The Ramsey Show - App - Building Wealth Is a Journey – Don’t Rush the Process

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love love and create actual amazing relationships jade washall ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today as we answer your questions about life and money the phone number is 888-825-5225 i'm dave ramsey your host thanks for joining us daniel is in kansas city hey daniel how are you i've been better dave how are you better than i deserve sir what's up in your world uh my wife is about to pass away and she hid debt from me oh my that i That I didn't know that she had pre to our getting married five years ago. Wow.

I'm so sorry. So what is her illness? She has cirrhosis of the liver, and it's not working, and she doesn't qualify for a transplant, and then it's starting to affect her other organs, and she's kind of going into full shutdown. So you've been married five years? Yes, sir.

I'm so sorry. How old is she? She's 44. Oh, my goodness. Ooh. How old are you? I'm 52. Okay.

Oh, man. Okay, and you opened this with she's hidden debt from you during the five years that you were married. So she ran up debt in her name? She ran up debt in her name pre-targeting married back when she was in college. This is the second marriage for both of us. I have one daughter with her, technically a stepdaughter, but I consider her my daughter totally,

and was saving money for her to go to college. And we were, I thought we were, anyway, debt-free except for our house. So the debt was rung up before you guys got married you just didn't know about it? I did not know about it. And how much debt? Her parents said she ran up fifty thousand dollars but I've only received a bill for fifteen thousand. And it's on what kind of debt? Student loan debt. Federally insured? I don't know. I just received it the other day.

It's actually from a bill collection agency. I don't have it in front of me. I apologize. That's okay. Is it only, and you might not know this, is it only in her name or did her parents sign for it too? No, it's only in her name or did her parents sign for it too no it's only in her name her parents offered to pay for her to go to school as long as she showed them the grades and evidently she took the money was in school for a hot minute and i didn't know this because she's hidden a

bunch of stuff from me and uh used the money to go travel okay and went from me and used the money to go travel. Okay. And went to Europe and blew the money. All right. Well, let's talk through a couple of possibilities from a tactical standpoint. I'm sorry, Daniel. I know your heart's broken in about three different places. The deception, the loss, the illness, everything that's going on here that's just overwhelming.

And all of that's just a tragedy. I'm so sorry. Student loan debt that is federally insured is forgiven when someone passes away. Okay. So if this is a federal student loan debt, there's no issue. When she passes away, you will, or her parents, for that matter, can send them a copy of the death certificate, and the student loan just evaporates.

It's that simple. And don't pay it. Okay. That's probably what we're dealing with okay let's go another route in case that's not it let's pretend this is a private student loan debt that she borrowed it from the university rather than through fafsa and all that right um that is not i'm sorry i believe she did because her parents income was too high for her to get fast well this is student it could because still there's no there's not an income

limit on getting a federally insured student loan oh okay okay so i'm thinking this is a federally insured student loan if it's not let's discuss that so the do you own anything jointly with her and both of your names on it the only thing with both our names on it is one car okay her credit her credit from her previous marriage was she's had two bankruptcies that she never told me about because i i had money issues in my first marriage and got that all paid off and i got your book the total money makeover and followed that to get out of debt and to do there's a mountain mountain of deception here okay um all right let's pretend let's pretend that this is not federally insured i would have you con if it's not a federally insured student loan that is forgiven upon

death then i would have you contact an attorney there in kansas city on probate law in kansas in most states when someone passes away what they own stands good for what they owe, and nothing else does. Just because you're married to her in most states does not mean you're liable for her debts that have her name on it. And so the car is hers, a portion of it, and if the car has any value above what is owed that might be sold and paid towards this debt but other than that you don't have anything that is she doesn't own

anything it doesn't sound like no sir she does not okay so let's pretend that she were single and she had a car and that was all and she owed more on the car than it was worth and um you pass away with credit card debt and student loan debt there's no assets to pay the debts those creditors get nothing when that person passes away with nothing your kids aren't, your parents aren't responsible, and in most states your husband is not responsible unless, especially in a situation like this where the debt occurred prior to the marriage. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not an attorney in Kansas. I'm not an attorney, but I'm not an attorney in Kansas for sure. So I'd want you to check that

out. You won't have to bother and do that if you can discover that these student loans are federally insured, and I'm giving you a high probability they are. If they're federally insured, it's no issue at all. You got no issue. You're not liable, period. No one's liable. No one pays anything. If someone becomes permanently disabled or passes away with a federally insured student loan it's forgiven it's gone okay so you're okay other than your broken heart okay and your broken heart from losing your wife and uh to liver cirrhosis cirrhosis of the liver and your broken heart from all the deception that's gone on. And both are legitimate pain, brother.

I'm sorry you're facing all this. He's got to get in counseling and deal with that because he's got a lot going on. He's got the loss. But then it's tough to lose someone that you're angry at or frustrated at for something that's gone on, right? And so I would definitely. Obviously, she had a pattern of this in her life.

And now it's coming to a tragic yeah conclusion so tough wow ouch ouch this is the ramsey show statistics show that half of americans don't have enough insurance, or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it, and one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids, and I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch. For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. Me too. And they don't know

what to do next. Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. It's saying I love you to your family, term life insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

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How are you? I'm doing well, thanks. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm doing well, thanks. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a question, and it is, can I reasonably consider homeownership in my future at my salary point? I make about $42,000 a year before taxes. I work full-time in ministry. I love what I do, and my question is, can I retire well someday and have home ownership as part of my future? How old are you? 35. Okay. All right,

cool. I think that it's possible. I think that right now you make $42,000, but I can't imagine that your salary will never go up. So I think that there's an opportunity there. But it is going to depend on the decisions you make today. So my first question would be, do you have debt? Tell me a little bit more about your snapshot here. Okay. So I do have a little bit of debt. I have about $7,000. I'm working on paying it off. According to my figures, I'll probably be debt free by June or July. I've paid off about $12,000 to date so far this year. Good for you. Very good.

Okay, and so after that, you're just walking the baby steps through, which anybody can do. The speed in which this happens is going to be directly reflected by your salary. So I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter. And there's something to that. And then the other part of this is, okay, are we choosing an affordable place to live? You're in Cleveland, Ohio. I mean, what's it cost for you to buy something for, are you single? I am single, yes. And I don't live quite in Cleveland. I live in a small town. I've seen quite a few houses recently for between 80 and 120,000.

Okay. It would be kind of what I was looking at. That's very doable on your income. Yeah. And what I would do is we've got a really great home mortgage calculator. It's like how much home can I afford? And so if I were in your shoes, I'd be trying to put real numbers to these question marks. And I'd say, okay, first things first, yeah, how long is it going to take me to pay off this $7,000? Then how long is it going to take me to save three to six months of expenses? Then, and a lot of those equations, if I were you, Rachel, I would reverse engineer them and say, okay, for three to six months of expenses, let's say I need $10,000. If I do the math on what I'm

making now, it's going to take me X amount of time. And then you get to decide, is that timeframe okay with me? Because if it's not okay with me, what do I need to do to make that go faster? And even though you're in ministry, I got to believe that you've got time on your hands to add to your income by doing a side hustle, right? I do have a second job. I work about 12 to 14 hours a week in a second job. Okay. Okay. Hey, what is your ministry? What do you do? I work in a children's ministry. We are basically a discipleship program for kids. Good. Very good.

That's about as worthy a thing as I can think a human can do. Way to go. Proud of you. Thank you. So here's the thing. The probability that 15 years from today you're 50 years old and you're doing this exact same thing, making this exact same income, is zero.

There's no chance. Okay? You will either be making some more. You might still be there doing this, but you'll be making some more. But even the probability of that, just saying, okay, I'm going to be making $52,015 years from now, doing the exact same thing, and I'm a 50 be making 52,015 years from now doing the exact same thing. And I'm a 50 year old single lady doing children's ministry at that point. That's fairly low. I mean, you're pretty much mother Teresa, if you're doing that.

Okay. You just got the one thing and you stuck with it all the way through. Right. And that's not a bad thing. Mother Teresa's obviously had a good gig. Right. Um, so, uh, you know, that, that's fine if you go that direction. But it's just not the normal path for a typical person in America. And so what oftentimes happens is that you find other ways to serve children and you scale it and income goes up, and your expertise and your experience becomes more valuable in the marketplace. It might involve a move. It might involve some kind of life change in your situation.

I don't know. But typically what happens is that people progress through their life, right? And that includes their income, and sometimes it means some stair-stepping on their careers and those types of things. So I think that's really your future. I just don't know what, I don't know how to describe it exactly, but I think we can all agree the probability of you being 50 and making exactly the same money doing exactly the same thing is very low. Sure, and even if I do, there's a slight increase every year. I don't know that much. Yeah, but I'm just saying, even that's a slight increase every year. I don't know that much.

Yeah, but I'm just saying, even that's a slight increase. It's not 42. So the average household income is $78,000 in America. That's household, and that includes a whole lot of dinks. Double income, no kids. Okay? So that's calculated into that. So your income is slightly below the average today. And that's not a sin. There's nothing wrong with that. And that doesn't mean you can't do the stuff we just talked about. But you just kind of keep that, that's my deal. And then you're in ministry.

And the stuff that we teach is biblical principles of finance, which is stay out of debt, save money, live on a written plan. Those are all from the Bible. Live on less a written plan. Those are all from the Bible. Live on less than you make. Those are all from the Bible. And if you do that and start investing a portion of your income into a good Roth IRA, you could have a serious amount of money at retirement and not have a substantial change in income. That's right.

