Transcript of Take Ownership Of Where Your Life Is Headed

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and 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, Ken Coleman. Ramsey personality. Number one best-selling author is my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Suzanne is going to start this off in Chicago. Hi, Suzanne. How are you?

Hi. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Me, too. Okay, my daughter and her husband have been living in New York City for several years and, of course, paying exorbitant rent per But their goal is to someday move out of the city, purchase a home. But for right now, their jobs require them to stay in New York. They've now decided that they want to purchase property there to live in and hopefully gain some equity to put toward a house someday. Okay, so normally I would think, Okay, that's fine. But with the current mayor and the administration there, I'm just not so sure this is a good idea. Because that administration is called Property Ownership, and I'm quoting, a weapon of white supremacy. He also said they want to, and I'm quoting again, establish a community land trust to gradually buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership. So everyone's saying, Oh, no, that'll never happen. You're overreacting. But things have happened that I never foresaw. I'm just nervous that my daughter and her husband, let's say if they bought property, would not be able to sell it profitably in the years to come if this happens, if it turns into communal property.

So Am I wrong to discourage them or am I overreacting, like they say?

That's interesting. I'm 65 years old. How old are you?

Seventy-three.

Because I agreed with your statement, there's things that have happened in this world that I never dreamed I would see. Right. Some of them have been normalized, and I'm really never dreamed I would see that. But worse than that, you're evil if you thought that something that was completely freaking crazy has been normalized, and you say it's crazy. When you say it out loud, you're a horrible person, and you should be sent straight to hell. This is a weird world we live in for old people like me. Me, too. Yeah. But what I try to do on the show, and Ken does, too, and all of our guys here, we try to answer the question, what would I do if I were in your shoes? Would I personally buy a property in New York City today in this uncertain environment?

Yeah.

What I would have to weigh out is whether or not this gober can actually pull off some of this stupid butt stuff he's trying to do. If I thought he could pull it off, there's no way I would do it. If I thought it's just a pipe dream and there's no chance that socialism survives in New York City, then that it's just crazy and it's hyped up in the news and it gives Fox News something to talk about, all that stuff. If I thought that, then I would just buy and just move on and not worry about it because most things work their way out, particularly real estate ends up working its way out. But it doesn't work its way out if you start stealing property from the private property owner in the name of virtue.

Well, that's what happened in Venezuela.

Well, we're not a Banana Republic yet. What are they planning?

What is the current thing that they're looking at? Where, what, how much?

Why don't they just step out of the city itself and go buy out on the island or out at Westchester or something? Just step out of New York.

They like being right close to work.

I bet they like it. But I don't think... Matter of fact, I don't think they're going to do anything you and I say, too, by the way. I think they're going to do whatever they're going to do after this conversation. That's true. We're probably wasting our breath, but it's an interesting discussion.

If it were your daughter, you would say- I would say I wouldn't do it today.

I'm going to let some of this flame out or gin up. If it flames out, I'm going to buy. If it gens up, I'm walking out of there. Okay. So same thing's happening with Guber Newsom. He's adding one more reason to leave California. Yeah. Okay, the billionaire tax. It isn't actually him. I take that back. He's come out against it, some of the other communists over there. So there's like, We're going to tax billionaires. Let me help you with this. You can't tax billionaires. They leave.

Right.

And they've been leaving your state like Like a Baptist after a casserole. I mean, they've been getting out of there. It doesn't work. But then if you say, I can tell you, I have five, six friends in Nashville that are billionaires that are all former California, and they paid cash for multimillion dollar houses with what they saved on California income tax the first year that they left there. I know one guy that owns a winery over there. It's the only asset he's got left over there, and he gives all the wine away every year because he refuses to pay California a dime. He gives it all to charity.

I think he announced the New York City budget, I think it was yesterday or the day before, and it exceeds the entire state of Florida. I think it was 127 billion or something. He said, Well, how are you going to fund that? Well, he said, Not just the billionaires, I'm going to tax everybody. Yeah.

We're welcome to Socialism. Yeah. He told you what he was going to do, and then you elected him, so you get what you pay for.

That's right. But again, things that I That would never happen, Dave.

It has happened. I don't know. I have to watch myself because I get all gend up and hyped up myself and my drama queen kicks in. Then a lot of this stuff flames out, and these people, they just go their yesterday's memory of something stupid. If that happens, you're going to... New York real estate has obviously been a wonderful investment for 100 years. As long as this flames out. I might give it a hot minute and see if it flames out or not. I'd probably just push the pause button, but it's not like I'm running out of here with my hair on fire because the whole place is going to hell. I don't think that's going to happen. Not quick, anyway. It's harder to turn a ship that size than he thinks it is.

I really hope you're right. You would say- I would just say, wait a minute.

Why don't you honestly would go out to Westchester and get outside the city and buy something and shut up? How am I going to live downtown, I'll get you a dead gum car, get a car service and go downtown. Then you don't get your property confiscated by a Communist. I mean, I mean, that's not that hard a decision, but they're giving you... Again, they're not going to do any of this, Susan. They're going to do whatever they're going to do. They're not going to listen to you or me. We're just boomers. What do we know? When I'm analyzing something like this, Ken, I always just say, Okay, what is the risk? If the risk is high enough, I may want to just pause a second and let's just see what happens.

Yeah, my advice for Susan is dovetailing off what you said. If you just go in there and you tell, tell, tell, there's a low probability that your adult kid is going to go with your advice. I think you've got to take the posture of asking, and so not tell. I can tell you're fired up and you have to reserve the right to be fired up. But that's going to go in one ear and out the other. If I'm you, I would be asking really good, thoughtful, critical questions, not with an opinion attached to the question, but enough that they lose sleep night. This is the form of a good interview. If you're doing customer interviews, you want to create questions that customers sit with or somebody you're interviewing for a job, same deal here. I think your only hope of influencing them is actually walk them through the financial case, the risk, the far term, the short term, and just ask questions, and hopefully, they have enough discernment and common sense to see some of the red flags that you see. I think that's the approach I take as a parent.

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I'm good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I am a single mom living in a toxic environment, and I make 1,200 a month right now. How do I get out of this?

What is a toxic environment?

I'm staying with my mom. I have two kids, and I'm staying with my mom right now because I couldn't figure out a way to get myself stable housing for me and my kids.

Okay. And so she lets you stay there, but she's a jerk?

Pretty much.

Is that what toxic environment means or is there something else going on?

Well, I was married and got divorced 10 years ago when my daughter was born. She didn't believe me about how He was abusive. He was. I was living with her after I got divorced, and she ended up moving him into the house without telling me.

Is he there now?

No, he's in jail.

Well, there's that.

He should be going to He should be going to prison for a while.

Why?

So. Cfc charges against my daughter as well as- Okay.

Does she believe that now since he got arrested?

She does, but she keeps saying, I can't believe it. I just never saw it.

Yeah, well, she didn't like being wrong. Okay. So- And it's- Wow.

She doesn't let me parent my kids either.

Okay, so the answer to your question is economic. It's your income, isn't it?

Yeah.

What I was trying to establish is there's not an emergency. There's just an unpleasant human being I want to get away from.

Yeah, pretty much.

Well, the emergency is in jail. Yeah. Yeah. So now we're down to an unpleasant mother who's not real bright. Okay. But obviously, the issue is your income sucks, right?

Yeah.

So what are we doing about that, Ken?

Well, I want to know what you're doing now. Where are you getting the income?

Well, I have two jobs. I work about three nights a week cleaning a medical facility for 17: 50 an hour, which ends up being about 800 a month. And then I have a job at a chain store. I get 15, 50 an hour, and I work one or two days a week, and I'm also taking two college classes.

Okay, well, we need to probably pause the college classes. I'll come back to that in a minute, But most likely we're pausing that because the college classes will be there. What do you need? If we could wave a wand right now and give you take home pay of what? What's that number that would allow you to move out of mom's house and also have some margin living somewhere else?

Well, if I want to stay where I am, I would need 4,000. But if I move where I want to move, I could make it on 1,500 to 2,000 a month.

I really like that. What's keeping us from moving where you want to?

Well, I have to finish out school.

No, you don't.

For this semester. No, you don't. If I drop out of college, I lose my fund. I get the Pell grant, I get scholarships, and if I drop out, I'm afraid I will never get out.

Okay, let me put it this way. Do you want to continue to have a miserable life and be behind the eight ball and all the negative things you're experiencing just because of these classes and these grants that I'm telling you to pause anyway? I think you take the We take the loss. We take the loss on the college classes, and we move to a better place. We reduce our expenses, we get on our feet, and we start a new life. You've been in a massive crisis mode.

A full-time job. Full-time. Forty hours. That is a career. Forty hours a week. You work two part-time jobs now.

And barely making anything.

Yeah. You need a full-time job in a new place. Then when we get things moving and there's groceries and lights and rents paid, then we'll think about classes later. Okay. How far- By the way, if you make $80,000 a year, you don't need a Pell grant.

But how am I going to make $80,000 a year?

I don't know yet, but we hadn't got there. We just got started on this 10 minutes ago.

We got to get stable before we start planning for the long term. But let's just go there for 30 seconds.

Don't plan to be poor, is my point.

What are you taking these classes for? What path was it putting you on?

Bachelor's degree.

I know. In what?

Wildlife or Environmental conservation.

Why?

I looked it up, but it's something that I would enjoy doing in a 60 to 80,000 a year. Okay, great.

Doing what?

Who cares if it's 60 to 80?

No, no. Who pays 60 to 80,000 for a wildlife? What in the world? What are you talking about? You're going to work at the zoo?

Well, you could. I mean, there's lots of different- State parks and lots of things.

Yeah.

Yeah, lots of things, especially the state that I would like to move to.

Okay. Which is where?

Arkansas.

