The Ramsey Show - App - Are You Going To Lose Your House Over a Steak You Put On Credit?! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "How do I set myself up for success?" Stay away from the new Aven credit card (aka HELOC), "Is this real estate deal too good to be true?" Where to save for college. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. And Chris starts this hour in Boston.

Hey, Chris, how are you? Great. How's it going, Dave? Better than we deserve. What's up? Hey, so really appreciate you taking my call. I, uh, over the last four years, I entered a job where, and I was able to make commission checks and save up quite a nice bit of money. And I just looking to get your advice, having recently started your program and you see what I should do with the money I have and any future money that I get. So are you setting aside is I'm guessing this is 1099

type money? No, this is so I work in enterprise sales. I get commissions that get taxed at a 35%. I take home the 65%. So are you on a budget? I am not on a budget per se. I basically, I have my three to six month emergency fund already done. So I have 15K set aside and I currently have 60,000 in my savings account and I'm expecting 150,000 in July from a deal that I just closed. Very good. So are you renting? Are you interested in purchasing a house? Let's think about what the next steps are.

Absolutely. So I'm renting. I definitely am looking in the next year or so to start getting into the housing market. And the only debt that I currently have outside of that potential mortgage is $38,000 in student loans. And I know that I need to wipe that out. Yeah, you could do that with the $60,000 that's sitting around, the extra $60,000. You could do that today. Yeah, yep, I know.

Not could, will, right? Chris, the nervous laugh makes me cringe. Don't be nervous laughter. You have $60,000. Write a check today and pay off get it done do it right now right now they're not going to get forgiven sally may is not a pet she's an evil woman and this is real it's not going to get forgiven pay it off and then move on with your life move on with your life and then let's start thinking about how old are you? I'm 32. You've done a really good job, Chris.

Okay. Any problem? What are you? What would you say? The probability is that you are married in the next 24 to 36 months. I would say it's on a lower end. Okay. All right.

So there's not like a, there's not like a thing in the offing that I'm not talking about yet. Okay. All right. Cool. In that case, buy a house. Now, what I would tell you is buy a home as a single guy at your age that is not a specialty home. Buy a home that's a little bit vanilla boring easy to resell because if you were to get married you will discover you have bought the wrong home okay she's gonna make you move okay

exactly yeah i i agree wholeheartedly with dave's advice don't buy you know this perfect home that you think it's great that you're thinking oh one of these days I'll marry a lady and it's going to be our family home. No, no, he's exactly right. Whoever you marry, she's going to go, oh, this is nice. Let's do something else. Exactly. If you can resell it easily, you'll make a lot of money on it. And that's what I want you to buy for your first one here in your stage of life, in your current demographic and everything. That's what I would do if I were your age. But you're doing great, man. The obvious thing is you're making a lot of money and you've not been crazy with it. So pay off your student loan, have your emergency fund, earmark everything beyond three to six

months of expenses for your down payment. Pile up a huge down payment. Don't take out more than a 15-year fixed where the payment is more than a fourth of your take-home pay. And buy something that's a little bit vanilla, not too fancy schmancy, and it's going to be easy to resell. It's going to have a large market when you get ready to resell it. A lot of people are going to want this property, which will make it go up faster and be easier to sell both. That's what the summation of this call is. So very, very well done. Wow, he did good. He did do good. He's got

a lot of money coming in, a lot of cash money. Serious bucks. Hey, guys, we appreciate all of you listening. Thank you. We do not have $300 million a year to spend on advertising around here. We don't have a football stadium named after us. Who did that? Sofa.

Excuse me. Gesundheit. Yeah, and so you got to help us us if you want to help us uh you you spread the word you subscribe to the show you follow the show on youtube or podcast you share the show on youtube podcast or share that you're listening to it on talk radio or watching it on tbn whatever is shared spread the word and if you're in a situation where you can, leave a five-star review. We don't need one-stars. Mama said if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Okay, move on. If you hate us, what the devil are you doing listening? That's weird. It's just weird. So move on. Because it's not going to change. I'll just tell you that. Your one-star review is not going to change anything.