If you stayed this track exact. Yeah, you're just committing to a more modest lifestyle at the end of the day. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's your value that you get to choose. Yeah. Don't call me. You can't call me and say I was forced to buy a new car. Right. You can't call me and say I was I was so tired and fatigued from ministry that I I took a year off and went to Europe. You can't call me and do that. That's not, no, you don't have these options. You don't have the money to do that. So you're in a steady thing and you're going to be a steady person that, but I like your $80,000, $100,000 house idea.

It fits the numbers you're giving me. You're not, you're not being a princess in this, a negative princess in this discussion. So I don't hear that coming from you but you don't have those options yeah you're driving a used camry for the foreseeable future exactly exactly and that's not a bad thing it's not a bad thing i think that those are the choices that we make when we decide you know where our passions are going to take us in life career-wise so godliness with contentment is great gain rodney is in atlanta georgia hi rodney welcome to the ramsey show hello mr dave i'm actually i'm in south carolina okay that works too how can i help

yeah yeah yes uh i'm um i just got a question a few a couple questions uh i'm in pretty good shape financially i have managed to save uh in cash and sitting at a bank, $142,000. Way to go. And I have zero consumer debt, no loans, not anything. But my mortgage, I owe $165,000 on my mortgage, and which I'm going to be able to, if I have another good 2025, I'll be able to pay that off next year. So my question is, do I put anything down on my house now? Because I've been thinking about just writing a check for $100,000

and putting it straight towards the principal and only owe the $65,000 on it and then just pay it off about this time next year. Yep. What's your interest rate on the mortgage? $3.7. Okay. That's what interest rate on the mortgage? 3.7. Okay, that's what you're making on that $100,000 when you do it. You're saving 3.7% on $100,000. Okay, 3.7% on $100,000, okay.

Yeah, because you're not going to be charged 3.7% on that $100,000 because you paid it off. I just paid it off. And I might pay more than that. I don't know what your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses is, but that's all you need. Everything above that ought to be dumping towards that mortgage. We're on baby step six and wide open. Way to go, Rodney!

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defaulted private student loan and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. So kick your private student loan out of your life by going to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Alex in Florida. He says, I'm 42, married with no kids, and my wife and I are retired. We clear almost $10,000 a month from our pensions. We own brand new vehicles that should last us eight years or so. We own a waterfront home, but we are tired of the heat, hurricanes, and insurance prices.

I bet you are. If we buy our dream home for $1 million in cash, we will have over 400,000 in the bank. We have no bills other than our normal expenses. So we save on average $7,000 a month. I never dreamed I would be contemplating paying a million cash for anything. I've been penny pinching and saving for so long that it feels weird to spend. Is this a stupid idea? Let's see. You're 42 married with no kids. You've got this pension. I would love to know what his current investing rate is if he's continuing to invest any of this money. He doesn't mention any of that. He'd still have $400,000 in the bank. Let's just pretend that that's it. A lump sum is going to double every seven years so when he's 52 it'll be 800 uh and plus so almost a million by that i probably

do it dave would you do it i pay cash for it yeah there's no reason not to my only concern sitting with the money to do it what else you're going to do with it take out a mortgage and put the money in an investment no well the only other option would be to invest it well only option other option would be to buy something less expensive in cash in my mind that would be the only other option i don't see a need to i don't either i think you buy it yeah pay cash for it no you're not stupid uh it is an emotional thing to um you've been sitting on money to let that money go uh into house, but it's not like you're spending it. If this goes sideways, what are you going to do? Sell the house for a profit later?

I mean, here's the thing. He's probably, most of that money probably wasn't just sitting in an account somewhere. I mean, he's selling the waterfront house to get it. Apparently. So that's exactly what you should do. You take the equity, maybe adds a little cash to it, and purchase this house outright. Yes, absolutely. And let's see here.

We own a waterfront home. Doesn't say if it's paid for, but, you know, yeah, I'm with you. I'm guessing, based on this, we're going to sell that, and that's some of the million dollars. But anyway, the answer to your question is yes. Yes, pay cash pay cash pay cash pay cash now and then take your ten thousand dollars a month and i'm with jade you ought to be investing some of it and your four hundred thousand doesn't need to be in the bank that's a good point to be in in some good investments so get with a smart investor pro at ramsey solutions.com find someone that we're endorsing in your area that you get comfortable with

that has the heart of a teacher. Start learning about good investments. The bank is not on the list of good investments. John's in Boise, Idaho. Hey, John, what's up? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure, how can I help? So my wife and I just pay off our house,

and my first instinct was to go ahead and ramp up our retirement contributions and try to max those out as much as possible. Absolutely. But then I'm looking back at what we currently have in our retirement accounts, and we got about $623,000 sitting in traditional. And I'm wondering, based on our ages, we're 36 and 38, if it would make more sense, instead of maxing out new Roth contributions, if we should instead maybe try to focus on converting some of that those additional

uh or traditional contract traditional retirement contributions to roth you ought to do both uh you ought to max them out and then start working on converting it to roth but i'm not gonna i'm not gonna choose between the two i'm gonna max out first and then i'm gonna going to choose between the two. I'm going to max out first, and then I'm going to get to the above that. I'm going to get to it. What's your income? About $205,000 household income. Okay, and you've got no payments, and you live in Boise, Idaho, no house payment or anything.

Correct. You're not going to be able to do that $600,000 in one fell swoop anyway. You don't have the money. Right. Well, I mean, we also have some like home upgrades and wife's vehicle needs to be upgraded okay so i'm kind of looking at the extra money beyond maxing out retirement you know a lot of that's going to go that direction that's fine but that's not a forever thing and once the home upgrade's done the car upgrade's done

then you can start to peck away at it and five years from today you're going to be making more than 205 agreed agreed yeah so just you know you're 30 so take a seven-year plan and let's get that 600 moved by the time you're 40 while maxing out while upgrading the cars while doing all of this other you got room right and then the balance of that traditional at 623 now is going to continue to grow. So it's just going to be more as that time goes on. But that doesn't change it. I'm still going to do it. Because here's the thing. You've got that under the umbrella. If you stop putting money under the umbrella in order to flip that out, I think that's a bad move.

I want you to get it all over into roth all mine's over into roth i moved it all over but i paid cash for it above and beyond maxing out everything and above and beyond being completely debt free and above and beyond upgrading cars and fixing the house and so you know but but you're not gonna do it quickly unless your income doubles but you're you will be able to do it over a five to, you know, a 10-year period, seven-year period, whatever. I mean, you're not going to be 45 asking this question. I can tell you that mathematically.

Okay. And so you'll be fine. You're going to get there. And, you know, but, yes, I think that is a good strategy to move traditional to a Roth. At what point okay I'm trying to think through this I'm thinking of a good question here um so if you're listening to the show and you say oh man Dave like I've contributed to a traditional 401k most of my working life I've got a lot over there at what point do you go this is too much to move? Or, and or, what's a fair percentage to have in traditional versus Roth? Maybe that's the better question.

In game, I don't want you to have any in it. Right. But if you've been doing that. That's okay. But I wouldn't be continuing traditional. I'd move everything to Roth today on fresh contributions. And in game, I want you to move it all out into Roth over a period of time. And here's why.

Let's fast forward this 33-year-old to 65. Sure. Okay. He's not going to cash all of this out suddenly at retirement anyway. That's right and very likely this guy making quarter million dollars a year at 33 years old is going to have a bunch of other non-retirement investments like dave right okay i got a bunch of non-retirement investments called real estate and other things right mutual funds that aren't in a retirement plan. So the chances

of me actually touching, I'm 64, of ever touching my retirement accounts, it's close to zero. I will never touch them. So now what are we doing? Well, now we're looking at 72 and a half RMDs, required minimum distributions. I don't have those because it's roth yeah uh inherited iras they are taxable if they're traditional that's right if they're roth they're not so rachel cruz and her brother and sister will be getting someday all of our Roth products, no taxes. And guess what? Let's say I live 25 years from today, 64 to 90s, right? Put what's in there right now, all tax-free,

all dropped into their name, tax-free. Talk about changing a family tree. My mind is exploding. The numbers are astrophreakonomical. Oh yeah, they are. I mean, it's cray-cray how big those numbers are. And that's where this kid's going. Yeah. Because he's going to have other investments by the time he gets there.

And if he gets all of this into Roth, he's got the inheritance benefit, the no RMD benefit, because you're really probably not going to use that money to live on. That's very good. This is the blueprint. Yeah, I mean, because this guy's not looking at a $2 million net worth here. This guy's looking at a $12 million net worth.

Yeah, he's going to be very wealthy. Okay, if he stays on this track because of the numbers we're giving him with power, compound interest is magical, people. This is beautiful. Man, you are a bright guy. John, you've got to run these numbers out. It'll blow your freaking mind. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Stacey is in Spokane. Hi, Stacey. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you very much for having me on. Sure. What's up in your world? Yeah, so I would like to just get an idea of how to deal with our situation.

My husband is up in age. He is actually 72 going on 73. He has been working all his life, and I am only 49. I have health issues that prevent me from being able to work a full-time regular job. And so currently what happened was recently last year, we were living on a friend's property, taking care of the father of the son that lives there. And, um, we were doing really well. My husband was working, we were doing just fine financially. Unfortunately, we didn't have a home there. And we, um, we were told that the, uh, owners of the property, which is multiple family members were having a dispute. And so we were having to get out of that situation due to the circumstances. And when we saw what was happening after COVID and everybody losing their homes and losing rentals because

people were selling their rentals like crazy. We also had pets, which was restricted us from getting into a rental. So we decided to go ahead and purchase a home, knowing that technically the economy wasn't great for doing that. My husband makes about, with Social Security included, because he gets his retirement Social Security as well as his income, that is about $90,000 a year. We purchased a home last October at the price of $423,000. Good Lord. And unfortunately, the interest rate was at 6%.

