they don't have the heart of a teacher, then they're just a salesman. They're not a financial person. And financial people are the world's worst because a lot of us are nerds and we like being impressive with our nerd knowledge more than we are concerned that you learn. Sure. And that goes back to the first one: don't put money in stuff you don't understand.
So if you sit down with a financial advisor and you and your wife— and your wife says, I got a bad feeling about him or her— don't go with them. Or if you sit down with them and you leave more confused than when you went in, Don't go with them. Okay. They might be okay, but they're not okay for you. Now, now that we've established that, we can start talking about some of the cool stuff you could do for investing. Now, we teach a process for building wealth that we've taught for 30 years plus called the Baby Steps. You probably heard of that, right? I do. I have.
I actually have your Total Money Makeover book.
Okay, so you know then that we're gonna have you have an emergency fund and have all your debts paid off except your home before before we start investing. Do you have any debt other than your home?
Uh, yes, just my car, or my truck and my wife's car. And how much is all that? Um, total, probably $70,000.
Okay, we're gonna pay all that off before we do any investing then. Okay. That's what we call Baby Step 2, if you remember the book. And then once that's done, I want you to set aside 3 to 6 months of expenses in for an emergency fund. Being out of debt and having the rainy day fund is foundational to keep your investments safe. Your investments otherwise will turn— you'll pull money— I'd stop your 401(k) temporarily and knock those car debts out. Take all that $40,000 and throw it at the smallest car debt. Let's get it all cleaned up. So if you got no payments but a house payment and you got, I don't know, in your case, $30,000 sitting there in a money market account only to be touched for emergencies, it's not an "I want to go on a trip" fund.
Yeah, that's one change I was gonna say. Open up a high-yield savings account. Fairwinds Credit Union's amazing. But they have a great Smart Bundle. So put it not in a traditional savings account, but in a high-yield savings account, because it goes from negative, I mean, basically like not even 1% to at least you're getting 3 to 4% sitting there for your emergency fund.
For your emergency fund, right. And then with no payments, now you start really stacking money. You start putting 15% away in your 401(k) and Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s. And you can talk to one of the SmartVestor Pros at RamseySolutions.com and they can help you They will have the heart of a teacher. They don't get the Ramsey name put on them on our website unless they have the heart of a teacher. We won't put our name beside somebody that— and if we find out someone's doing the Charlie Brown teacher thing, we fire them and get them out of the system because we are hardcore about this. So if you do all of that, you're gonna have so much stinking money because I gotta tell you, one of the highest paid professions in the United States today is a good salesman.
Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it was pretty night and day. It's about 3 times what I was making, uh, with this same current company prior to this position. And it's just, uh, had a lot of nights where I didn't really know what we were going to do for certain things. Read through your book, paid off some debts, credit cards, medical bills.
Good. Well, you're on the way now.
And now we're just at a point where I have too much money. I don't know what to do with it based off of you know, my own ignorance with finances.
With investing, you start investing in good mutual funds, and they're real easy to understand. It's 90 to 200 stocks. You look at the track record of the fund that was mutually funded by you, me, and a bunch of other people together, and you go, okay, that group, that pile of money has been growing at an average rate of 11% or 10% or 22% or whatever it is, and you look at, oh, it's done that for 32 years. Oh, okay. I feel pretty good about that. That's like buying a house in a good neighborhood.
Yeah, and Shane, when you get to that, that 15%, honestly, the investment advice, as you, if you dig into more of what we talk about, it's not gonna be a lot of flashy stuff. I mean, honestly, the 15% into retirement, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, you know, the standard. And then anything beyond that is just mutual funds. I mean, index funds. Like it's, it's nothing. There's no day trading, no crypto. Like, you know, there's nothing big and flashy. Real estate, Airbnb, you know, Airbnb investing. Like there's You'll find none of that because again, it's quote unquote, not exciting investing advice, but the amount of Baby Steps Millionaires that are at it have done this and have built wealth slowly over time because it is the most stable way to build wealth versus all the flashiness. So again, it's not super exciting, but it is consistent and works.
The difference is it actually works.
It works, yep.
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David is in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, David, how are you?
Hi, Dave and Rachel, how are you guys?
Better than we deserve, sir. What's up? What's up? Cool.
Thank you for taking my call. My wife and I are, we've been working the Baby Steps for about the last 8 months and we are on Baby Step 6. We are at the point where we have to kind of navigate a bad decision we made when we bought our house 2 years ago. We bought a house and our mortgage is 50% of our take-home pay, and we're just trying to figure out if it's, uh, if it's the right move to sell it, or if we kind of stick it out and see if we can come up with a better solution.
When you say take-home pay, what do you mean coming out of your check?
So we bring home $12,000 a month after taxes, and our mortgage is $6,065.
But after taxes, 401(k), health insurance, what else is coming? What's coming out of the check other other than taxes?
Uh, yeah, 401(k)s, uh, health insurance and taxes.
Okay. Taxes is all we're talking about when we say take-home pay. So how much is going in your 401(k) a month?
Uh, we, I do 15% of, uh, $100,000 and then my wife's salary is $75,000 and we do, uh, 5% of her pay goes into her 401k. Okay.
That's close to $2,000 a month. All right. And, uh, and how much is the health insurance?
Uh, the health insurance is around, uh, $250, uh, every 2 weeks. So $500. And then, uh, yeah, we have a, we're self-employed. Um, so our company pays 75% of the health insurance.
Okay, all right, all right. Um, well, I mean, so when we mean take-home pay, we mean $2,500 more. So we mean $14,000 and some change. Okay. Yes, would be your take-home pay. So you're— that would put you at about 40%, uh, not 50%, but still it's very tough. And so the principle is when your house payment is too big a percentage of your take-home pay, you become mathematically what we call house poor. You don't have any wiggle room to do anything else. How much debt have you paid off and how long did it take you? And when this recent debt run you did?
Yeah, we paid off around $120,000 in the last 8 months.
While fighting this big mortgage?
Yes, sir. Dang, did y'all sell anything?
Yeah, one of Dave's, probably, I had a Shelby GT500. That I had a loan on, but I did have a decent amount of equity in that car. So that helped pay off some other debt.
Okay. Yeah, it's just a lot.
How much of the $120,000 was that?
Uh, that we sold for $94,000. Yeah, I was thinking. I did owe $65,000 on it.
So $94,000 of the $120,000 was one stroke.
Okay. Yep. Because you threw the rest of it at another debt. Yeah. So your equity.
Oh, well, $94,000 is what I sold the car for. I'm sorry.
I know, I know, but you threw the other— you paid off the car and you took the other $34,000 and put it on debt, right? Yeah, correct. So of the $120,000, $94,000 was just simply moving the Mustang. Yeah. Wow, that made you cry a little bit. It was also a brilliant move. Okay, other than that then, so that leaves you with $30,000 you reduced during that same 8 months while having this big mortgage. What else did you sell?
Uh, that was the only thing we sold. Um, we, we did have savings. I, like I said, we were very new to this.
How much was in savings?
Uh, we had $175,000 in savings.
So you pulled that out and paid off the rest of this? Correct. So you did not cash flow any of this debt reduction then? Uh, no. Okay. So we're back to the mortgage being a problem.
So what's, what's left in savings?
Uh, between the emergency fund and just a high-yield savings around $125,000. What's your balance on your mortgage? $700,000.
What's your interest rate? 7%. You might consider dropping another $100,000 on that and refinancing it. You can get a lot— you probably get a 5.5% this week on a 15-year fixed.
That was one of our thoughts.
Get a better interest rate. And recast the mortgage because you're throwing $100,000 or $150,000 at the thing, getting it down to $550,000, I think we got a workable deal. Do you like the house?
That's another part my wife and I were talking about. We were recently— we're both saved last year, and it's a nice house, but it's— we really like to simplify our life, and we want to be able to kind of give more right now.
So we're kind of I mean, if you want to sell it anyway, that's okay. I was fighting to keep it for a minute, hoping you— thinking you wanted to keep it. But if you want to sell it anyway, it makes the whole equation, right? But as far as do you have to sell it because of this percentage of your real take-home pay, not counting 401(k) and health insurance, probably not. But if you want to sell it and downsize to get a simplified life, use the equity from the house, get a lower interest rate, use the $100,000 $100 and some change, maybe $150 out of savings, dump it on there. I mean, you're gonna have a lot more wiggle room if you do that, obviously.
Yeah, so we have had the house listed for the last month, and we've had 10 or 12 showings, and it's looking like after talking with our realtor, we've probably— since the house is so new, it hasn't quite built up equity, we we bought this, before we knew anything about you and didn't put any money down. We'll probably have to pay somewhere around $50,000 to get out of it. That's the part we're struggling with. Is that smart, or do we stick it out and wait for equity to build, or do we just pay the stupid tax?
You don't have to sell it to get ahead. You're gonna prosper because you've been willing to make sacrificial moves to You're being very intentional about everything. You know your numbers. I think you're gonna be okay if you keep it. I would consider refinancing it and putting $100,000 or $150,000 down on the balance and putting it at a 5.5% on a 15-year. I would consider doing that. How old are you guys, David? Get in touch with Churchill Mortgage and see if they can help you with that.
How old are you guys?
I am 30 and my wife is 28.
Okay. Yeah. I probably would do that and then sit there for 2 years. And then if I'm still feeling a pinch and I want to still feel in this push to simplify, then sell it and you'll probably make some money. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
And I was gonna say, I mean, if you guys— your voice is deep, David. I was like, I don't know, he could be 55, he could be 25. I don't know how old this guy is. Because if you were closer to even retirement age, right, and you didn't have a lot saved or something like that, right, and there may be a big financial move you guys do to stockpile some money if you were close to that. But you're fine, you're 30. So yeah, that's, that would be another element of why I could see someone wanting to simplify to get more cash flow to start investing more. But you guys are great.