Okay. So I'd be talking to them, for instance, the Park Interact Department of the State, about what they need to have somebody hire. And that can become your long-term goal. And your short-term goal is to get there and get a job and have money for food. That's right. And get away from all this craziness.

What you might find is that when I move to Arkansas, and maybe I'm working at Target or Walmart or whatever, but I'm making good money, I've got some benefits. Then I start to look at what are the non-degree jobs in the Arkansas Wildlife Department? Every state has a Natural Resources Department. So there are government jobs all across the board. I know this because I work for the governor of Virginia. So there are jobs in Arkansas that are adjacent to the ultimate job you want that you might need a degree for. So you're thinking about a ladder right now. Ladder number one, get to Arkansas, 40 hours a week, good pay, get margin, lower my expenses, Get healthy. Getting a good church. Step two, I look, where can I get into a non-degree job in the Department of Natural Resources?

Oh, and by the way, they have a program that pays for tuition. You don't need a Pell grant.

So It's doable, but you got to move, right? You got to make the first step. Move.

The reason you're stuck is you have no income.

Yeah.

That's why you're stuck.

When I move, should I rent or buy?

Rent. You're broke.

Get a roommate.

Rent the cheapest thing you can rent.

I cannot get a roommate.

Okay, bad idea, but it at least had to be said.

I don't know why you can't get a roommate. All roommates aren't evil sex abusers. That's right. Just the one you picked last time. You can definitely get a roommate. Just because your mother's a fruit loop and you were hanging out with a guy who abused your daughter, that doesn't mean all people are that way. You just ran into a couple of losers in a row. But that doesn't mean all humans are that way. There's great people out there that need a place to stay and would love being around a lady who's trying to get herself together. Anyway, quit saying, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, and figure out how you can. I can't do this because I'm going to lose a Pell grant. Well, whoopty-doopty. We just told you why you don't even need it. Then let's get up and get going and get some income coming in. Otherwise, you're going to sit there and talk about what this is and what this isn't. But I'm getting out of there if I'm you. Yeah.

Again, back to the roommate thing and why we suggest that now we take $1,500, which will be your greatest expense, and we cut that in half. Margin for you financially right now is going to turn into emotional freedom. Emotional freedom is going to turn into confidence. I'm I'm telling you, Dave and I can hear it on you, you need some confidence. That's why we're telling you this move is going to absolutely generate confidence. You're a mama bear. Nobody's stopping you. You're going to take care of those kiddos or your child. You've got to channel that. That's where this will all take place, is when you actually move, things will move in your favor.

It is about hope. It is about believing that there's a chance that if I do these three things, one of these things is going to work. Somehow this is going to work. But in a 100% chance, this is going to get worse if you sit there. If you sit and poop, it's 100% chance it's going to smell. A hundred % chance. You got to get up and go, I'm not sitting in this stuff. I'm going to go do something else. I'm going to completely move. I'm not going here anymore. But that's a... Again, there's a belief that Ken is I'm talking about that comes with that, a confidence that comes with that. It will be multiplied as you start to have some wins, because it's been a little while since you had a check in the win column. Most of your checks are in the losing column. You need some checks over in the side where I win. I won that one. I won that one. I won that one. If I'm you, I'm working 16 jobs right now, piling up some money, loading the car up with the kids and the clothes, and I'm heading to Arkansas.

There you go. Just like that.

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Come on there for just more of that. I think America wants more of that accent. That's great.

The hillbilly Jamaican accent. Yeah, I like that. You can't get those just anywhere. No, no. You have to work years to develop that. Ramseysolutions. Com/events. You can book a cabin right now. We'd love to have you guys go with us. That's going to be a lot of fun. John's in Charlotte. Hey, John, how are you?

Good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Me and my wife, we're new to Ramsey. We just got the Every Dollar app, plugging things in. Good. And we want to get out of debt as efficient and quickly as possible. We have about 40,000 consumer debt on credit cards, 69,000 on a vehicle, and we make about $210,000 a year.

How much money do you have in the bank that's not retirement?

We have $17,000 in savings right now. That's it. I was wondering also, should I sell my truck?

Probably.

I'll kickstart this off.

Yeah, probably. I mean, it's the glaring problem in the numbers, isn't it?

Yeah, pretty much.

So here's the formula, okay? I have a truck that I love, and I'm guessing you like this truck. Yes. Okay, good. That's fair. It's okay to like your truck. I got a raptor R, and it's a freaking beast. I love it. I wouldn't want to sell it. I don't want you to sell your truck. But here's the that we use. What we've determined from 30 plus years of doing all this stuff is if you have a car that is keeping you from getting out of debt within two years, 100% debt-free, except your house within two years, then you need to sell the car. What I'm going to do on that basis, if I'm in your shoes, if you're going to use that as your measure, and I suggest you do, is you sit down and you say, Okay, we're going to live on beans and rice, rice and beans. We're not going on vacation. We're not going out to eat. And We're not up about buying anything. We're getting out of debt. Scorched freaking earth. Okay? No life. We're chopping up the credit cards tonight. We're going to light some candles and have a plastic surgery party.

No credit cards. No debt, no fun. All we do is work and get out of debt. If we do that making $200,000 a year, and we lived on $100,000 a year, you would be debt-free in one year.

Wow.

Okay? That's That's the numbers, right? You have 69 plus 40. You have 109,000 in debt. If you're unwilling to cut your freaking lifestyle out of 200 grand far enough to pay off 109,000 within two years, then yes, you should sell your truck, but you're probably not going to make it, even if you sell your truck because you're not willing to cut out the stupid butt stuff you've been doing that got you here.

Yeah, I think we're ready now.

Good. I think you are. I think I hear it in your voice. That's why I said that. I wouldn't have been that mean to somebody I didn't think you got it. I might, but probably not today. Fifty-fifty chance. Yeah. But I think you got it, man. What I'm going to do, if I'm you, is I'm going to say, We're going to go hardcore on this. We're going to drive to ground. We're going to try I'm going to work extra. We're not going on vacation. No, we're not buying a couch. No, we're not buying a fill in the blank other than food. Okay? We're going to feed the family. We are going to have a little bit of Christmas, but this family has been on more than we make, which is absurd. We're not in Congress. We have to stop this. When you and your wife get that, and then you start putting that in the EveryDollar app, and it translates into margin in the math that That passion that I'm using in my voice right now translates to margin in the math. You say, Okay, we're going to find $8,000, $6,000, $10,000, whatever it is, a month to put on this, and we're going to be done in 14 months or nine months.

Or you start mapping it out, then you keep the truck. Is it worth that level of sacrifice to keep this truck? It might be. It's probably a pretty good truck. Or you're like, I don't know if I want to give up that much. I'd rather give up the truck. Okay, that's cool. Give up the truck then.

Yeah, the truck, KGB has it at $52,000. It's paid off. So I'm thinking if I just sell it, then maybe It can take us less than a year to get out of this, right?

You'd be out of debt in 20 minutes if you got a $10,000 truck. 52 minus a $10,000 truck pays off the credit cards. You're done. But you still got to fix your freaking spending problem, right? Yeah. You still got to learn to live on a lesson you make. You still got to not be waving those credit cards around like their money.

Yeah, those are done.

Yeah. But you see what I'm saying? If you go that route, that's the shortcut out. But make sure you fix the thing all all the way at the source so you're never back here again.

Right. I got you.

Hey, how old are you?

I appreciate that.

Thirty-five. What do you do for a living?

I'm a truck driver.

John, I think you're going to do this. I think you got the ability to do this. I don't care which way you go. I'll tell you what you could do. Here's a third suggestion. The suggestion one is gut it out like I talked about. Suggestion two, sell the truck like you talked about, and you're out now. Suggestion three could be a medium. Let's try this for a few months and see how much progress We can make, and maybe we can keep the truck. But if we try it for a couple of months and everybody's whining, and everybody's barking, and everybody's chirping, then we still got to fix the spending, but we got to sell the truck. You could try it for three months, hard core, and see how much progress you make, see how encouraged you and the spouse become. Then that's okay. I'm okay if you sell it. It doesn't make me mad at all. But if you want to gut it out, as long as you pay it off in under two years, and the credit cards, and you fix the problem, I'm okay.

Yeah, I think you ought to do what Dave says, and I think you ought to try it for 90 days and hold on to the emotion of that truck. You like the truck. You're going to say yes to the truck by saying no to everything else you've been doing. That's the mindset switch you've got to do. I actually like that, Dave.

I like that approach because you don't- Because it resets your brain.

Yeah, you don't feel the sacrifice if you just sell the truck immediately. We know that you can always go back to it. But here's the deal. 40,000 in debt. We didn't ask his income. He said it's 200. Was it 200? I'm sorry, I missed it. The point is that could be paid off really quickly anyway. I like the idea of going... It's like losing weight. It's like saying, I want to lose 50 pounds. Well, there's only one way to do that, one day at a time. You're not week one looking in the mirror going, How am I doing? Because then you're discouraged. It is, I got to win each day, and I I like that because you and I know there's a higher probability that the habits change.

You got to have a permanent change in the process you use and the habits you use and the spiritual look you have on money so that you don't come back here again. If you have that permanent change, you got what we wanted for you. We love you and we want you to win. John, I think you got the right stuff. I think you got the right attitude. If your spouse is on board with you and feeling the same way you're feeling, then I'm with Ken. I think I would give this a hard, hard 90 days, see how much progress we make, see how good this works. You might look up and go, Hey, man, we paid off 30,000 of the 40,000. We can run through this thing. By the way, you got 17 in the bank, and Baby Steps says you're going to take 16 of that and throw it at these credit cards anyway. That's going to move the needle, too. You start plowing through this stuff, you go, Okay, living on less than we make is possible in America. Hello.

