The Ramsey Show - App - Automate "Smart" and Make "Stupid" Hard (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss:  How paying extra on your house is like a forced savings plan, "Am I making enough money?" The best way to pay off student loans. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! 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 as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. Starting this hour is going to be Anthony. Anthony's with us in Jackson, Tennessee. Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? All right. My question today involves, have to do with paying off a mortgage or saving up a down payment for a new house. My wife and I, we just became consumer debt free, and we will have our emergency fund built up within the next two months. And I just wasn't sure if it's better to build the equity in our existing mortgage. I think we could get it paid off within that two to three year period, or just save up a pile of cash. Well, congratulations. Way to go, man. Thank you. Feels good to get control, doesn't it?

It does. $55,000 in 18 months. There's student loans and a car loan. Way to go. That's exciting. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So the question is, you're thinking ahead to paying off your mortgage. Am I understanding that correctly?

Yes, either that or getting a sizable down payment for cash. I don't know which one would be more beneficial. Well, once you've got your emergency fund saved, walking down the baby steps, then you're going to start putting that 15% away for retirement, right? Do you have anything with kids college coming up? Do you have kids? We do have a one-year-old little girl. We haven't really started anything on her yet because we're getting out of debt. That's right. And when the time comes, you'll want to make sure that you're doing baby step five. So opening something, an ESA or something 529 for her, making sure you're putting some money

aside from that. And then when it's time to start paying down the mortgage, I would not do a lump sum and throw it out. I would make the payments, extra payments whenever you have the money, put it onto the mortgage. And here's why. This is the Jade way of saying this, because whenever you have a stack of money just sitting there, it gets real tempting to use mortgage. And here's why this is this is the jade way of saying this, because whenever you have a stack of money just sitting there, it gets real tempting to use. Oh, you know what? I think we might need a new vehicle or oh, you know what? We do need a vacation to Hawaii, right? It's easy to think that that money can be earmarked for something else. And so I like the idea of just piling it onto the mortgage when the time comes. That way it's out of your hands and it's building, you know, equity. And it's that forced savings's out of your hands and it's building you know

equity and it's that forced savings account um forced savings that's what a guy used to work for called it anthony said when you pay extra on the mortgage it's a forced savings account because it's real hard i mean it's a you can do it but it's a lot of trouble to get the equity out of your house to go buy a bass boat it's not hard to do it out of your savings account and so um it's not hard to do it out of your savings account. And so it's just, you know, you're going to stay on task for the move up in-house. And the good news, the weird thing is about paying down your mortgage, it feels like the money's gone, but it's not. It's just saved in the equity because you get the money when you sell the house. It's not like you're consuming the money, like you spent it or something.

It's not gone. And so it's just, you know, what is a better place? I like the forest aspect of it. And the other thing is when you do get the house paid off, plans might have changed. That's right. That's absolutely true. And so even if they don't, that's fine. I'm not saying they have to change.

But if they don't change and you're going to sell the house and sell it, they'll give you a big old check at the closing because you ain't got any mortgage. And off we go. So yeah, forced savings plan. It's a good idea to trick yourself into as many smart things as you can. Absolutely. Yeah. I say automate smart. And so when you automate those extra payments or when you just automatically put those towards debt, it's a smart habit that's automated. Now, the only time, Dave, that I would stack up a pile of money to pay off a debt is if there was some sort of deal that I was getting. Like if you had a private student loan and they said,

hey, if you pay a lump sum, we'll give you some off. That's the only time I might stack up. Well, a 401k loan, you can't pay extra on it. You can only pay the minimum or a lump sum one of the two so you have to stack up and knock out a 401k loan something along those lines then you have to yeah but other than that i agree yeah and you know hey guys it's a good idea to have i got a bunch of auto draft for good things like going into mutual funds auto draft going into savings auto draft automatically paying everything so i never miss a discount on all utilities.

Everything's full auto. Has been since before it was cool. Yeah. Before digital. Yeah. You know, I've been on auto everything. And, you know, what I just said is I'm going to automate smart and make stupid hard. That's good.

