The Ramsey Show - App - Become a Millionaire. The Decision is Yours. (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

The show about you

🎵 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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. Open phones this hour. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Joining us at the bottom of the hour, Ramsey personality Chris Hogan, number one best-selling

author of the book Retire Inspired, and the new number one, Everyday Millionaires, How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth and How You Can Too. one everyday millionaires how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can too we'll let chris take your calls and questions beginning at the bottom of the hour the phone number here is triple eight eight two five five two two five in the meantime donna is with us in louisville kentucky welcome to the dave ramsey show donna thanks so much for taking my call, Dave. My basic question is, in whose name should a 529 be placed? My husband and I set up a 529 for a granddaughter about 18 months ago, and it caused quite a family argument, I guess you'd say, and now we're in a position of having another baby born. We want to set up a 529 for her, and those parents are kind of giving us a fit.

And I'm just amazed somebody's arguing over a gift, but I'd like to know your take on it. I wouldn't give it to them. Oh, okay. If they're going to be butts, I wouldn't give it to them. Really? Yeah. Just keep it in your name, and you can give it to them later when they get ready to go to college if you want. If everybody's looking a gift horse in the mouth, don't give them the horse.

Really? Yeah. Okay, so you recommend set it up anyway and just not tell them about it. I wouldn't set up a 529. It's just a mutual fund. Just open a mutual fund and go, yeah, if I'm alive and everybody's behaving, I may give them some money when they get to college oh oh dear okay well that's not what we did with the first granddaughter we kind of argued it out but everybody's being butts well and we've already set up the one for the first grandchild and my other son and his wife are aware of it well just

tell them if they if you won't be a butt i'm not going to do it okay that's what i would tell my kids i got five grandkids i love my grandbabies but i'm not going to give somebody a gift that's being a butt okay i mean and we've i think we've done everything right i mean we show them the results periodically so they understand we're not absconding with them and well you can't abscond with it it'd be. You're the custodian. A 529 is technically in the child's name. The only thing they're arguing about is who the custodian is, who's in control of the account. Right.

And they didn't want you to be in control of the account that you opened. That's it, exactly. Well, I mean, I got that. You're just too sweet. I just tell your second son the first one was a butt and if you're gonna be a butt too we're not gonna do it anymore okay that's what i would tell him i mean we're not gonna play this i you know if everybody's gonna be carrying on i'm giving you five ten fifteen thousand bucks for the kid that's fine now in our case we we didn't do that, but it wasn't because of that. We just put the – we opened ESAs for each grandbaby as they're born,

and we help them get them started, and then the parents fund them. And so we set the parents up as the custodian. So I didn't mind that, but if there's some reason – I mean, just the attitude of the whole thing is what I'm reacting to. It's just – you don't do that. That's just ridiculous. So big family drama over me giving you money. I can fix that.

Eric is with us in Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, Eric, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I've got a question about a crappy car purchase I've made. So back story, I'm in my late 20s. I make about $80,000 a year, and my only debt is about a $20,000 car.

I'm negative equity about $3,000. My gut tells me to pay that $3,000 off and take my losses and buy a car with cash. But part of me is thinking, it's very low interest. Should I just pay the car off or should I just keep making the payments? I've got about $20,000 in the bank. If you're going to keep it, pay it off. Right away? Even if it's low interest, about 1%? Yes.

Okay. There's no correlation between people borrowing money at low interest on their cars and becoming millionaires. Right. Zero data points indicate that. None. No research ever on the planet. I got rich by borrowing low interest on my car. Nope, never came up.

Right. Pay it off, and if it's a stupid car and you don't like it it's breaks all the time get rid of it right or get or just write a check to get rid of it and then go buy you something with cash with your money i don't care uh so it's a bad car you don't like the car right oh i love the car i just feel guilty driving it i mean it's a ford nothing fancy like a bmw but um after watching your videos for a few months, I feel guilty about having debt at all. Well, I can feel guilty about the debt, but you have the money to pay it off.