So move on. Do your five-stars. Turn them in. Follow. Let everybody know we're out here. It's really, really helpful. We really, really, really, really appreciate it. Now, here's the thing, Jade.

Let's talk about real estate for just a second. Buying real estate over the scope of your life with a long-term view when you are not broke anymore is a good plan. People in our culture have translated that and truncated that to say that no matter what stage of life you're in, no matter how broke you are, everyone should immediately go out and buy real estate. That is not true. Real estate for broke people is a curse.

Yeah, it changes a blessing to a burden. And that's what's the whole point? Buying a home when you have a big student loan debt, when you got car payments coming out your ears, when you're spending like you're in Congress, you got MasterCard and American distress in your life, and you got all this crap going on. And then you go buy a house like that's going to that's like having a bad marriage and thinking you're going to have kids is going to fix it. Exactly.

But yeah, it's not the solution. And it just creates less and less margin and less and less room for anything to go wrong. Because when you do that, if one thing goes wrong, Dave, just a little. No. When? Yeah. Not if. Yeah, that's that if one thing goes wrong dave just a little no when yeah not if yeah that's when that one thing goes wrong welcome to life boys and girls crap's gonna happen it's a bumper sticker to that effect i think so you know really it's gonna happen and so you don't have any margin you know the hot water heater goes out all of a sudden you're having to choose

between hot water and sally may horrible bad choice and so you put yourself in a corner because everybody's got to get real estate everybody's got to get real no you don't get yourself out of debt have an emergency fund have a good down payment be steady on the job smooth rhythm here not herky-jerky, not all over the place. Very calm. It's okay if it takes a little while. It's okay. Now, you don't want to be a renter your entire life, so make the steps to get to being not broke anymore. But this idea that real estate fixes everything, no, it doesn't. Well, people think it's a quick, quick writ. Get rich quick. They think they can get rich quick off of real estate. That's what I did That's why they become so desperate. It's their only way out. And it's actually not a way out. It's a way in to the problems. This is The Ramsey Show.

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figure it all out or you could just go through instead of figuring out the individual puzzle pieces actually go see the whole picture which is financial peace university and it's all real simple and laid out and in nine lessons you'll have the whole system done and rolling and you could be done like in two years just in a four or five years wandering around trying to do your own puzzle um i mean yeah it's out there dave all your stuff's out there for free honey my stuff was out there for free before it was mine it's called common sense i stole it all from god and your grandmother i didn't invent any of this i'm just really good at packaging it and convincing you people to do it so you know yeah financial peace university though is the proven system that'll help you get going in

a faster rate and uh you're going to move out of debt the typical person moves out of debt in 18 to 24 months not counting their house and that goes through financial peace university so this is everything you need in one place it's a community of people that love you and hold you accountable and encourage you when you're scared and push you and push you and say, quit trying to do your own plan because your own plan sucks. That's why you're here. You need a new plan, a better plan, a faster plan, a more proven plan. Ten million people have been through Financial Peace University, and the majority are debt-free in less than two years. So we're pouring some jet fuel on this whole thing, because here's what we're going to do. All of the Ramsey personalities, including the one to my right, Jade Warshaw, is going to be leading you personally through an FPU class. If you want to

buy an FPU right now, you can join Ken Coleman's class, Dr. John Deloney's class, Jade Warshaw, Eddie Cullen, and Rachel Cruz's class. Jade and Rachel's class starts on Monday. Yes. And we just got a few spots left. That's right. Sign up. And you have to sign up before Monday.

Don't think, you know, oh, I'll sign up later and I'll come. Yeah. Or, you know, a lot of people think if they sign up later,ay don't think you know oh i'll sign up later and i'll come gone yeah or you know a lot of people think if they sign up later they can attend you know maybe starting in the later weeks but no it'll close the signups will close so sign up and uh you need this you need it because what you weren't doing what you were doing wasn't working and i will kick your butt and i will do it with gusto. And love. And love. She's sweet. There's a little bit of love in there, but it's mostly.