I like 6.2%. And so right now, currently, I still owe a school loan debt of about $20,000. I was hospitalized this last summer and now owe $10,000 for a one-night stay. And then also my daughter, there's no schools in our area that are safe for her to attend, unfortunately. And so we had to send her to a boarding school. What does that mean when you say there's no school? What does that mean? In Spokane, Washington, the schools are not safe to attend?

I was born in Spokane. Tell me what does that mean? So actually, we are actually in northern Idaho, but like right next to Spokane. And so... In rural Idaho, the schools are not safe to attend. Right. I'm not buying that. They've been pushing the whole gay thing.

Okay, safe is one thing. I don't agree with what they're pushing is another thing. That's very different. Okay. I don't have a problem with that. Okay, now, so why don't i don't have a problem with that okay now so um what's the question why don't you sell the house yeah you bought a house you can't afford right sell it right and then go with well move to something you can move to something you can afford

okay you bought a house you can't afford yeah and to your point you're in a rural area that's far less expensive than anything that'd be close to a city so there should be options right there are options actually unfortunately the areas out here are really it's it's gone up just from the one stacy there's not a situation there's not a situation where there are no options except sit there and be bankrupt bull okay you keep pulling the plug on everything seems to be forced upon you and you don't have any choices you don't have any choices you got choices you didn't have to send your kid to boarding school you could up sold the house moved to a school system you agreed with in a two hundred thousand dollar house and had no issues okay you weren't forced into any of this but you know but the language you use is as if

you're a victim of your own choices you're not a victim change it yeah sell a stupid house it's a freaking house it's a bad decision and you bought it and then you justified it as if there was no other choices of course there was other choices there's always other choices we have pets well there's lots of choices with pets and i'm not going to bankrupt my family for pets i love my dog it's one of my favorite people but i'm not going to bankrupt my family for my pet. Yeah. I also want to challenge the fact, and she said she wasn't working. I know she said health issues. But I always filter at this point whenever we get calls where someone is struggling to work, whether it's because of a disability or health, I always tell this story.

I bought two recliners on Wayfair. They didn't work, and I sent them back. And all of the customer service was done via text and I realized there's somebody on the other end doing this whole thing on their computer at home via text there are jobs out there that you don't have to have contact that you can be on your own timeline so I even want to challenge the fact that you're not working I bet there's something that you can do so there's a lot in this conversation that needs to be accounted for. Yeah, we've got to get on top of this and in front of it rather than behind it.

Everything's not chasing you, kid. You've got to start chasing life instead of it chasing you. So sell the house, move into a house half the price, get the kid back out of the boarding school, homeschool them. If you're not working, homeschool your kid. You can control the woke agenda that way. And, you know, there's a lot of options here. There's a lot of options. But you guys just keep reaching over and doing crap you can't afford, and then you're shocked that you're broke.

Yeah. And in this situation, you really need to have some foresight when you've got a 72-year-old husband and you're 50. You've got to start thinking through what the future holds and how you're preparing for that, because it's going to hit you like a ton of bricks. Now, Sharon is slightly older than me and she's planned for me to die first. So I'm not sure what that means exactly. I need to sleep with one eye open possibly. All of our estate plan is predicated on me predeceasing her. I'm a little worried about this. Of course, she is in much better shape than me. But other than that you know come on yeah so i mean yeah you're right and and i'm not uh 20 years or whatever it is 15 years older so

there you go all right open phones at 888-825-5225 connor is in pensacola hi connor what's up hey dave this is uh how are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can we help? So I made some bad financial decisions right when I turned 18. I thought credit meant I was rich. Me too. You're the only one, Connor. Yeah.

So I decided to, I was going to start my own lawn care company. It worked all out, but I ended up taking out a loan for a truck while I did that. I ended up selling the landscape company, not for much. I mean, it was just, it was $1,300. I ended up moving to Florida from Minnesota, and I'm just trying to figure out how to get out of this loan as I have no reason for a truck anymore. And I owe about $31,000 on it.

It's worth about, yeah, I owe about $31,000. It's worth about $26,000. What do you make? I've gone down. I make $2,400 a month. What do you do? I just got a job doing logistics sales. For $30,000 a year?

It's $40,000, so I mean, it's really $2,800 a month. But I mean, there's potential for commission on after 26 weeks of training. I'm 21 years old. Okay, and you're working 40 hours doing that? I'm working about 50 hours a week week but i'm on a base salary of 40 000 a year after 26 weeks of training i'm eligible for untapped commission but they're like there's really no guarantee that you'll make commission well that's how hard you work yeah all right so you're 21 uh you're you're in a place where you just moved to you don't know

anybody you need six more jobs. Take it to 80 hours a week. You need $5,000 to write a check and cover the difference so you can sell the truck, right? Correct, yeah. I want you to go get $5,000. Ready, set, go. Then you're going to have to figure out a way to get something in cash that you can drive around. And yeah, get you a

$5,000 car. We really need $10,000. Yeah, that was kind of my plan is to just kind of get rid of this loan and just buy a car cash you can do it man but you're going to be living on beans and rice and you're going to increase your income and there's no eating out there's no happy hour and i hope you got a there's no weekend trips with the buds you're a broke dude with a truck you can't afford. And the way to get out of that is go to bare bones and attack it with a vengeance.

And get you a roommate. Oh, there we go. Ding, ding. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality,

is my co-host today. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires Theme Hour. We're going to talk to real millionaires and ask them how they did it. We started doing this theme hour. We're going to talk to real millionaires and ask them how they did it. We started doing this theme hour several years ago because I kept hearing all the mythology in the marketplace, the lies that are out there about where wealth really comes from. People don't seem to know where wealth really comes from. So let me help you with this. A millionaire is a million-dollar or greater net worth. There is only one definition of a millionaire.

It is a math process. It's not up to you. It has nothing to do with your feelings. It doesn't care what your feelings are okay what your assets are minus your liabilities is your net worth what you own minus what you owe not a salary that is your net worth has nothing to do with your income and when your net worth determines if you're a millionaire, when you have a $1 million or greater net worth, whatever you own minus whatever you owe, and there's no qualification on that, this is an accounting term. And just because you're on TikTok doesn't mean you get to change it. This is a definition. And so someone that makes a million

dollars might or might not be a millionaire. That is not the definition of a millionaire. When people say net worth millionaire, that's redundant because 100% of real millionaires are no millionaires based on their net worth. You don't need to put an adjective in front of an adjective. It makes you look stupid. So it's just a millionaire. That's all it is. So we're going to talk to people that really have that net worth

and ask them where they got it. And that's what we do here. The phone number is 888-825-5225. We're starting with Charlie and and stacy in midland texas what's your guys net worth dave we think it's about 10.8 hey hey way to go guys okay give me a little breakdown by mix on that how much of that is like investments or retirement real estate, so on? We both have an RA, and they total about 2.5. Mm-hmm. Got two houses, 1.4.

Mm-hmm. And then got 6.7 in investment account, high-yield savings account, and land. Way to go. Good for you. How old are you two? 61. 61 or two? 61. 6'1 or 5'1? 61.

61. 61. Good. Okay. How much of this $10.8 million did you inherit? Oh, wow. About $250,000 three years ago when my mom passed. After you were already millionaires?

You bet. Yeah. Okay, cool. And I haven't spent a dime of that inheritance. Okay. years ago when my mom passed after you were already millionaires you bet yeah okay it's been a dime of that inheritance okay and it in that obviously that's not what caused you become a millionaire because you already were now income now you're uh your lowest income since you've been working and your highest income since you've been working um i think when i got out of vet school in 1990 i got one of the best jobs in my class and i made 24 000 health insurance for my family and a car to drive stacy you married a rich man 24 000 i love it and what's your what's your what's your best year of income oh wow um last couple years half a million or so way to go so now you own a vet practice obviously i sold it ah i did oh what'd you fight, yes. Okay. So what portion of the net worth came from that?

What'd you bring from that sale? Oh, a bunch of that was just realizing equity in the business, but then there was some goodwill on top of that. But you've got to hear what Stacy, she taught when I was in vet school. She can tell you what she taught and coached two sports for when we were going to vet school. Okay. Yes, I taught elementary PE.

I coached basketball and track. I also taught freshman high school physical education, and my starting pay was $15,400. Way to go, guys. Way to go. Teaching and two sports. Way to go, guys. Way to go. Teaching and two sports. Way to go. Proud of y'all. So do you think people can still do this today? Oh, it's easier today than it was when we did it, Dave.

Why? Way easier. There's so many more investment opportunities. We didn't have 529s for the kids. We didn't have college savings accounts. We didn't have health savings accounts. We didn't have 401ks like they do now. When you think back to the 90s, when I found out about you, when you're the only vet in a small town, you get to go out in the middle of the night. And in the mid-90s, you had the prime time on AM radio about 3 in the morning. I did. In Midland Odessa, I remember this.

