The Ramsey Show - App - Ask Yourself What You Want to Be Doing in 10 Years (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Debt, Home Buying, Career   Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE   Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. James is in Florida. Hi, James. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? All right. I just discovered last week I'm currently in baby step two. I'm about $47,000 in debt and I'm living a little bit above my means in terms of expenses. So I don't have much at the end of the month. Now I leased a truck last year that I'm currently upside down on. So I guess my question is, should I take out money to make up the difference between the amount I owe on the

truck and just go to a smaller car to get rid of the monthly payment, or should I just wait until the end of the week to get rid of the truck? How much time is left on the lease? It expires June of 2021. 18 months? Yes, sir. Give or take. Well, probably more like 20 months.

Okay. And how much is your truck payment or your lease payment? The lease payment is $470 a month. Okay. And how much is your truck payment or your lease payment? The lease payment is $470 a month. Okay. And so have you done any research on the car as to what it's worth? Yes, sir. The freight in value is around $23,000, and then the private value is around $26,000. Okay. And have you called the leasing company to find out what the early buyout is if you wanted to pay it off today? Yes, sir. It would be $30,000.

Okay. So you're $4,000 in the hole if you sell it today. Does that sound right? Yes, sir. Okay. And your payment times $20,000 is just under $10,000. Yes, sir. Right now I owe $9,800 if I were to make the rest of the payments early. Just under $10,000. Yes, sir. Right now I owe $9,800 if I were to make

the rest of the payments early. Just under $10,000. And so, point being, if you keep it, you're going to be out $10,000. If you sell it, you're going to be out $4,000. Yes, sir. That gives you your answer. Okay.

And then what do you need? Just get a feeder car in the meantime? Yeah, yeah. What's your household income? $47,000 a year, give or take. And how much other debt have you got? What I said is I have $27,000 in student loans. I have a motorcycle I owe $1,700 on, a credit card I owe $3,000 on,

and then I have a personal loan from my dad for about $5,000. Okay. All right. And so what are you, 27? 26. Yeah, that's about right. That's about where you would stand with that mess you made. Okay.

All right. So, yeah, you got some cleaning up to do. You're going to be working a lot, and you're going to be driving a car that is not going to make you popular. And, oh, well, because if you keep this car, it is really going to hold you back. Yeah, I would borrow the $4,000, and I'd buy 2,000 more. I'd rather you be $6,000 in debt than $30,000 and $26,000 in debt. So I got rid of $20,000 in debt in debt this one move and put you into a hoopty uh you're on beans and rice rice and beans you're not gonna see the inside of a restaurant unless

you're working there and you're working all the time now extra jobs anything you can do to make money and on top of your 47 because you got about another 40 in debt to clean up right yes sir okay and so if you live on nothing and let's just say you earn an extra fifteen thousand dollars okay and you live on nothing and you put that whole 15 and another 10 that'd be 25 on this debt you'd be debt free in about 18 months yes sir but that's zero life okay you're not gonna have a life all you do is work and pay debt but you'll be free once you're done and you get the rest of your life to be smart yes sir every time i do something stupid i go if i just do that if that's the last time i do it it

was probably worth the tuition to that class you know but if you just keep doing the same stupid stuff over that's what makes you mediocre or worse than that broke but um so you've learned and if you just put a stop to it and say that's it we're done boom we're done we're out of here i'm cleaning this mess up then you'll go win good for you man very proud of you all right eric is uh erica is with us in california hi erica how are you? I'm good, Dave. I'm so excited to speak with you. You too. How can I help?

Well, I am in Baby Step 2. I only have one active debt, and that's my car. And the rest of my debt is in collections. So I had put it in another snowball for after my vehicle. Good. My question to you today is, is it okay for me to start knocking out some of those collection debts so I can feel like I'm getting some momentum? Because right now I feel like I'm not getting momentum with only working on my car. How much do you owe on your car?

About $14,000. And what do you make? What's your household income? About $60,000. And that's the only thing you have left? Yes, it's my car and then I have about $5,000 worth of stuff in collections that range between $100 and $50. In the healthy snowball, you only got $14,000 left, and then $5,000 in collections. It doesn't matter. $19,000 makes you debt-free, which you ought to be done in a year. Mm-hmm. You make $60,000, you ought to do $20,000 in a year.