But did you say the car was a bad purchase? You meant that you went into debt to do it. Is that what you meant by bad purchase? Exactly. Oh, so there's nothing wrong with the car. It runs fine. You like the car and so on. Absolutely.

Okay, you make $80,000 and you have a $20,000 car and you have $20, wrong with the car. It runs fine. You like the car and so on. Absolutely. Okay, you make $80,000 and you have a $20,000 car and you have $20,000 in the bank. Yeah, part of me is just nervous to not have any emergency fund or anything like that. It's up to you. If you want an emergency fund more than a car, sell the car. But if you want to pay off the car and then build your emergency fund really fast, you're single, you make $80,000, you ought to be able to build it up real fast. Yeah. Especially with those stupid car payments so if you're going to keep the car pay it off by the end of the day if you're not going to keep it you can do something different but the car is not out of line it's the debt that's out of line you you're correct about that thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225.

We're glad you're here. Faith is in Maryland. Hi, Faith. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi. Yes, I have a question about job career change. I currently work at a place that is, I've been here for almost 25 years.

I'm 55, and it took me a long time to get my degree in nursing. And my goal was to work part-time as a nurse and then retire where I'm at and then go full-time as a nurse. But I've had interviews and having difficulty getting a job part-time because I have no experience. And I have a lot of debt, so i know i need to get another job and i was just wondering so you have your nursing degree and you've passed your boards yes sir and you're not in nursing no and what do you what do you make at your day job i make anywhere between

depending on every time 56 to 63 a year okay Okay. Are you an RN or LPN? I'm an RN. Oh, you can make that. You can make that in Maryland. So why don't you just go be a nurse instead? So you think I should just quit where I've been because I lose so much percentage each year that I retire early. I lose about 12% of my pension each year,

and I would be retiring five years early. I use about 12% of my pension each year, and I would be retiring five years early. It's up to you, but I'm probably not going to wait five years to live my dream. It's up to you, whatever you want to do. But I think you're going to make more money as a nurse. It's what you've wanted to do for a long, long time. And I wouldn't quit your job until you had the nursing job lined up. But, you know, go get a job offer and take it and then quit. And then work part-time extra in the ER as a nurse.

And you can get that all over the place. That's pretty easy to get. By the end of the day, you ought to be able to get that one. And then pay off all that debt as fast as you can. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable affordable biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health

care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry, a Better Business Bureau-accred organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Bottom of the hour, Chris Hogan joins us.

If you'd like to talk to him, you can jump in now. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Austin, Texas. Quentin and Brian are on the line. Hey, guys. Welcome to the show. I see on my screen you're debt-free. Congrats.

Yes, sir. Thanks very much. Welcome. Welcome. And so how much have you guys paid off? $87,087. All right. I love it.

And how long did this take you? About 24 months. Good for you. And how long did this take you? About 24 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Well, I started at $38,000, and then we moved to about $150,000. Okay. What's that mean? You got married?

Yes, sir. Okay. And what does she make? I'm sorry. Can you say that one more time? And what do you make? I make about $80,000. good for you guys well done so what kind of debt was this 87 000 uh this was all mine uh it was student loans credit card car you know all of the all the things that you talk about

regularly on your show sure you're normal're normal. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. How old are you guys? We're both 30. Oh, cool. How long have you been married? A year and a half. Okay. So you started this, then you get married, and she steps in with you, and you guys finish it up.

Yes, sir. Exactly. Very good. Very good. Very good. So tell me, how did you decide to knock this out as one of the first orders of business in your marriage? Well, I've grown up listening to you. My parents listened to you from the time I was little, and so I always knew about you.

And as we were dating, we started to talk about that a little bit. And to be honest with you, it scared me a little bit. So I started to talk to Quentin a little bit. And to be honest with you, it scared me a little bit. So I started to talk to Quentin a little bit about your program. And he was a little bit hesitant at first. So I started talking about the podcast and he started to listen. And from there, he kind of went on fire and read your book, and we went at it after that. Game on. Okay.