Let me call out something, though, because I've been there. When you went from struggle slices to a non-struggle situation, back when it was struggle slices, I hated automating things because I never knew what my money was looking like. And somebody could pull that money out of my account, overdraw my account. And so when we finally got to the situation where, OK, like money is good, life is good. That was a hard transition to make. It was like the old brain going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then the new brain has to go, yes, yes, we manage our money now.

Like this is good. So it's not, it's not, yeah, I'm not living crisis to crisis. I don't have to control the crisis. I can let the thing flow. And so, yeah, I haven't paid a utility bill in years. That's great. I love that. Except direct, you know, except know except direct auto auto auto deduct or

whatever the flip you call it and you know so it's just yeah and i don't know decades like forever simplify it and so yeah uh david bach talks about that in an old book that came out back when my first bestseller came out financial peace he came out a couple years later with a book called automatic millionaire and he talks you knowdrafting into your mutual fund. That's the beauty of the 401k. It comes out of your paycheck. You don't even miss it. That's right.

And it's the only reason that the income tax system in America works. Please talk about that, Dave. You know, I mean, if you had a guy named Matthew that was at your office, and when you got your check, you got got cash you didn't get a check and you had to walk out and hand matthew the tax collector like what you did there yeah you see how i did that yeah yeah if you had to if you had to walk out and hand matthew the tax collector actual cash out of your check that he was going to then supposedly take to the federal government there would be a revolution in this country with pitchforks and torches but the sheep have been lulled to sleep by auto draft

out of your check and they sure wouldn't be giving him extra to get back later as a refund you know matthew i'm gonna i'm just gonna leave a little with you. Matthew, the tax collector, you look like a good guy. I'm just going to leave a little extra with you. And come April, you can hand it back to me with no interest. That's a really good point. It would end all tax refunds. There would be no overpayment by God, because every dollar coming out of your hand would squeak. Every dollar coming out of your hand would squeak. Every dollar coming out of your hand would cause anger. Every dollar coming out of your hand would cause you to vote again correctly. Oh, my God.

And it would cause you to fire a whole bunch of people that can't seem to balance their books. Oh, my God. It would change a little trillion here, a trillion there. And then pretty soon we get into some serious money. Wow. Oh, wow. Look, Dave, I just want to be able to start a sentence with my first bestseller.

That's what you did. It's coming before you know it. I love that. Coming before you know it. My first bestseller. Coming before you know it. That's after you've had a second one, right? That's right.

Is that how that works? That's how it works. They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. I got a feeling, Jade. I got a feeling. This is The Ramsey Show.

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And you know all the answers. You can answer the questions faster than we can. But you're still stressed. You're still stuck. Why is that? Because it turns out knowing what to do isn't the deal. Doing it is the deal. You can know what to do and not do it and have no success whatsoever.

Thus, the problem with only knowing. Application is part of wisdom. And the proven way to change your behavior with money is by taking Financial Peace University. It's our nine-week class or nine-lesson class. A lot of people do it in nine weeks. You get with a superhero called a coordinator that will encourage you and hold you accountable act as your personal trainer as you go through and you're in a class either virtually or in a group class over at your church

that's why this class has worked for over 10 million people and after nine weeks you will never handle money the same way again the typical person has an eight thousand dollar turnaround in 90 days that's right they typically pay off fifty three hundred dollars in debt in the first 90 days and save twenty seven hundred dollars in the first 90 days eight thousand dollars pretty good turnaround that's a called roi return on investment financial peace university check it out ram RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. Calandra is with us in Shreveport. Hey, Calandra, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you for having me.

Certainly. How can we help? I have a question about baby step number one, and I kind of want you to give me a bit of a critique on if you think i'm real serious about this or not all right what's going on okay so i am halfway through baby step number one working on saving that thousand dollars and unfortunately in my city well really in all of shreveport bozer and some of some of the architects, our power was out. And so I had to throw away my whole fridge, basically, and refill it.