You're doing a good— the good news about every single thing we ask you, you knew the answer. You're on it, you're dialed in, and that, that, that is a— that's, that's half the battle. Emily's in Montreal. Hi Emily, how are you? Hi Dave, good, thanks.
How are you?
Better than I deserve.
What's up? So I just exited Baby Step 2 on Thursday of last week, and yesterday my car was stolen. That was my only debt, and I'm expecting about $45,000 to $50,000 payout from insurance because it was stolen. And I'm at a crossroads of what to do with that. Either do I get the exact same car that was stolen, which I loved so much, do I take this opportunity to maybe downsize my car and use the money for something else, like start starting a business or anything else? Or do I potentially just stay in my current job? What's your household income?
I make $60,000 a year.
You don't need a $45,000 car if you make $60,000, even if it's paid for.
I know, I know I don't. I'm driving like 1,000 kilometers a week to go to work.
You don't want to destroy a $1,000 car— I mean, a $45,000 car driving that much if you're that broke. No. So, yes, I would move down in car. We don't tell people to buy more than half their annual income in cars. And so that means you take 30 of the 45 at a max and buy a 2-year-old version of what you just had stolen. Wow, what a story. Just got out of debt and they stole my car.
They stole my car. Yeah, use the rest as an emergency fund, Emily, then you're on the Baby Step 4. There you go. Hey, you guys, did you know that there are thousands of data brokers whose entire business is collecting and selling personal information? Things like your home address, your phone number, and even your relatives' names. You guys, that is just crazy. But that is why I use DeleteMe, because those companies that pull information from public records, social media, and all kinds of other places, then suddenly all that information shows up on random websites. And removing it yourself means going site by site, filling out forms, and hoping they actually take it down. It takes hours, and then it can even pop up somewhere else again. But DeleteMe's team of privacy experts removes your personal information from hundreds of those data broker sites. And within a week, you'll get a report showing what they have found and what they have removed. And they keep scanning and cleaning up your data year-round. So take back control of your privacy. Go to joindeleteme.com/ramsey and get 20% off your annual plan. That's joindeleteme.com/ramsey com/ramsey.
Michael is in Billings, Montana. Hey Michael, what's up?
Hey Dave, how are you doing?
Better than I deserve. How can I help?
Hi, so I'm 26 and I'm looking to get engaged here soon. Um, but my girlfriend and I, we have very different networks and I was curious what or how you would look at setting up a prenup. What does very different net worth mean? Okay, I, so I was very blessed. My grandparents, um, did very well. I have about $550,000 paid for house, uh, about $50,000 in a truck. I also have about $135,000 between my 401(k) and my various accounts. I also have $350,000 in leftover in a college fund. Um, she is currently in PA school and she will be coming out of school, um, with about $120,000 to $150,000 in debt.
What do you, what do you make? I make about $100,000.
Well, I'm in sales, so $120,000 to $150,000 a year. Okay.
Um, if I were in your shoes, I would get so comfortable with this lady. In order to marry her that I don't need a prenup. You don't have enough net worth to fool with it.
Okay.
If you can't get $600,000 worth of comfortable with somebody, you don't need to marry them. Okay. If you had $60 million from your grandparents, we'll talk about a prenup. Okay. $600K, no. I wouldn't. Would you, Rachel?
No, I mean, the only thing I could think of, if I'm in her shoes, and the script was flipped, and I'm marrying a guy, he's coming out, and I had built a life for me, and I had bought my own home, and I had done some big things, I could see like the home, for instance, maybe, if something were to ever happen. Yeah, that— because the thing that's hard with prenups is like the laws in every state with divorce, are different, okay? And so, there's going to be something that is gonna happen if that happens. So, are you proactive about that on the front end? Up to you. People nowadays are getting more and more comfortable with it, 'cause people are getting married later with some established financial life versus two 21-year-olds who have nothing and they're, you know, getting married. So, more and more we get this call. And I think my, I had a pretty black and white take on it for years of like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And now there's just a part of me that I'm like, maybe, maybe one part of this that you're like, yeah, if something were to happen, I have built a life, right?
I mean, I know people that have their own businesses and that kind of thing.
I don't know. If you've got a substantial net worth, I, and I'm not, your grandparents blessed you. There's no question about that. But this is about $600,000. And, you know, it's okay. It's okay if you get one.
No, it's more like a million. He has a $550,000 home. $135,000, $350,000, and I've called— like, everything together. It's probably more like a million.
Okay, if you want to do it, it's okay. I just want you to be really, really sure that— the problem is everybody throws this subject against the wall as if it solves something. And I don't want you to think it solves anything. All it solves for is if you divorce, it doesn't mean that you've actually sat down and got to know each other. It doesn't mean that you sat down and agreed, "Okay, here's how we're gonna spend the parent— my grandparents' money that they gave me is gonna pay off your student loans when we come home from the honeymoon." You gotta solve for that emotionally. And that's a blessing. By the way, I would do that. Yeah, 100%. 100%. 100%. You got $350,000 in a college account, you can use it for your spouse, and I'd pay off that debt in about 20 seconds. "And that kind of stuff." And you gotta emotionally— is this relation— 'cause the only chance you have in a culture that hates marriage, for your marriage to last, is you gotta be willing to die for 'em. You gotta be willing to take a bullet for 'em. You gotta be— it's all in.
"Ride or die," as Deloney says. This is— we're in. And so, the problem with the prenup is it's kind of got one foot in a boat. One on the dock, you know, and it's like, "Eh." You know, and I want you to go all in. And then, if you've emotionally, relationally, with some good marriage coaching, counseling, solved for all the all-in part, and you're ready to write a check, pay off for student loans when you get back from the honeymoon, and then, and if on top of that, you want to do a prenup, okay, that, yeah, I'm not going to yell at you for that, for a million dollars. But But I really want you to think that through.
Yeah, because I think what— and again, I'm like, saying this out loud as I'm like, processing it, because I think, too, the downside of people that do prenups, and that's probably a generalization, but is that you're starting out emotionally saying, "Financially, this is mine, and this is you over here." And that can tend to then go into the marriage where that's financially, where we say, "No, you're all in." So, if you did do a prenup and you're like, if the worst the worst of the worst happens, and, you know, we do the divorce, you know, court or whatever, and this is how assets are divided. But inside the marriage, from that point on, we are commingling finances. Mine is— what's mine is yours. Yes, and net worth, that everything then is together. And I don't know how that plays. I don't know. But so, that's my caution with it too. I don't like that emotional hurdle. But yet again, I mean, I'm like, I can't help myself. But when we sit on this side of the desk, we have so many calls of, of people who have walked through divorce and all, you know what I mean?
And someone that brings in something or had a business. I mean, I've had per—
you know, people in my own life, and that's happened to, and you're just like, "Man." [Speaker:JOYCE] Yeah, what I always wanna do is force people to set that aside and act like it's not there and get okay with that and that level of commitment. And then, if you wanna do it, fine. But what it does, it keeps people from going deep. It keeps them from going in all the way to the ground floor. And you gotta do that. For your marriage to have a chance in a culture where marriage is— we're at war against marriage.
I mean, it's like, it's crazy. Well, it's just not a priority for some people, you know what I mean?
Exactly. Well, you know, the other one that's interesting, Rachel, on that side of the thing, of course, when I started a long time ago, I just said, "Never do a prenup," on the basis of what we've just been saying. But then, I ran into weirdness where somebody's got $2 or $3 million and the other one's broke. And it's not the person usually, it's like, I find out that there's a weird brother-in-law or cousin in the mix, you know? And it's like, it just cleans up the external family. Because what, the brother-in-law? The prenup, you're like, "I can't touch it. It's not mine." You know, so, her crazy brother, you know, starts coming at the new husband. And it's like, "Fun with this. I wanna do this." It's handled. It's already handled. You can't get to it. So, you got— 'cause there's crazy in every family. And if you think there's not, it's you. You know, so— and so that's what you're looking for. And then, Deloney and I were having this discussion. He's doing all this marriage research right now, and he had a guy come to him, and we had this great discussion the other day when we were traveling together, and that a guy made the point that a prenup is like a will, because if you don't do a will, the state has a set of laws on how your assets will be divided.
"Yup, that's right." "If you don't do a prenup, the state has a set of laws in divorce of how you're gonna be divided." And they said, "But we tell everybody to do a will to pre-plan, so the state is not in charge." "But you are 100% in charge." "So, if you wanna be anti-government, Dave—" Dave is about as anti-government as anybody you'll ever meet. Classic hillbilly, right? Like, you know, "Don't like them revenuers." And so, you know, that kind of stuff. And so, "If you wanna be real anti-government, Dave, you would do everybody a prenup, so the government's not deciding." "Yeah, you're the one deciding." And that's an interesting Interesting philosophical discussion. It didn't sway me, but it's worth talking about.
But also, you're 100% gonna die. So, you're 100% gonna use your will. That's what I said too.
You may not— That was part of my answer too.
You half may use the prenup, half may not.
That's a good point. But that's my thing too.
And again, the— and honestly, the reality we live in today, people are getting married later, and they're coming in established with something.
But that's even— that adds to the danger. Because you've got this independence. And in order to have a quality relationship, that has to go away. You have to become interdependent to have a quality relationship. "Submit yourselves one to another," Ephesians says, right? There's a submission to each other, not an "I'm over here and I'm established," you know? And that's a spirit that's gotta be broken.
And again, I don't know the laws of this country, this. We're going in circles here. No, I like it. But I— but like, could the prenup be, right, if you started a business, right, and it's killing it, and you're the owner of it, but you get married, could the prenup say, in the middle of divorce, you don't get to touch the business, it's mine. But in the marriage, we— what I bring home, it's everyone's. Does that make sense?
Like, you could do that. You could do that.
The dividing line. I don't know how to say unified in the marriage, but also—
But I would also add that from today forward, the marriage grows partially partially because of the marriage.