Mm-hmm. That makes you 100% debt-free. Did I do that math right? Yeah, I'm anticipating doing it before June of next year. Okay. So if you're 100% done by June, I don't care which one you do first. Here's the thing. Paying off the ones in collections gains you no mathematical advantage in your budget

because you're not paying them anything anyway. So it doesn't free up any money to make your snowball rolls. Does that make sense? Yes. So June you're going to be done anyway. You know what I would do? I would build a visual for your refrigerator of some kind and just put the $19,000 up there, put how many months, how much you got to do each month, and then just keep coloring it in.

It sounds very kindergarten, but it does help to walk through the kitchen and just look at that and go you're going down you know and you know you're not i'm not living like this and it just keeps you keeps you motivated keeps you seeing the progress as you go through i know i've got people with master's degrees who do paper chains like they're in kindergarten and chop up the chain one thousand dollars per link and stuff all you need is just something to remind you that you're making progress that you've got traction that you're winning and so i don't care i think you'll do it faster if you do the car first because you're freeing up all that car payment so wait a minute so so june from now so what do we got, 10 months? Mm-hmm.

And it should, I mean, if I hit a couple big bonuses between now and then, because I'm on a salary plus commission, then it'll be even faster. So you're thinking about averaging about $2,000 a month? Yes. Okay. So out of the 10 months, and you got 14 in the car, it would be 7, right? Well, and if I settle some of those debts and collections, it'll even be faster, right? Yeah. Because I won't have to settle for the full amount.

Yeah. Hmm. It doesn't matter. The point being, though, that if you just said, okay, I've got 10 months of $2,000, and somehow you do that, you know, 20 chain links of $1,000 a piece, and you knock them off, or you got the thing on your refrigerator, or if you want to do it, it's okay either way. It's not going to save you much.

The only difference is how you'd have three months of no car payments to attack this with. That's the only benefit. So whatever three months of car car payments to attack this with that's the only benefit so whatever three months of car payments is worth that that's how much that's what the advantage of paying off the car earlier is that might be a thousand dollars so it probably won't be with me if you have $300 car payment yeah i'm probably doing the car first still yeah i get your point but i'm still doing the car first. Over the years, I've seen so many families suffer by not having life insurance.

It's not that they didn't care. It's just that they didn't know, so they did nothing. That's a huge mistake. Listen, husbands and wives, moms and dads, think about it. If you died, how would your family pay the bills, the mortgage, food, and plan for a better future? This is what life insurance is all about, and term life is the only way to go. It's not expensive, and it's not complicated. Stop wasting money on cash value plans. You need 10 to 12 times your income in protection and I recommend 15 or 20 year level plans. I also

only recommend Zander Insurance and I have for over 20 years. These are the only people I personally use and they only offer the plans I recommend. Call them at 800-356-4282 or get instant quotes online at zander.com. Trust me, these simple steps will let your family know how much you care. August is National Make-A-Will Month. Who came up with that? I mean, you've got to be pretty bored to come up with Make-A-Will Month. I'm just sitting around going, hmm. Well, the thing is, you need a will. Everybody needs a will, you know that.

So I guess it's a good reason to remind you. Seems kind of weird, but make a will month. Yeah, well, make a will, though. You do need to have a will. If you're over 18, you need a will. Everyone needs a will. Dave, I'm afraid if I do a will, I'm going to die. Let me help you with this.

You're going to die. Doing a will does not hasten your death in any way. That is ridiculous. Here's the thing. It's a way that you say i love you to your family if you want to cause a big fight and have a whole bunch of people that you love go through a lot of stress die without a will if you want the state which is well known for its lack of wisdom, to decide what happens to your children upon your death, die without a will.

This is just dumb. Everybody needs a will. And so here's the thing. What we did was we came up with the free will, doesn't cost a thing, preparation checklist. Makes you think about the things you need to have, the big seven important areas, like naming a guardian, like having beneficiaries, all the little things you hadn't thought of. You just, you never know.

I mean, if you don't have a will, then the law dictates who's going to be in charge, and people just come up with just stupid things that they think they're in charge because of. It's like, well, my dad told me one time that has nothing to do with anything. You know, it's hillbilly law, right? Street law. What somebody said on the street once that they heard, has nothing to do with anything in reality. The judge just looks at you and goes, uh-uh, no. So get this seven free will preparation checklist,

cover these seven areas, and you can get prepared to do your will. And once you've gone over the checklist, setting up your actual will is fairly easy. You can download the guide by texting WILL to 33789. It's free. You get the checklist for free. Text WILL to 33789. And give your family some peace of mind.