And it set me back a bit. But that's neither really here nor there. The electricity's back on. Great. But it's like every time I start to save my money, something like this happens to me. And I'm not really complaining about it I'm a little frustrated but I am starting to wonder if maybe I just am not making enough money what do you make even get to that step uh right now I'm making two thousand dollars a month

I live really really cheap um I don't have a lot of expenses, but I do have a ton of debt. I am making, like I said, $2,000 a month. I pay $650 a month for my rent. A couple hundred dollars a month, like $237 a month for my car, plus another $100 for my insurance, $100 for my phone. You know, things like that. How old are you? I'm about 326.

Yeah. For the critique, I do want you to make more money, but specifically for baby step one, the thing that's going to keep life from happening to you on this, and you take one step forward, two steps back,

it's speed. You've got to come in like a wrecking ball and just pull through this i mean you're selling stuff you're going so hard in the paint most people save this within 30 days like that i wanted to ask you how long have you been on baby step one yeah but two thousand dollars you can't do it yeah that's what i'm saying she's got to go she's got to pick up all the work do do all the things, the babysitting, the housecleaning, all of it. What do you do for a living? I'm a banker. I work at a bank.

Full time? Mm-hmm. Doing what? I'm just a teller at the bank. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm not like one of those loan specialists or anything like that. I just got this job like two months ago.

Okay. Well, not two months ago, like in February. High school education? The day that I started, yep. I'm back in college. I'm going for my associates in business, and then I will get a better paying job, and then I will continue on with my bachelor's in business. How are you paying for the associates? Actually, my job is paying for it. Great, great,

great, great. Yeah, so there's a path. You have a path in front of you to earning more, which is good. But for the here and now, we've got to find ways to earn more. And I'm not saying that. I like that you're on a path to earning more, but you've got to pick up more hours somehow. Obviously, maybe not at the bank. I'm not sure what they offer there. Let me ask you something.

When you took the banker job or the teller job at the bank, the obviously you were looking for work at that point. What were you doing before that? Before that I was a full-time artist, a painter and muralist. I was teaching part-time job, teaching art to children and like, okay. So you took the, let me see if i can get in your head for a second did you take this job part-time job did you let me see if i can get in your head a second did you take this job to uh because it felt like it was like you were like being an artist you

might have felt a little bit irresponsible part-time and all that this is like a responsible big girl job i'm going to get on a track here to build a career no you actually took that job because uh i took that job because back in the day i was in school for graphic design and i was paying for everything out of pocket i'm the first person in my family to go to college and when I reached out to get support for not only my family but for my counselors as well, I didn't really get a lot of good support. I didn't get very much feedback. And I was doing everything on my own. I think you're amazing.

The thing I'm thinking about is I would like for you to do something that maybe is not as, I don't know. Rigid? Not as whimsical. I'd like for you to make twice as much money at something that doesn't sound as fun as banking or sound as professional as banking. If you were to clean houses and make $48,000, or you can be a teller and be $24,000. I'll take the clean houses right now.

Look, you're creative. You have a skill set and you have an offering that the average person can't do. There is a way that you can monetize that in some way and make more money per hour than you're doing right now. I agree wholeheartedly. I applaud your move in the direction you're going and i applaud all the decisions you're making i think you're an incredible young lady it's fun talking to you i would like for you to find a way to make a have a a job that might not make uh everybody around

you think you're cool or proud or whatever but don't give a crap that makes more money right now you need some more money yeah if you could go make 48 000 on your day job and make another 20 000 on your side job teaching art to kids and create some kind of mentoring program or some kind of uh uh tutoring program or something along those lines summer workshops yeah you get you get paid seriously and you know if i could get your income like and then that increases your speed because part of the problem is is that you're not making money that's right i mean it's what you're and it's not a put down because i think you're moving in the right direction and um and you don't have good uh people around you to tell you to go do this or go do that and so we're going to be those people. Yep. Okay, we're going to help you. I want to do a couple things.