That's right. Yes. And that's where I heard about you and that's where I heard about you. That's where I heard about you. Wow. That's crazy. It's so much easier, I think, today, because when you think in the 90s,

I did not know what a no-load mutual fund was. If you were going to buy stocks, you had to a block a hundred at a time or something like that and now you can buy fractions you can it's got to be so much easier now than it was for us now the vehicles are a lot cleaner you're right and there was no roth there was no roth back then either no there was not no i agree with you so what do you guys drive uh she drives a subaru yeah and i drive a three-quarter ton aggie maroon gmc pickup truck aggie maroon is that that's a particular color they sell in texas volunteers i really am so how important how important is budgeting were you guys budgeters does that play a part in building wealth yes yes yes yes jade um we followed the envelope system and i carried around

envelopes the white envelope with i penciled on each envelope, you know, where that cash was going to go, whether it was going to the grocery store, gas, the kids' needs. And the envelopes played a huge part because it just really gave a visual. I'm a visual person, and it showed how much money we had to use, and when it was gone, it was gone. Starting off with the program, I was a little hesitant, but once we got started, boy, we stuck with it, and we just went crazy with it. We also made our kids listen to the show on our trip when we traveled. Wow.

First, Charlie stuck with me in the middle of the night and then the kids are with the trip. Hey, I'm proud of you guys. That's amazing. $10.8 million net worth. That's where money comes from, boys and girls. I love it. Way to go, Charlie and Stacey. Hero, both of your heroes. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of healthcare costs.

CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget at chministries.org slash budget. If you believe a lie, an untruth, and you act on your beliefs, which everyone does act on their beliefs, it leads you astray. In other words, if you thought one direction was north and that was actually south, you acted on a lie. You acted on an untruth, and you get what's known as lost. Right? You didn't, you know, that way's Florida, that way's Maine.

Yeah. And you can't head towards Maine and get to Florida. Well, you can, it's just the long way around, right? So you're going to go all the way around the globe. But the, and the same thing's true with building wealth. And that's why we started doing this, because there's so many people out there lying, some of them intentionally and some of them just because they're ignoramuses about where wealth actually comes from. Here's one.

All wealthy people get their wealth by being crooks. That's just completely asinine. Here, let me give you an example, okay? That guy was a veterinarian okay if he was a crooked veterinarian overcharged people would take their animals somewhere else yeah his business would be out of business if he stole from his customers they take their business somewhere else instead he grew a large business by not being a crook by being an honest guy, sold the business later and became very wealthy as a result of doing that. So crooks actually do not prosper. Well, you can prosper as a crook, but it's not

sustainable. It's not a long-term strategy. And so what we find is most wealth building is long-term. Now you can become wealthy for a hot minute being a crook, but we don't find the typical millionaire to be a crook. As a matter of fact, we find the percentage of crooks among them to be lower than the general population percentage of crooks. And so, because one of the issues is integrity has, it seems to be correlated with building wealth do you also feel that people have um sort of a negative framework or an improper framework about millionaires because a they're thinking of uh celebrity status they're thinking of people who have 200 million and all the they're not thinking of the everyday person that might have two or three million or eight or

10 million right well they've gotten the confused between the difference in a billionaire and a millionaire a billionaire has a jet right a millionaire does not a billionaire has seven cars a millionaire is driving a uh what do you call it an aggie maroon pickup truck okay right and you know a billionaire has five. A millionaire has one medium-sized home. Yeah, you may not know the person that's sitting next to you. You generally won't know it. That's right. Okay, and the methodology to build a billion-dollar net worth is different than the methodology to build a $10 million net worth.

Substantially different. That's right. Okay, and neither one involves being a crook. But I think people get confused, and i think they get a negative view on wealth because some of the uber rich are just weird humans they're just i won't name any names well they're just wacko they're wacko yeah i mean they're not they're not who you want to be that's right yes but that veterinarian i want to be him yeah if you're a young, you could want to be that guy. He's a man of character, a woman of character.

She taught phys ed at the high school while he was going through vet school. Shut up. He made $24,000 a year when he started. Shut up. You do want to be that couple. They're people of character, of substance. But you don't, these wackos that are on TV and stuff. And here's the thing.

Here's the interesting thing. I'm not going to be a wealthy because I'm not going to be a celebrity. Well, only 1.6% of millionaires in the United States are celebrities. Wow. Sports figures, music people, actors, and so on. And a lot of them are just weird. Yeah, 100%. Not all of them.

Some of them are normal people that just play a get fiddle. But a lot of them are just weird. I mean, and I know some of them. Some of them are normal people that just play a get fiddle. But a lot of them are just weird. I mean, and I know some of them that are weird. I mean, they're weird. And so, you know, that's not normal either. But what is normal is the guy we just talked to. And that should give you people great hope. If you're sitting there going, where's all the hope is gone in America?

No, it's not. It's not gone. Don't let people steal your hope with bad information that's what this is about matt is with us in kansas city matt what's your net worth uh my network is uh approximately 1.5 million good for you give me a little breakdown by category all right uh We have $60,000 that we keep in cash just in the bank just for an emergency fund. Got it. We've got about $100,000 in 529s for our children. Good for you. We've got about half a million dollars in American funds. I've got, we've paid our home off. It's worth about 400,000. And then there's a bunch of other things that kind of break up. We've got a 401k. Um, that's my wife. That's $155,000. Um, she's vested in a pension. I'm vested in a pension. She has a retirement plan that's worth about $203,000 if you were to cash it out. I've got a deferred comp through my work that's got about $70,000 or $80,000 in it.

Gotcha. Matt, how old are you? I'm 45 years old. Cool. And how much of this $1.5 million did you inherit? We inherited zero. Zero. And what was your worst year of working income and your all's best year of working income?

Well, I would say when my wife and I first got married was probably the worst, and it was probably around $60,000 combined. Okay. What's been your best year? Probably this last year was right around $200,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I'm a state trooper, and my wife is a business analyst for a large global company that does pet food.

Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. And what do you got? Have you got a four-year degree? I do, yes. I have a four-year degree from, at the time, was just from a state college, and I taught high school for three years before I changed careers. What was your degree in? I have a teaching degree in secondary education. Gotcha. Okay. What was your GPA?

My GPA was about a 3.75. Good for you. Well done. Okay, cool. Very good. What do y'all drive? My wife drives a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, a four-door Jeep. I drive a 2001 Jeep Wrangler, and I newly acquired a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to replace one that I'd gotten rid of.

And we also own a brand new 2024 Toyota Sienna minivan for the kids and I've also got a 2018 Ford F-150 that my 16 year old's going to be driving. When did you your 16 year old has a better car than you have? He does I just want him to be in the I want him to be in the safest thing he could be in. Yeah you see you see some stuff out there on the road, I'm afraid. Yeah, I've seen a few things. When did you get serious about building wealth? Because you're 45 years old. Somebody is listening. They're maybe 40 or 43, and they're going, gosh, how did this guy do it? When did you get serious? We were very fortunate. My Uncle Doug gave my wife and I a copy of the Total Money Makeover. This was probably, I want to say about 15 years ago. And my wife, my wife is on the financial side of things and she just ate it up. It was really quick for her. Everything worked for her. We did envelopes,

we did peanut butter and jelly. We all of those those things that were talked about in the book and so 15 year horizon from the time you learn the plan till the day that you're calling in today basically absolutely and when we when we started we had car payments on two cars and a house payment so and maybe a little bit of credit card debt maybe just a few thousand dollars with a credit card debt so your baby steps millionaires i mean this is pure you did ramsey all the way through absolutely yes wow very cool i'm proud of you guys yeah we're currently using uh one of your investors in the kansas city area and he's been really good to us um you know no complaints from us at all.

Wow. Proud of you, man. Very, very well done. Congratulations, sir. And thank you for being out there protecting the people of Kansas on the highways and byways, brother. Very cool. $1.5 million net worth in 15 years from being broke. Wow.

That's a good question you asked there. Well, I wanted to paint the picture because people think that this takes 40 years and 50 years to do. Our average in our millionaire study that we did is 17 years. This took 15. Yeah. And he's above a million. Yeah. Good. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on. Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home

ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a Baby Steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSConsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

We're talking to real millionaires. What you own minus what you owe is your net worth. Assets minus liabilities. When that reaches one million dollars or greater by definition you are a millionaire well dave a million dollars is just not enough anymore well we're not discussing that today dave no one should have that kind of money it's not a moral construct for you socialist to discuss it's a math thing it's a facts thing so if you have a million dollars it's that simple we want to talk to you i don't care where you got it if you stole it that's fine call us and tell us okay if you want the lottery call us and tell us if you whatever i'd love that story to come

through if somebody stole it yeah we'll put you right here on the radio and see if we can't get you convicted of your crime. But yeah, but I mean, really, I mean, I've talked to a lot of winners. Yeah. I talked to people that did the GameStop thing and that got a million dollars out of it. Well, I mean, when you do it that way. Bitcoin guys, I've talked to them, they got a million dollars. I've talked to people that did it ways I don't recommend and that the data tells us are not normative.

They don't normally work. But I'll talk to you. I don't care. I want to hear. I want everyone in America to hear where wealth really comes from. So you call 888-825-5225. Diane is in Sacramento. Diane, what's your net worth?

$1.2 million. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category, please. Well, pretty simple, about $300,000 in home equity and $900,000 in IRAs and an active 401k. Good. Good for you. How old are you? 69.

69. Very good. How much of this 1.2 did you inherit? Not a penny. 69. Very good. How much of this 1.2 did you inherit? Not a penny. Zero. Zero. What's your best year of working income and your worst year of working income? Working income, probably about 95.