Realistically, Dave, let's take 24 off. Now you got 24. If he does what we teach, how quick can he pay it off, knowing what you know?

Maybe it'd be done in 90 days.

That's what I think, too.

Yeah, it could be done in 90 days with the credit cards by using the 16 off the credit cards. I mean, off the savings account. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paycheck, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets NetSuite that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, Just fix it. And they did. We got NetSuite. That was years ago, and we've never looked back. See, NetSuite isn't just for tech giants. It's built for growing businesses like yours. Over 43,000 businesses already run on NetSuite, including a lot that started just like you. Now with built-in AI, NetSuite is helping them even more. It's one system connected connected to every part of your business for real-time insights, not guesswork. Netsuite AI flags inventory issues, cash flow risks, even supplier delays before they become problems. So you can trust the data.

Stop wasting time and make the right decisions faster. Take a free product tour today at netsuite. Com/ramsey. That's netsuite. Com/ramsey. Cliff in Austin, Texas. Hey, Cliff. How are you?

Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you guys?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Yeah. An apartment complex that I refuse to negotiate with me when I got a new job out of state. Some media collections.

The only thing that I have- Because you broke the lease. Hello?

Okay. Right? Yeah, I'm still here.

Yeah, you broke the lease, right?

Well, they wouldn't negotiate with me.

They don't have to I appreciate with you. You signed a lease.

Okay, that's fine. That's fine. That's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about how to move forward, and hopefully you're willing to help me out with that.

I'll try. But let's establish that they're not legal legally obligated or morally obligated to let you do whatever you want to do. Is that okay? Okay. All right. So how much do you owe them?

Just under 6K.

6 grand. And what do you make a year?

Right now, we are going back to school. The reason I'm doing this is because I now have a wife.

But you didn't answer the question, how much do you make?

Well, right now, we're in school. We're not I can do anything right now.

So zero dollars.

How are you paying the current landlord?

We have some money saved up. Oh, good. We have a lot of money. We have Yeah, we're in good hands. The reason that I moved, I moved for a new job that paid better than what I was making, and they just didn't really want to work with me. So I just didn't know. And now that I have a wife, because I was single at the time.

So how much more you have saved, honey?

We have an emergency fund of 12K, and we have more than 40K. I won't go into the exact number.

Okay. Well, nobody's going to come get it. It's okay. Not from here, anyway. Maybe from the landlord. What state was the landlord in?

I'd prefer not to say.

Well, it matters because the… I can't help you, honey. We're just going to move on. This is just bull crap. Miranda's in Raleigh. Hey, Miranda, what's up? Hey, how are you guys? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Good. I listen to you guys every day, so happy to be here. Thanks. I just have a quick question, and it's about… I don't know whether or not I should ask my boss for a raise. I don't know how to bring up the conversation or if it should even be brought up. I keep getting mixed messages from friends and family. I guess the reason why I want to raise is I joined the company a little under a year ago, and they basically just changed the scope of the role. So I just feel like for the pay and the scope, it's just not lining up anymore. But again, I got people talking in my ear saying- It's a good question.

It's not a good idea.

It's very good. Stop listening to all the friends and family. We have to logically walk through this, and then we have to validate your feelings. How did the scope change? And be very specific. In other words, did it increase the amount of work? Did the job description itself change? Give me a quick summary.

Basically, everything. I joined, I'm in sales. When I joined the company, they had me as an account manager working underneath the territory manager. The scope of the role in terms of what my territory would be and the amount of travel and things like that.

So more territory, More travel?

Yeah, they basically, when I joined one of the territory, more travel? Yeah. Basically, when I joined, one of the territory sales reps retired. So three weeks in, they basically just bumped me up into that role.

Okay, what is your current comp? My territory is different. What's your current comp structure? Is it base plus commission?

It's base plus commission. Originally, when I joined the company, it was base with a set amount of commission. It was like a $500 just monthly flat. And when I moved into the new territory role, I asked them about salary. They told me basically nothing changes on the base, that the commission structure would change. How has it changed? I'd be able to get more money on that end.

How has it changed?

It honestly hasn't changed too much. The commission It did almost… Right now, it is usually anywhere from 8: 00 to 14: 00 extra a month. Is that capped? Which is right in the 500 before.

Is that capped?

It is not capped. Okay, so you got When I brought up salary negotiations and stuff like that, they've always told me, Well, hey, if you're doing new business, you'll be able to grow that commission, and that's where you'll see the increase.

I'm completely objective, and Dave comes from a sales background. What I'm I'm hearing is opportunity. I'm hearing pretty standard language here in a sales role that they're not going to bump your base, but if they don't limit you from a commission standpoint and they've increased your territory. The real question I would want to know, and for sake of time, you don't have to answer it, but you need to know what your potential commission could be based on some previous numbers. You had a person just retire in that role. I'd want to know over the last five years, maybe seven years, one year, what did that What was the total commission? You got to be dealing in facts, and right now you're dealing in feelings. And I understand the feelings, but I don't recommend you go in and ask for a raise in less than a year in this scenario when you've effectively been given a chance for a raise. Dave, am I missing something?

Your raise is effective when you are. So when you go make more sales, you're going to make more money. That's what they told you, and that's not a bad thing at all. Matter of fact, salespeople make more money than just about any other role in America today if they're not in a situation where they're trapped or have some a ceiling on them. It doesn't sound like you do here. The only ceiling is your effort, your ability, the hours in the day, the logistics of getting to the customer, all those kinds of things. But those are all things that you can control and manage for efficiency to get more and more money coming in. Because if you went and sold a whole... Let's say you doubled your sales, you'd be making a couple grand a month plus your base, wouldn't you?

Yeah.

Can you do that?

I can. I think I can, yeah.

There's a lot of opportunity for me to do this business and things like that. Is there anything the company is doing that's keeping you from doing that?

No, I do think when they switched me into the territory role. The territory I took over is much further away. My biggest thing I've had is just time management with now the new commute and the new area I'm over and just time management on that end. But there's definitely opportunities.

Okay, so here's what I just heard. So they can mention the ground. Yeah. So here's what I just heard. Thanks for sharing that. Here's what you're dealing with. You're dealing with expectations have been shifted, and with the expectations being shifted, it has inconvenienced you. And the inconvenience is a real emotion, and you're going, Well, compensate me for making me travel more. Do I have it about right?

A little bit. And I guess, too, because I know this is so bad to not talk about other people's salaries and things It's like that. But I just know from the account managers versus the territory manager, there is a big jump in the base salary. So I guess I get, I guess, emotionally held up on that.

Are you a territory manager?

Yeah. Now she is.

Okay. Are you getting territory manager base or account base? No.

All right. Now that you can bring up.

I'm getting- That's a valid thing. Okay, hey, listen, you move me into a territory. You move me into a territory, and I'm willing to eat what I kill. Thank you for You're giving me this opportunity. But also I understand that territory managers make a different base, and when you move me to that, I don't understand. Would you please explain to me why I didn't get the increased base? That's a fair question. But that's different than slamming your fist on the table and demanding a raise. But that last little thing you gave us was a game changer. Yeah.

I think you have to sit down and ask them, Hey, listen, from what I understand, now, again, posture's everything here. There's no need to create tension, and you create tension with a leader really quick because we don't know if they're a healthy leader. We don't know if there's some limitations. We don't know that. So the advice has got to be, I'm going to sit down and ask, Hey, I understand that this is true. Is this true? It's a question I'm not telling, I'm asking. Then if they say, yes, this is true, then you could say, obviously, if you were in my shoes, you'd probably wonder, is that going to happen? Why isn't it happening or when can it happen?

These are good questions. Under what circumstances do I start earning territory manager base after you made me a territory manager? Yeah. That's a fair question. That's right. Yeah. I would want to ask that.

By the way, if the answer doesn't make any sense, there's your sign. It's probably time to start making plans to go somewhere else. Yeah.

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It's a life changed. That's preborn. Com/ramsey. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. Josh is in Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Josh, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So calling relating to my dad. He's 62, and about a month ago, had a conversation with him about retirement and where he was with that. And I found out that he has a little $3,000 to his name right now in a checking account. And he makes good money at his job, makes over $100,000 a year, but he has really high expenses and recent medical debt has wiped out a lot of his savings. So my question's relating to how can I help him start moving towards realizing an actual retirement in a timely amount of time?

Mostly, it would be coaching him, right? That's what you mean by help, right? Showing him some things to do. Number one, why did medical debt wipe out his savings? Did he not have health insurance?

He does, but he has a chronic health condition, and so his deductible is really high, and he has to had a couple of procedures over the past couple of years that he's had to pay out of pocket for because his deductible didn't cover all of it.

Well, no. After the deductible, then copay kicks in.

Yeah. I don't know the specifics of this.

Well, that's how Insurance. Here's how insurance works. The deductible, you pay 100% of the bills until you meet the deductible. After you meet the deductible, typically it's an 80/20 after that. They pay 80% and you pay 20%. Do you have any idea what his deductible is? Like 10 grand or something?

Yeah, it's pretty high, something like that.

Okay. He's gone through 20 grand by meeting the deductible two different years. Then he had a procedure beyond that, that he owed 20% of that procedure That took some more money, maybe another 10,000 or 15,000, we'll just call it. Maybe he's gone through 30,000 or $40,000 or $40,000. So he still didn't really have any money.

Right.

He didn't go through 200,000 bucks. He went through 30,000 or $40,000. That's correct. Okay. All right. I'm just making sure that we get the table set here. He's worked all his life, and he makes six figures, and he saved no money. That's what we're really dealing with.

Yeah.

Okay. Is he single?

Yeah. My parents divorced a few years ago, so he's been on his own for a while.

Okay. Well, if he called us on the air, we would say, get on a detailed written budget and pile cash. You make 100 grand. Well, my expenses are high. Cut your expenses. You're living too high on the hog, as we say in Tennessee. So what is his stink in expenses?