Oh, the value of the marriage.
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Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Brandon is in Chicago. Hi, Brandon, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel.
What's up? What's up? I'm doing pretty good. Good. Um, my fiancée and I are getting married in about 4 weeks' time now. Congrats. Congratulations. Thank you. We are looking to buy a house. Um, we, I've done your financial piece twice. She's done it once. We've done all the baby steps. We're, uh, investing, got emergency funds. Um, got a decent stack of cash packed, uh, piled up and We just don't want to make the wrong decision on buying a house and everything seems out of reach.
What's your combined income going to be?
We'll be about $120,000. I don't want to base it off that because we would like to start having children soon, sooner rather than later. So I'd like to base it off mine, which is currently $70,000. Um, so yeah.
And how much cash do you have saved? About $70,000. Good for you. Good for you. Okay, my screen says you're in Chicago.
Chicago proper? Uh, Northwest Indiana.
Okay, but the Chicago greater metro area? Yes. Okay, probably not gonna buy a house on $70,000 in the greater metro area of Chicago.
And honestly, not always because of house prices, but the property tax. People that I, we know, move from Chicago It's not even the price of the home, it's keeping up with the taxes itself are what's impossible.
Now, if you're in Indiana and you get across the line out of Illinois, is that where you are?
Yes, I'm in Northwest Indiana.
Well, that helps with the tax issue then. But yeah, but still, you're in a major metro market that's a very expensive city. It's one of the largest cities in the world. And so that's expensive real estate. You're probably also not gonna buy in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, or Manhattan on $70,000 a year, or Miami on $70,000 a year.
Or Nashville, Tennessee.
You can buy in Nashville, Tennessee. Outskirts. But I mean, the point is that that's what you're facing. So what you want is some things that aren't compatible. You want her to be able to stay at home and live in an area that your income won't afford you to buy a home. And so you're gonna make a choice here, here somewhere. And the, you know, if you want her to stay at home, you're going to move further out.
You're going to move out to the country, or you guys, you know, save like crazy for 2, 3 years, you know what I mean? Keep stacking cash and seeing what—
yeah, I don't mind.
I don't mind the country at all. We're, we're looking even further south and further east.
What are the average prices of the homes you're looking at then?
I mean, for a basic fixer-upper, you're at least $250,000.
Oh, definitely. Yeah, you are. You're not in the Chicagoland for that. Okay. All right, good. And you can do that. You could probably pull that off.
But even at, even at $250,000, I feel like that puts our mortgage above, you know, the recommended 25% of the income. Yeah, it will.
It won't for now, but it would when she quits.
And then that also, the $250,000 house is going to require us to put money up front to fix and, you know, fix whatever's broken in the house.
Be careful. Yeah, just be careful. They're not nice houses. Yeah, be careful. I mean, it can be done, but, and as you figured out the, and with the numbers you're giving me, you're being very wise, okay? But I thought you were talking about, "I can't afford a $700,000, $800,000 house," and I was saying, "Yeah, you can't." No, no, no. But that's where I was. But there's, in the real estate field, urban growth, there's a thing we call the ring theory, and with exceptions, but as a general rule, if you drop a pebble in the central business district, the main downtown area, every ring that that pebble— the water goes out gets cheaper, with the exception of mountains for views and lakes and golf courses. But if you stay away from those three things, it gets cheaper as you go out until you touch another area that's another metro area. But, you know, to live in the close proximity to downtown Chicago is much more expensive than it is to live 50 miles outside over in Indiana, you know, as you have found, you already have realized that whether you realized it or not. Yeah. But that's what you're seeing.
So just be careful and be thoughtful and you already are doing that. I think you're gonna be okay.
And know, Brandon, too, you know, your income will continue to go up too. So that 25% doesn't stay stagnant at a house payment, right? Because I mean, if you guys bring home, you know, $5,000 a month, for instance, you know, off yours, you're looking at a $2,000 payment. Yeah, $1,250. Yeah. So, but think that you're 70, hopefully will be 75 soon, and then 80, you know what I mean? You will continue to go up. Exactly.
It's not— the thing you got to remember about personal finance, it's a film strip. It's not a snapshot. It's a moving target. Everything's moving over time. And you're not stuck there. There. But just continue to be thoughtful about it and don't just throw up your hands. What we want to coach people about on this affordability, in air quotes, discussion is to say, "Well, you know, math doesn't count because I want a house." And that's what we want to stop you from doing and say, "Well, in my area, and math doesn't—" He's not saying any of that. He's saying, he's being very wise and thoughtful about how he's approaching it. But we run into these people that when I want something and I can't afford it, I don't know about you, but I kind of have this little drama queen fit, like a little child having a hissy fit, like down inside of me. You know, I want that, I want that, I want that, and I can't afford it. I want that and I can't afford it. And I deserve it because I work so hard.
Oh, brother. Well, so, I just did quick math here. So, if his payment was, yeah, $2,000, yeah, in today's market, it would be a $275,000 to $340,000 home. But he's making, they're currently making $120,000.
$120,000. They're not even married. And they're already having kids in their head. They're engaged. I mean, so, he's way projecting out into the future on this.
That's the thing too, is like, if you guys waited 2 to 3 years to buy a home, you're okay.
Or buy the house now on $120,000. And 2 or 3 years before she comes home, by then, you're making $80,000 and you've got everything stabilized. You're gonna be okay. Yes, yes. But don't—
but just don't, you know— You hate the complaining. You do, Dave. I do. And I get it. But also, there is—
No, I hate the drama queen because it's inside me too.
I know, I know. It's inside of me.
All of us have to— it's called growing up.
It is. But also, I think we can all say out loud, it is— you hate when I say this, but it is true. It is harder today.
I know.
Because of the income and the— I know. So, we acknowledge it. It is hard and it sucks.
But it is a general rule. But that's not— that doesn't mean you get a pass on math. You don't get a pass.
And you get to go destroy your life because they went through something. No, you don't. I know, I know. But it just, it's like a, it's like a, man, this is not what it was. And now we have to move forward. That is why I hate when people just complain on Instagram or TikTok about it and there's no solution. And we try to give solutions to say, hey, you are, you're going to have to move out further.
The solution is exactly the same one in college. Where you buy, yes, yes, changes everything. Yeah. You don't, you can't call me up and say I want to live in Silicon Valley.
James and just live in a— where's James? It's not a tiny home, it's a log cabin.
Log cabin. James has a log cabin, so there you go. We love it. He's a homesteader. I didn't know. James. Mhm.
Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.
You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly Everything changes.
Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Zander is essential, because it protects your family if the worst happens.
Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage. No gimmicks, no whole life junk, just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance.
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Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. Family. Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. Sorry, a little backed up, a little hard to get in here. But if you got a money question and you want an answer for your situation, head on over to the website and use Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained only on proven Ramsey principles. So like we loaded 3 years or 4 years worth of this show in there as the dataset, dataset, and we loaded all the books we've written and the articles we've written and all that stuff as the dataset. So there's no garbage in there from TikTok or from trash, you know, from some get-rich-quick thing built into it. So the dataset is all stuff we have said. Head. And that's all AI is, it just regurgitates what the data set is. So it's going to answer the question exactly like one of us would. Hello, that's exactly how it works. You get an answer the same way we'd answer it right there on the show, and it's completely free. Ask Ramsey at ramseysolutions.com. Go check it out, it's pretty cool.
Thousands of people are using it every day, it's crazy, y'all. I mean, they're blowing up. All right, Rachel is in West Virginia. Hi Rachel, how are How are you?
I'm good. How are you?
Better than I deserve. How can I help?
Okay, so I'm having a hard time making the best financial decision for my future. So right now I'm currently a waitress making around $100K a year. I've probably made a little over $40K this year so far.
Good for you. You're working hard.
Good for you. But I've been considering going to nursing school, and that would be $25,000 for just the LPN program, but it would also be making less money than I make now.
No, not much. You're working a lot of hours to make $100K on tables. How many hours you working a week?
So I'm only working like 38 to 40 hours.
You got a good restaurant. Okay, that's a hot ticket item. All right, um, nice place.
What's the, uh, what's the nursing position you're looking at? What is— what's market value for that job per year?
$80,000 to $100,000. Rachel?
So the LPN program is $25,000 and It says the average salary for that is $50,000, but then if you would go back and get your RN, which sometimes you can get a job that would pay for that part of the schooling, then it is usually around $100,000. Okay.
Have you called around different places of employment that you would probably be interested in and talked to anyone about what they're— are you just finding these stats online?
So I was already accepted into the LPN program, and that, that is the one that is $25,000. And then they told me after I would graduate the LPN program, if I would accept a job, most jobs would pay to go back to get your RN.
Agreed. Mm-hmm. But most jobs pay more than $50,000 on LPN too. Yeah. And the other thing is you can get all the work you want. Nursing is possibly one of the most stable I mean, I've been doing this 30 years and I've never heard of a single year when there was an overage of nurses. There's always a shortage. So you can always land a job. There's a lot of different kinds of jobs you can do as a nurse, and you can work at a doctor's office Monday through Friday and work ER and clean up on the weekends if you want to stack some cash for a short time as a part-time gig once you've got your degree. So I love nursing.
Yeah, and the $50 a year, Rachel, is only— well, Well, let's say it is for, it's only for a second because you're going to be there. They're going to pay for you to go to school and then you'll jump in. So, you know what I mean? Like it's a stepping stone. If it is, it's not going to be your forever salary. Yeah. So that's how I would look at it. If that is the case in West Virginia where you are, uh, versus waitressing. I mean, the fact you made $100 grand is amazing, but that's probably capped, right? Like that, like that's probably, you can only work, you know, so much doing that. And so I do wonder.
I don't think you've got a chance to go to $150 there, dude.
You.