And my worst year was when I was just 18 and started working about 4,000. Gotcha. Okay. A long time ago. I hear you. what was your what was your career um my career has always been in the insurance industry good for you okay good and you have a four-year degree no i do not no okay good very cool all right do you think people can still do this today absolutely why um i think it's um i think they need someone to give them

guidance and encouragement and um i don't know one of the things i'm proudest of are my girls because they're both doing it and they started hearing this from me at a very young age and when they were in positions and jobs with 401ks they both started contributing yeah and i'm excited to see um one of my girls just showed me her 401k balance the other day and she's just in her mid-30s and i was i was so proud of her yeah very good yeah she's gonna beat mom they are they both will yeah they absolutely will i did not start investing until i was 40 at the strong encouragement of a co-worker and this was in about the mid 90s before we knew an awful lot about 401ks and certainly before the rob iris um but i started

at investing a very tiny amount because my friend bruce would not let up on me until i did and you never made over 100k never in my life wow i'm proud of you what do you drive i have a 2015 little subaru that's my commuter car and a 2018 ram half-ton pickup because i'm a mountain girl i do not live in the city of sacramento good for you we had to head to the mountains on the weekends i like it oh no i live in the mountains okay all right you sound intentional you've been intentional about putting money aside intentional about teaching your kids the same way of life. How much has a budget played into this?

Because we know that that's a big part of this, right? Being intentional with your money. Absolutely. I started when I first learned the Excel product back in the mid-90s. That was when I created a budget for myself and that developed into a document that I now project out a year ahead of my monthly expenses and my allocations and when things are coming up. So, you know, it contemplates savings, it contemplates money going into my 401k, you know, vehicle registrations, all the little details of life. And I make sure that I pay myself first.

I started maxing out my 401k in my very early 50s with some home equity rather than putting all of the equity into my next home purchase. I reserved $100,000. So in the last 20 years, what do you do for fun? Enjoy my home. I've always enjoyed living in the mountains. It's always felt like a vacation destination for me. It is. So for me, my fun is coming to my home. It's working in my yard, and that's my fun. I do like the camp, but I don't do much of it anymore. But my fun is pretty simple.

I don't require elaborate vacations. I like coming home and sitting on my house and looking at my living room window to all the beautiful trees that surround me. It's lovely. Life is good. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Very, very well done, Diane. Excellent. It's lovely. Life is good. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Very, very well done, Diane. Excellent. I love it. I love it. I love it. Megan in Raleigh, North Carolina, what is your net worth? Hi, Dave. It is 1.9 million. Very good. Give me a little

breakdown by category, please. In Roth IRAs, 351,000 401ks, $276,000. Our non-retirement investment and savings, $260,000. And then our real estate portfolio, $1.062 million. Good for you. Way to go. How old are you? 35. Wow. Get it. I love it, love it, love it. How much of this did you inherit? My husband inherited $50,000 when he was a junior in college when his dad passed. Okay. Did that money cause you to become a millionaire? Absolutely not. Okay.

All right. And what's your all's best year working income and worst year working income? Our worst year we made about $77,000 and our best year $220,000. Good for you. What do you all do? What's your careers? My husband is a major in the Army and I work in healthcare IT. Got it. Okay.

You got a four-year degree? We actually, between the two of us, have four graduate degrees. Wow. You collect them. Okay. We do. Three were employer-sponsored, and one was fully cash-flowed. Wow, I was going to ask about that. Wow. Okay, so what's the fanciest of the four degrees?

We have a PhD in the bunch? No, no, they're all master's degrees. Okay, all right. But my fanciest one, I would say it sounds cool, is cybersecurity management and policy. Ah, yeah, that's big. Good for you. You're right in the hot seat right now. And your GPA when you were doing that particular degree?

4.0. Nice. I got a feeling, yeah all right good for you well done well done can people do this today yes well crap you're only 35 of course they can do it today all right well i want to know how long have you made 220 000 uh one year just i want to clarify, I always hear the voice of the naysayers in my mind, and so I like to debunk it. And when did you get started on this journey? Because 35 is really young, and I mean, $2 million really is where you're at. So when did you start this? Well, I first got plugged into the Ramsey Show back in 2019. We had bought a house. We didn't have any other debt. So we were fortunate in that even before I met my husband, we were both very financially

savvy and knew not to spend more than you made. But I got pregnant with my daughter. And instead of getting in that nesting phase of setting up the baby's room and everything I got into the financial security mode love that and there was just a particular lifestyle I envisioned for our family and I wanted to be able to have the financial means to do it so avoiding debt and six years of being intentional about what comes after paying off and avoiding debt. Yeah way to go kiddo proud of you well done wow two million dollar net worth at 35 years old ding ding ding ding ding ding ding she wins yeah this is the Ramsey Show.

Hey you guys I'm not a fan of the big banks and you probably already know which ones I mean, but I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse fair winds credit union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join, and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country, so you can bank in person wherever you live.

But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. Folks, we just launched a brand new tour. Dave Ramsey, that's me and Dr. John Deloney are hitting the road and coming to a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour, and we're putting a new twist on these live events.

You are going to shape the conversation each night. In the pre-show, we're going to give you a list of topics, and you're going to pick the ones you want me and John to talk about that night, and we're going to walk out and do it. Louisville kentucky april 21 durham that would be april 23 atlanta april 25 phoenix may 5 fort worth may 7 and kansas city may 9 these tickets are selling briskly if you want to come you should get one before they're gone go to dave ramsey dr john deloney or join dave ramsey that's me and. John Deloney live in person that night. You're going to laugh. You're going to cry.

You're going to learn. Your ribs will be sore where your spouse is elbowing you. All of that will happen. RamseySolutions.com slash tour, the money and relationships tour. You can always look at the live events we're doing all over the place on our homepage and check in. There's all of us doing stuff all over the place all the time now diane two callers ago 69 never made over a hundred thousand that is one of the myths one of the lies that are out there that you have to make five hundred thousand dollars a year six

hundred thousand dollars a year to be a millionaire you You don't. As a matter of fact, we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied 10,167 of them. The conclusions of that research and the methodology of that research are the white paper in the back of my bestselling book, Baby Steps Millionaires. And Baby Steps Millionaires goes through the discussion of where millionaires come from in detail. So if you want to learn about the millionaire subject, the study is in there. And also the bestselling book is in front of the study.

One of the things we found in the study was 33% of millionaires never made over a hundred grand. One third. Wow. That one surprised me. Yeah. I was, you know, if you told me not over $200,000, okay. Sure, sure.

I could have gone with that one, but 33% never made over $100,000. They fall in the category that Diane fell in. Pretty cool. Richard's in Kansas City. Hey, Richard, your net worth? $3.1 million. Good for you. Give me a little breakdown by category.

Basically, joint account, $117,000, emergency fund, $110, emergency fund, 110, 401K, which is now a rollover because I am recently retired, 1.167 million. And then we have my wife and I have Roths at 750,000, a donor account at 56. Our home's about 425, farmland's 450, and miscellaneous items about $40,000. Cool. How old are you? I'm 57 years old. Good for you.

Well done. How much of this did you inherit? Well, I did inherit a little bit, and that's part of my story a little bit. I got $200,000 when I was 35 and $200,000 when I was 45. Wow. Cool. Good. Very good.

So that did really legitimately boost this. It did. It did. But the way I look at this is the 401k, my goal is always to get a million over that and did that, but it helps. But the big thing I find is one thing that I don't always hear you talk about, but you do, is people inherit things. And sometimes it's a woo-hoo moment.

Now we're going to go out and spend money. you talk about but you do is people inherit things and sometimes it's a woohoo moment now we're going to go out and spend money we're going to go we're going to go buy that big car that big boat but my wife and i kept away from that and so i like the field i did it without those things yeah well what you did was you got the best use of that but you've got 1.1 in your 401k so you would have been a millionaire anyway yes absolutely but you but this did legitimately i mean the 450 000 farm probably had something to do with that uh some of these other cash positions probably had something to do with that but uh your 401k has to be payroll deduct it's not your none of that uh inheritance can go in there legally so i know

that didn't where that came from well that and you know my wife uh worked outside the house part-time and raised our kids so we are a one-income uh household and then with her what she brought in is one of those things where you basically had to learn how to do without and we did in those early years and we have two young successful kids and i think they've learned from watching us and i gotta tell you when they used to hear your music come on when we'd be driving down the highway their heads would hit the ground i love it what's your what was your career richard i was in packaging packaging all right yep all right very cool good for you man hey thanks for the call you're a man. I'm so proud of you.

Excellent. Excellent work. Okay. Baby steps, millionaires, theme hour. All right, Jade, we found one that actually inherited some money. Yeah. And here's the statistics on that because that's one of the last lies that we want to defeat.

Okay. Okay. When we studied the largest, when we did the largest when we did the largest study airtight research and outside research from looking over our shoulder so that we weren't doing confirmation bias we wanted to get the surprises of the study we wanted to learn where it really really is what are the facts and this study is so airtight that this is these are this data is what's known as the truth. So if you disagree with the conclusions of this study, you're what's known as wrong.

That's what I'm saying, okay? That's right. So 79% of America's millionaires have inherited precisely zero. That's 8 out of 10. So when the wealthy quality socialist communist people are whining and crying and say we need to restructure society because all wealth is inherited they are either ignorant or evil or both Or both. Got it? 5% of millionaires inherited a small amount, like $5,000 from their grandmother,

which is not enough mathematically to cause you to become a millionaire, and another 5% inherited money, substantial money, like a couple hundred grand, after they were already millionaires. So it did not cause them to become millionaires. So let me help you with this. 79 plus 5% plus 5% is 89. 90%, 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires are not millionaires because of inherited money so don't let some left-wing communist professor tell you that in college don't do it I mean I'm just sitting

over here thinking even if it was inherited even if somebody did inherit money who cares it's not bad but yeah but don't tell people that's the only way because if you don't have a rich uncle that tells you you don't have a chance that's true I mean but people like me people like, but don't tell people that's the only way, because if you don't have a rich uncle, that tells you you don't have a chance. That's true. People like me, people like you, we don't have a chance. Yeah. I never even knew the idea of inheriting money. I never thought of it. It never occurred to me that was going to happen.