One is I'm going to put you through Financial Peace University, our nine-week program. I also want you to take Ken Coleman with the Ramsey Networks. He has a show on career and on jobs. And he has an assessment, a career assessment. It's $30, but I'm going to give it to you. Okay, and I'm also going to give you his book, From Paycheck to Purpose. I'm going to load you to you. Okay. And I'm also going to give you his book from paycheck to purpose. I'm going to load you up kiddo. Cause I think you got huge potential and we're going to come around. You put our arms around you and love you, hug you and say,

get them tiger, get them. And you call back here anytime and remind us of this conversation. And we'll talk to you and, and help you. We'll be the ones in your corner but right now i would rather you be in a job that is not as um uh i don't know what the right word is it's not respectable that's not the right word but it's not it's not as professional sounding yeah you know she's a free spirit she needs a free spirit reflective bankers let me tell you about banking in general. Okay. Banking, big title, little money. Just in general. Clearly. Just in general.

And tell her bottom of that barrel. Big title, little money. Lots of walking around like I'm doing something. No money. So when someone says they're a banker, I always snicker. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Daniel and Danielle are with us.

Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you doing better than we deserve welcome good to have you guys where do y'all live brunswick georgia oh yeah fun just down the road welcome to nashville how much debt have y'all paid off 237 000 dollars yeah how long did that take eight years whoa okay and your range of income during that time oh uh eighty thousand dollars to start with uh about $140,000 now. Cool.

What do you all do for a living? We're foresters. Very good. Good. That's cool. So 237,008 years. I'm going to guess and say that might be your house. Yes, sir.

Student loans, family loans, and the mortgage. Way to go. Look at it, weirdos. How old are you two? 34 and 33. All right. Very very cool so you start this around 25 years old and you knock out everything student loans and the house what's this house worth about 300 000 now okay wow very cool good for you how's it feel to be free relieving yes yes been working on it a long time i hear you i hear you very cool so what started

all this eight years ago is that when y'all got married actually right after we got married uh we took took financial peace uh at a local church and uh since then we got on it pretty hard and uh had three kids in the meantime. We've taught the class three times. Oh, thank you. Ourselves and hoping to maybe do it again this year. Wow. That's very, very. So how do you even.

So you took financial peace at the church. How did you find out about it? Was it your church or did somebody tell you about it? So when we first started getting married, I'm the one that brought the debt into the marriage. So I had $47,000 in student loan debts. And I knew that we needed to tackle it. And he was on board. We had a friend who actually went to the church that hosted it that said, hey, you might want to check this out and kind of heard about you a little bit.

So we thought it would be a good opportunity, you know, when we first get married after the Christmas holidays, you know, let's go through this. And it was a goal for both of us to pay off the student loan debt before we started having our family so that really kind of set off the journey very very cool so she brought forty seven thousand dollars of student loan debt into it Daniel what I mean tell me just be honest I had I had no no student loans thankfully uh parents did pay for my college, which is what we're trying to do for our kids. You're also smarter than me. And yeah, I had scholarships. But we did borrow money to make a down payment on the house when we did buy it.

So we did have that. Yeah. But you were like, her debt's my debt. Like, we're going to go get this. He wasn't really quite on board for us. We had very different mindsets when it comes to money. Like I, you know,

had student loan debts. I was used to seeing a hundred dollars in the bank account and be like, I got a hundred dollars. I'm good. And he was not quite that way. So you were like, I'll drain down my account, pay this thing.

And for him, that was like, this is very uncomfortable. It was very uncomfortable for him, that was like, this is very uncomfortable. It was very uncomfortable for about two years, honestly, but lived off of his salary and my whole salary went to the student loan debts. So I worked as a county forester, which doesn't make a ton of money through the state. And he worked private industry forester. So we just completely lived off of that. And then I'm just, you know, we already, I was already used to living off a hundred bucks. So it wasn't really that hard.

That is very cool. Very cool. Good for you guys. Way to go, y'all. Thank you. Okay, now you've led the class. You're getting ready to lead it again. You've been through it.