So if you're going to marry a financial peace baby, you've got to get it together. That's what we're saying, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Get a couple extra jobs and all that. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? You've been very successful at it. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. I'd say the biggest thing is definitely having a plan and making sure that you're both on the same page with the plan. And you definitely can't do it halfway. You have to be completely dialed in. You have to be 100% committed. Both of you have to be, you know, working toward the same goal. We found out kind of the hard way, a little bit into it, that we both weren't on the same page. But once we started to meet regularly, talk about it as part of our daily conversation,

then it just kind of started to fall into place a lot more, and we got done a lot faster than we thought we would. Yeah, way to go. Wow. Well, congratulations, you guys. Who were your biggest cheerleaders um i would say other than each other probably my parents um just because they have always had um finances kind of at the forefront and so um even though a lot of people our age and

some of our friends aren't always on the same page and so that could be kind of challenging um they were good people that we could come back to and talk to, and maybe the rest of the culture isn't putting that first. And they actually got us Financial Peace University when we first started. Wow. Very cool. Way to go, you guys. Well done. We're proud of you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. That's the next step in your journey. I mean, you're just barely married, and you're making $150,000, and you're debt-free.

You're rocking it. You're going to be there before we know it. Congratulations. Well done. All right. It's Quentin and Brian. How do you say your name? Bryn.

Bryn. I'm sorry. I keep messing it up. Quentin and Bryn, I'll get it right now, in Austin, Texas, $87,000 paid off in 24 months, making $38,000 to $150,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one, we're debt-free.

Yeah. Well, there we go, folks. I love it. Very, very well done. Absolutely fabulous. Catherine is in Morgantown, West Virginia. Hi, Catherine. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking our call. Sure. What's up? We have five kids, and we are kind of overwhelmed financially. My husband and I, we have a mortgage that's kind of new to us. We've been in for about two years. We have two cars, and we have a lot of health care expenses.

So we've just kind of got to the point to where we are exhausted financially, and we don't know how to make more room in our budget to start eliminating more debt. We've been trying to follow your EveryDollar app. So we're just kind of at our plateau. We feel really overwhelmed at this point to be able to provide a different lifestyle for our children, debt-free for ourselves as well. So what is your household income? About $145,000 a year.

How much is your house payment? About $1,800 a month. And how much do you own your cars? Between the both of them, we're around $40,000. Okay. Which one's the expensive one? We have a van. It's about $30,000.

We're upside down on it, though, about $3,000. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. And when you do your every dollar budget with $145,000 income, and we've got two car payments and $1,800 going out for a house payment, where is the rest of this money going? Well, we have, like I said, we have a lot of health care expenses. Ongoing?

Ongoing. We have a lot of children that's in therapy every month. And then we also tithe to our church. So we put 10% toward our tithes. So that's quite a bit right off the top. And then just our typical utilities, a lot of that costs. We have about an $800 a month facility. How much is the therapy running?

We pay about $600 a month because we've kind of got everything set up on payments. One time, $600? No, between the five children. Each? I'm sorry? $600? No, between the five children. Each? I'm sorry? $600 each? Not each, individually. No, combined.

And what is the nature of the therapy? Physical therapy? Physical, occupational, speech. Yes, we have one special needs child that requires a lot. Okay. Okay. So, um, when I take 1800 and 600 and a tithe and I take two car payments and I buy some food, I still think you're not doing your budget. Right. Well, we, we budget about a thousand dollars a month for food to feed seven people for

an entire month. And that includes, um includes laundry detergent. What is your take-home pay? About $9,000 a month after taxes. And do you have anything going into 401K? We did. We were not eligible until later this year because of a new employment. So you don't now?