Now, it's not to say if you inherited money, you did something wrong. I mean, our last caller got $400,000. It was part of his equation, and it didn't cause him to be a bad guy. He wasn't a bad guy there's nothing wrong with inheriting money but there is something wrong with telling people that's where wealth comes from as the primary methodology and it's not it is a methodology it's like telling people people get wealthy playing the lottery no they don't well then there's a part of it that if you if you paint that as a negativity in your brain,

then it's never something for you to aspire to, to say, I'd like to leave an inheritance, right? Because now you've told yourself this is an evil, horrible thing, and so therefore you'll never do it either. Yeah, I'm 100% sure it's the opposite, that it is a godly thing. 100%. Because the Bible says a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children yeah so those grant those eight ramsey grand babies are gonna it's gonna turn out well for them

thank goodness that's great assuming they have the character to manage it now if you're doing heroin you don't get any money in the ramsey estate plan that's not how it works but um you know you got to be an upstanding citizen and all that but but but the deal is because we're not raising trust fund babies snorting cocaine on the back of a yacht doing a reality show i don't have any need to produce those uh other people can produce those i don't want to do that but but that's not the norm no the norm is good people work their butts off and they don't ruin their children. That Richard guy, his dad left him 400 grand and two blocks and it didn't ruin him.

As a matter of fact, it didn't even hardly change anything. He was already had learned to live on nothing. Two broke kids being successful. He was talking about that. And, you know, he did a great job and the money just accentuated his life is all. That's right. Made him more of who he already was. So don't let people tell you that wealth is evil, or that wealthy people are evil,

or that it's the wrong thing to aspire to be successful. This war on success in our culture has got to stop. We need to teach people to go win and how to go win. That's what this show's about. The book is Baby Steps Millionaires. Check it out. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Michaela is in Cincinnati. Hi, Michaela, how are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good, thank you. Good. How can we help? Well, I am kind of in a desperate situation, and I am seeking some guidance today. I am 27 years old. My husband is 28.

He was in a major car accident last year, and the year before that, he was in another accident. But in 2023, he sustained a traumatic brain injury. And as a result, we kind of were forced to have to move in with a family. We have four little kids and I could not take care of everything we might need to take in care of. You have how many kids? Four. Wow. Wow. Yeah. They are eight, six, two, almost three, and almost two. Wow. We are about $87,000 in debt, and we are currently living with his grandparents, and we have kind of overstayed our welcome. And we have made some attempts to try to get out of here, so that way we can not invade their space. He's been back to work now for about four months.

Oh, he's working. Great. What's he making? He makes, on a good week, he's making about $1,500 a week. On a bad week, it's between about $1,000 to $1,200. He is potentially up for a raise, hopefully soon. Good. What's he doing? He is a foreman at a concrete company. They do pool installations and retaining walls and big projects.

Okay. What is the $87,000 in debt? We have two cars, and we have a couple credit cards. Break the cars down for me. How much do you owe on car one and car two? Car one is the worst. We owe $32,000 on it. Our payment every month is $6,1633.

What's it worth? It's only worth about $9ikes oh wait a minute wait a minute yeah why that's weird why um we did a trade-in when we got it we had a truck at the time a ford f2 so you rolled some negative equity into it. Not a whole lot. Who told you it's worth nine? I've tele-booked it. Private sale? I listed it for $25,000 on private sale.

I had two hits on it, and then no one wanted to end up looking at it. Is there something wrong with it? There's nothing wrong with it at all. It is in a beautiful condition inside and outside um it's a yukon xl a silver um i don't know why we have why would you think that this car is worth nine thousand dollars that doesn't make sense that is what the but personally i don't feel like i have a ton of miles what year is it? It's a 2016. It has 168.

Okay. The second car is what? The second car should be sold on Saturday. It is a 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I owe $45,000 on it. We have it listed for $8,900.

Oh, $100,000. Okay, great. Yeah, okay great. Yeah 100. 4,500. Use the difference and what is the rest of the 87,000? A credit card debt and my husband owes the state of Ohio allegedly an additional $27,000 in sales tax for a prior business that was shut down. And you're not paying anything on it right now. Are you paying anything on the credit cards right now? No, the credit card is kind of what to put. Yeah, and how much do you owe on the defaulted credit cards? About $8,000 on one, $5,000 on another, $8,000 on another,

and then one for about $1,000. Okay. All right, got Okay. All right. Got it. All right. And obviously you're taking care of four kiddos. Yeah. I've been a stay-at-home mom and homemaker for about almost 10 years next year.

Okay. And so now you're looking for a place to live and you're having trouble. Yeah. Why? I'm a homemaker without a home. He's been back to work for four months. We have a gap, obviously, in our renting history. There is literally no homes anywhere near us that are more than one bedroom,

even ones that are one bedroom. They're between $1,200 to $1,400 a month, and there is expensive waiting periods for those houses, even apartments. The apartments don't even want to look at us because of our credit. We only have about $1,000 in savings as we just try to get back to living. We're living pretty meagerly, I think. Our grocery budget every week is about $170 to $200, and that's with two babies and diapers. We've got the gas for the cars.

That comes to probably about... Okay, you're going to have to go further out of the city and look, and you're going to have to find an individual that is renting a house, an individual landlord, not a corporate landlord. We just looked for an individual. Honey, wait a minute, wait a minute, stop. You cannot tell me that that does not exist anywhere in Cincinnati, Ohio. That is not a fact.

Just because you haven't found them yet doesn't mean they don't exist. That is a large metropolitan area. There is all kinds of possibilities there. I've looked in the hood. I've looked in the city. I've looked in Waynesville, Martinsville, Wilmington, Cincinnati,

Dayton, Kettering, Beaver Creek, Centerville. On the computer. On the computer. I've even posted in all the local Facebook groups asking if anybody knew of a local or private seller or renter. I showed up to multiples and we're stood up and then we're told that they had

already been rented. Um, we are currently renting it while we live in his grandparents' house, the two bedrooms that we're staying in. They're charging us $500 a month to stay in at this point. Yeah. So I'm kind of just hitting my wits end. I know, but when you start describing things as absolutes, then I mean, I appreciate that you put some effort into this. I'm not

arguing that. OK, you just hadn't found it yet, because the answer to your equation is that someone actually looks at the situation, says, OK, we got a young man's got four kids. There's a gap because he had a medical thing, but they're back to work. And here's what he's making. And I can take a chance on them. That landlord is out there somewhere and the only thing available in the entire area is one bedroom, as you said. And that's just not true, Michaela, okay? That's drama coming through because you're scared and you've been through hell and I appreciate all that, but you can't let this fall into this fatalism mindset. So you keep scratching and clawing and uh if grandma and

grandpa want to help you find a place so they can get you out uh that'd be good help have them go help find a place tell you know tell i'm looking would y'all help me look because i i haven't found anything yet and i and i'm ready to leave i'm i want to do what you want me to do i want to get out um and so but i've got to find a place that this family can stay in and it's not a one bedroom I'm ready to leave. I want to do what you want me to do. I want to get out. But I've got to find a place that this family can stay in, and it's not a one-bedroom, and I'm not asking you to move to the hood. I am asking you to move maybe where he's got an hour commute. I mean, usually when there's question on whether or not you're suitable for renting because of your financial past or whatever. It's really just more money on the front end that you're putting down a lot of times. Well, or, I mean, there's a gap in our rental history, but that's explainable to someone

that has a brain in this situation. So, I mean, we're landlords. We could understand that. You have to talk to real people. Yeah, and not somebody that's running some stinking formula for corporate America somewhere. So you're just not done looking, hon. It's that simple. This is the Ramsey show. Jade Wajah, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to the monthly budget. The world's best budgeting app, EveryDollar, makes it simple to plan your spending, track

expenses, save for what matters, all in an easy to use app, works with your spouse. And guess what, guys? You can do paycheck planning. There's all kinds of goodies on there. We've got lots of training on how to put this together no one wins anything by accident it's an intentional act and budgeting is the intentional act that causes you to win with money you have to tell your money what to do download every dollar for free in the app store or google play and click the link in the description if you're listening on the youtube or the podcast all right dan's in's in San Francisco. Hi, Dan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thanks, Dave and Jay. I appreciate you taking my call today. Sure. I'm hoping to get a little guidance on a situation I've got with my 17-year-old daughter. So I'm in baby steps four, five, and six. I have three kids. They've each bought their own car with their own money, kind of like what you did with your kids, Dave. And my 17-year-old has gotten into two minor accidents that were both her fault, but both were minor enough that cost me around $2,500 for each of the collisions.

And to avoid our insurance going up, I'm just paying cash for each of them. The first one, my daughter had like $1,000, and we kind of paid her to do some chores to pay it off. Well, this one that we're still working with has about a bill of 25, $600. And she only has like, she's just rebuilt her emergency fund back up to that $500. And I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on how to handle it to kind of make her feel the responsibility. But I also don't want her to think that I'm like loaning her money and thinking like I'm borrowing money from dad. I don't want that idea to get in her head that she's borrowing from me. So I'm just wondering if you have any suggestions on how to handle that. I'm not worried about the money. I'm worried about the lesson being learned.