And in Financial Peace University, people are going to come up to you and they go, you paid off $237,000. How did you do that? What's the secret? What are you telling them? Be diligent. Patience. Patient and diligent. seven thousand how did you do that what's the secret what are you telling be diligent just patience patient and diligent just takes time eight years a long time it's a long time was it worth it it was worth it yes our oldest is five we have a middle child that's four and

our youngest is two we paid off our we paid for two new cars with cash um yeah that's all of them right there wow so the youngest one now she's mean she'll get you but um through all of it like when we're teaching i mean we try to really help those that are going through it the the comparison game because that's where everyone's going to get you you know just going out to lunch here it's not a big deal for this and so really being tunneled in focus because some of those even closest to you may not necessarily understand what it is you're doing while you're doing it. You know, live for the moment, not for necessarily worry about that down the line. So we try to help them go through and understand, be patient, you know, be diligent, stick to the plan, keep your vision on the long term.

So who were who were your cheerleaders? Like who were the people that kept you guys focused, encouraged you, kept you going? Did you have those people? I would say it was us. Starting out it was each other and then as we've taught the class and had folks well teaching the class first of all every two years is a great reminder because about that point in time two years later we were starting to let the wheels get a little wobbly and then we'd take the class and we'd be fired up again that's right um so that's been huge for us just from an accountability standpoint and then uh those folks that we've seen go through the class that keep keep checking in and friends uh now that we're checking in on them

and just kind of keep trying on the prize so yes Yes, it does. Get the right peer group around you. That's right. Very cool. Good job, guys. You're heroes. I'm so proud of you. Very neat. Thanks for coming all the way up here to do your debt-free scream, too,

and thanks for leading Financial Peace University. It's a big deal. It's been a bucket list for about seven years. Wow. Well, we're honored. We're honored to be on your bucket list and to have you here, and you're a very, very cool couple. Very well done, y'all.

Very well done. 100% debt-free, making $140,000, no house payment, no nothing, 33 years old, living in a $300,000 house. How much is in your retirement accounts? I haven't looked at it in the last couple months. Probably $200,000 between the last couple months. Probably. Probably. One, 200 between the two of us. That's great. Yeah.

Well on your way. So you're at a half million dollar net worth already and you're 33 years old. So you'll be millionaires by the time you're 38. Come on. It's the goal. All the kids' college savings account set up. Millionaire foresters. Oh, come on. Not something you hear every day.

They're cool. Look at them. She's like a cowgirl. You don them usually go into forestry for the money it's not it's not usually the big money right it depends on which part you're going to she's like don't be deceived dave we got choices now we got choices yeah everybody needs toilet paper there you go we're not going out of business that's for sure well that's good well hey it's so good to have y'all i'm so proud of you very very well done and uh future baby steps millionaires right here in front of us very good stuff all right dad oh we've got the uh baby steps millionaires book for

you the total money makeover book for you and the another financial piece of university membership you'll be able to give that to someone who's in need get them in your class and on us and our way of saying thanks and our way of saying congratulations so that's the uh live and give box we'll send that with you as you go very good stuff fine fine what a cool couple daniel and danielle 237 000 paid off house and everything by the time they're 33. Did it in eight years. Make an 80 to 140. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Yeah! Wow. Wow, that's great. That's exactly what this is for. It is. I love that they kept coordinating the classes to stay motivated.

It holds you accountable. It does. The typical human cannot coordinate a class while not doing it. So you can't be a hypocrite. That's right. Most people have a sense of honor, a sense of integrity, and they know that. They don't want to, you know, you don't want to be around. If you're going to bail, if you're going to jump off the wagon, not fall off the wagon,

you know, you don't want to be around people on the wagon. I get it. Yeah, absolutely. And it just goes to show, I mean, we talk about all the time the importance of getting in Financial Peace University because it's so extensive, what you're learning in those classes. You can't, you can suck up a lot of it in one round, but you need to go a couple of rounds to really get it all sucked in.