We don't currently, that's correct. Okay. So I don't know where the money's going still, okay? I got $9,000. I got an $1,800. How much are your car payments? The two of them together is $800. Okay.

Okay. So that's $2,600 in car and house, $3,200 with the therapies, $4,200 with the groceries, and I've still got $5,000 left. Well, $1,000 for tithing. Okay, and then I've got $4,000 left. Well, $1,000 for tithing. Okay, and then I've got $4,000 left. Okay. Then we have our housing expenses that includes our water, our gas. It costs us approximately $700 to $800 a month between electric and protein because of where we live.

And then with our phone and Internet. So in our housing... Well, I think where you are is this. I think you guys are going to have to live on the actual budget that we're writing out. And I think you're going to find some room there. And I think you're selling the $30,000 van. $800 in car payments is what's known as insanity. When you call me up on a national radio program and say,

I can't make my budget making $145,000 a year. So that means the van's gone. And if that doesn't work, then we're going to sell the house. But you guys are going to have to get this balanced. You're not in Congress. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Pay less at the dentist. One Dental is a company I've been telling my listeners about because I know these guys will save you money every time you visit the dentist. Here's how. One Dental is a dental savings program that allows you to go to one of over 158,000 dental practice locations nationwide and save on things like cleanings,

dentures, root canals, crowns, and even orthodontics. Here's the really cool part. You can join One Dental right now and you don't have to worry about high deductibles, waiting periods, or pre-existing conditions. Just find your highly qualified dentist in the network, make the appointment, and start saving 15% to 60% when you go. It really is that simple. Just text the word DENTAL to 77948 and get an exclusive Ramsey discount. That's DENTAL, D-E-N-T-A-L to 77-948. joining me this half hour ramsey personality number one best-selling author america's trusted voice on retirement and millionaires author of the number one bestseller book selling book millionaire everyday millionaires uh how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth, and how you can too.

140 of the statistics that we derived from the largest study of millionaires ever done, over 10,000 millionaires studied by the Ramsey Research Team and Chris. And then Chris put the book into his voice, and it has absolutely been a blockbuster hit. People want to know how to be millionaires, and it turns out that it can still be done. Right, Chris? Absolutely, Dave. It is available. And despite where you went to school, what your family may have believed, even your job or how much you make, you still have the opportunity to make a decision to put yourself on that path.

And despite us doing the largest study that's ever been done, we talked to over 10,000 people all across the country, and we found out these millionaires aren't trust fund babies. They're not people that were just handed money or inherited a bunch of money. These are everyday hardworking men and women all across the country. And it's inspiring, the book is. It helps you know it's possible, and it tells some amazing stories along with the research. Well, basically, there's 12 million millionaires in America today. A millionaire is someone who has a $1 million net and that is your end or your assets not your income it's your assets minus your liabilities equals your net worth what you own minus what you owe and what we discovered was

79 had inherited zero yes another five percent had inherited less than $100,000, and another 5% had inherited less than $200,000 and had gotten that so late that it couldn't cause them to be a millionaire mathematically. That's right. And so basically the stats are fairly easy to ascertain that at least 9 out of 10 millionaires are first-generation rich. They started with nothing and close to nothing and became millionaires and uh then we started asking okay how did you do that but what's important here to remember is if there's 12 million of them and only 10 percent of them inherited their money that made them millionaires uh that means 1,200,000 millionaires are inherited money.

And that means, what, 10,800,000 of them started from nothing, the vast majority. So it's fairly easy to say, okay, the next question immediately is how did you do that? Because that just destroys this idea that it can't be done and that you folks listening have to, you know, vote for some socialist crap or something in order to get ahead. You know, because it's just hogwash. Yeah, it is. And, you know, the problem, Dave, and I dive into this in the book, the beliefs that we have are really central to everything that we accomplish. And a lot of that times, those beliefs can be inherited from your family. Or for me, growing up in rural Kentucky, I didn't grow up seeing millionaires.