And I think that's what you're saying yes okay so the the question i've got then is has the lesson been learned what is her attitude is she sorrowful repentant uh i mean does she feel horrible about this and she's like carrying the weight of it or she's flippant or she's flippant about it no No, yeah, she for sure called me very apologetic. We've had the talks about, like, hey, we've got to drive more careful. Is she irresponsible behind the wheel, or are these just two freak things? No, one, like stop-and-go traffic and just kind of rearing at somebody at a real slow speed. It just happened to be a very new Tesla.

And the other one there was some extenuating circumstances that it wasn't that big of a deal but still caused some damage yeah but she's not we're not going to label her as being like uh impulsive flighty on her phone irresponsible doing a bunch of crap she shouldn't be doing these are just two things that happen to stack up on this one kid yes i agree that's how it happens is that the real thing because i don't sense that you're an enabler i don't i don't smell that off you matter of fact i think you might be on the other side of the equation yeah yeah i don't i hope i hope i'm not and that's why i'm trying to make sure that she

you know like i said i didn't want her to feel like oh i'm borrowing money and it's okay because dad's lending it to me and that's how it's going to happen it's no big deal so I don't think this kid feels that way well that's the part I wanted to get to because so far you're checking all the boxes green saying no she's not flighty she's not irresponsible what is causing you what would cause you and she does feel the weight of it the sorrow the repentance yeah I think so and I mean to your question Jade I think I just wanted to make sure that um I was doing the right thing as the dad like not making her like that I wasn't causing a misstep that she would be like oh it's okay that I'm borrowing money now because I mean I wouldn't borrow I wouldn't loan her money I would just fix the car

I mean the only other side of it that I can see, Dave's got grown kids. I don't. My kids are four and six. The only other side of this that I could see, the only other lesson would be sometimes things happen and you didn't intend or it wasn't fully your fault, but still sometimes there's a price to pay for it. That's the only other lesson that I could think and say, okay, if it's $1,500, I'll cover this. You cover a portion. If you wanted her to feel some of the financial weight of it, just so she knows that some'll cover this. You cover a portion. If you wanted her to feel some of the financial weight of it just so she knows that some things cost money, I don't know. I think she already knows that. She already cleaned out her $1,000 on the first one.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean, I think this is a time for grace. Okay. For me, grace comes with repentance. Yeah. And that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for her to feel this as if she had

to write the check and i think she is i think this is a good kid yeah she's great she's a great kid very responsible great in school yeah if there's a whole pattern of a bunch of other crap i'd lay the thing on her thick you know and and and let her let her just go to you know put it on her so heavy it takes her to her knees i'm happy to do that but i don't hear that with this kid i think this is a kid that's doing everything right and it's just kind of boom that that thing happened and um you know there we go i mean i personally i'd write the check in your situation and not worry about it and just tell her hey this is what's called grace and this is a gift and now pay freaking attention because there may not be another one of these gifts you bump it

again you may be in the salt mines you know i mean we're gonna put you out here chopping wood kid you know and so uh i mean i'm serious i'm gonna have a real strict talk about it but then i'm just gonna let her be free. She's 17 and she's a good kid. And she's not tracking in a bunch of other crap. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for patterns here. And, you know, and that's.

Three makes a pattern. Yeah. And, well, and the other parts of her life aren't a pattern here. That's what I'm saying. This is not a kid that's otherwise you know off the rails maybe she just needs driving lessons yeah i mean i got you know i got a friend whose kid snuck out the back window and wrecked his truck in the middle of the night that kid pays for the truck okay okay because there's a couple there's crap going on there more than the truck wreck you know

that's right and and so that's a different one and hitting by by god that kid is by the way my friend's tough so uh you know that's that good good that's the deal so that that's what you got to look at and so good question dan and and the other good news is the dad is a great dad he's leaning in. He's walking through this whole thing with her. This is going to give her confidence, give her dignity going forward on how to solve problems in the future. Wow. These are the kind of families that build good people,

that build good citizens, that make this country great. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate you, man. This is a great dad. Dads are heroes, man. This is a great dad. Dads are heroes, man. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Tim's in Salt Lake. Hey, Tim, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello. Hey. Nice to talk to you, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, hi. I've got a situation I need some help with,

and that is that my wife and I are starting a business where we're building an app, and this app is in the finance world. It's to help with some credit card debts and so forth. But in terms of funding it, we're having a bit of a dilemma with that. I've been funding it for about six months, and what I mean by funding is the development of it. The development of it. So we're building this app. You're not building it. You're paying someone to build it? I are you funding? The development of it. So we're building this app. You're not building it. You're paying someone to build it?

I'm paying somebody to do it, yes. Okay. How much does that cost? It's costing me about $3,000 a month, and I'm eating that out of my work salary. I have a full-time job, and anyway, that's coming out of my regular salary. And the problem with that is, as you probably know, in IT apps, it's going to take a couple years at this particular rate to get it out the door, and we'd like to expedite that.

And as I say that, we make a good salary. We can only afford the $3,000 a month right now, but we also own a condo outright that we rent. It's worth about $300,000. I kind of want to take a loan or some money out of that condo outright that we rent. It's worth about $300,000. I kind of want to take a loan or some money out of that condo and get this app off the ground. But your voice keeps ringing in my head telling me not to do that. Don't do that. What kind of advice do you have so that I can get this expedited in case, you know, the market changes or the opportunities, you know, out the door in one way or the other? What's the entire cost? It's $3,000 a month, but what would be the entire cost?

It's right just under $100,000 to get it built. And then there's more money on top of that for marketing and so forth. So I think I need about $160,000 to really get this thing going. And it may produce zero. It may produce zero. You're right. But the analysis I'm seeing... You got no beta yet. You got no market proof yet.

You got no social proof yet. I mean, you could sell the condo and put it all into this app. I'm not sure I would. Not without testing. Not without some level of customer proof. It scares the crud out of me. We built a couple apps around here that flopped. We got one huge one that didn't flop called EveryDollar.

It makes a lot of money. But if you want to sell the condo, you can. I'm not that excited about your app. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today i'm dave ramsey your host roberts in miami hi robert welcome to the ramsey show hi how are you mr ramsey better than i deserve sir what's up okay i have a little uh situation i need some advice of how investing some of the money I have because years ago I invested with a friend and I lost like $15,000, $20,000. What did you invest in?

We invested in a stock that I don't even remember the name. All I know it went downhill. And after that, I kind of got scared of the market. Okay, it wasn't the market that got you. It was that stock. You put it into a single stock with a friend. Correct. That was my lack of knowledge.

So the market wasn't a problem. And it sounds like, based on your memory of it, it sounds like you might not have even fully understood it to begin with. Correct. Yeah. And so right now I have $80,000 on a CD that's due up now. It was making 5%. I had it there for two years.

I have a savings account, $28,000. I had it there for eight years without touching it. I also have another savings account with 30 just sitting there, and I got like 35 of my checking account. Okay. And I need to try to invest it even though, you know, I don't want to keep it there and doing nothing. Yeah, I got you.

You're smart to do that. So here's the thing. Here's what you're having to work through. Okay. Let's pretend you were a 16-year-old kid, and you got in a junk car with your friend, and the wheel fell off the car, and the car rolled over and hurt you. Correct.

That does not mean all cars are bad, but it means you do have a fear of cars now because of that accident that's correct that's what you are in investing okay now how would you get rid of that fear if we were dealing with cars well you would learn to ride in a car with responsible people and a car that actually has the wheel bolted on properly and you would learn about that and the more you did that the more you know cars really aren't the problem it was i was riding with an idiot correct you got me and so that's the same thing with investing you were riding with an idiot and you lost you and the thing rolled over on you and so uh when you sit down with real investment professionals and you start learning about how it works,

your fear will start to go away. Knowledge will displace your fear. And I can't do that. You've got to do it. I can help you do it. But I want you to learn about investing. Let me give you an example, okay? Here's a little lesson for you.

Are you ready? A lesson on investing. Yes, sir. The S&P 500 is the best measure of what the stock market is actually doing as a whole. Okay? The S&P stands for Standard and Poor. That is a company that rates the top 500 companies on the stock market. And so if you took an average increase of the top 500 companies in the stock market, that's called the S&P 500 index. So what those 500 companies have done as a group indicates what the stock market's doing. And you can actually buy mutual

funds that are an S&P 500 mutual fund that would do exactly what that top 500 have done. And here's what's interesting. If you had done that 12 months ago, you would have made 30% on your money in the last 12 months. Wow. Now, that's not normal. Normally, you would make about 10%. But it's been a really good 12 months. Been a really good month in November.

But that helped that that by the way but anyway the the point being and that would be what's called a super super safe boring mutual fund investment i've got some money in s&p parked right there now waiting to buy a piece of real estate and i've got it parked there instead of in a high yield and I made 30 on the last 12 months so but that knowledge of that the basic little lesson I just gave you the very boring investment not exciting no sex appeal whatsoever your friends aren't going to be impressed none of that it but your sleep good at night. The wheel's not falling off the car. It's not rolling over. This is just boring. So you need to learn some things like that.

So what I want you to do is I want you to go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro. Look at those guys in the area, and I want you to interview a couple of them to become your teacher. Yeah. We call them financial advisors, but they're your teacher. Yeah. And they need to have the heart of a teacher.

They do. And like, even practically speaking, I'm kind of putting myself back in time before I worked here, before I was a host. And I was trying to learn all this stuff because I'd hear it talked about. And there's gaps in the information. There's gaps in the knowledge.