You remember it, you're doing it, you know, because it's seven baby steps here. You know, what you remember from lesson one, when you, from step one, when you first come in is different when you get to baby steps. You're different. You're different by the time you get there and so yeah hearing it again you hear it with different eyes hear it with different ears see it with different eyes and um you know it's like i read us read the same bible story 10 years later yeah you see something completely different that's right you didn't see before the story didn't change the words on the

page didn't change you changed that's right that's what didn't see before. The story didn't change. The words on the page didn't change. You changed. That's right. That's what happens. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Holly is in Bentonville, Arkansas. Hey, Holly, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, how are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? Hey, so I have made a lot of changes over the last year. I've increased my salary from $40,000 to $82,000 a day with a 15% yearly bonus. I've paid off my car. I bought a house. I've never had a credit card, but I do have about $30,000 in student loans. And I am wondering how I should prioritize my bucket. So student loans, savings, emergency funds, and investing. And also some tips for someone who's never created a true budget before

and has never been in a stable money environment. Very good. Boy, you are asking all the right questions. You are so smart. Awesome. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, this is great. So the 30K in student loans, is it just one lump sum or is it broken to like a billion loans? It's a couple of different ones. I'm also including a parent plus loan that my dad had taken out because I'd like to pay that instead of having him pay that. Okay. Well, what I would do if that's your only debt, I would list it. I would start with that.

I list it from smallest to largest and start attacking that debt. Now, by the way, do you have any savings laying around of any kind? Well, funny story. I had 12,000 and then I've had two car engine failures within the last month. Shoot. And now I'm down to about, I know, now I'm down to about 6,000. Okay. So I kind of have some left. So what I would do, what I'm doing here is I'm walking through our baby steps. I would keep $1,000 set aside. That's just your starter emergency fund, just like quick rainy day fund. So that's thing one. And then the money left. So you said you had 6,000, put 1,000 aside, take the other money and throw it at your student loans and get a head start on that and then continually work to pay those student loans off. So that's kind of like your big focus right now. And then after that,

we were just walking down the steps through the baby steps after you've paid off the debt, then you can beef up your emergency fund to about three to six months of expenses. And then after that, we would start the investing process. So and it goes on down the line into seven baby steps i'm guessing you're a new listener with us so if i say anything that you're like what the heck is that jade just stop me so holly what we figured out is is this money thing what you is exactly what you discovered it all comes at you at once and you're like where do i start and that was that was kind of your question in a sense right and so we figured out you can do

anything if you do it a baby step at a time one little baby step at a time you can eat how you eat an elephant a bite at a time right and so we broke down good personal financial planning 25 or 30 years ago into progressive seven baby steps and And baby step one is $1,000, little starter emergency fund. Everything else goes at baby step two until you're done. And baby step two is pay off all your debt except your house. List your debts, in this case your student loans. You've got, it sounds like, three of them, smallest to largest. What's the smallest one?

About $3,000. Good. And how much did you have in savings? $6,000. Good. And how much did you have in savings? 6,000. I want you to pay it off today. Okay. Then baby step. Yeah. Then your debt snowballed because we're going to go down to a thousand. Okay. Then throw everything down to a thousand at the next debt. And we're going to continue to attack these debts because when you only have a thousand in your account it's a little scary right just me saying it you went woo right and that little bit

of fear motivates you to get very very very intense on knocking these debts out very very quickly beans and rice rice and beans scorched earth lifestyle living on a detailed budget by the way we're going to help you with that too in just a minute okay and then then what you'll do is um uh as soon as all your debts are paid off smallest to largest now with no payments in the world and a newfound control doing your budget you then do what jade said and go to baby step three which is three to six months of expenses as your emergency fund, a fully funded proper emergency fund. $1,000 is not enough, okay?

And then once you've done that, now you've laid the foundation. You've got control of your income, and you've got a baseline to keep people off of you in terms of the emergency fund. Now we can start building wealth. And baby step four is 15% of your income into retirement. Five is kids' college. If you don't have kids, that one doesn't apply. Six is you pay off your house early. Seven is with no house payment, no payments in the world, money going into your retirement account, there's nothing left to do but become very wealthy. We're teaching people

how to become millionaires in 12 to 15 years doing this. With your income, if you'll lean into this, we can do it maybe a little quicker than that because you're doing really, really good. So that's how those things work, and that's the background on what you're doing. We also developed several years ago and have continued to iterate literally the world's best budgeting app, and it's free to use.