Say I love you by having your estate in order. Proper amount of life insurance, have a will. It's easy to find. There's no mysteries that happen upon your death. Your life is not a movie script because you're so dysfunctional. That's why they're in movies, because they're dysfunctional, right? No, it doesn't have to be that way. You can actually control some of the controllables.

Emily is with us in Minnesota. Hi, Emily. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I've been a big fan for a long time, just a tiny bit of history.

I read your book when I was a freshman in college, and I have kept your philosophies in mind. My husband and I had quite a bit of debt both going to graduate professional school and our loans topped out at about $390,000. We are so lucky and never did any credit card debt and we have worked really hard. In a couple weeks, we'll be debt-free besides our mortgage. My goodness. What do you guys do for a living? We're both in health care.

I'm an optometrist and eye doctor, and my husband is a physician assistant in orthopedics. Cool. So what's your household income? We're at about $190,000. Okay, cool. And you've cleared up almost $400,000 in debt. Yeah, yes, sir.

Congratulations. Thanks. So now that we have kind of hurtled a big mountain of school debt, we just have our house. We're anxious to do a few things with our house that we've kind of held off on the last five years, just being disciplined to pay off our school debt. And my question is how we best do that. I know you're not going to say to take out a loan, but to cash flow. But I guess my question is, you know, what the best way would be as we want to start investing more. We know we have about 30 years for things to grow. We want to pay off our house. We want to kind of get after our mortgage now.

We haven't done anything aggressive about that thus far. Yeah, you need to fix up your house. What are you going to spend to fix up your house? So we want to finish our basement. What are you going to spend to fix up your house? Well, we figure about $70,000 to $80,000 between basement, deck, and carpet. So you're going to do that in one year? Over the next couple years, I'd say. All right.

So you take $40,000 a year out for two years out of a $200,000 income, plus your income's going up during that time. Once you've got your emergency fund in place, if you want to do that and that slows down paying off your house, that should be okay. And I think you can still do your 15% of your income going into retirement. So you think it's a little bit better to slow down paying on mortgage than it is to slow down or not do as much investing? That, I guess, is my question. No, we do baby step four, which is 15% of your income, before we get to baby step six, which is pay off your house your house right which means if we're going to slow down one it's going to be slow down paying off your house but you're not slowing it down that much right you're only slowing it down for

two years by 40 grand right okay so 40 does the renovations and 30 does your 15 that's 70 out of 200 right where i come from that leaves 130 right i think you can still make some progress on that i mean it's not that you have to have no i mean and somewhere in there you need to have a life again because you hadn't had one you've been paying off four hundred thousand dollars in student loan debts ding ding so, you need to make sure your emergency fund's in place. Emotionally, you need to fix this house up. Yeah, right. Yeah, and pay cash for it. So do that over two years.

Get your 15% started. And if you do a limited amount of debt reduction on the home, the baby steps six during that two years, okay with me. You're still young. You're making big money. Your incomes are probably going to double again. You're going to be in the $300 to $400 range within a decade. And so you're going to be fine. Now that you know to pay attention and now that you know to stay away from debt and now that you've decided to live that way with the intentionality of that,

you make a lot of money, you're going to be fine because you're not going to be one of these stupid broke doctors, which most doctors are broke. They're worse than sports figures. They're all such powerful intellects to get through med school, but they can't seem to use that intellect to do anything except overthink their money, and they end up with none. And so they get in some of the dumbest butt investments on the planet. So just don't do that stuff. Just be simple, clean, work a system, work a plan, and you'll be fine.

Thanks for calling in. You know, when we were doing the everyday millionaire study, doctors, medical doctors didn't even make the top five. The top five most likely careers to be a millionaire when we studied 10,000 of them, doctors were not in the top five. They were in the top 10. Attorneys did make the top five, Barely number five. It was interesting. You know what made it the top five? Most likely to be a millionaire. Teachers. Number three. Teachers.

You know why? One of the big ways we found that people become millionaires is steady steady steady teachers are steady people they typically get in that career and if they're going to be a teacher they're a teacher their whole life they don't have 14 different careers they might come home they might quit teaching altogether but by and large once someone's a teacher they teach and um you know and they're often married to a policeman a. And they're often married to a policeman, a fireman. They're often married to an engineer, which one of the others was engineers. And one of the others was accountants. Well, duh.

So, I mean, they're rounding out the top five. But it doesn't mean you have to be in one of those things. But it just reminds us that NFL star and NBA star was not in the top ten. Which I don't get to be either. God said so. By the way, he designed the DNA of this little Oompa Loompa. So not a chance I get to be either one of those. So I have to be something else if I'm going to win with money, right?