From what I know, and he's shown me, he pays about $4,000 a month in expenses.

Okay. Well, he makes 8,500 or 8,800. Yes.

That's part of my dilemma is I don't know where. I don't know where the money is going.

He doesn't either. If you took over a company that was bringing in $100,000 a year and spending $48,000 a year, and they didn't know where the other money was going, the first thing you would do is they need a better system, right? They need to know where their money is going. If you're going to coach him, he needs to know where his money is going. If he doesn't pay attention, he's going to retire and eat ALPO. Yes. It's time to get your crap together. You're 62. You probably got 10 years of good hard work to do. He could pile up several hundred thousand dollars in the next 10 years making 100 grand by managing very, very carefully. He could have a decent nest egg at retirement.

Yeah, there's a second part to this as well, if you have the time for it.

Okay.

He was He was recently involved in a real estate deal that went sideways, and there's a chance he could be looking at a judgment payment to a bank of around $500,000.

Well, that will bankrupt him. Yes. He hasn't seen $500,000 ever.

Right.

And so the only chance he's got there is to negotiate down. Do you have partners in that deal?

Yes, he was one of five partners.

They didn't have him sign up because they thought he was going to pay. They had the other guys signed up because the other guys had assets. They're not going to bother your dad. Yeah. They're not. I mean, there is zero chance they're going to get any money out of your dad. Zero. He has no money. If they start putting lean on his stuff, he'll just file bankruptcy. They know they're not going to get money out of him. By the way, they knew that when they got his signature because he was already a broke guy then.

Right.

They must have been leaning on someone else's asset base to make this loan. That's correct, yeah. So they're going after the rich guy, not the poor guy. That's what they do. If I'm suing them, I'm going after the guy that's got money. I don't want to get the money. I'm not going to bother your dad. That's a waste of paperwork.

If they don't pursue him heavily, he shouldn't declare bankruptcy.

No, he doesn't file bankruptcy on what might happen. If he has $200,000 saved and they're going to come get that, we'll have to talk about what we do. But he doesn't have any money today. So what I'm going to do is not worry about that. I don't want to put that on the shelf and let it sit over there and cook. I'm going to get my crap together and start stacking cash and build and get with a smart investor pro, and let's get this stuff filled up and get your expenses cut and quit spending money like you're in Congress. You know why he did the real estate deal? Because he was desperate and scared and thought he was going to retire bankrupt.

Yes, it was a heel Mary.

Yeah, exactly what it was. It's exactly what it was. It was a move of a desperate man. Let me stop doing desperate the things, and I'll start doing steady things. Steady, steady, steady, steady. The tortoise wins the race, not the hare.

Yeah, I just would encourage you, Josh. This is going to be really hard to hear and even harder to do. At some point, you're going to have to talk to dad and see if he's willing to be guided or coached by his son. If he's not, you're going to have to put up a boundary there, and it's going to be really, really hard. The reason you have to put up a boundary is because you can't make your dad do anything, and you're just going to have to really grieve that and then move on. I hope that doesn't happen, but super clear in your heart and your desire to help. If he doesn't receive it, you're going to have to put up a boundary.

Mathematically, your dad has the ability to build a nest egg by 72. That's pretty substantial. But 62 years of sucky habits are in the way.

Right.

So is he going to look in the mirror and go, After 62 freaking years, I'm going to grow up or not? And that's not up to you, is Ken's point. That's up him.

Yeah, I need to come to Jesus moment.

Yeah, he does. Not you. By looking in the mirror and going, you're the problem. It's not somebody... Nobody took advantage of him, and it's not medical. That's not the problem. None of these excuses This is where the problem. Problem is, you make a lot of money and you piss it away, and it's got to stop. That's what it comes down to. Now, you don't want to say that to your dad, but that's what it comes down to. That's the math that we've got. Fixing the The math is easy once the human being starts to get their crap together. But the humans are now the humans, they're an issue. But the math thing, it's pretty easy. We say it around here all the time. Personal finance is 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. The problem with my money is the guy in my mirror. If I can get him to behave, he can be skinny and rich, but he likes donuts. It's a problem, and that's an issue. But it's a behavior thing. It's It's not a lack of knowledge. It's not a lack of ability. That makes 100 grand. It'll do it.

The donuts are good, though, Dave. They're really good.

Shut up, Ken.

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Tax season is here. If you want to get some free checklists and some guides that will help you with the filing process, we'll help you for free. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/ taxes. Ramsey solutions. Com/taxis. Elizabeth is in Washington, DC. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm doing well.

Good. How can we help?

I'm calling in. I'm 38 years old, a single mother with two children, and I'm feeling stuck financially. I have about $90,000 in student debt, $9,000 in credit card debt, and I can't seem to get past Baby Step One. I'm thinking about making a hardship withdrawal from my retirement account to buy a multifamily home to start generating some income and build stability for my family. I want to get out of debt, save and invest, but I just feel stuck. Okay.

I don't know what to do. Yeah. Well, that move is not going to bring you stability. That move is going to destabilize your situation. It's going to have the opposite effect of what you're hoping for. So no, we wouldn't do that. What do you make?

I bring in roughly around 160K a year. Okay.

And on 160K $60,000 with two kids, why can you not reduce debt?

There's always an emergency that happens. No, there's not. I'm, again, a single parent. I have no other financial- Give me an example of a $60,000 emergency. I had to have a medical procedure done last year. It was a real financial blow for me. It wasn't 60,000, but it was in the thousands. Just my monthly bills alone take about half my take home pay.

Well, where's the other half? A month. Where's the other half go?

I have a lease on a vehicle. The insurance where I live is also very high.

Okay, so how much is your car lease?

My car lease currently is $600 a month, and the insurance for it is about $340 a month as well. Okay.

All right. Well, that's $7,000 a year. Okay. That's Probably closer to 10 with the insurance. Okay. But you make 160. How much is your apartment rent or your house rent?

It's 1,800 a month. Okay. All right.

Okay. So I don't know where the money is going, but you don't either. After talking to you. You still have not given me any numbers that sound anywhere near like $160,000. There's nothing here that says you can't do this debt reduction idea, making $160,000 a year. But how long have you been a single mom?

It's been around four years. Yeah.

Okay. Having worked for 30 plus years, almost 40 years now doing this, what I run into with people that go through a divorce is it rips your heart out. It turns the whole world upside down, and there's a certain amount of emotional paralysis that happens because you lose your confidence, lose your swagger, you feel desperate and stuck. And then that gives you an excuse to not manage 160,000 well. It's a reason, not a valid reason, but it's a reason that people... Because emotional recovery after going through a divorce and trying to run a household with two kiddos. How old are these two kiddos?

My youngest is 13, and the oldest is 21. Okay.

Is the 21-year-old supporting themselves?

He is working, yes.

Is he supporting himself?

No.

Okay. It's time he did young man. Help him with that, mom. You cannot carry a 21-year-old. Number one. Number two, I need you to get the Every Dollar app and download it. I'm going to give you a free trial on this thing and let you get started with it. It's going to coach you and show you exactly what to do. But I think that you can make substantial progress in one year. I don't think you're going to be debt-free in one year, but you are spending some money somewhere out of grief, out of, I don't know, emotional salve of some kind, probably. That's okay because you've been hurting, you've been through hell, and you're trying to figure out what to do next and all that. But the good news is you don't make 16,000. You make $160,000 a year. Your rent is $1,800, your car payment is $600. That's only $30,000. Okay, and that's shelter and transportation. We got to buy some clothes, some clothes, not much. You already probably got a bunch. We got to buy some electricity and some water, and that's it. Then you got to get an attack mode.

Yeah, just from all the experience that we've had, and this is a privilege to sit and help people, but Dave, I have a sense here in this situation that what is presenting as an emergency at times, now this is notwithstanding health and an HVAC system going out in the middle of the summer or the winter. But some emergencies, Dave, feel like emergencies, and they're just emotional emergencies. They're not actually emergencies. I know you've seen that a lot, and I think you touched on it with being a single mom. You got a 21-year-old. I suspect had we had time to ask, give us five more emergencies that have popped up recently.

They're all under 10 grand.

And they're all emotional emergencies. They don't actually have to be spent on. I just think you have to be careful there. I think there's a lesson there sometimes.

Well, when you're tired and when you're grieving, you're not making good decisions. Exactly. When you're not living on a detailed plan that holds you the numbers of the app, the EveryDollar app will hold you accountable for doing this stuff. You've got to do that, honey. I'm going to give it to you. I want you to get started on it today. But you have enough money coming in where you should be making substantial progress. If you're not debt free Within 18 months, you've done something wrong. You should have all of this paid off in 18 months. You may need to get rid of this stupid car. You may need to do some other stuff, too. But you got to quit buying stuff and an emergency withdrawal to go buy a freaking multifamily. That sounds like you've been looking at something on TikTok. My God, this is the worst idea I've heard, and I don't know when. Do not do that. It's not going to do anything except get you more in debt and more problems, and you got less emotional bandwidth than to work on all this. You have got to tighten up your life and make the money that you...

This incredible income that you make, you've got to make it behave. I want you to develop a sense of disgust that I'm not getting any more use out of a $1,600,000 than I am. I've got a little sense of disgust about it, so I want you to develop it. For you. I want you to go win. I want you to have a good life. I want you to have some margin, have some wiggle room. But you're You don't have to go take it back by the throat. It doesn't move until you take it by the throat and make it behave. Money will not behave unless you force it to. Money will just wander off and go to people who are making it behave. It leaves people who don't make it behave, and it goes to people who make it behave. It's a natural flow of life. You've got to take this by the throat and shake it and just go, You are going to do what I say to do. I am in charge of you. When you get this attitude, this swagger about it, and you start taking that every dollar app and squeezing these dollars and making them win, it's pretty serious.