She just thinks she's mean. Yeah. It's like a pit bull. You'll be nice. You'll be nice. They're sweet and lovable once you get to know them. They'll be tears, but you'll enjoy them.

No kidding. Hey, listen. You got to have somebody in your corner going, we love you. We want you to win. And that's us go to ramsey solutions.com sign up for financial peace university you can try fpu.com if you want to sign up in one of these personality classes and join rachel or jades or georges or killmans or delonies or whatever yeah these classes will all be full and they're going to be these guys are having a little competition among themselves so this could be pretty fun behind the scenes and we might actually

tell you like who's winning or something like which is why you need to sign up for my class your class well you're here so that's right that's it that's how this works so um another uh another dumb dumb dumb dumb thing out there it's like just when I think we've covered the pinnacle. There's something else out there, guys. And for some reason, Dave, yet again, HELOCs are all the rage and it's not enough that

you can pull the equity on your home. Now, they've turned it into a whole thing. This is called the AVEN credit card. But it's not like all the other credit cards, Dave, because those other credit cards, they're bad, bad, bad. They're unsecured debt. Wouldn't it be nice to have one that's secured debt?

Yeah. So when you buy a steak you can't afford at the restaurant, you lose your home. Oh, there you go. Because you pledged collateral. A steak for your home. Nice trade. And that's what they're saying. Wouldn't it be nice to have a credit card that lets you use your home equity to get really low rates?

It lets you. This is a privilege, Dave. It's so sweet of them them they're so service-minded and i love that it says you get really really low rates between 7.99 and 14.99 variable interest better than a credit card is it you know one of these credit card rating service people called and wanted me to comment on a thing the other day. And our PR team went, did you get a wrong number? Because Dave's credit card has a zero interest.

He doesn't have a credit card. That's the rate on mine. Zero interest. I have a debit card. That's all I use. I haven't had a credit card since 1988 because to start with we filed bankruptcy and they wouldn't give us one and then later but we all also made the decision we weren't borrowing money ever again for any reason and we walked around in a non-debit card society for a little

while with no credit cards and that was tough i bet it was yeah i flew to new york and couldn't check into a hotel it was ridiculous well i mean i i no matter how much cash i flashed they wouldn't let me in it was crazy so yeah it was a problem now you got debit cards does everything credit card does so uh and except charge you 7.9 interest on your home equity loan what do you lost your mind, people? But you don't think, Dave, that it's worth it to leverage your home for 1.5 unlimited cash back? Unlimited. Unlimited. So let me get this straight. I pay out $100 and I get back $1. yes you know what I'm gonna get rich trading a hundred

for a dollar fifty and that's what needs to be called out that's I that's that's just so much wisdom in that I mean everyone knows when you trade a hundred for a dollar fifty you're gonna build wealth quickly yeah it's the idiocy it's unlimited unlimited cash the stupidity is unlimited and here's the worst part here here here's the worst part um you only need as much as five thousand dollars equity in your home and they're willing to give you that on a line of credit on the haven credit card they're just amazingly they're just the kindest it's your equity kindest crocodiles the whole the whole point in buying the home part of it was to build wealth but you're pulling the wealth out and here's the thing y'all didn't see the commercial for this in the commercial

they're swiping the aven card for books in a jewelry store, in a clothing store. That's what they're using their home equity on. That's what people are using this money for. You're trading your freedom and your wealth for shirts, stakes. But you got $1.50 back out of every $100. I don't want to hear anybody complaining about the state of their finances if anybody is willing to get on board with it. If you're willing to get on board with things like this, don't come complaining and don't come crying to me. This is terrible. And you heard

it first here. These are bad, bad, bad ideas, Dave. They're bad. I can't even say it. But the marketing is so pleasant. It seems so reasonable. It calls it a credit card up front, home equity in the back. It's a mullet. It's a money mullet. What does that mean? All business up front, a party in the back.