I had no idea. I thought in order to be a millionaire, you had to be a pro athlete or an entertainer. That's the way I, that was the path I thought. And so you do have to check your belief systems and really start to dig into that. Because if you don't think you can, then you're right. That's right. You're right. Yeah.

I want Henry Ford quote. If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. That's right. Oh, and Dave, by the way, you were talking about net worth. Thank you for mentioning that. Because people also believe that to be a millionaire, it means you've got to make a million dollars a year. That's not the case at all. It has nothing to do about your income.

This is about your assets. And so to help people with that, I've got a free tool at my website. It's called the Net Worth Calculator. Go to ChrisHogan360.com slash net worth. And there's a free calculator on there to help you understand exactly what your net worth is right now so you start your path to becoming an everyday millionaire. You don't need a permission slip. What you need is a plan and a purpose.

Now, what you and I were talking about the other day during the Millionaire Theme Hour, too, the Everyday Millionaire Theme Hour, was that I've been asking you have, too, out of all the different things we discovered in the study. And the study was the research methodology, folks, was done by research professionals. It's airtight and so this isn't a thing where we set out to you know skew statistics to make them say what we wanted them to say as a matter of fact the numbers are so staggering that you couldn't even have done that if you wanted to create some kind of a skewed thing but the one that did catch me off guard was that one third of the millionaires never had a household income in their life more than $100,000 a year. That one shocked me.

Oh, me too. And the key word in that, Dave, is household income. That means if you've got a man and a woman both working outside the home, together combined, they didn't make six figures. Ever. Ever. Ever. And so to me, it was staggering. But it goes to show, if you're out there and you're making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or $60,000, you're not excluded from this. Becoming a millionaire is not a country club. It's a life choice, and it's a purpose.

And so regardless of your income, you need a plan. And Dave, that's what you've been telling people for 30 years. You've got to have a plan for the money but this to me this book helps people to dream even bigger about what do they want to do for themselves the charities their family down the road we can do this and we're here to help now somewhere next 30 days or so we'll announce a um a white paper that we're going to put out which is is all the charts and graphs. And some of you super nerds thought that the Everyday Millionaire book was going to be a super nerd book, and it's not.

It's got 140 stats in it, but it's not a white paper. It's not a research white paper. But we're going to put out the research white paper. The Ramsey Research team is building that out, and I was reviewing it the other day. They've got to get the final edits done on it, and we'll just sell it as a PDF download, four or five bucks or something on the Dave Ramsey site, and we'll put it on Chris's site as well.

So if you really are interested in the largest study ever done. Now, when we say the largest study ever done, we're not talking about the number of questions asked. We're talking about the number of people that are millionaires that were interviewed. No one has ever interviewed this many millionaires ever. No, Dave. And the typical research study for people that aren't out there and aren't plugged into this, you know, typically a study will talk to a thousand, maybe 1500 people. And, you know, the goal as we were having the conversation, I didn't want to just know topically. I wanted to know without a shadow

of a doubt. And so when we use the research firm to help us locate and talk to these over 10,000, when you get stats in from talking to 10,000 people, what you have is proof. And so when people tell me, well, Chris, you know, I don't know about that. I'm not asking your opinion. We have proof. And when I hear tell you stats about you know 70 of them uh worked with an investment professional i'm not speculating i'm telling you the fact this is what happened so you either choose to go down this path or you can stay where you are henry cloud tweeted yesterday or day before he said the difference in pizza and your opinion was i asked for pizza i asked for like clouds it's not right that's great

so the average millionaires paid off their home in 11 years and 78 percent of them use or 79% did not attend prestigious schools. 79% used their 401Ks and Roth IRAs. So eight out of 10 millionaires are paying off their home, and they are using their 401K and Roth IRAs. And that's where most of their initial wealth, the first $2 or $3 million that they build, comes from. That's right. Now, we can't skip over that. Dave, that employer-sponsored retirement plan that these millionaires use, the over 10,000,

is the exact type that we have access to out in our jobs now. The 401Ks and 403Bs. And your Roth IRAs and SEPs and traditional IRAs and whatever, yeah. So again, don't think you don't have the tools available to start to do this. You do. And that's what I love about it. I want people to read this book and come away with a whole different opinion of what a real millionaire is and that they can do it. It's possible.