Yeah, no, and it really could end anytime. That's just that restaurant. If that would close, then I'd be—
yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So, um, but I, I would call around too, Rachel, because them just throwing numbers out at the school, I probably would do my own research too, just to be curious about what people are paying.
And it also depends on whether you're, you know, how rural an area of West Virginia you're in. Okay, if you're in small town West Virginia in the mountains, yeah, 50 might be right. But if you're in a metro area, it's more like 60 or 80.
Okay.
All right. And because we work with nurses all the time, I mean, it's— and I'm just a— from a wealth-building perspective, a stable perspective, you always have work perspective. You can choose the environment you want to be in perspective. It's a great career.
Okay, and then my other question is, would you get— so with it being $25,000, would you get a loan? No, you had money during— never gonna tell you get a loan.
We never tell anybody get a loan. Okay. No, we always want you to be debt-free. You got some money stacked, don't you?
Yeah, I mean, I paid off my— all of my credit cards and my car and— okay, good. Yeah, just— but you're making $100,000.
You can stack up $25,000 by the time you need it. Yeah, yeah, if you just— if you just— you're real careful. Then I'm so proud of you. Way to go. I mean, but, but the difference is not the snapshot of today. The difference is what's the best decision 10 years from today. Nursing or tables? Nursing. Yep. Slam dunk.
How old are you, Rachel? I'm 26. Okay, perfect. Good for you. I think that's great.
Yeah, I just— I see you being a very successful, wealthy 55-year-old nurse. I don't see you being a successful, wealthy 55-year-old waitress.
Yeah, that's kind of how I see it too. Yeah, I think it's a great step, girl.
Do it.
Have at it, kiddo. Be careful and be thoughtful and milk it for everything it's worth, meaning get the best, highest-paying highest paying job possible that pays you all they will pay you.
And get some knowledge again. I would call around to hospitals and clinics and stuff and just say, "Hey, starting out, I'm just curious, what average salary are you paying for this?" And just collect some data too, 'cause I think that's gonna maybe, I think it's gonna be more, you're gonna see a better picture, not a worse picture than that 50.
And I would frame this differently in my head, okay? Like, I wanna go back to school and pay $25,000 to make half of what I used to make. That's not the story here. We would not tell you to do that. But I want to go back to, I want to pay $25,000 and go to school for a career that has a much better future and a higher upside financial, and I might have to take a little bit of a step back temporarily. That's a different story. And you need to frame the decision-making on that story, not on a, "I just want to do what I love and I'm gonna make half." That's not your story. Sorry, you're not one of those. That's a Froot Loop. You don't want to do that. Okay, I just want to follow my passion and be broke.
No, you get so annoyed with those people too.
I know, that's just dumb.
Dave has not been in the studio for a while. All of his grievances are coming out on this show. Whenever he comes back, he's always like, "Oh, those people annoyed me. I'm gonna talk about those people." I have not had a single person annoy me.
No one has annoyed me.
People that complain about houses being high, you don't like them. You don't like the people that are like, "I'm gonna follow my passion." It was that way when I left, and it was that way when I came back.
When I came back. It had nothing to do with while I was gone. But anyway, the people I've been with were very sweet. Thank you very much.
No, no, no, they weren't annoying. I'm saying people in America that annoy you.
I know. I have not had any interaction with those people. At least he's not spreading libel about my housing situation. Yeah, Rachel, I didn't throw James's house under the bus. You took his log cabin and turned it into a tiny house. James, I'm sorry.
That's the wrong set of information.
I think James, he lives in a log cabin palace as far as I'm concerned. I think he does. On acreage. On acreage. Thank you very much. Very nice. Very nice. Oh, you got to love it.
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In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free stage, Aaron and Megan are with us. Hey guys, how are you?
Good, how are you? Great. I am so pumped to be here. I don't know if you can tell, but man.
Hey, we're honored to have you. Where do you guys live?
Richmond, Virginia.
All right, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off?
$660,000. Goodness gracious. How long did this take?
4 years. Whoa. All right, there's a story here. And your range of income during this 48 months?
Started around $240,000 ended up around $300,000. Wow, what do y'all do for a living? I'm a physician.
And I have a small business. We do screen print, embroidery, contract stuff.
Pallets and pallets of t-shirts. And $660,000, I was gonna guess mortgage, but then you said MD, so student loans or mortgage or both? Both. Oh, got a free house and everything! Oh yeah. Woo! Amay weirdos, yep. Oh, look! Oh, there's the doctor's house.
Okay, I see it now, all right. Painted.
I like it.
I like it. I like the blue shutters. I liked it. That's fun.
Oh, y'all, that's great. Congratulations. How old are you two?
I'm almost 35. 38.
And you have a paid-for house and a paid-for MD degree. Wow. How much of this was student loans? How much was the house?
The house was $317,000. The rest were student loans.
Whoa. Half and half, basically.
About half. Yeah. Wow. So you come out of med school, and he's printing t-shirts like a crazy man, like hand over fist, and you're going to work like all the time, and you're going to clean this mess up. And you went on, just plowed right on through the house and everything.
Yeah, well, we only met like 5 years ago. So, he kind of buried into the debt.
Yeah. Ah, okay.
He says, "Yeah." It was scary. What caused you? Yeah, what happened? Okay, so, tell us the whole story.
Okay, so, all that was 4 years ago.
So, what happened 4 years ago?
Well, we got married and we start looking at this and it's like, "Babe, you can reform. You know, you can reform. We've got all this stuff. We've gotta get rid of it." Yeah, it was real scary. It's just the daily compounding. I looked at those interest payments and I was like, we gotta get rid of this.
I still had credit cards. Yeah. No debt, but credit cards. And so, and I had some savings, but I wasn't making any loan payments 'cause they were in deferment. And so we just got every dollar, we started and it just—
How'd you find us?
So I have been listening to you guys probably since 2012. Yeah, so. He's a disciple. Yeah, I'm a disciple. I'm a little bit of a disciple. I've always run my business that way, you know, debt-free. And always tried to keep my expenses low.
Okay, so you knew the antidote, and you were a wee bit excited about that.
I was so ready.
I bet you were over the top, though. Was he over the top? He was him. He was him.
We're gonna just say 10% over the top. Not crazy, not over crazy.
It's a good over the top. That's the way I like him. It's a good over the top. I mean, you came at her with like a fire hose though, right? I mean, like—
Yeah, she was drinking from it though. I had her drinking from it.
She was going for it. Okay, so you'd had enough too. You wanted out. Oh yeah. Okay, so it wasn't a big argument or anything. It was just a big mountain.
No, that's one of our big strengths, I think, is, you know, we've always kind of been on the same page on money and we, you know— It's awesome.
Okay, so did you guys work extra? What was one of the big things you did that you were like, this helps so much. Was the income— I mean, you guys, you did great on the income side.
Yeah, he drove that income forward.
He was a maniac. I mean, the first couple of years we were together, 100 hours a week. I mean, always at the shop, leaving the house at 3:00 AM, getting home at 9:00 PM. Oh my gosh. Sunday to Saturday. I was doing telehealth. I was taking like 25 nights a month of hospice call. Whoa. I'm also in the reserve, so I drill one weekend a month. So we just were working nonstop.
Oh my gosh. Jobs. Yeah.
Did the reserves pick up any of this?
A little bit. Okay.
Yeah, they'd like a $10,000 hit or something.
Yeah, a couple loan repayments.
Yeah, I thought they had a hit on that.
Yeah, that's so what happens now, now that everything— you've paid everything off, what does life look like? Because I mean, that's intense what you guys just explained. Buy furniture.
We still have one unfurnished room in our house. It took us 2 years to buy furniture after we bought it. Yeah, but I mean, we have 2 boys who we absolutely love, maybe one a third.
Yes, yes.
And just get them set up for success.
That's amazing. And not working 90 hours, 100 hours a week.
Yeah, yeah, we want our time back.
It's amazing, yes. Get your life back. But now you earned it back and you're done. I mean, 4 years of hell and you're 100% free for the rest of your life. So what's this, what's the home worth probably?
It's in the 5s. Yeah, okay.
And how much you got built up in the nest eggs?
$150,000? What's in your 401(k)? Oh yeah, like $180,000. $180,000 plus—
Yeah, it's all through work.
A little over $200,000. Okay, all right, right at millionaire status then. Yeah, close, yeah. Baby steps millionaires. Making a couple hundred, you can do whatever you wanna do the rest of your life. But you hit it hard there for a period of time.
Oh yeah, a lot of mac and cheese.
Was it worth it?
I'm not eating any more mac and cheese. Was it worth it? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's the best thing we've ever done, you know, financially, but also for our marriage.
It's helped us a lot.
Yeah, brought us closer together.
Communication and just sticking to a plan and doing something together every month. You know, we're doing the budget. We're reconciling, you know, going through all the steps.
Walking through it all together. How old are the boys?
They're both under 2, so 22 months and 8 months.
Okay, so they were all through this whole process. Toward the end of the journey, you were having and babies too, which is a whole other feat, right? Of doing all of that. So, gosh, you guys, you lived a lot of life in 4 years. Congratulations, y'all. Marriage and babies and debt-free.
Thank you. What do you tell people if they say, "Can you do this?" You tell them they can do it?
Yeah. Absolutely. It's temporary. You know, just work your butt off and it's worth it.
Yeah, absolutely. You can do it. Dedication. You have to believe in yourself and go for it and don't stop and keep working through the Baby Steps.
Yep, and it's all about messaging. So we just called ourselves broke. Like, no, we can't have that, we're broke. Yeah, yeah.
Well, now we're not. I've told MDs that before when they call in. It's good for them to hear that sometimes. You are a broke doctor, yeah. Yeah, but you're not. And here's what's interesting too. We were talking about this affordability thing a while ago. Their home was, is, you know, when they bought it wasn't a half million.
It was probably $300,000.