Most of you aren't going to be in the NBA. I'm talking about basketball, in case you didn't know. Most of you are not going to play Major League Baseball. You just don't have that 96-mile-an-hour fastball in you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Trisha is on Facebook. Dave, my son is currently incarcerated. Wow. Can you imagine?

He has three children that live with their mother. Of course, he's not able to make his child support payments anymore, as he has in the past, and is now getting behind on the payments, and the children's mother is having a hard time. My husband and I are on baby step two. Should we help her out since our son can no longer make his child support payments? Well, I don't know y'all's incomes, and I don't know how much debt you've got while you're on baby step two. Obviously, you can't afford to help her out much because you're in debt.

And the best way to be able to help her out long term is to get yourself out of debt because we live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else so i mean you can just look at your budget and you know i don't i don't have any idea i don't know if you make 150 000 a year if you make 50 000 a year and i don't know if you've got 100 000 in debt or thousand dollars in debt um those do those numbers do make a difference in this answer but um uh let's say you were a typical caller making around 180 170 somewhere in there and maybe you got fifty thousand dollars in debt something along those lines then um you know, you probably are maybe $100 a month or something for right now until you can get yourself cleared up. What I would do is come around her in lots of other ways.

If you're in the same town, let's cook some meals for her and the kids. If there's times that you can babysit for them while she works more. And, again, other than variables, I don't know how long your son is going to be incarcerated but basically this lady needs a career change if she can't support these three kids on her own because she's probably going to be supporting them on her own plus or minus your help right and so what i would do is try to help her coach her cheer for her even give her some money that caused her to be able to make more money to become self-sustaining not because i mind giving her money but that gives her more dignity it's a better long-term solution because you don't want 20 years of you supporting

her all these kids grow up that's that's untenable 20 months a little help more help for the next 20 months lots of babysitting and cooked meals and you know you give her your old car i don't know whatever you got like any stuff like that yeah that kind of stuff we would do but you can't emotionally go down with a ship here um and she's got to she needs to work towards becoming self-sufficient just for her own sake and then anything you could do later on as you become wealthy and so forth would be more of a blessing rather than like a necessity. Patrick is with us. Screwed that up. Wait a minute.

Let me try again. Where'd you go, Patrick? Patrick is with us. Patrick is in Pennsylvania. Hi, Patrick. How are you? I'm good. How are you, sir?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Yes, I have a job advancement question. I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Currently, I work for a hospital and I work hourly. Last year, I got a raise. And then this year, just a couple weeks ago, I had a interview or pretty much a meeting with my boss trying to see how I could grow and increase my income. And just after the meeting, probably about a week, probably half a week later, somebody came with an opportunity with another position, and it's in a different industry. It's a manufacturing and it's a salary position.

I just had an interview actually today, and I'm pretty confident that they're going to be giving me an offer. And I kind of want to, after having the interview, I kind of want to stay where I'm at, but also I want to grow with the company I'm currently at. So I kind of, I'm kind of, um, I'm trying to work out the details and trying to figure out if I, uh, how I should approach my current boss about it. Again, I work for a hospital. I work hourly.

I make $40,000 a year plus $7,000 overtime. Now, that's average. $6,500, that's average over the last two years. So I would say $47,000 at this point. But, again, it's not guaranteed. What's the other position going to offer, do you think? The other position is a salary position. Right now I'm waiting on an offer. It would be between 50 and 55.

Okay, so not much different. No. Okay. But in regards to the – What do you do at the hospital now? I work in IT. Where I currently am at, I'm about 50 minutes from work, but I work remotely most of the time. How old are you? I am 33.

How long have you been in IT? Probably about eight, nine years. What do you do in IT? IT support, mainly call-based issues, troubleshooting. Gotcha. Okay. All right. And the other position, what would you be doing there? The manufacturing position would be on-site, mainly just supporting a plant, manufacturing plant,

and supporting the employees within the plant and then other... Supporting them in what way? With IT. Oh, it's IT again. Okay, still IT. Yeah, same type of issue. It's just a different industry. Okay, and you said you're how old?