What are we talking about here? We're talking about $14,000 a month income. Wow. That's a lot. That's a lot. You can do this.

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Today's question comes from Isaac in Nevada. I'm two years out from retiring. I'd like to know the best strategy on how to start withdrawing funds from my 401(k). Do I change the dividends to not reinvest? Is there a certain percentage that's safe to withdraw every month or year? If so, how often should I withdraw?

Okay. Well, what I would do is sit down with your financial planner, your smart investor pro, if you have one, or your advisor, and have them crunch some numbers with you. The stock market has averaged 12%, 11. 8% since it began. Inflation has averaged for the last 40 years, 50 years, somewhere around 4. 2%. It's below that right now. It was above that during President Biden's tenure. Due not to President Biden, but due to inflation. I'll just make a comment and keep rolling. Protect him just a little bit there. He got blamed for something that wasn't his. Anyway, but inflation comes and goes, in other words, and so do returns. Last year, you would have made over 20% on your money. The year before, you would have made over 20% on your money. The year before that, you wouldn't have made that. Just go back and look at some of the track record on the market. If your funds are invested, figure out what they're averaging, have been averaging over the last many years, and what you think they're going to average. But let's just use some easy numbers. Let's pretend that your funds are like mine, and they're averaging around 12.

Again, I made 26 last year, but they're averaging around 12. And inflation is 4. So if I draw out 12, the value of my nest egg starts to go away at the rate of inflation. The math is all still sitting there. If I only pull off the income and I let the nest egg sit there, that's fine. But a million dollars 10 years from now, because of 4% inflation, it won't buy as much as it buys today. It begins to erode your purchasing power if you take out the full amount that you're earning. If you took out 8% and left 4 in and it made 12, 12 minus 4 is 8, you would leave enough in to cover inflation and you'd be pulling off enough. So your million dollars would grow by 40,000, but the purchasing power would lose by 40,000, so you would break even on what it would buy because it'll take a million, 40,000 next year to buy what a million would buy this year if inflation is 4%. That makes sense? Good. Okay. If you pull off eight or less, your money is growing still more than or equal to inflation, and it would run forever, if that math is correct.

Now, that's assuming you're earning 12 and inflation is truly four, average over years. If you had a million dollars and you pulled off $80,000 a year, you'd be just fine. You could do that monthly, you can do it quarterly, but you can say, I want to pull out an average of X % of this nest egg. You can set it up at 60,000. I don't care. And leave a little more in there if that makes you nervous. What you don't want to do is draw out so much that you end running out of money before your life is over. Hello. And so if you're making 120,000 on your million this year and you pull out 150,000, eventually that's going to run into a wall if you live long enough. Because you're pulling out more than you're making. And so next year, you're going to make even less because you don't have much in there. They're killing the goose that's got the golden eggs coming out. So pull out less than the average that you project to to earn by at least the rate of inflation. So what's your projection to earn? And what do you think inflation is going to be?

You sit down with your advisor. A lot of people in the financial world say 6%. I'm comfortable with 8 because very few people live, outlive their money once they built a sizable nest egg. Now, if you're starting with 200 grand, it's different than if you're starting with 2 million, too. Changes the formula. Because if you whittle away at your 2 million and it gets down to only a million five before you die, oh, well, you didn't kill anything, right? No big deal. But if your 2 million grows to three million before you die and you live out of it, well, you leave a better inheritance is all. You got to... How much do you want to leave behind and gage that? It always helps, too, to know exactly when you're going to die, then you can run the math.

That's true.

That's helpful.

There'll be an app for that soon. I'm certain of it.

But that's how this works. You will also find, my dear Isaac, that there's a lot of financial There are social nerds out there that are complete freaks about this stuff that actually hate the advice I just gave you. This is true. They are very vocal about how stupid I am and how many people are going to die broke because of Dave Ramsey. I don't want you to die broke. I want you to get broke right before you die because you've enjoyed the money, gave the money, done with the money what you wanted to do with it, whether it's an inheritance or something else.

Can we mess with the critics just real quick? Why not?

Just for fun.

Why not? What are we talking, Dave? 48 hours, 72 hours broke right before you die? Because you know they're going to come after you for saying that.

You got to dial it in. You got to dial it in. You got to really know. But here's the thing, too. What ends up happening is that this stuff is not static. See, last year was 26%, the year before was 24%. If you're pulling off eight, you've got huge gains. You got a million dollars, you made $250,000 and you pulled off 80. Now, backtrack that math, and that gives you a lot of pad for some years that have some down years, and they don't quite earn eight. Most people, once they get to a million dollars worth of retirement savings, and a lot of people have, in addition to other assets, then they're able to navigate their way through the next many years. Let's say this person is... By the way, at 72. 5, you have mandatory withdrawals called Required Minimum Distributions. What I'm giving you will beat that, so you don't have to worry about it. And oh, by the way, too, you got to pay taxes on this if it's a traditional 401k and not a Roth 401k. So taxes come out of that $80,000. That's $80,000 worth of income. And so minus taxes, that's what you got to live on on that example.

So that's the way you come back into it and then play with the numbers back and forth. If you want to be a little bit more conservative, fine. If you want to spend a little more, that's fine, too. Most of the time, I find, though, Ken, it's harder to get people to actually spend that have been savers. Oh, yeah. We get a lot of calls here asking for permission to enjoy the money that they built up over the last 30 years. A lot of those calls. We want to give you permission. We want to teach you to live like no one else, sacrifice, so that later you can live and give like no one else, and be in a position that if someone you love is in trouble, you can just help them. You got the money. Shut up. It's not a big deal. A lot of times, here's the thing. We find people that have been living on 60,000 bucks. When I talk to them about pulling 80 out, they think they're in heaven. It's true. That's more what we run into than some financial nerd on TikTok who's decided Dave Ramsey's good click bait.

All right, Jeremy is in Nashville. Hey, Jeremy, what's up?

How are you doing, brother?

I appreciate you guys taking my call. Sure. How can we help?

Yeah. So me and my wife are debt-free except for our mortgage We have our fully funded emergency fund, and we're funding both of our retirements to the max that we can. So my question is, we have a fair amount that we're saving every month right now. Is there a ratio? We started doubling our mortgage last month, but I'm wondering if I'm putting too much towards my mortgage and not enough towards future cars, home repairs, that thing. Is there a ratio you recommend?

It's not a ratio, but I would run some numbers on the car repairs. I'd run some numbers on the car repairs and that stuff. You probably already got another 100 grand built up the way you're talking, No, we had to do IVF, our first year of marriage. We're late to the game, so we're set up pretty well. What's your income?

Probably 275, 300, something like that.

Yeah, okay. Well, first thing is, I figured out what my income is. Then from there, the ratio doesn't matter. What I want you to do is save just enough to take care of those items, and everything else goes towards the car. I mean, everything else goes towards paying off the house. If you need to replace a car, you stop putting on the house, buy a car. If you need to go on vacation, you don't put as much on the house, put on the vacation. That's fine. But you need to be chunking on this house. Don't build up another side savings account of 100 to 200 grand. Get the house paid off, man.

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Walter is in Montreal. Hey, Walter, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Starting next week, I'm eligible to join my employer-sponsored stock purchase plan. I'm just wondering if that's something I should be taking advantage of.

Well, I don't know the specifics of how that might work in Canada. In the US, Yes, it's typically a 15% discount.

The way my company does it is they'll match up to the first $1,000, dollar for dollar.

There's no discount on the stock. You're just buying it at market value?

Yeah, and then they'll match it.

But no discount?

No discount, no. Okay.

No, I wouldn't buy that. I would just put your money in good retirement investments and the equivalent of mutual funds or whatever you've got available to you that's along that. But you're just buying stock that you just called your broker and bought. The only advantage, you get a thousand bucks, and that's not going to make a difference if the stock goes south, your stock could lose a thousand dollars in 20 minutes.

Yeah.

Now I'll pass. I'll just go ahead and do traditional investing. For those of you in the States, where you have a 15% discount on a lot of these programs, they're almost all identical. What I always challenge you to do is go back and look at your company, it's publicly traded, and look at the 52 week, the last year, high on the stock and low on the stock. It won't be unusual for you to see more than a 15% swing during that time, up or down. Meaning that the 15% discount isn't squat. It's not enough to offset buying a bad stock. And single stocks are much more risky than buying in mutual funds. If you put $5,000 over the next several months in a good mutual fund, you're in 90 to 200 stocks. If you put it in one company, you are betting on one company. You're freaking draft kings. You're betting on one game with your whole deal, and you don't have any control over that game other than you work at that place. And you really probably have zero knowledge of what's really going on in the back room. I don't buy any single stocks.

I did run, and one of the worst ones I ever ran into was years and years and years ago. I had a lady that was in her 70s that had 950,000, and it was in her retirement. It was all in her company stock. Big name company that makes a whole lot of the items in your house, particularly cleaning items. It went down 38% in two years. Her nest egg that she had saved her whole life went from 900,000 to just over 600,000. She was not a happy 76-year-old. She was pretty pissed. But she had bet the entire thing on one game, one household name, but it's a publicly traded stock. That's the risk you take. You avoid risk, or you lower risk, when you spread out your money. Diversify, not being all in one thing. That's why I do that, because I don't like the risk. I like making the money, but I don't like taking the risk. I'm not looking for a big play. I'm looking to be the Tortoise. Steady wins the race. Emily is in Nashville. Hi, Emily. How are you?

Hi, great. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Okay, so my husband and I are in baby step three, and we are also expecting our second son in May. So we're also in stork mode. Yay. I'm trying to save all the money. But But both are also driving junker cars. My car, we just found out this week, needs about a $1,500 repair. And I only paid $3,000 for the car. So it's It's a gut punch to think about paying half its value for another fix. But with trying to stock money away- What's wrong with the car? The air conditioning is out, which is not going to work with babies in the Tennessee summer.