Yes. With 14.99 added pain and regret. That's added pain and regret it's a financial mullet there it is it has a new name it's called aven yes the financial mullet for you yes your financial mullet buck and a half it's going to cost you you'll get that back for every 100 you spend you get a dollar and a half back you go and get your mullet and they're going to give you spend a hundred bucks you're gonna give you a buck and a half back in a mullet oh gosh i love it it's a bad idea that's exactly the line it's exactly the line a credit card up front a home equity loan in the back it's just all business up front and a party in the back. Oh, gosh.

You cannot make this crap up. You can't. Ad agencies. Good Lord. It's just, well, you can get it in as fast as 15 minutes. Does that make us feel any better? It just makes me feel better because I've got a long career. I know, that's right.

All the stupids out there, I'm going a long career. I know, that's right. If all the stupid's out there, I'm going to be around. Job security. Defeating it. This is The Ramsey Show. Wow. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. So Vic Keller, who's going to be on the entree leadership podcast in a few weeks he's the uh president of christiansen arms just dropped me

off a uh 6.5 creedmoor rifle pretty freaking incredible so i'm kind of i'm kind of stunned right this second it's absolutely a work of art it's absolutely beautiful rifle so anyway back to business here back to business i'm going to come down out of the clouds for a second i was going to say enjoy the ride dennis and kim are with us on the debt-free stage hey guys how are you you're great dave welcome where do y'all live raleigh north carolina fun how much debt have you paid off four hundred and twenty thousand dollars how How long did this take? Five and a half years. I love it. And your range of income during that time?

So it was one hundred and fifty thousand all the way up to three hundred thousand. Whoa. What do you all do for a living? So I work in procurement for a clinical research organization. Cool. And Dave, I work for a faith based wealth management firm called Steward Wealth Strategies, where I'm a wealth manager at a Dave Ramsey SmartVestor Pro. Awesome.

Very cool. Okay. Very cool. So, $420,000. Great income. Great careers. Five and a half years. I'm going to guess and say you might have paid off your house.

Yes, sir. Let's go. What's the house worth? I thought $650,000. Come on, somebody. All right all right wealth manager how much have you gotten your nest egg nest egg is right around 550 000 so young young millionaires how old are you two i'm 36 and just turned 42 yesterday oh my goodness yeah great way to go very cool very cool how long y'all been married five and a half years oh okay so there's

the story all right so what happened what was the story here yeah so i'll start um so i'd actually never heard of you dave before meeting dennis and um thankfully when we met and started dating we both really weren't bringing too much debt to the table he'd been doing your program for a couple of years and i just had the mortgage on the house that I bought before meeting Dennis. I actually, I did ROTC through college. I worked through college. So I got out of school with no student loans, which was huge. And I had never taken out a credit card. I think I was just debt averse to begin with. But when we got engaged, he was coordinating an FPU class and asked if I would come. And that's what opened up that's right it opened up my eyes to the fact that even though I wasn't drowning in

debt but I also I'd never sat down and written down a budget if you asked me what I was spending every month I couldn't have told you so it I was just floating I was getting by with my money but I wasn't working towards any true goals just your general spirit of being debt averse kept you kept you in the zone of wisdom luckily I wasn't wasn't drowning. Yeah, very good. But yeah, so it definitely got us talking and saying, when we get married, this is what we want to do. This is where we want to be. But yeah, Dennis had been on the journey before meeting me. Yeah. So Dave, so I, similar to Kim, worked through college, had scholarships, so got out with no debt, but then soon became normal early into my career. So living paycheck to paycheck, no emergency fund, just no plan whatsoever.