I'm 33. So when you're 53, what do you want to do? I want to do? I'm trying to kind of dive in to trying to figure out exactly what that is. I think I have to step back and try to really figure that out. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to do because once you know that, then you ask yourself, which of these two positions takes me there the easiest or the quickest? That makes sense, yeah. And that's the one you take because these have little these have little nuanced differences the pay is not unique between the two one might have more advancement than another uh one might have more learning than another one might be closer to home than another

one what should work from home more than another that kind of stuff those are nuanced things but you can put up with all kinds of crap if it's taking you to your goal and so you know i can i can make a little bit of a drive for a few years if it's taking me to my goal or i can um you know not work from home if it's taking me to my goal i can do a lot of stuff if it's taking me to my goal. I can do a lot of stuff if it's taking me to my goal. So the question is, where are you wanting to go? And what we do around here, we set a goal for an area of this business or with an individual, and we're sitting down talking to them. We say, okay, if that's the goal, then you have to ask yourself, what has to be true for me to get there that's not true today,

and what are the steps I'm going to take? And then these two decisions that are in front of you, is either one of them the right decision it might be a third option that you need to look towards to hit your goal it might be neither one of these these two sound like things that happened out of convenience rather than out of a dedicated intentional plan i might be wrong but i kind of think you fell into the job you're in, and you're about to fall into another one. Instead of going, this is exactly what I wanted to do. You know, when I think about doing this, I get excited. I've been doing this radio show 30 years, and every day I still enjoy it. Now, some days more than others. Some days I'm tired. Some days I'm sick. Some days I'm sick and tired.

But most days I just really love being down here. I like putting this microphone across my head and starting to talk to you guys. I enjoy talking to you. I have fun doing this. It's rewarding. It does some good. It helps you. It's work that matters. But it was an intentional thing because something that does not give you energy

becomes a drag in about a week it doesn't take long at all so find something that you intentionally say that sounds like I could be smiling 10 years from now and still doing that at that place and that might be your best move Ken Coleman's book Proximity Principle I think will be of help to you in that Patrick and still doing that at that place. And that might be your best move. Ken Coleman's book, Proximity Principle,

I think would be of help to you in that, Patrick. I will send you a copy as my gift, and you should tune in and listen to Mr. Ken Coleman on The Ken Coleman Show. About 40 different radio stations around America, plus Sirius XM with the Ramsey Network there. The Ken Coleman Show. Oh, it's a podcast, too. This is The Dave Ramsey Network there. The Ken Coleman Show. Oh, it's a podcast too. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 2.10

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Abraham Lincoln said, If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first six of them sharpening my axe. Dr. Stephen Covey used to tell that story years and years ago when the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People came out. I went to a conference when he was still alive. He was a speaker, and he talked about don't be a tree beater.

Just hit the tree with the axe over and over and over again instead of spending any time sharpening the axe. Are you reading? Are you growing? Are you learning? Are you still trying to do the same thing exactly the same way? Because you have no new knowledge. You have not sharpened your axe at all you have no

inputs into your life nothing like that that's a tree beater don't just smack the tree because your axe is getting more and more and more and more dull sit down sharpen it if i had eight hours to chop down a tree i'd spend the first six of them sharpening my axe. In which case, you probably could cut the tree down with three swings, right? Because it would be a freaking razor blade after six hours.

Anyway, point bid. Jackson is with us. Jackson's in Massachusetts. Hi, Jackson. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking time to talk to me. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm a recent fan of yours, and I've always been pretty good with money. My mom got me to Financial Peace University now, but I'm already on maybe step five, according to your steps. So I'm trying to figure out where do I even jump in

in your steps and figure out what I should be doing right now. I'm kind of on autopilot as of right now and trying to figure out what to do. Okay. You just told me where you jump in. Yeah, I guess at Baby Step 5, but I don't, I guess, say for kids' college, but... Four, five, and six are simultaneously done, meaning you save 15% of your income as baby step four towards retirement. You're doing that, right? Right.

Five is start doing something towards kids' college, and that would vary based on the age of your child and your income and how much you want to put towards college and all those kinds of things. It's not as easy to just put a stamp on, like a percentage or something. Right. It's not as easy to just put a stamp on, like a percentage or something. And then above that, any money you can scrape together, or you come into, or you inherit, or you get a bonus or whatever, then you would just throw that at the house. So how many kids have you got? I've got zero.

Zero kids. Well, then you don't have a baby step five. Correct, yeah. That skips straight on to six. Okay, and I don't have a baby step five. Correct, yeah. That skips straight on to six. Okay, and I don't have a house. Then that's easy. Okay, so how old are you? 25.