And it's a half million dollar house today. And she's a doctor. Hello, okay? I mean, this is not—
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You chose where you were living and what neighborhood you bought in. Wisdom, yeah. You didn't go buy a house 5 times that size, which your contemporaries probably did. People came out of med school with you, they're still sitting with $300,000, and then they put a million-dollar mortgage to go with it to prove I'm a stupid doctor. 'Cause doctors are notoriously bad with money. And so, the people that graduate with you, instead you went the other way and they're acting like somehow you're, you know, like, but now you're free. That's right, that's right. And worth a million dollars and gonna be worth $2 million in a heartbeat, the way you're going. So, congratulations, I'm very proud of y'all. Thank you, that's awesome. It's worth pointing out that y'all made great choices along the way here, and that's also what got you there.
Yeah, you could make this, we have people call in that make $300,000, and they have nothing, you know what I mean? They're stressed out and they're living paycheck to paycheck. So you guys, you killed it. Absolutely. Did y'all have people cheering you on during this? Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, family.
Yeah, we have a lot of people in our corner. Yep. That's great.
Oh, you guys are awesome. A few people rolling their eyes.
Yeah, there's those.
And a few people who have followed by example, just hearing our story and now they're paying off their debt, so.
Hey, I like it. That's good. That's good. Well, if we can infect the medical community with this, it would be awesome.
Awesome. What a weird word to say about the medical. I chose it carefully.
I was like, no pun intended. We want it to be contagious. No pun intended. We want this to be contagious in the medical community. Well, way to go, you guys. Very, very proud of you. Thanks for coming on and sharing your story. How does it feel right now, standing here? Surreal. Absolutely surreal.
What'd you say? Yeah, it's wild. I never thought that I would, yeah, be up here.
It's cool. It's kind of like you were driving 160 miles an hour and then you stopped. Yeah. And you went, whoa, those white lines aren't a solid line. Who knew? Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Well, way to go, you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. Very proud of you. Aaron and Megan Richmond, Virginia. $660,000 paid off, house and everything, including medical school debt, all done in 48 months, making $240,000 to $300,000. The secret sauce is working together, and all they did was work all the time until they cleaned it up. But they're 35 years old and they're free, and they're Baby Steps millionaires. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! I love it! Way to go!
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Today's question is from Shawna in Arizona. My husband and I are in the process of selling a home that we purchased 10 "10 years ago. We'll be moving to another state in a few years and we'll rent until we're ready to make the move. As we consider setting aside proceeds from this sale for a few years, what is the best type of account to park it in? Should we put it in high-yield savings, CDs, individual stocks, or is there some other option that we should consider?" So the— honestly, the two places when you think about putting money aside is either savings Savings is one category, and then investment is another category. So anytime you put money into the market would be considered an investment. So whether— we never would recommend individual stocks, but anything, whether it's mutual funds, index funds. And kind of our rule of thumb is if you're not going to use the money for 4 to 5 years, then yeah, you could probably invest it and ride the market out because there'll be lows and highs. And so you want to make sure that, just like a home, right? You wouldn't buy a home and when there's no equity, turn around and sell it.
So if you're going to, if you are going to use the money money in around 4 years or less, then a high-yield savings account is where I would park it. And our friends at Fairwinds have a great Smart Bundle where you can get a no-fee checking account. I think it's up to 10 high-yield savings accounts you can have within your name. And then the Ramsey Beamer debit card with that too. But a high-yield savings is where I would park it if you're going to use that money. You said a few years, so I'm assuming that's 2 to 3. So I would just throw it in a high-yield savings savings account.
Yeah, that's the safe thing. If you're willing to take the risk, the longer you leave it alone, the more I would lean towards something like just an S&P 500. Okay, 97% of the 5-year periods in the stock market's history have made money. So you wouldn't lose money 97 times out of 100 if you left it alone 5 years or more. That's why Rachel said that's an Now, if you do it 4 years, what's the number? I don't remember the probability on that one. Or 3 years, what's the number? I don't know. But I mean, the last 3 years have been, you know, 25, 24, and 18. Crazy. Crazy. But that's not normal. But if you'd left the loan for 3 years and you've been in the market, you'd have had that versus high-yield savings. That obviously, looking back, would have been smart. But you don't know that. It could be down for 3 years. Of course, too. But the number of down periods in a long period of time is very, very low. So, to the extent you can afford to lose a little bit of it and be comfortable, then you can go with the, you know, you can go with an S&P 500 index fund.
So you just kind of got to work that through and figure it out. But if you're just even the tiny little bit scared, high yield securities.
Yeah, you're not with that kind of stuff. If you had 3 years, would you throw it in an S&P? I might go 50/50.
You know, if you got, let's say they got $500,000 out of this house or something like that, I might put $250,000 in the S&P and $250,000 in the high yield. Kind of hedge my bets a little bit.
But if you're gonna be turning around and buying a house in the next couple of months, obviously it would just be high yield. But over a little bit more period, so yeah, I think you're, that's true.
Yeah, so 3 years or more, I start to think about some portion of it being in there. 5 years or more, I'm putting all of it in there.
What is, do you have the stats off the top of your head on elections? Election years? Is it usually down election years?
No, it's usually up.
It is up, okay. I was just wondering, not that you can time the market, but—
I wouldn't, I wouldn't. And now midterms, I don't know. I haven't looked at that.
I just wonder if there's anything—
We got midterms in the fall. In the political cycle, if I said. You know, I don't usually use that as a measure anyway.
No, but I just didn't know if you were like heading into a year, if you're like, eh, let me hold off for a few months and see the landscape of the world, if it, I don't know.
Yeah, every time I— Try to do that with the market. Every time I try to do that, I lose money. It doesn't work. So I guess, wrong, you know, whichever way it is. So, I just quit doing that. I just quit saying— I started saying, "Okay, if I put $250,000 in, and it goes down 10%, I lost $25,000 out of my $500,000. I'm okay. Didn't kill me." Right. Okay? Hurts. Hurts. But that— and that would be highly unusual. Yes. Okay? Very unusual 3-year period of time. Yes. Like, almost never happens. That's right. That's funny. So, but if you thought about it that way, but you, so that's kind of how I gage it is if I lost something that was an unusually bad loss, it's still not that much.
That's right. You know what, that literally just happened to me and Winston. We opened up a, like an S&P 500 thing to throw some money in, because we were looking at diversification, a couple of things. And we usually, we had never really done that. We had had other investments, like 401(k)s were off and then another account that we just would put. So we're like, well, let's maybe we'll have another another one, brokerage account, because Winston may buy, you know, something out of it with his real estate stuff. And I'm not lying, you guys. We put some money in. We moved it from a high-yield savings into this.
And it went down. Iran.
Iran happened like 5 days later. And Winston was like, "Oh, just don't look at anything right now." But it didn't drop that much.
No.
And then it came back. Yeah, it dropped like 3%. But I literally had to tell myself, Rachel, you do this for a living. It's okay. You just don't look. You ride the market. Don't jump off the roller coaster. But I thought out of all times in the last 3 years. You picked the worst one. I picked the— like 4 days before, who knew?
And I was like, "Dadgummit." Trump bombs Iran, just as you decide to be an investor. But again, you can go back and look at those charts. That's an interesting thing to do since the first of the year. But it hurts. Go back and look and you go, "Okay, we put $100,000 in and I lost $6,000." You're okay.
Yeah, and now it's back up a little bit.
It just pisses you off. Yes. And it hurts your feeling. You can. But it's not— the actual math is not devastating.
No, it's just, it's your hard-earned money, and when you're like seeing that—
It should be going the other way. And I don't want it to go that way. And it hasn't now, it's back up.
That's right, that's right. No, everything's fine.
But I had that moment, about a few days of thinking, "Dadgummit." You know, I did that, come to think of it, I dropped a chunk in about the time Trump decided to do tariffs. And there was about a month period where it like choked. You know, and then it came right back up and through the roof. Through the roof. But it like, for just a moment there, the market just decided to go, "Kah, kah." [Speaker:GINGER] And that's really why I'm like, I don't—
people ask, "Do you check the market? Do you look?" And I'm like, "I really don't. I look at our accounts once a year." And this was like, literally, the only time in our 16 years of marriage of doing this together.
If you're checking the account every day, you're a day trader.
Yes, and you can't do that.
And they all lose money.
Yes, yes, and you can't do that. So, you park it for long Long term, long term, it's going to go up and down.
That's the plan. Charles is in Boston. Hey Charles, what's up? How are you? Better than I deserve.
How can we help? Um, so I guess essentially my question is, I grew up very privileged. I have about $9 million in investments all through trust from my parents, my grandparents, um, a few years out of college. And how old are you?
I do well. I make— I'm 28. Cool, good for you.
Yeah, and I make around $80,000 to $90,000 a year.
But I'm at this, I'm at this crossroads where I'm studying for my GMAT and I'm hearing people talk less and less about the effectiveness of going to graduate school, at least for business, and whether or not I should just start my own company, start a business. This. Where do your thoughts lie, given I have such ample resources at my disposal and a safety net that can cushion any fall? I wouldn't use that to make my decision.
I would pretend like that money's not there and then go be a wise, heart-filled 28-year-old that kicks butt and takes names. And let your life be— let that money be gravy that's in the background. You know, if you stumble and fall, you're gonna be— you have a huge safety net. But that doesn't make you— that doesn't say, oh, you need to go in business and people who don't have $9 million don't need to go in business. No, you need to go in business if you're supposed to go into business. Business is hard. Business is thrilling. Business is fun. I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I thoroughly encourage you to do it. It's tiring, but you're going to have the— your boss is a butt. He'll drive you crazy when you own your own business. He'll work you to death.
What kind of business do you want to open?
Unsure about that at the moment, but I know my knowledge and passion lies within the automotive industry. Okay. Whether it's maybe selling classic cars like my brother, starting a boot antique.