The American dream is alive and it's available. Another free thing we're doing right now, download at ChrisHogan360.com. Start Now is the Everyday Millionaire's Investing Guide to Chris's Step-by-Step Playbook for Building Wealth. It is a free download. The Everyday Millionaire's Investing Guide. Download at chrishogan360.com. Back with your calls right here on the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. We'll be right back. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Everyday Millionaires. Chris Hogan joins me this half hour. Tim is in Richmond, Virginia.

Hey, Tim, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Your question for Chris. Hello, Dave. Hello, Chris. This is a truly honor to be talking to both of you all. Thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you, sir. How can we help? I'm currently a federal firefighter

looking to retire within the next eight years. We are currently on Baby Step 3. That will be completed by May. That will be completed by May. That will give us $20,000 in our fully funded emergency fund for four months. My question for you today is that our next step is we really want to try to purchase a home. We have been renters for the last seven years, and we have two kids aged 11 and 15.

We have no college funding for them currently. And I guess ultimately my question is that what is our topic of discussion that my wife and I should have is should we really focus on saving money to put down on our next home or should it be more focused towards our retirement? Because we really don't have any retirement savings currently. How old are you? 43. What's your household income?

$90,000. Next home, are you renting or do you own now? Yeah, we want to buy a home. We've been renting. We've been renting for the past seven years. We just worked out of $90,000 of debt in 18 months. So we've been doing that since we heard of you about two years ago. Gotcha.

Okay. Tim, as you all have talked, what amount down payment are you trying to save for? What's the dollar amount? Our dollar amount is right around $90,000, which we can save up to about $30,000 a year. That'll put us about three years more out. So that's going to put me like five years within retirement. And then three years from now, my 15-year-old is going to be ready for college, and we don't have any college savings for her.

Okay. One of the first things I want to encourage you to do is you are – I'm glad that you have your goal identified that you'd like to retire in eight years. But remember, retirement's not an age, it's a number. And so we're going to have to base that on how much you have saved and if you're financially ready to be able to retire. So you all want to have a $90,000 down payment for your home, correct? We don't currently, but that's what we plan on saving up to. Okay. I would say this, Dave.

I mean, looking at this, Tim, you and your wife sitting down and talking about it, looking at it, you're staring, you've got the barrel of college coming, which there's options for that. Go to DaveRamsey.com. Rachel and Anthony O'Neill talk about there are ways for the kid to be able to go to school without you necessarily having to foot the bill. It's community college. There are scholarships. There's grants available.

But looking at this house scenario, you guys are going to have to revamp some goals and really start to make some decisions for yourself. Yeah, I think it's a good idea to probably just say we don't have to put down 20% on the first home purchase, which is what we're dealing with here, and just cut that back to like $30,000 or $40,000, $50,000 as your downstroke, and then go pile up against college and get ready, because you've got two things you're trying to do within three years, and then you'll start your retirement.

Yeah, and here's the thing. Tim and his wife obviously have proven they're focused. They paid off $90,000 in debt in 18 months. So they can do stuff when they set their eyes on it, Dave. I just think when people try to do too many things all at once, you end up being ineffective in everything. Yep, absolutely. Josh is with us in San Antonio, Texas.