Okay. And the air conditioner on a $3,000 car is $1,500?

Yeah, that's what they're saying for parts and labor. Who's they? Parts and labor. We've had it looked at by a couple of different auto places in our town.

Wow. That's unusually high, okay. Especially when the mechanic's sitting there looking at a hoopdie, and with a straight face going, spend 1,500 bucks to keep cool. I don't think so.

Right.

So we are thinking about- What car is this?

It's a 2010 Ford Escape.

Okay. Yeah. All right. If you sell it without an air conditioner right now, what can you get for it?

I mean, we're probably looking at maybe $1,500. Okay.

So You don't fix that car. Here's how you do the math on this equation. If the repair plus the value of the car is more... The current value of the car, the broken car. If the repair plus the broken value of the car plus the repair is more than the finished value after the repair, you don't do the repair. So example here, you could get 1,500 for it as it is, but if I had to put 2,000 in it, that's like having 3,500 in car, and you could have sold it. It's only worth 3,000 after you finish. So you don't want 3,500 in the car. You take the 1,500, put it in your pocket, and you take the 1,500 you were going to spend, 1,600 on the air conditioner you were going to spend, and you buy another $3,000 car with that same amount of money. Now, don't do the pregnancy, I have to upgrade my car because the air conditioner went out. No, you just go buy another 3,000-dollar car, and this time, don't buy an escape.

Okay, noted.

Yeah. This is a piece of crap of an automobile here. I mean, get you something. Get an old beat-up Camry that's got an old beat-up A Honda Accord that's got a lot of value left in it. A lot of life left in it. Escapes didn't have life left in them when they came off the assembly line new. Yes.

This is not the first problem we've had with it.

I bet. But these cars that have a reputation of running forever and ever and ever, that's what you spend a three... That's what you buy a $3,000 car. It's a Camry, it's an Accord. For guys, it might be an F150. I don't care. Buy something that's got a lot of life. I don't care if it's pretty. I just want life left in it. We're not going for pretty at $3,000. How much have you got in your stork mode?

We're at $12,000 right now. Good.

What's your household income?

We're right at about $6,000 a month. Good.

How much debt do you have?

No debt besides our mortgage.

Okay. Then I probably would put a little money with this and move it up maybe to a $5,000 car. Okay.

I will tell my husband, You told me to do that.

Because the stork mode around here is you're in baby step two paying off debt, but you're pregnant, so They're going to stop paying off debt temporarily until the baby comes and pile up cash. That's what we call stork mode. But you're out of debt. This is just an emergency fund situation, and you have an emergency. Yes. But this is not an excuse to go buy a $25,000 in our car? Absolutely. Okay, with payments on it. Well, I had to. I had a baby on the way. That's bull crap. That's not true. People do that. You know that, right?

Not us.

I know. But you've heard of people doing stuff like that. If you listen to the show, they do it all the time. Okay. I think you're incredible. I think you're very level-headed. Isn't she? This is amazing. Oh, yeah.

I mean, there's not an impulse here. This is a real situation.

Yeah. Very thoughtful. Hauling around two babies in the Tennessee summer. Because we have humidity in Tennessee, you can cut with a knife. I mean, you can set blocks of the humidity in the back seat if you want to. It's pretty ridiculous. That is true. That feels like thing. It feels like 500 degrees because you walk outside and you're dripping.

You can draw in the air.

My grandfather used to say. Try having babies in the back seat. That hot car. I don't blame you on this. I'm with you. I'm on your team this time, I'm Emily. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host. Amy is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Amy. How are you?

Hello, sir. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

I wanted to see how can I create and stick to a budget after being laid off nine months and my husband is self-employed.

Okay. Is that code for he didn't make any money?

It's code that we cannot count on a lot.

I mean, he's really trying- I'm self-employed and I do okay. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Yeah. He's a plumber and he's doing amazing job. It's just that lately, The jobs were scattered, not a lot of jobs.

Well, then he needs to go find a local plumber who's got a thriving business, and that's just about every plumbing company that's been around, and he needs to apply because they've got more customers, more problems than they have plumbers most of the time, and he needs to make a fortune compared to what he's making for somebody else. I'm talking tomorrow. He gets her in his car.

If he's not making a living to support his family as a plumber in today's world, honey, he's not working. Okay?

Yeah. We've had several big issues, for example, and that's why I'm actually super grateful that you're on the show, Mr. It's crazy because I know you have other people also in the show, but I know you're a parent, but I just love it because you're very fair and strict. Our biggest issue was I have a 24-year-old who's not functioning. He He got out of school in 10th grade, and he's been doing substances for the last 10 years. I'm sorry. We've been paying his rent, and it's been crazy hard. We're also from overseas. What country are you from? Romania.

Romania? Okay, cool. Why have you not gotten a job for nine months?

Well, I worked in Big Pharma, and I got laid off. It's been crazy to get back on the On the market, I have LinkedIn, I have everything, and I've been told that a lot of people, very good people, have been laid off.

What were you doing in Big Pharma?

Project management.

Okay. So you know I do project management. Why don't you do it for something else other than Big Pharma?

I tried. I even opened up a consultancy, but it's super hard to get clients when people don't know you.

Okay, let's stop. I have no idea how to call it. There's three points that we can be fair and strict on. That's what you asked me to be, okay? Point number one is your family is struggling with finances because of an income issue. Is that fair?

Yeah.

Is that true? Yeah. Okay. You need to call the 24-year-old and say, We can't pay your rent anymore. You're going to have to get a job, and you're going to have to get clean, honey. We love you, but your dad and I are starving the death over here, and you're a grown man, and you're going to have to figure out what to do. We love you. We're going to be cheering for you, but we're not giving you any more money. We don't have any money, number one. Number two, your husband either starts making a lot of money next month as a self-employed plumber, or he takes a job with a plumbing company because they will pay him a lot of money. That is a field that desperately needs help. If he can't make a living because he doesn't know how to get the clients and run the business part of it, but he knows how to do the plumbing part of it, there's no shame in that. But the shame would be if he continues to try to stay self-employed when he could go make three or four times what he's making now by getting a job like Ken said.

Then the third step is we've got to get you employed doing something, Ken. Yeah.

I mean, again, as a project manager, forget the title of project manager at so and so pharmaceutical company. What does a project manager do and do well? You don't have to answer it, but you know what it is. What skill sets do project managers bring to the table? Well, project managers are able to juggle a lot of different balls. True or false. Yes. True. Then project managers are really probably good at communication and organization. True or false?

Absolutely. True. I speak three languages fluently.

Boom. Let's stop trying to play the big pharma game because we are seeing a lot of layoffs and big white collar jobs. I'll go with that because there's some evidence of that. But that doesn't matter to what we're talking about. Who in your zip code needs somebody that has your skill set and you start going out and making connections, not applying online. We go, we make a connection. I know somebody works over there.

We linked in, it's not going to do it.

That's right. They need an office manager. You go, Well, I'm a project manager. Well, you're a project manager who's been out of work for nine months and you're broke. So what you can do is go, Hey, I've been a big-time project manager. I'm dealing with a kid who's got substance abuse issues, and it's been hurting us, and so I'm getting back in the game. There's a story there. There's a narrative that people will say, This is a mama bear who's got to make money, and she got laid off from a big-time company. Happens every day. No shame. This is what you do. You forget about what you did in the past, and we focus on what you can do now and where you can do it and what companies would be thrilled for you to walk in off the street with your skill set and experience. A lot of them. A lot. I got to say this one more time. You glossed over what I said. I rarely disagree with Dave, but I don't think your husband waits a month. I don't think he's a good business guy, and that's not a negative. I'm not criticizing him, but I don't think he knows how to run the business.

Number two, he's hurting just like you are with this kid, and I think he needs the safety of just showing up every day and turning the wrench and fixing plumbing problems and getting paid top dollar. I wouldn't wait a month. I think he's getting in the car and he's driving around construction sites all day. If I were in your area, that's what I do. I do a ride along. We're going to show up on construction sites until we get you a job because it take about- Yes, he actually did that, too. Well, but he needs to keep doing it.

This is a process of elimination. This is not necessarily a job for his plumbing company, a job for him to quit owning a plumbing company and become a plumber for someone else. That's right.

He has his toolkit in the car with him.

I'm ready to start today. Yeah. You guys... But doing Him making one-third of what he should, the 24-year-old siphoning off what little you have coming in, and you making nothing while shooting for the stars is killing you all. What we're saying is, it's not Not necessarily what you're going to be doing 10 years from now. That's right. But for today, all of you, you two, raise your income and lower your outcome by cutting the 24-year-old off. Well, he's going to. He quit doing the substance. I mean, lots of 24-year-olds face this and don't have parents to bail them out. Happens every day. Sometimes that's the very thing that helps them turn their life around and say, Here's a coach you can go see. Here's a counselor you can go see. Here's a homeless shelter for you to move into. We're cheering for you. We hope you get dry and you turn your life around, and we love you, but we're not giving you any more money because we don't have any money.

We're broke because of you and because I lost my job, and your dad's business is not going well.

Honey, I'm sorry, but love does not pay the bills. In this case, you got to have to pay your own. Cut him off. Have a sweet conversation. I'm not trying to be angry about it, but this You are not making him better by paying his bills when you're broke. Definitely. By the way, even if you're not broke, you're not making him money better by paying his bills. This kid needs some problems. How many times have you started January saying, This is the year I'm finally going to get my money under control. But then months go by and you still feel broke. You work too hard to keep living like that. Look, there's only one way to move the needle on your finances this year. You've got to have a plan. Start by downloading EveryDollar. Everydollar is way more than our world-class budgeting app. In 15 minutes, we'll build you a personalized plan to free up extra margin in your budget and use it to beat debt and build wealth. You'll find thousands of dollars on average just the first day, and you'll get new steps and new lessons every day that help you stay on track and create unstable momentum.