That'd be fine. Go, you know, go. You can do that. You can do that easy. And, uh, that's something you can test and get back out of. You, you don't have to say, I'll never go to graduate school, instead I'm going to sell classic cars. You can say, I'm going to try this, I'm going to experiment. If I don't like it, I can't make money at it, I'm not good at it, I'll try something else and I'll experiment. That's what entrepreneurs do. Very seldom does what you set out to do end up being the thing you're doing 20 years later, because business and the environment changes too much. I think you ought to try it, but not based on the fact you got $9 million. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. Samantha is in Dallas, Texas.
Hi, Samantha, how How are you? I'm better than I deserve, but beautifully broken as well.
I understand. How can we help today?
So my husband, um, so I've been a stay-at-home mom for 27 years. The last 20 I've been raising our disabled daughter who passed away in September. I'm sorry. Um, dang. Um, she passed away in September. My husband has a really long history of financial infidelity.
Whoa, whoa. Stop just a second. Stop just a second. Breathe. Okay, I'm sorry. It's okay. Get your breath back so we can hear you. So your, your daughter passed in September? Yes. What was her name? Her name was Abby.
And what was her disability, honey? Um, she was a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.
And she lived 20 years? She did.
She did. Mentally, she was fine. She, um, but she couldn't walk. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. She couldn't even turn over in bed. I did everything for her. So not only did I her, I lost my identity because I just don't know how to be normal anymore. Like, that's all I did was take care for her and fight for her and do for her.
And she's been gone for 7, 8 months now, right?
But it feels like yesterday. It's just horrible. Anyway, and so your husband—
you said your husband was financial infidelity. You mean he's been doing all kinds of stuff financially that you didn't know about?
Yes, but he's done it our entire marriage. Like, our entire marriage, he's always— he'll get on eBay and he'll like hundreds of— like lots of money, like thousands of dollars. Currently right now he has one book in his shopping cart that's $6,000. Um, in December of '24 he had $30,000 in all these loan places, like op loans and, um, finance places. And so we sold our oil leases so that we could get out of that debt. We sold our kids' future to clean up his mess. And I told him, if you ever do this again, I'm going to divorce you. Well, of course he did it again, and March, and, and right after our daughter died, he did it again in March. And I just happened to catch it because it went into his per diem account. He works out of town and we have two separate accounts. His check has always gone into our joint account. I immediately transfer it to my account, which I pay the bills with. And I've done that after about the 10th time of all of this stuff he does. That's just how we did it. I didn't care.
That's how it's gonna be. You're not gonna have access to our bills real money. But so anyway, this last loan in March, I got online to check his per diem account to make sure that his per diem had went in, and there was $12,000 in there. And so I called him and I said, what is going on? Oh, I got a loan, I need to buy some books, and yada yada yada. So I went straight to the bank, I pulled out every penny except $100, and I told him, I said, this is what's going to happen here. We're going to pay this loan back, and you're going to sign a partition and exchange agreement and a separate— a special warranty deed putting our house and land, which paid for in my name as my sole and separate property, or I'm going to take this $12,000 and I'm going to buy— hire the best attorney in town and I'm going to get it anyways. And so he agreed. I paid the loan back and he did sign the partition and exchange agreement. Our house that is paid for is in my name. Our land that we owe $23,000 for is in my name.
And I thought all was well. And so then, um, on the 24th of April, we went to a, a retreat for bereaved parents And the whole time he was in my ear about buying a truck. I want to buy a truck. And I'm like, listen, we're here for Matt and Abby. I've lost 2 kids. I've lost 2 children. And anyway, um, after the retreat— I got a lot out of the retreat for me. After the retreat, on the way to the airport, I told him, I said, listen, I want us to fight for our marriage. And I told him, I said, I need you to know that I have stayed all of these years for Abby. And after her passing, when you did this crap in March, I stayed to protect her home because we built this house for her. Everything about it is handicap accessible. And I said, I stayed for her. And I said, I don't have to do either anymore. I don't have to. Like, I need you to fight for our marriage. I love you. The following Monday, last Monday, he went and got another loan, 30% interest, and he bought a truck in another town, another state, for $3,500.
All of these parts are coming in. All the random stuff is coming in.
I'm confused. Okay, so he has a very clear message from you as to what's going to happen, and he does this anyway. So Dr. John Delony says behavior is a language, so he's just saying goodbye, isn't he?
I know. Yes, he is. And so I've spoke with an attorney, and it's going to cost me $3,500.
Yeah, so what?
I, I I'm trying to figure out, I have just a little bit of debt.
I have, um, where's the $12,000 you're just talking about?
He spent it. He opened a separate account where he, cause he works out of town. And so he went to the town in South Carolina.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the other money. You said you had $12,000 cash from the other.
No, I paid the loan back.
I did. Oh, you paid the loan off.
Yes. Because I didn't, I was scared at that point. that is—
well, I mean, Samantha, this is a horrible situation. You all have gone through so much tragedy, and in the midst of that, he's not able to function apparently. And he's always been like this for whatever reason. And, and so you're calling an end to it. And so yeah, that's what you're doing. I mean, yes, there's not— you just— you're gonna go get an attorney, and they're gonna advise you on how to do this. If you didn't sign the loan loan, you are not liable. No, I—
we are both on the loan. The land— the— so our house is paid for. Our— we bought— we bought a separate lot that— our house is on 3 acres. We bought an additional 3 acres.
I'll sell them both. It doesn't matter.
I can't. I can't, Dave.
No, Abby's not there anymore, honey.
I don't— Abby's in heaven. I only owe $23,000. That's it. I know. That's it.
You don't have to live there. I can't.
Yes, you can. No, I'm not. That's not an option. Okay. I just can't do that.
The deal is this. The deal is this. As long as you have that property in his name in any way, shape, or form in Texas, and you're married, you're gonna have a problem. So you've got to decide. I think Abby would want you happy, Samantha. Yeah, and a house doesn't define— Abby's memory doesn't live in a house. Abby's memory lives in your mind and in your heart, and you're in an untenable situation, and you can't use Abby as a reason to stay in a situation where you're being abused— and not physically abused, but financially abused. And you're gonna draw a line in the sand, and there's gonna be some costs that go with that to get you this protection. You may or may not keep the house. I don't know if you can keep it or not. I'm not for sure. But I want you to deal with this and quit trying to make him do stuff. You know, he has told you loud and clear what he's gonna do. If you expect him to change under any circumstances— I mean, if he put all that— if he gave you the deed to everything in the house, and you told him if he ever does it again, you're gonna take it all, and then he goes and does it 3 more times after that, this guy's made a real clear statement.
"This is who I'm gonna "and if you don't like it, tough." And so, now you've got to decide what the rest of your— what the next chapter of your life looks like, what healing looks like over all of this, the marriage and the children and everything.
The purpose for your life. You had an incredible purpose, Samantha, of being a caretaker and what— the mom you were to your daughter. And now, there's another purpose for you in the world. Yep. And to be the healthiest you, Samantha, It is to get out and to find that. Yeah. Next chapter. Next chapter.
Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. One of my best friends in the world, because I read one of his books 25 years ago, reached out to him and we've ended up speaking on stages all over America for the last 25 years together. Been a part of the Ramsey family indirectly for a long, long time. Dr. Henry Cloud, acclaimed author and leadership expert, clinical psychologist, New York Times bestselling author many times over, 45 books including the iconic Boundaries that have sold nearly 20 million copies. I sold at least 2 million of those. He has an extensive executive coaching background and a brand new book out that is one of my favorites that Henry's ever done.
It's called Your Desired Future. Welcome, my friend.
Good to be here. Hi, Henry. Hey there.
Good to see you. Two of my favorite people.
Oh, you say that to all of us. All your podcasters.
Only when it improves in the next generation. Keep it going.
Keep it going. I love you, Henry.
Ah, 5 essential steps that take you where you want to go. I distinctly remember you coming into Ramsey into a leadership meeting about 20 years ago that we were having, and we were arguing about this particular business unit that had the flu. It wasn't doing good. And then you embarrassed me because you said, "Well, what do you want it to be in 5 years?" And I said, "I want it to be making money and profitable." And you went, No kidding. But no, really, what is your desired future for this thing? And that's the first time I think I heard the phrase out of your mouth, desired future. And then what must be true that's not true today for you to get to that desired future? And that not only applies to a business unit that's got the flu, it applies to your health, your marriage, your finances, hello, getting out of debt, all that kind of stuff. So your desired future This is a framework that you've used to coach people, right?
Yeah, companies and individuals. What I did was, you know, there's so much stuff out there that's good stuff, and people go, "I gotta do this and this," but I thought, "Wouldn't it be helpful to have a little model that's a GPS? You wake up every day, you know, if I'm trying to get there, are these 5 things present?" And ask the question, "Is there a universal path for that?" and studied the human body, the most incredible organism to getting from here to there. And Dave was amazing. You know, the brain, the prefrontal cortex starts out with a vision. We're the only ones that can see a future that doesn't exist. A dog doesn't do that. And then it gathers a team, the talent that's gonna need 'em to get there, you know, your arms and legs. And then it says, well, how am I gonna get there? Well, call an Uber. Well, not to go across the room. You're gonna get the right strategy with a plan. And you gotta— your brain, it creates a measurement and accountability system. And you start walking that plan, you get off and it fixes you. And that path has components to it that are really, really crucial.
Yeah, that are so helpful. And this can be applied to every part of your life, right?
Yeah.
These 5 steps. It's a mom getting the kids in the van, in school on time. Or seriously, I have clients global companies, billions and billions that use this as their operating system. And I mean, you guys, this is— when I looked at Financial Peace, you know, years ago, I said, Dave, this works because it's designed in the way that people get from here to there. And all the components are there.
And the 5 components, it starts with vision, which is, I guess, the desired future, right?