Okay, cool. All right. So really where you are is any money above the 15%, you could save like crazy towards buying a house someday, right? Correct. And build you up a big old hairy house fund. I mean, you might even pay cash for it. What do you make? That would be awesome.

$100,000. Wow. Look at you. At 25, what do you do for a living? I'm in financial services. Good for you. You're killing it, man. Thanks.

Okay. So if you put 15% away, you're 25, you're obviously very intentional, goal-oriented, probably frugal and conservative, I'm going to guess. And so you probably could save some serious money towards a house. Yeah, that's the goal. I just don't really know, I guess, how to do it other than just do what I'm doing. Do what you're doing, live on a budget, and just set yourself some goals and say, I'm going to save X.

What would you like? How much in addition to the 15% going into retirement could you save towards the house a month? In addition to the 15%? Right now I actually save, including the 15%, I save about 50% of my paycheck. Okay. Well, then that means you would have, what, 35%?

Yeah. So $35,000. So like $3, dollars a month going into your house fund right okay pretty cool so in three years you got like 100 grand yeah and you'd be 28 and uh so um you know that that's the process you're just going to build up as big a down payment as you can there i want you to just pile that money up as high as you can pile it with the idea that sometime you're going to buy a house. I don't know when. That's up to you.

But you're not going to be 40 and not have a house. Right. So if you, you know, decide to get married or something after that, you know, you might use the money at that point to buy a house. I don't know. Something like that is probably what's in your future. And so just start just above the 15 going into retirement i just start piling it up for your future home when you get your home paid off or purchase your home then you can start talking about other stuff because then you would officially be baby step seven kim is with us in Ohio. Hey, Kim, how are you?

I'm doing pretty well. Good. How can I help? Well, Dave, one of the things that I just want to ask you, I don't know if you're familiar with the retirement plan that they have for police and fire. It's called the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, also known as the DROP. So police and fire, they reinvest their money, and they come out with, you know, a little piece of change. So instead of leaving in the pension plan,

my husband decided to transfer it with a broker. He's very loyal. He heard of his broker through friends, and his father used him. Our funds have not grown. It will be two years in January, and we literally have made about 1%. My issue is the guy was not big on mutual funds, so he has all this money tied up in individual stocks. As my husband looked today, we're in the negative.

Am I being pessimistic here? Is this realistic? Should we maybe shop for another broker? Am I being realistic to think that we should have made something? This is supposed to be such a great market where rides are high on the halls. Why can't we see it? Yeah, you should have made something. And yes, you're in the wrong place. You need to move. You do need to look for something different out of a broker than you looked

for before. What you wanted before was someone to do this for you, and then when he didn't do it for you you're griping so what i want you to do is to get a teacher your your advisor should be a teacher at giving you advice here's some ideas here's some and you know the smart investor pros that we endorse as an example we require them before we will agree to have them on our list of people that we recommend that they have that heart of a teacher because they're going to sit down and say, okay, here's how this works. Here's what some ideas are. Here's the four mutual funds Dave recommends.

Here's four actual funds that are real that fit that category. If you were to do this, here's how it would work, and here's what you would do. And you would understand it, and you would decide. And so if the investment underperformed, it would actually be your fault because this money is yours. If the investment does really well, it'll actually be your fault

because you chose well, or you chose poorly based on you learning from an advisor. You do not want a babysitter. If you hire a nanny and your kids don't turn out, it's the nanny's fault. But it's actually your job to parent your kids, not the nanny's. And so it's ultimately your fault. Bottom line is you're better off to parent your kids and if you have a nanny then they're just involved in the process if you get some help

that's fine but they're just involved in the process but you don't turn the parenting over to the nanny you'll get boarding school kids out of that that won't work for you so you don't turn the money over to somebody else to manage you turn it over to them after the two of you have talked it through and you made the decision and they then execute the order that you give them you look at them and you say this is what i want to do i want these three funds or these four funds based on this discussion that we had and then they go do it and that's the expectation that you need so you need a different set of goals in bringing on an advisor and you need a new advisor so go to smartvestor at davramsey.com because you're getting ready to become a smarter investor, you and your husband.

Because you counted on someone else to do it for you, and then you were disappointed. Well, that's not a new story. So you go do it. And just click smartvestor at DaveRamsey.com. Enter your information. It'll drop down a list of the smartvestor pros in your area. But they're going to require that you learn and that you make decisions about your money because they are teachers. They're not money managers for you.

I do not believe in that. That's how these athletes end up broke. That puts us out of the Dave 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. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year.

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