I had six credit cards. I'm very popular with them, so that was great. They liked you. Oh, they loved me. So maxed those out. But then finally, after years of being on the edge, a friend of mine gave me total money makeover within a weekend I read through it and was just bound to determine that yep this is how it's going to this is this is the right way to do this so started doing my budget actually projected out

on a spreadsheet all the baby steps and even bought a hoopty so So I love my hoopty. So now did y'all buy the house after you got married or you already had it when you got married? So I had a house. It was a much smaller house. And then we bought a bigger one. We've got three boys. So we did upgrade the house and that's the one that we just paid off. Ah, okay.

All right. Very good. So you sold the old one that you had before. Yep. Bought a new one and five and a half years later paid it off. Yes, sir. Perfect. Wow.

So I have a question. Plenty of people are of people are like yeah i gotta pay off my debt plenty of people might be willing to downgrade their car to pay off their debt but i mean you guys were like we're going all in to pay off our home what was it i mean what was the why behind that that made you go you know to this extent i mean it's that that was just the uh plan. And so we figured that right now while our kids are young, while we have this income, that this is what we're going to focus on. And that was really a challenge of everything that was going on of folks asking us, hey, why aren't you upgrading your cars? Why aren't you guys upgrading the house? Why aren't you guys going on trips or anything like that we're like no we're just focused this is what we're going to do we know this is a season and so uh that's just what we did people call y'all a

couple nerds for sure and i think to add to that too one of our bigger whys has been building this firmer marriage foundation because we did this from day one of getting married i mean to the extent that on our honeymoon we were driving there dennis had me writing out our very first combined monthly budget together he was not excited to get started it was the height of romance for sure so so yeah he was you're just a stone cold romantic but now looking back i feel i mean i'm so thankful that we started off the marriage that way because it's so good i recommend it to anybody who's almost getting married, newly married, whatever your circumstances. Well, you weren't 19.

No. I mean, you were 32 and 37, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Approximately. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Amazing. That's so funny. So now, I guess when you're meeting with clients now, it's a completely different conversation than it. It's like, hey, I'm 42. I've got a net worth of over a million dollars. I've got a paid four house.

I've been married five years. And all you've got to do is follow the stuff. Exactly. And that's what we tell folks to do is to follow the baby steps. And so that's what we do. So, I mean, it's absolutely a great feeling. So, Kim, around the company when you're doing procurement and you're interacting with your leadership team and so forth, someone says, how'd you do that?

What do you tell them the key to getting out of debt is? Oh, man. I do think it is around, well, he has the more tactical answers because he is definitely the numbers guy. He's, I guess, the nerd of your system. But I think for me, it was finding that why that's bigger than just me. And we had three kids that added to the mix along the way. They were huge drivers for us.

We really want them to see that when we say God is first in our lives, they're seeing that live out in how we spend our money also. Now we're in a position where we can be outrageously generous like you talk about. So we're hoping they're going to witness that growing up, and it's going to ultimately impact their eternities too. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Fabulous.

Very cool. Well done. You don't have a payment in the world. How's that feel? It hasn't sunk in yet. Tomorrow is when the mortgage payment was supposed to go out. And so we don't know exactly how it feels yet. So,

so literally, yeah, we're, we're fresh. Yeah. So you're already saying it but it correct hadn't gotten you haven't gotten the stuff back yet correct oh tomorrow would have been the first this is the first month of freedom yeah oh wow so cool now i understand okay wow it's

exciting man love it yeah so what's the first big thing y'all want to do now that you're free yeah i think there's you know there's a couple things we've been putting off we both drive 12 plus year old cars you need a car we squeezed all three car seats into the back we're gonna upgrade some cars we've got you know an unfinished basement and three boys so that's going to be a worthy investment to finish out the basement so things we're excited about but you'll knock that you'll knock both those things out in a heartbeat i know now we can cash flow everything by christmas so on on the way to the honeymoon you had to write down the budget now on the way home from here you get to write down all the things that you already said that he's like the plane ride home we're gonna be doing

the budget we're doing the goals yeah yeah what comes first the car or the basement yeah or mama gets a car then we do the basement, then daddy gets a car. Minivan or SUV. He's team minivan. Oh, wow. Interesting. Interesting. All right.