Hey, Josh, a company that used to be an ELP of yours that you know extremely well. And I was a little bit shocked because they explained or my advisor explained to me that they were moving all their clients into ETFs. And the explanation I had got from you guys previously was that ETFs really were kind of a no-brainer investment that, you know, and the reason you hire a financial planner is that they're going to pick good mutual funds that are going to outperform the ETFs. And so I was a little bit taken aback by it, and I called the owner, who's a personal friend of mine, and he said, yeah, they're moving everyone to ETFs, and that what you really pay for with a financial planner is advice and asset allocation, not fund picking, not outperforming the indexes. And I wanted to get your thoughts on that advice.

Well, obviously, that's why they're not ELPs, because we disagree with that. Well, I thought your answer would be, so I thought you could spread some wisdom on that conversation. Well, 60% of the mutual funds do not outperform the indexes. Almost all ETFs are in the indexes. They're almost all in S&P 500 and so forth, okay? There's a few that aren't. But, you know, if you're going to trade back and forth or you're just looking for an index,

an ETF is an efficient way to do that. But neither of those things are things we recommend doing. And so can you find mutual funds that outperform the S&P over a period of time? And the answer is yes, you can. And so why would you accept average when you can actually select above average? So I personally have some money in some index funds for some tax reasons, because it's short-term, it's not a long-term play. But 90% of my investing is in mutual funds that have outperformed the S&P.

Is that simple? Yeah, they told me that there's not many funds out there anymore performing the indexes, which is not even logical that a random set of stocks, that there's no one out there who can outperform a random set of stocks. It is less than half, but it's not 5%. It's 40%, 35% of the funds do. And it depends on what period of time you want to look at. If you want to look at a given year, you might find it skew one direction or the other,

depending on what the market has done. But I don't look at a given year. I look at 5 and 10 and 20-year track records. And I have plenty of funds that have done that. I've actually got a cheat sheet laying here. Let's see if I can find it. I'll just read it off to you as an example. My personal funds over the last 40 years, let's see. Where did we go?

My mix has done 13.04% in the last 40 years. The S&P has done 11.8%. In the last 30 years, my mix has done 11.3%. The S&P has done 10.89%. These are my personal funds. And in the last 20 years, we had that huge dip, so my mix has done 8.53%, and the S&P did 7.12. So in a 10, a 20, a 30-year period of time, my personal funds that I selected of the four categories have outperformed the S&P. So the answer to that guy's statement is horse crap.

It's just wrong, you know, because I'm not a rocket scientist. I don't sit around every day looking at mutual funds. I went to one of our SmartMester pros that's a friend of mine that I've known for 20 years. And, dude, this is what I picked. And, by the way, they run our 401K here at the office. And those same funds are in my personal 401K, too. So, now, that's not a lot of spread. But you heard the numbers.

I'm beating it by 1% to 2% a year. And if you do that over 30 years, it turns into some money. So it's up to you what you want to do. But if you do not need a financial advisor to buy ETFs. Well, and Dave, here's the thing. You can just buy ETFs. Yeah, and ETFs are a lot like single stocks. It's about market trading.

You're trying to time the market in there. And whenever you're investing, retail people, we're investing for the long haul. So timing the market is where you get dangerous. That's where day trading. People have lost hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars trying to time things. So you want to be smart and wise. And here's the other thing. You hear about these financial planners, okay? Now, these are people that will charge you a dollar amount to hand you a plan. They're not in connected with your situation. He said that the gentleman told him he wasn't going to help him pick or make the right selections. So you went and got some advice.

We're guiding people to smart investor pros to get guidance. Someone that locks arms with you and looks at your situation and helps you get to where you want to go. But, you know, it's just the Bogle argument. I mean, Bogle, he ran Vanguard and that started the whole passive investing movement of, you know, do we just drop into the indexes and just ride them? You can do that. You'll build wealth doing that. I mean, you're going to be fine doing that. But, you know, the philosophical argument is, can you outperform average?

And that's kind of what I spend my life doing, dude. I want to be better than average. Average. Yes. Chris Hogan, thanks for hanging out with us. Dave, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, my friend. Ramsey Personality, author of the number one bestseller, Everyday Millionaires.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.