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Better than I deserve, Dave. How are you guys doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

We have a quick question. My wife and I, we are in our 20s. We are completely debt-free. We're Baby Step 3B. We've been saving for the last about two years for our down payment of a home. We decided to go with a new build, and we chose a seven-year arm as they were having some end-of-the-year incentives for quick move-ins. And we thought that would be a good idea. I think I know what you're going to say. I have all the numbers and specifics of it, but we feel like it's going to allow us to ease into the home buying purchase and all the payments that go with it. And we can afford it once the seven years is up, but we want to get your opinion on it.

You can afford it once the seven years is up. What do you mean?

For the first seven years, we're going to have a lower rate. So the first year will be a 17. Second year will be a 27. And then at the end of it, it's going to go up our payment, and it's going to plateau at a certain point. But the first seven years, they're giving us a discounted rate, so we don't have to pay as much.

And 100 % It's a different chance at the end of that, it's going to be more.

Yes. All right.

So you bought a house you couldn't afford?

No, we could afford it. Yeah, it's actually quite in our budget.

I mean, if you took out a 15-year fixed Can you pay it?

With a 15-year fix would be 32% of our take to pay.

So you bought a house you can't afford. Okay. I mean, you called in here, Willis, knowing what I was going to say, right? You've been here before. You've been listening for more than 20 seconds, haven't you?

For the most part. Our goal, and I've heard a lot of finance guys talk about in spreading, making the spread on the stock The market and those things. We plan on starting a family, the first time home buyer. We thought that it'd be incentivized to have that lower payment the first couple of years and use that extra money to pay towards the principal. We plan to be super aggressive where we have that wiggle room to pay down the principal as much as possible and then refinance at the end of the seven years.

That's assuming something doesn't happen that prohibits you from refinancing, in which case you get foreclosed on. Because you've added risk to your scenario. For 35 years, I've taken calls from people who things that they didn't expect to happen to them happened to them, and they were unable to refinance. You can't pay aggressively on this. Aggressively might be the emotion, but it's not the math, because you don't even have the money to pay a 15-year. You don't have enough income coming in to pay it in a 15-year. That tells me you You can't pay. You can't aggressively. We do have enough take home. No, you don't. We have about- You're 15 years, 32% of your take home pay. That tells me, mathematically, you don't have any money to be aggressive. The aggressive word is an emotional word, but it's not a mathematical reality.

I guess the point, we were looking at an income of last year where I came home with about $180,000. Looking forward to this year, I'm projected to make at least $260, and my wife is not working right now. We're going to very quickly double our income as this year.

Assuming everything goes the way the plan of MICE and MEN wanted to go.

The last two months is the plan that... The numbers that we're looking at, we should be able to with this new year.

I'm sorry. Let me stop this. Okay. What is it that you want from me?

I guess your opinion with the seven-year rate- I think it's stupid. With our extra margin, it is stupid. So should we cancel the loan?

You should have a You should have a 15-year fixed rate where the payment is less than a fourth of your take home pay. I've said that like nine million times on the show. Otherwise, you're buying too much house. If your income is going up so quickly and you're going to be so prosperous, that should be no step for you. It should be no issue for you. But you're rationalized the piss out of this, man. I mean, you got rationalization down and you've crunched so much math that your eyes are crossing. It's wrong because what you're doing with an adjustable rate is you're taking on more risk. A hundred % of adjustable rate mortgages start in the hole. It's a margin over an index, and the margin plus the index is always more than the introductory rate, which means at the first point of adjustment, it's going to max. At the next point of adjustment, it's going to max. At the next point of adjustment, you've lost your dadgum job and the thing maxes and you lose your house because all this prosperity that you projected as the only possible outcome in your life is wrong.

Other things happen in your life, and you've set your life up to not survive any storms. When the big bad wolf comes and he blows your straw house down, that's what's going to happen. I'm telling you to build a brick house. Be the pig with the brick house. Be the third pig. That's what we teach here. This stuff works in good times, and it works in bad times, and it's the only system that does. You got, man, please Please rethink this. You ask me my opinion, and I love you enough to tell you the truth. I want you to win. I hope you prosper. I hope you go make 160, and 260, and 360, and 460, and nothing bad ever happens in your life. But you'll be the first person I ever met that never had anything bad happen in their life.

Yeah, you're assuming risk with the loan and then assuming that you'll have nothing bad happen in your life. I understand it because you're in your early 20s, but you're talking to two older guys. Honestly, you got more time with Dave on this topic than I think anybody else would get. You're very generous right now. I can't believe the call lasted as long as it did, but you're very generous.

I think he's got a good heart. Well, of course he does. I'm such a math nerd. It's the same mistake I would have made at 24. It's the same mistake I did make at 24. It's why I went freaking broke.

That's the point. So don't call somebody who's been doing it for four decades and who made the mistake himself and try to talk them into your version of it. This is the thing. We don't know what we don't know when we're in our 20s.

Listen to wisdom and experience. What I'm looking for after I went broke, when I was 28 years old, I lost everything, Willis, because I was stupid. I assumed the mythology that everything was going to keep going like it had always gone, and it never does. Things change. The tax law changed, the banking laws changed, the SNLs went broke, and Dave was on the hook for something that couldn't possibly go wrong. It went wrong big time, a lot bigger time than even what we're talking about with you. A lot bigger time. What I've learned is that I'm looking for systems and elements of truth in my marriage, in my relationships, in my money that work in good times, and they work in bad times. Because I'm going to have both. If it only works when everything's working, it's not the truth. It's a facade. It's you're driving down the street and you walk through the front door of the house and you realize you're on a movie lot and there's nothing behind the front door. That's a facade. That's a fake truth. It looks like it's something, but there's nothing back there. I want to build my life after having gone broke and almost losing my marriage, 30 plus years ago, and I want to teach other people as often as I can to build something that is the third pig.

Be the third pig. Be the brick house. Take a little longer to build it. Buy a little less. Take a little more time. Be a little more careful with the budget. Don't try to be tricking everything. Don't look for a shortcut. The only shortcut, there's no shortcut to any place it's worth going. And just take your time. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. And that's the basis for everything we teach on this show. If you want to do the hot and bothered sexy thing and go do it, all of you, you're not going to like it when you call in here because I'm going to love you enough to tell you the truth.

The one thing you missed, you gave him great advice, but your very first response should have been, What are you talking about, Willis?

That's a dad joke.

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On the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Lazy Solutions. Looking at us through the glass, Manuel and Alia are here. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Avondale, Arizona. Very fun. Welcome to Nashville. All the way here to do a debt-free scream. Yes. I love it. That's true. How much debt have you paid off? We paid off $320,000, 549. Wow. Good for you. How long did that take? Eight years. Eight years. Wow. And your range of income during that time?

We started around $103 and ended at about $2.

40. Wow. Cool. What do you all do for a living?

I'm an accountant. I have a small We bought a company. We do swimming pool.

Okay. All right. Yeah, very cool. Doesn't sound like it's too small to me. It sounds like it's doing pretty good. It's growing. Yeah, you guys are making some money. Way to go. You work hard, too, don't Yeah, all the time.

I try my best.

I bet. So 320,08 years in Arizona. I'm guessing you paid off your house. It includes our house, Dave. I'm looking at weird people. Way to go, you weirdos. A paid four house. What's this house worth these days?

I'm guessing around 4, 450.

Okay, very cool. Have you started retirement savings and investing? Yeah, we have some. How much is in that nest egg? Around 300. 300? Wow. Okay, so already 750,000. How old are you two? Forty. Forty years old. You're on your way to be a millionaire by the time you're 45 pretty easily. Hopeful. Very cool. Manuel, how long ago did you start this business?

About We started at 2017, but we really started growing up in 2021.

Okay. All right. Very cool. Now, what country are you all from? Mexico. Mexico. Okay. How long have you been in the States? Me? All my life. Okay.

Me, 30 years. 30 years?

Yeah. Okay. Wow. Very cool. All right. Fun, fun, fun. Well, congratulations, you guys. Thank you. It's your American dream, baby. Thank you. It is. You're going to be millionaires by the time you're 45, Your house is paid for. You run your own business. You're making bank. You're working your butt off. You're doing it. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. What do you tell people the key to having a paid-for house in Arizona worth $450,000 when you're 40 years old? Like everyone else says, it's the budget.

If you're not on a budget, you're not going to make it.

Wow. That's true. You got to know where our money is going. Okay, so who's idea with this? How did this all get started with Ramsey stuff? I was in Italy. The accountant, I'm afraid. I was in Italy with my sister, vacationing, and she's like, You got to listen to this guy. He says not to use credit cards.

I'm like, What? You're crazy.

I have to use my credit card. I need my points. So That's where it started. And then I got back, we ordered the book, and I told Manny, We're going to do this.

He's like, Okay, whatever.

You're pretty easy to talk into this. Yeah.

From the beginning, it took me a little while because I was spending a lot of money and I didn't know. I was just stopping at any store and whatever, spend money. But suddenly she hit me when I saw how much money we were really doing and throwing away. Most of it was coin. We were not making any progress.

Then, yeah, in 2020, we started our business.

How many people working for you, Manny?

Well, right now, we have six people working for us.

How many of you talked into starting to do this since you started doing it? Two guys. I bet. Yeah, they're starting like- Hey, Manny, you're not buying stuff at the market every day. What's going on, man? Then you got to tell them the story, right? Yeah.

I told them that we paid a house, and they asked me, How did you do it? I tell them how to handle money. I tried, and then I put the show that they rames this show so they can hear.