It is. And here's what's interesting about your brain, the way it's wired. Wired, the brain hates ambiguity. It can't stand it because it doesn't know what to do.
It loves clarity. Even if it's bad news, it likes bad news that's clear. It's better than no news.
That's right. Because once it has clarity about where I am now and I don't want to be there and I got to get somewhere else, it starts to activate these systems that bring everybody to the party to actually get there. But if you don't have clarity, I mean, I've heard quote stats from the stage. What's the number of people that write down their goals? Was it 80% more likely? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you're giving your brain clarity.
That's why the baby steps, I feel like, in our world are so effective because it's like, step 1, get $1,000. Step 2, get out of debt. Step 3, it's a— it's an obvious pathway of a vision of where you want to go.
With measurement accountability that asks the question. Once you've defined the specific activities that are going to move to move the needle. Then you've got to ask yourself on a regular cadence, am I doing what I said I was going to do? Mm-hmm. And if I'm not, I got to correct that problem, which we all have problems. We miss a day. But if you don't correct it quickly, it becomes a pattern. Patterns are mutations in the strategy that become your DNA, and DNA becomes identity. So I'm not a person that missed a payment. I'm a person that misses payments, you got to fix it quickly.
Yeah. So what must be true that's not true now? And one of the things, one of the 5 things is, do you have the talent around you or within yourself to, you know, in a business setting, you know, do we have the right people on the team to be able to pull the thing off that we just said we wanted to pull off?
That's right.
And if you look at them and you go, that bunch isn't going to get us there, That's right. Then you got to get different people on the team. Well, what about when it's an individual and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and going, I don't have that talent?
Well, we don't usually. I mean, whatever— even if you wanted to— let's say you want to lose 50 pounds. Well, you've been trying and it's not working, so obviously all the talent isn't present. And so what do you do? You go bring the talent around you. Who's that going to be? Well, it could— you— it could be one you pay for. It could be Weight Watchers. It could be a coach. It could be a trainer. It could be Uncle Sam, who— not that Sam, Uncle Joey. Uncle Sam's probably not going to help you do anything.
Uncle Sam help you lose weight? For sure. I'm a wallet.
But you're going to— we were not designed to get anywhere by ourself. If there's somewhere you can get by yourself, somebody else helped you to get that ability to begin with. So, you got to find out where are the deficits and who do I need to bring to the party that can help me. And that's what people in debt do with you guys. They find the talent that's gonna help 'em get there.
Yeah, so good. Okay, so when people are, when they look out there and they have a goal and they think, "Here's what I wanna do," and that could be, again, bettering your marriage, that could be a health goal, that could be a money goal, whatever that looks like, or even within business, what's a mistake people make all the time that you're like, "Oh, this, if they knew one of these 5 things or if they were doing this differently," differently, they probably wouldn't make it as much or at all.
The biggest mistake besides the vision, I mean, you gotta know where you're going. But the biggest mistake is they're like my dog Finley. She's got a job, she's got a goal, it's to protect the house. Stranger comes to the door, she runs the house and barks, but she never stops and says, I wonder if that was helpful. Is that gonna get me closer to where I wanna be on Thursday? So the biggest mistake is they don't if they don't get above what they're doing and ask the question, "Is this going to work? Are the ingredients present that are gonna get me there?" What we do is we just continue to go in our own patterns. The caller earlier that I heard when I was in the green room, he wants to start a business. If he started a business, which you, Gosha, you gotta start, he would just go do the way he's already wired. And a lot of times, until we learn something and we do things the way we're already wired, good luck. Good luck with that.
Yeah. What must be true that's not true today? And, you know, is it— do I need more talent around me? Do I need some education that I don't have? You need impulse control. Impulse control. Yeah. I mean, what must be true that's not been true so far? What pattern, what set of movements have to change to get to the desired future? Because if there— if something didn't need to change, you'd already be there. You'd already be there.
We wouldn't be— I mean, you know how to find lunch. Right? But look, here's a good example. When, you know, Tom Brady's got at this time 5 or 6 Super Bowl rings, and Tampa Bay hadn't been to the playoffs in 14 years, called him and said, come down here and win a Super Bowl. Well, he knows how to do that. He can have a vision for that. But the first thing he did was he looked at that team. What's not true today— looked at that team. You're not going to win a Super Bowl with that talent. There's 4 positions that are missing. He picked up the phone, recruited the talent, "Bring this one in next." And they won the Super Bowl the next year. And got the people around them.
It wasn't just Brady.
No, it wasn't just Brady. It's not your own talent. That's right. That's right.
That's good. There's something missing. The new book, Is Your Desired Future? We'll be back with Dr. Henry Cloud, talk a little bit more about it. The 5 essential steps that take you where you want to go.
Hey guys, George Campbell here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it? You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles? Just me? Okay. Well, that's the problem. Most people don't pay attention to how they spend their money, so it does whatever it it wants. And that's why we created EveryDollar. It's a budgeting app that helps you create a simple plan for your money. EveryDollar's simple, it's clear, and it helps track where your money's actually going. Plus, you get daily lessons, to-dos, and reminders along the way. It's like having a money coach in your pocket. Your money's been freelancing long enough. It's time to give EveryDollar a full-time job. Go download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play.
Dr. Henry Cloud, the new book is called Your Desired Future: The Five Essential Steps to Take You Where You Want to Go. So step one is you gotta know what the desired future is. That's called vision. Step two is what?
Step two is you gotta engage the talent, bring the talent around you that's gonna help you get there. Step three? Step three is you gotta know how you're gonna get there, and that's a strategy with a plan. A plan. Okay.
So in our world, that would be the Baby Steps. That'd be the Baby Steps.
And the, but the plan tells you when you're going to implement those, who you're gonna meet with, you know, you gotta get to—
Every detail.
Every activity that's gonna move the needle. Everything else is— I'm gonna go to the gym 3 days a week.
There you go. Strategy is I'm gonna increase my water intake, decrease my sugar intake, so on, right?
Yeah. And, and the debt side, you're gonna pay down this a month. This amount every month. And then you gotta step forward, measurement accountability of that. Are you doing what you said you were gonna do? And if you're not, then you better ask the question, why not? And solve that problem and then fix it quickly.
So I've heard it said, I think it was an old Earl Nightingale quote, that when it comes to goal setting, and all this is is a detailed approach to actually implementing and causing the goal to happen. To happen, not just setting it. It's not as simple as setting it. But he used to say that doing what it takes to hit the goal is not usually people's problem. It's what they have to give up. A lot of times, yeah. They don't understand what they're going to have to give up to get there. That's right. The trade-off is what the— the negative trade-off is the real price to be paid to get to your desired future.
That's right. Because usually the things we have to give up, there's an emotional attachment attachment, or there's some sort of immediate gratification in it. It feels good to go make that impulse buy. It feels good to eat that hot fudge sundae. It feels good to avoid that difficult conversation. It feels good to not have to make 100 sales calls. And there's that kind of immediate comfort or gratification, or there's an avoidance of something difficult. You know, a lot of times, difference in people that reach goals and the ones that don't, it's not brains and talents and abilities. It's some are willing to do the things the other people don't want to do. And the number one factor that loads on the accomplishment of a goal is not motivation, because that will wane. Now, it's important, but your motivation's gonna go up and down. Mm-hmm. Is the belief that it's possible. The belief that it's possible. And the little incremental steps that bring that about. One of the things that you guys— I keep talking about you guys because you've been doing this well for so long. There are so many people that are drowning in debt.
How am I going to— it's impossible. It's possible. And then they turn this on and they see somebody who was in more debt than them come and do the scream. And what are they What do they do? Their prefrontal cortex kicks in and says, "Wait, it's possible. Now, I can check that one off. Now, I just gotta get the plan." But if your brain doesn't believe that, that's why testimonies are so powerful. And being— just getting out of your circle. Some people grow up in poverty or belief systems and you can't make money if you don't have money and all this junk in their head. You gotta get out of that circle even to begin to have a vision for what's possible. That's why you gotta surround yourself with people that have done it and are doing it. Then it becomes possible. Now I gotta get curious about how they do it.
Yeah, and creating the new habits around it. And what you said about the comfort, you're having to give up what's comfortable. Michael Easter was on the show last week talking about The Comfort Crisis, his book, and how— Oh, gosh. Yeah, when you do anything difficult, you're gonna feel that stress, you're gonna feel that tension, tension. But most of the time, that result ends up being a better situation for your life than where you were. But yet, in our world today, in 2026, I'm like, "The comfort's everywhere, though, right?" We get to set the degrees that we want in the room. We get to listen to the music we want, when we want it, watch what we want. I mean, it's just, we can Amazon. I mean, like, the amount of comfort we have today— On demand. On demand, personalized to us of what we want, our algorithms, everything. Like, it is wild. To get out of that? Do you feel like it's harder today than ever before? It's—
you know, one of the ones that scares me the most is the parental comfort. Mm. It is a lot more comfortable to hand your kid an iPad to shut him up than to step in there and have some limits and some boundaries and go through that temper tantrum or whatever you gotta do. And we have a generation generation of kids that have grown up that have not heard the word no and had to deal with the discomfort of hearing the word no and the structure. And that one scares me.
Interesting. From a generational standpoint. From a generational. Yeah.
This is the first two generations that we've ever had a parent call when we're interviewing someone for a job. We're doing a job interview and the parent gets involved. Oh, in your company?
Yeah. The parent—
Yeah, the mother of the 24-year-old will call. And say what? Like, they applied? They want to influence the process. Oh. They want to help.
Yeah, it's a little late for that, Mom. You should have influenced that process years ago.
Yeah. No, I mean, they want to help Junior get a job. And, you know, but instead they just, you know, they did just the opposite by calling. Because I don't— that makes me think, "I don't think I want this guy." No, because you got to hire Mom too to get to work.
That's right. That's That's right.