I think she gets to pick her car. There we go, Dave. I'm just saying. Yep. Well, she can pick hers and then he can pick his. There you go. This is fair. This is fair.

Team minivan. Right up there with rachel cruz i love it all right guys hey we've got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you you've already done that you can hand it to a client total money makeover you already done that you can hand it to a client and financial peace university you've already done that and you can hand it to a client or you can go back through all of them again. It's all, it's the live and give box. It's just for you to say thank you for coming out. Dennis and Kim, Raleigh, North Carolina, $420,000 paid off

five and a half years. Five and a half years of marriage, making $150,000 to $300,000. 100% debt free. House and everything. Baby steps, millionaires. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yeah! All right! Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop! Yeah, baby! Love that. This is how it's done, boys and girls. This is The Ramsey Show. jade wajah ramsey personality is my co-host today mike is in mississippi hey mike what's up hey dave hey jade thank you for all that you do and thank you for taking this call sure how can we help uh i've got an opportunity that i think is a sweet deal, but I'm wanting to get a gut check on

if I'm missing something or just not seeing something. But I want to give you a little bit of background. I went to Entrez Leadership back in September. I hit baby step seven in August, and I also teach financial peace now, so fully aware of where I am and everything that God's given me. Very cool. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm self-employed. I'm a town architect, which is basically, I work in developments and communities to design and build them up. I don't do the building personally. I just work with the owners and the builders to get them where they need to be. And for the last two years, I've been working with an owner to really push this neighborhood and community forward.

And I've had projects all along the way that I've gotten paid for, but I've also done a lot of sweat equity in tons of meetings and just going with the owner to see, see places and, and do things and never sending an invoice. I've got a guy on the owner team who has kind of recognized that. And we were talking, I had a meeting yesterday. I'm between meetings and that's why

I'm calling you at a meeting yesterday with him. And I have another meeting next week. We talked yesterday about, uh, he would, he would like, and I would like to move my architect office to the neighborhood. Uh, the next slated thing to do in the neighborhood is a series of cottages. They're 1,000 to 1,250 square feet. And my office would fit. I'm a small office, so it would fit right in there with it. And I would be part of the neighborhood. They kind of like that, having their town architect part of the neighborhood.

I kind of like it too. So we got to talking, you know, how do we get this done and how do we make it happen? And I told him, I said, well, I don't do anything with debt. So, you know, we really have to figure this out. So, you know, my numbers, I've got about $100,000 in retained earnings. I've got $75,000 as a savings. Actually, me and my wife actually jumped back to 3B, and I've got $75,000 as a savings. Actually, me and my wife actually jumped back to 3B, and I've got $75,000 for a future home.

You don't own a home? You don't own a home? Hello? You don't own a home? No, I do own a home. Oh, an upgrade home in the future. Yeah, so we're saving for an upgrade home in the future. This is just a cottage that will be my office, but it will actually be a cottage that...

Okay, so what's the deal? So the deal is, we talked about him giving me the lot for a dollar. I pay a dollar for the lot, and I would be about half in on the construction of the home. They would actually pay the builder fees and all that stuff for the rest of it. So I might be about $60,000 to $70,000 out of my pocket. I told them that sounded really good. I've got a mixed-use building that I did for them. Wait a minute.

They're going to give you everything but $60,000? Yeah. And you've got $175,000? Where's the problem? You're just going to pay cash for the $60,000? Yeah. What's the downside? All of that is my retained earnings.

What's the cottage going to be worth when it's done? I would guess that when it's done, about $200,000. Okay. So you come up with $60,000 and you have a $200,000 asset. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. No brainer. Do it.