Okay, very cool. We also do-My Espanol is un poco, so not much help, right? We also coordinate FPU. Oh, thank you. I work at St. John Paul II, and they lend us space to do FPU there. We do Paz Financiera as well. Oh, yeah. Very good. Have you run into Andrés Gutieras? We know we've called him, but we haven't. He's doing a lot of those lessons now, the old Paz Finciera. Yeah, he's great. That's very cool. That can help you guys working on the team for sure. So proud of you all, man. This is so great.

I'd love to know for our audience, eight years is a long haul. That's a long deal. I want to know what were the toughest moments or seasons, and how did you press through those?

I think some of the harder parts were when our business was a little slower, in the winter, he wouldn't have a lot of jobs, so we couldn't really do a lot of progress during those months.

But in September, we took over a couple of other companies because one of the rebar companies shut down. So we've gotten a lot of work since then. Good.

And that's really helped us. So what kept you focused? That's what I want to hear.

I think just not oweing anyone anything.

Yeah. You're playing the long game. If we're going to do all this hard work, we need to have something to show for it, right? Yes. Good for you all. If we live like no one else, maybe later we can live and give like no one else. Very cool. Well, you guys are amazing. I'm very proud of you. All right, one more time. You tell people the key is the budget. I guess you need a Manny because he really didn't resist much. He just did whatever you told him to do, right? Yeah, for the most part. There were some parts where he was like, No, I work, so I got to spend money.

That's good.

Well, there's eight years worth of work there. That's good. Good stuff. Very proud of you guys. I'm honored to meet you. I'm proud of your heroes, man. You're on your way to be a millionaire. It's very cool. All right, Manuel, Manny, and Elia? Elia. Elia. I'm going to mess it up. I'm sorry. From Phoenix, Arizona area. And who's this? This How old is Jasmine. And how old is Jasmine? Fourteen. Okay. All right. Very cool. Manny, you need a gun. Yeah? Yeah, to protect her. I do. All right. Count it down. Let's get a debt-free scream going.

Three, two, one.

Gracias a Dios, we're debt-free.

Very cool. Congratulations, you guys. Very, very proud of you. Very proud of you. Man, that's fun. Yeah. I tell you what, you start doing rebar, that's like work right there. Oh, I have-Your back is hurting just thinking about it.

This will shock you, but I have a little experience with rebar, Dave. One of my college summer jobs. Very little. Very little. But it was a full summer working on a Masonry crew. You did? I did. Now, I was the lowest man on the totem pole.

I'm guessing. So they didn't let me- Another time you carried that a while, you were even lower.

Sunk into the sand. I'm telling you, man, that's hard work, but it's rewarding work. Here's what's fun about this. They take over a company. So on this debt-free journey, this is what's great. He starts a company, and they keep going, they're slogging through it, and then an opportunity guys is to take over a couple of other companies, and he's on his way to creating a lot of jobs. What's really fun, jobs for guys are going to eventually become debt-free. For entrepreneurs, if they can grab this, this is the other side of this deal. Debt-free entrepreneurship, solo ownership. That's exciting stuff. As you say, that's changing family trees right here.

Yeah, it changes everything. It's a completely different way of looking at things. It's why you work so hard. Yeah. I mean, it's why you get up. I want to I want to change my legacy. I want to change my destiny. That's right. That's what those two hard workers have done. Really proud of you guys. Very, very well done. That's very, very cool. Wow. Well, and here's the other thing. Our data says that if you come here from another country legally and set up shop like those two have done, that you're four times more likely to become a millionaire than one of us that was born here. Really? Because the great American dream. We're here to get it, man. We're here to do it. She's second-gen. That's right. But he's first-gen. The numbers tell us that. I believe it can happen. I believe it can happen. That's why I came to America, because it's the land of opportunity. That's why it makes me so mad when some little snot on their $1,100 iPhone is preaching socialism, because it's not the land of opportunity for them. Oh, you found out there was work involved.

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Our scripture of the day, James 1: 4, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Thomas Edison said, When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven't. I do like that. That's a definite Edison mindset, too, for sure. All right, up next is going to be Avery in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Avery. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

My parents gifted my two siblings and I $10,000 each to start a family investment club, and they're also adding an additional $10,000. We'll have $40,000 altogether. It's a small start, but we formed a corporation with four equal shares, all of our family members, and we'll be meeting quarterly to decide how to invest. Part of this plan really is just to learn how to work together financially as my parents have accumulated a really nice nest egg through rental properties and businesses, and we want to be prepared to steward that really well down the line one day together. My question is, if you were starting with $40,000 in this situation, where would you invest it?

Wow. That is a neat goal, a neat reason for doing doing this. It does scare me a little bit, but it's a neat reason for doing it. It scares me because, of course, you didn't have to put money into it. Your parents just nest egg the whole thing. You don't really have anything at risk personally, other than the fact that as soon as somebody said $10,000 is in your name, you emotionally take ownership of it. But they set the whole thing up. That's a pretty cool training wheels to I'll get you guys to work together. Well, I'm always going to go with the things that I live by and that we teach, which is I don't borrow money, so I'm not going to use $40,000 as a down payment on a rental. Okay?

Okay.

I don't do single stocks because of the risk. I do mutual funds. The problem with putting the whole $40,000 $1,000 just in mutual funds, which is probably what I would do with it if it was my money, is it doesn't give you any reason to work together because you just put it in there and forget it, and then there's no reason to have a meeting. There's no friction in the relationship that you need to learn to work through, which is the reason for doing this, is for someone to disagree about something. We go, Okay, how are we going to handle this disagreement? Everybody gets a different vote and all of That only comes up if there's something moving around in the investments. It defeats the purpose if you just plump $40,000 into a mutual fund and forget it and let it run, which is what I do Okay? I buy real estate that I pay cash for, but you're not buying any real estate for 40 grand. I guess you might be playing some single stocks and get to have healthy discussions around which ones to keep and which ones to buy. If you blow the whole thing up, you just lost 40 grand.

It's not the end of the world because the purpose of it is not as much turning the 40 grand into 400 as it is the learning that comes from everybody having to work together. It might be that I just start running a single stock portfolio, although I need to say real loud and clear, I wouldn't do that as an investment, but this is This is not really an investment. This is a relational exercise. Does that make sense?

Practice for what's going to happen in the future.

How do we make a decision about this piece of real estate after mom and dad are gone? Well, the same way we did when we were talking about these other two things over here four years ago, right? But there has to be some movement in order for there to be a discussion. Right. It kills them. I don't think I'm going to use the investing principles, although I would not go into debt at all on this, period. If they want you guys all to sign up for a mortgage, no, thank you. I'll pass. No, that's not the case. But I guess it's a small single-stock portfolio, and you guys study and learn about each other in the buying and selling of some single-stocks, I guess. But that's, again, that's more about the game than it is the actual investment.

I actually think I was leaning towards where you were headed, and then you said it. I think the best part of this is not just the practice and learning stocks. I think it's the research piece. Then watch the siblings. All of you watch each other. Who's a little bit more into the numbers? Who's got a greater tolerance for risk? It's a great learning experience for one day if you've got to work together on something like this that is far bigger. I think it's It's a wildly fun experiment. As long as you're smart and savvy about it, let it be a learning experience, but learn not just about the money piece of it, but about each other. I think that was a really great observation, and I agree with that.

That's why this is a fun exercise, not because of the investment aspect. Yeah. But because it forces them to work together. I'm thinking about my three kids.

Well, I was going to ask you about it because they're in the business here.

Yeah. They are all arguing about the operation of the business because they all sit on the operating board, right? Even though Daniel is the President, but the other two are functioning as owners together. So they're having that discussion. I've got a bunch of real estate. Rachel's husband, Winston, runs most of our real estate. I can imagine that if we're not here, that a lot of Winston's brother-in-law or sister-in-law's wife would defer to him on what the family want to do with real estate. They would consider him the expert because he is. Okay, and That thing. That's the interaction and the play. I guess we've accidentally done this. It wasn't with as much intentionality as that, which is very interesting. Molly is in Nashville. Hey, Molly, how are you?

I'm well, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I have a question. I have inherited a 160-year-old home that's located on our family's farm. Trying to figure out how to navigate the renovations, whether it be taking out a massive renovation loan or to just go as I can.

How much in renovations need to be spent?

Between 250 and 300. Okay.

So the home has not been maintained or updated for decades.

It's livable. I'm living in it currently. I spent about $40,000 cash in renovation for- Are you the sole heir? Yes, I am. Okay.

All right. And how many acres is it sitting on?

The acreage is between my other family members, but 70 acres.

Oh, so they have the acreage?

Correct, but it's sitting on the farm.

How much acreage do you have?

With this This is three acres. None.

Okay. But you're just surrounded by your brothers and sisters' ownership.

That part of the farm, I should get another 15 acres, but that has not been distributed yet.

Okay. What is that worth?

The home or the land?

About 15 acres.

Well, right now, the billing rate in Robertson County is about 33, 35,000 an acre.

Okay. So a few of those acres were they to be sold. If you could put them in a way that didn't damage the family property off on one corner, you might get a little bit there to fund some of your renovation. If you sold a five acre track in the corner, that would pay for a lot of your renovation, wouldn't it? What's your household income?

Last year was 115 taxable.

Okay. All right. Where were you living before?

It's pretty much a family compound. Okay.

So you're living on a different house within the property?

Correct, yes.

But you didn't get that? No. Okay. So you don't have any other asset sets?

Correct.

Okay. I'm going to cash flow whatever renovations I do here because an old house can be a black hole. It can be a money pit. They don't build them like they used to. Thank God. Cash flow it with the acreage sale or with your income is what I would do. Sounds interesting, though. That puts us hour 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 with the Prince of Peace., Christ Jesus.