It's called EveryDollar. Okay, so just go online and download the every dollar app it's going to teach you to give every one of your dollars a name and assignment so that it behaves because money will not behave unless you make it behave i know that's right and just you know when you start this budget just give yourself patience because if you've not been a budgeter before it takes time to get used to what the amounts are what this feels like it takes time to learn how to say no to purchases so just you know give yourself your first month you'll suck yeah it yeah you'll just blow it out of the water and then your second

month you'll start to work a little bit the third month it takes three months for it to really work yeah yep but the budgeting app's free we're going to send you a book called The Total Money Makeover. Sold about 10 million of those. And it's the detailed, nuanced thing on the baby steps, exactly how to do it and why to do it. And that's why it sold so many copies, because people want to know exactly what you wanted to know. You're asking all the right questions. Very good. Yeah, you're pretty cool. Hang on.

Austin will sign a pickup. We'll get you a book delivered. And just jump online and pick up the every dollar app it's completely free to start trying it and uh and i think you'll see what we're talking about pretty quickly it's it's very robust very easy to use um what is the crap they always say about apps uh that i don't ever know they're they're intuitive yeah and it's not intuitive for me but this one is you know i think i will say as a person who's not tech savvy, it is for me. I have a fit if it's not intuitive.

Me too. But they always tell me that when I'm frustrated. David's intuitive. What does that mean? I don't have intuition. Maybe your intuition is off. What does that mean? What are you saying about me?

You're saying I'm not intelligent? No, worse. I don't have intuition. Every dollar is intuitive, even for those of us that, quote, lack intuition. When you look apple up in the Greek, it means frustrated. I mean, it's just for me. But I'm a boomer, and I don't know anything. So all you cool kids all got that stuff. And I do want you to keep in mind that there's one place that there was a bite taken out of the apple that was fatal.

And that was in the Garden of Eden. And that apple has a bite out of it. I'm just saying. So you might want to look at that logo and think about that. What do I know, though? That is funny. Dave, you're sounding like a conspiracy theorist up in here. No, not at all.

I'm not being serious at all. None of you believe. I have apple. and there's one right here there you go i'm laying right here and so and i'm i'm with you i'm i i diligently hire people to teach me to work it that's so funny look i will say as a person i don't love technology the only reason i have it is because i have to sam buys my phone every dollar it's if i can you can do it i think anybody can the way i feel about is rachel can do it oh and that's how i know it's easy so i'll talk about her behind her back but

yeah she's she's the spokesman for every dollar and that's the yeah yeah that's that's how we know it's easy i like it because there's a couple of new things that they implemented in that paycheck yes planning that one completely changed everything yeah if you guys have been off of every dollar for a couple years, or you're one of those people who download the app, never got rid of it, and never went back and looked at it in eight years, do y'all keep apps around like you don't clean your closets? I mean, what is with you people?

But anyway, if you're one of those people, you ought to go back and open the thing back up, get the update, because that paycheck planning makes all the difference. Irregular income, this solves all your problems. If you're on commissions or getting sporadic income, this solves all your problems. If you're like on commissions or like, you know, getting sporadic income, solves that problem. It's got that financial roadmap thing where you can really just project and see. You can see how long it's going to take you to get out of baby step two. We know it worked because we use fancy words like engagement is up.

Ah, that's right. That's right. And that has nothing to do with getting married. It just has to do with the use of the app apparently. Engagement is up. That's right. And that has nothing to do with getting married. It just has to do with the use of the app, apparently. Engagement is up. That's good. Not number of people getting engaged on every dollar, but engagement of the actual app. So there you go.

See, this is what happens when you have a boomer running a technology company. This is exactly how it unfolds. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up

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