And you have the cash. You have the cash. Yeah. And it's all in your name. Yeah. No partnership. No debt. Yeah, I made that part of the stipulation

yeah no debt no partnership no nothing they're just they're just giving you a really nice gift uh of their sweat equity in return in recognition of you've done a bunch of work you didn't get paid for yeah i love it that's great do it okay even if you sell it later i mean what you know but you've got you have 175 000 use some of that buy this thing and then here's actually how i'm going to pay for it i did a mixed use building for the owner and about halfway through we were estimating five and a half million dollars for the for the thing and i'd get a percentage fee well you know price increases and everything over the last year that was a year ago it It's now at $9 million.

And so I'm pushing them also a stipulation. I would do this if they go ahead forward and finish the last half of the drawings and get it to go under construction, at which case my fee jumps, and I just pay for this out of the fee jump. Well, there you go. Either way, he's paying cash. Yeah, I think you've got this from six different angles beat down. This thing's beat down to nothing.

Absolutely, you have to do it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. There's nothing wrong with it. Just make sure all the paperwork and contracts and everything is in writing exactly the way that you've. The deal is laid out in detail and that you walk away with clean title and you don't walk away with something that is in perpetuation, that you owe these people a percentage of the equity or something,

crap back or something like that. It's a clean deal, very clean. Exciting. Chop, chop. Good job. Very well done, very well done. Lisa is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Hi, Lisa.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. My question involves Baby Step 4. My husband and I, we've got a sophomore in high school, and we've got about $25,000 already in a 529 for her, so we recognize we're a little behind. Baby Step 5 is kids college. Okay. Oh, 5. Sorry. That's okay. Just making sure I understood what you're doing. Okay. Yes. I'm going to be receiving some money soon for being an executor of a family member's estate.

And after tithing taxes and finishing out Baby Step 3, which would be about $10,000 for Baby Step 3, we're going to have about $15,000 remaining. And my question is, with only two years left to go before college, should we put some of that in the 529, or is it best just to put it in a high-yield savings account? No, just dump it in that 529. It's fine. It's in good mutual funds, isn't it? Yes, it is. Just dump it in there, and then plan on trying to cash flow the first year or something, and leave that alone, let it ride.

True. Well, and we have another child that is currently in college and i think with that that one is going to be cash flow with our 529 for that child and i think there might be a little left over because she plans to graduate early so that's great yeah i would hate it when that happens i know isn't that awful very good good job hey listen let me tell you what you're doing that's very smart I know. Isn't that awful? Very good. Good job. Hey, listen, let me tell you what you're doing that's very smart that 98% of Americans do not do. You are doing your kid's college intentionally. You actually thought about it.

It didn't happen to you guys. You happened to it. You were proactive. Yeah. You clearly chose colleges that were affordable, that were within means of your family to pay cash for or save up to pay for. And that's right there. That right there is half the battle. Plenty of people don't do that. So the fact that you're being wise about that and you're able to send your kids to college, probably paying cash for it is incredible yeah be encouraged you are weird in a good way well thank you the good kind of weird very good very very

well done so you know we used to say years ago 98 of the people that you interview say it's important to save for college and two percent of the people do it yeah everybody says it's important it's it always comes to the doing that's the hard part the doing everybody says this is important you should do it yes we know this is important but when the rubber meets the road few people actually do what it takes to take that money aside i mean she's receiving this money how many people would have just blown it 15k i'm gonna well i need a new car. Or bought something for 30,000. Yeah. Put 15 down on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Or said, well, I've got this. This allows me to take out less student loans. And then my children were forced to take out student loans because we bought daddy a pickup. Forced. That's the crap that people do right there.

That's the language. I was forced into it. I was forced. I didn't have have a choice like they had a gun and duct tape yeah when people said i didn't have a choice you weren't forced you just straight up chose stupid you just chose it said i love stupid i'm gonna embrace it that's right i did it i know what it looks like. Like stupid is your best friend or something. Oh my God. Yeah, you weren't forced to do anything. Choices over time. You create drama to justify your stupidity. I know because I have a drama queen that lives in me too. So this is how this works. What do you call her, Dave? Dave-a-lean.

Yes. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.