And you're like, okay, I hear them say mutual funds. I hear them say, I mean, in today's world, if you hear something and you're like, I'm not sure what they meant by that, look it up. There's a lot that you can learn just by looking at an unbiased source to learn what it is so that when you do finally talk to a smart investor pro, you're at least understanding some of what they're saying. And then there's just that baseline knowledge. So you can go, oh, I get it. some of what they're saying. And then there's just that baseline knowledge so you can go, oh, I get it. I hear what they're saying. And then they can teach you even better from there, I think.

Exactly. I mean, folks, a mutual fund, a growth stock mutual fund, is a collection of stocks in companies that are growing. That's why they call it a growth stock mutual, meaning a whole bunch of other people are in it fund you're not buying a single stock you're buying 90 to 200 stocks that sounds like coca-cola mcdonald's dell computer apple it sounds like that it sounds like that. It sounds like Exxon. These are names that you would recognize if you looked at a growth stock mutual fund and you would go, oh, I know those people. I buy from them. Right. And they're growing at a rate faster. You know, their growth rate.

As a group of 92. One or two of them might be dogs. 2 of them might be dogs. Yeah, that's right. 10 of them might be dogs. But 2 or 3 of them might be elephants too. That's true. And some of them might just be rabbits. I mean, they're all in there. We got a little zoo going here. You know, it's 90 to 200 of these things. And it's the not having it all in one thing gives you safety.

That's called diversification in the financial world. And all that means is don't put all your eggs in one basket because some idiot might have the basket and i gotta tell y'all in my lifetime i have been screwed a lot more by enthusiastic ignoramuses than by actual con artists people that thought they knew something and they just had a headlong into it and they didn't know nothing so what people in robert's shoes have to do is to learn for themselves you do don't do it because jade said or dave said that's right and there sometimes when you get in these situations where you're talking with a professional because i i feel this you get in this situation where you're talking with a professional and you ask your question and maybe they explain it in a way that some of it hit but some of it didn't then you kind of feel

a little bit self-conscious about saying well hey can you explain that again okay it's their job to be clear it is but fire them if they can't do their job that's true but you can walk away feeling like man maybe i should understand this or you'll end up saying yes i understand even if you don't fully understand and so there's part of this that it's okay to not get it the first time. It's your money. Yeah. It's your money. It's your job.

If it takes six times to explain it until you've got it, that's okay. Take the time until you get it. If your financial advisor sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher, fire them. And sometimes that's what it sounds like. it sounds like they're speaking another language oh man i'll never forget i was at a party there were a bunch of successful people at this party i was not one of them yet but i heard them talking about their investments and i i literally thought they were speaking another language i was like i don't know what you're saying i have a well diversified portfolio a flip that he just say well you spread your stuff around well there's a lot of there's a

lot of lingo there's a lot of jargon and if you've never heard it before it sounds intimidating that's just so don't so you need someone that has the heart of a teacher and their job is to make you really understand it not nod your head out of self-confidence that's right and don't put your money in something until you can call me and tell me how it works. Not me telling you how it works. That's right. That's right. That means you learned it.

And then you'll sleep at night. But you wake up in the middle of the night when you half but know what's going on. And you're going, what have I done? Oh, God. That's terrible. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 6, 10, and 11. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Ralph Waldo Emersonerson said the best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine okay i'll go with that all right stand up straight stand up straight justin's in oklahoma city hi justin welcome to the ramsey show hello there mr ramsey Hello there, Mr. Ramsey. Good to talk to you. How can we help? Well, I've been a follower of your program for some time now, and I'm currently on Baby Steps 2. And right now, I found out back on Halloween, around that time, that my wife was expecting our third child. Yay!

Yes, I was choked up for a while. In a good way or a bad way? A little of both. Okay. I was nervous. I'm the first. This will be my first child. It will be my wife's third child. Got it.

Got it. Okay. Yes yes that's heavy all right yes how old are you i am 38 cool what do you make uh my take home every year is about 31 300 what do you do i'm a materials manager, a warehouse manager, you could say. Okay. And my wife, of course, she works too. What does she make? Roughly, I would say $44,400 a year. Okay. So you got about $65, you got about 65 70 000 take-home pay got you all right yes sir how much debt have y'all got in baby step two uh it's all mine actually

no you're married it's ours yeah i'm still getting used to that. When did you get married? Back in March of this year. Oh, okay. So it's quite fresh. All right, good. Yeah, we've moved pretty quick. Right now I have a credit card. It's a little over $1,200 that I have left on it. And a signature loan that is a little over $6,200 that I have left on it and a signature loan that is a little over $6,600.

Okay. And then last is my truck that is $30,550 in that range. and right now I'm mainly just concerned or just trying to figure out how to go about my debt snowball. Now, Justin, you have a truck you can't afford. Yeah. It's way too much truck in your situation. Yeah. What's it worth? The Blue Book is, I want to say, $30 to $32. Perfect.

So you can get out of it then? I've had a few appraisals done. All of them, they're all through dealerships. I haven't explored the option of selling it myself yeah you need to sell it yourself and get as much as you can and pay off the debt clear it and get you a little beater car of some kind and uh then you'll be debt free really quick because you got a freaking $1,500 $1,200 truck payment it's uh what was it uh do you have savings set aside somewhere i have my uh emergency fund a thousand dollars okay nothing beyond my wife my wife has a couple

of thousand dollars in her savings okay there's some problems here that i want to point out and i know you're newly married but i want to nip this in the bud before you go further along I think you guys really need to get on the same page uh when you get married it becomes hours and right now you guys are operating on two separate tracks and that's going to cause you to move at a much slower pace and over time it's going to cause you to grow apart right because you can't have two sets of goals going in two separate directions so I would love to give you guys financial peace university that could be our wedding gift to you guys. It's going to have every dollar in there because, yeah, you got to have a budget. And I think for you having a plan for this that is together with your wife, you guys can tackle this together. It's going to be

really, really, really important. You got to sell the truck and you've got to do it immediately. On my screen, it says, should we pause the baby steps yeah you should you only have a thousand dollars as baby's coming um i would probably try to get out of the truck and get into something if i could get into something cheap super cheap a thousand bucks two thousand bucks whatever just a beater just for now and let's get a big old pile of cash before baby comes i want you have ten thousand dollars when baby comes and that's that's making 60,000 without a truck payment. And you're going to pay minimum payments is all. You stop baby step two right now.

Pile up cash. Because that will give you a lot of peace and a lot of energy. And the two of you hitting that goal together. Now, if baby comes, you've got $12,000 in the bank and nothing happens, you just start writing checks and you're dead free, dude. Yeah. And listen, having a baby is an exciting thing you got to hit this with energy you gotta you got your thing working for you right now

so you got to get excited about this i am very excited okay i'm also you sound like you're just crazy excited i mean the fireworks are just coming out of your voice i am very excited you'll have to excuse me i'm i'm just i've been well i'm an okie i've always been very soft-spoken and this is i don't always come on national tv like this so i also sound like i'm listen you're doing we're just poking at you we want you to have fun with this and listen dude can you imagine this what if you're married got three babies you have this income and you don't have any payments that's that's one of the that's where you'll be in about nine months exciting that's where you're gonna be if you get rid of this truck and you get on a

tight budget and you follow the stuff jade's going to sign you up for financial peace university and every dollar and i want you to call back and do you guys do your debt-free scream and we'll play this call back where we had fun together and we're excited about your new baby on the way and cool stuff man cool i'm proud of you you can do this kelsey's in Kansas City. Hi, Kelsey. How are you? Hi. Oh, it's so great to talk to you guys. You too. What's up?

Hey, so I am currently on baby step six. Way to go. I have a rental property. Thank you. Thank you. I am blessed to have parents who have a lot of the same values you do with money and they taught me a lot. Cool. Yeah. I have a rental property and I bought a new house. I moved to Kansas city and I have a rental property up in Wisconsin. It's going really well. I use it once

a month. Every year I might use it still once a month, but I make about $700 a month on that. Good cash flow. I rented it traveling nurses. And my question is, I've been just looking at savings and everything. I currently save 20% of my income for investments. And I'm just wondering, should I keep on, should I keep this rental? I'm sorry, you have debt on it? I have. So it's worth about $230,000.

I still owe $100,000. Do you owe anything on your personal residence? My personal residence, I own that. Paid for. And that's worth $150,000, and I owe $135,000. I just bought it. Oh. No, she's got debt on both.

You have debt on both. $235. I just bought it. Oh. No, she's got debt on both. You have debt on both. $235 total. Correct. Okay, you need to cut your savings down to 15% and then you pay off your house as soon as you can and then pay off your rental after that. Or sell the rental and pay off the house quicker but I don't care. But if you want to keep the

rental, I think you're doing good enough. You can probably pay your way through it. You can can probably be out of both these in a few years can't you yeah what's your income yeah so my income 65 um and i have 28 in savings and then i've got 70 in a ross ira um and i've got the problem is my rental goes up from 3.5% to 6.5% because I didn't listen to you, and I got a 7-1 arm. Oh, I don't love that for you. What's the rental worth again? $240.

$230. So you could sell it and pay off your house? Yeah, you could. I'd do that. I think I would. That's great. That's winning. Yeah, I'd sell it and pay off my house, and then I'd start saving towards buying another rental someday. Yeah, something by you in Kansas City.

Exactly. Be 100% debt-free. Then you can save as much as you want to save. That's pretty cool. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and 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. Bye.