But yeah, but stepping out of the comfort, I think, is a big one for people today to achieve the goal that you're talking about and what you're talking about in this book.
What gets better that has value? Name one thing of value that gets better without pain first.
Some kind of price, yep. We can—
there's two paths. There's easy and then it's gonna become harder, or there's hard now and then it'll be a lot easier. Those are the only two roads you can go down. Pick your pain. You can have a little now and a lot more later, later, or you can have, you know, yes, the other side where you take a little pain now. It hurts to pay down that debt a little bit each week, but look what you're going to have later. That's right.
Pay a price to win. Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness.
That's it. I have watched this boy right here in the last 5 years. I played golf with him. You talk about That boy and everybody with him was going— I mean, we're looking for balls in swamps and places they don't let people.
Where is he?
What's his name? And it was painful. And he would just hit it and then he was awful and then he'd go do it again. And but he put a strategy together. He got— and I'm playing with him now. It's unbelievable. But he had to go through the pain first.
And we shared it, but we love it. Okay, Henry, I think one of my— Dave said it in the last episode, last segment, one of the— my— your favorite— one of my favorite books for you is Boundaries. And you talk about necessary endings. There's been a couple of these. Um, what caused you to write this book? Because you have been in the relation— you were in the relational, right, counseling world for so long too. And moving kind of more to the business side as well with people. But why specifically? What need did you see that you're like, I need to write this book?
The need for people wanting to get somewhere, whether in business or, or personally, but not having just a simple path of how it works. And it applies to everything. You know, if you look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they both had a vision similar. You look at how the styles were very different, but these 5 elements were present in both. And if you can just have a simple path, then it's easy to get up in the morning and say, "Okay, are these things in place?" Mm-hmm.
That's what it is. Just to be clear. The clear message. I love it. So good.
Very good stuff. The new book is Your Desired Future: The 5 Essential Steps That Will Take You Where You Want to Go. And my big takeaway, Henry and I've worked together on this and we worked a little bit with Pat Lencioni too on a modified model that he and I used as well as we put all this together, as Henry put all this together, but we stole pieces of this. And the whole thing I get to is just, okay, this is where I desire to be, what must be true that's not true today. Positively, what must I gain, but also what must I give up to get to where I need to be, to get to that vision, and then lay out the clear steps, put the talent in place, and then hold and measure accountability, and then don't let the patterns shift off of the goal. Dr. Henry Cloud, my friend, thank you for hanging out with us. Hey, Kyle, it's good to be with you always. Thanks, Henry. Is your desired future. It's absolutely amazing.
Hey, George Campbell here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about, and all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news: you don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start-to-finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com/realestate. That's ramseysolutions.com/realestate.
Our Scripture of the Day, Psalms 37:21, "The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives." Bob Hope said, "A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove you don't need it." Somewhat true. Hey, buying or selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to find the best deal for the right price. The Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust who will help make your home a blessing and not a burden. It's easy. Just compare agent profiles, interview them, and choose the right one to work with. We don't put anybody on Ramsey Trusted that's not Ramsey Trusted. Yeah, you can find a real estate pro for free at ramsaysolutions.com/agent and click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. John is in Boston. Hey John, how are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Better than I deserve. Dave, what's up? Uh, that's good to hear.
Yeah, so I am in a kind of a precipice with my job right now. So I am working in finance. I'm making a good living, but I'm considering quitting it to do my YouTube full-time, which has been pretty successful lately. So the instability of it worries me and I'm not sure if I should make the jump on it.
Gotcha. What do you make at the finance job?
So right now I'm pulling about $90K after bonuses. And what's the YouTube income?
Looking like?
So recently it's been about $250,000, but this hasn't been like this— I've only been doing this for a few years. It hasn't been like this consistently enough.
But, uh, but you made twice as much.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just, I, I worry that, you know, with the instability of how my income goes up and down each month, um, I've even had a scare where I almost lost the channel and YouTube could just go poof overnight.
Okay, that's true. Even though they might not go poof, but they might poof you.
Yeah, my channel specifically. Yeah, that could happen.
That's gonna stay around. That's happened to better people than you. Yeah. And so, um, good job though. Yes, you ought to work on the YouTube. What— I mean, you're able to pull off a quarter of a million dollars. What advantage would you have if you were working full-time time at it. What could you do?
I've considered trying to expand it. I've also kind of plateaued in terms of what I can do on the channel. I've tried everything I could. Um, and so what advantage is there to quitting?
You're financially—
I'd be a lot happier.
Okay, I wouldn't be working all the time. Okay, but it doesn't really add revenue. It doesn't add revenue.
No, it's mainly because I know with the finance job I'm in a great career path. Long term, I'm gonna be set for life. Like, I will be financially sound. And, you know, I'm at a point in my life where soon enough I'm probably gonna want to settle down, buy a house. I want to have a consistent income and know that, you know, when I'm 40, 50, whatever, I'm still—
your YouTube income is as consistent as you are for the next 5 5 years.
Okay. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
And unless you do something to poison pill yourself, okay, you say something or do something that gets you banned for life, right? That kind of a thing. But as long as you stay, you know, keep your nose clean, so to speak, you know, you're gonna be fine. The thing that— the biggest danger there is twofold of, you know, you're a finance guy, so you're not— when you're— you have one platform platform that you're doing everything on, you're not well diversified, so you are completely subject to the whims of the YouTube algorithm, and they do change every day. Correct. We've had literally billions of downloads on YouTube, so our guys really know what they're doing here at Ramsey with this stuff. And so we make a lot more than $250 on it. But it's also, we made the decision to be platform agnostic and not be exclusive exclusively stuck to this one particular thing. So we didn't buy one single stock, we want to be diversified and have a mutual fund. You follow the metaphor?
Yeah, yeah.
So you need other places to be doing whatever this wonderful thing is that's getting all these eyeballs, like a podcast platform. Spotify also now has video. You need to have other places carrying you, and that stabilizes you. And you need to be very aware of everything that's changing. TikTok now is video. Everything is changing every day in all of the platforms and be following the trends. But don't put, don't make, don't move all the house chips on one platform. Don't bet the farm on one platform. That's your danger right now. Right. If you had a more diversified platform strategy, strategy and had worked that out, you'd be a lot safer. And as YouTube becomes a thing of the past, becomes the MySpace of the day, right? And someday it will. Every, every one of these technologies— Twitter was a big deal and then it wasn't, and now it's trying to be again. But I mean, these things come and go. As long as you're not dependent on one of them and you know the next one to jump onto, then you're not going to get eaten by the alligators. So if you can do that, whatever it is, whatever piece of content you're doing that's producing that kind of income is going to be valuable on other platforms.
So I would diversify my platforms and then I would quit.
Yeah, and I assume, John, the content you're putting out, you love, would you say? Like you're good at it, it's a passion, it's fun?
Oh yeah, I definitely, I have a lot of fun doing it, which I don't hate my day job.
But if you're making 3 or 4 times your day job, you can't call your day job stable compared, because you got to screw this up for 4 freaking years to break even as your break-even analysis. If you're making $400 because you've got more platforms going and you're making $100 on the other, you got 4 years of margin to screw up. That's not unstable. That's like saying I can make $150,000 as a CPA in the open market, but I want to make $40,000 working for the state government because it's stable. Well, that's not stable. That's just mathematically stupid. You follow me? Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they could fire me at any time. Exactly.
So in that sense, it's also— Exactly. And you're only as secure as your ability to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home at any time. All of us are. All right. And so can you go get another position and do something else with another platform? And if you've got multiple platforms, then you're not handcuffed, golden handcuffed to one of the platforms.
Are you married, John?
No, he said he wanted to settle down later, right?
Oh, not yet. Okay.
Yeah, I'm in my mid-20s, so hopefully within the next few years.
Yeah, I was just curious.
Now the other thing is this, we haven't discussed the content, and I'm not going to because I don't want to get into that with you, but is the content a fad?
Not necessarily.
It has ups and downs.
Okay, like we had a guy, we got a friend named Jimmy. What's Jimmy's last name? The generosity guy? What? Darts. Darts. Jimmy Darts. Jimmy's making a bazillion dollars and he's got a generosity play on— thing on YouTube that's massive. He's killing it. It's massive. Generosity is not fad. He does this wonderful thing, giving, creates giving situations, helps people, all this stuff, and it's fabulous content.
But like making slime, that was a fad 2 years ago. All the kids were doing it, and now not as much.
Yeah, so yeah, it's a good point. Whatever you're doing, it can't be something that's gonna— that the actual content is not— what we do is gonna— people are gonna be in debt as long as there are people, so we're not gonna run out of material, you know. We're not gonna run out of a lot of content. And so our stuff is what we call evergreen in the business, in content business, okay? So you want— as long as you're evergreen and you got multiple platforms, you don't confuse that with stability. You have stability because you have talent at that point. It's good. Yeah, good job, man. Very cool.
That's exciting. Neat discussion. Well, and I would always think too, in the back of my mind, if all this, you know, whatever, went went poof in 4 years, his knowledge of finance and what he, if he had to go back into the workforce and do it, he could. You know what I mean? You're in your mid-20s. Yeah, finance doesn't change. You can do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So even what you've been doing in your day job, Jon, gives you a little bit of that kind of back pocket, get out of free jail card in a way that you're like, okay, if it all does— 5 years from now, 2 2 still gonna equal 4. I can plug back in. Yeah.
Excellent. Yeah, dadgum. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like if you had a CPA, Accounting is not gonna change.
That's right. Yeah.
You know, it's the same kind of thing.
Your book of business might change a little bit.
Now, you might not be viewed as having a fresh resume or whatever, but you can get moving again on it. And so, you got a good fallback. And that knowledge of that world should give you some business insights, some business acumen into managing your new digital career. Very cool. Great, John.
How fun. Good luck with it all. Hey, man.
I hope you do wonderful. Things with it. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily to the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.
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