The Ramsey Show - App - Buying a House When You Can't Find a Rental (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 3, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Chris starts off this hour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Chris.

How are you? Hey, Dave. Pleasure speaking with you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? Okay. So my wife and I are on baby step two.

We have a car loan to pay off. We don't have any more credit card debt. All we have is a mortgage besides our credit card, I mean, our car loan. Excuse me, I'm nervous. That's okay. How much do you owe in the car? So we owe $24,000. We have $19,000 in savings, and I've got some stock I'm going to sell to pay off the car. We also, what I wanted to ask you, maybe kind of get your thought, is we own some land. It's a lot, no house on it that we don't use, and we just pay taxes on it every year. And I kind of like to sell that and put that, you know, put that towards, once we pay off our car, put it towards our emergency fund. And wanted to get your thoughts on that and your advice.

Okay. What's your household income? About $200,000 a year. Excellent. Cool. So what is the lot worth? About $10,000. It's not much at all.

Okay. So if you didn't own it and you had $10,000 in the middle of your kitchen table, would you use the $10,000 to go buy a lot like that? No. Okay. Then it's time to sell it. Okay. Regardless of where you are in the baby steps, that's a way you can answer it is undo it. And anytime you're looking at a boat sitting in your driveway

if you didn't have you know excellent what's that boat worth and if i if i had that money would i go buy that boat again right now well yeah i use it all the time i love it okay then you would keep the boat which i've got two boats that fit that category i'm not selling them so um you know that kind of thing but the uh uh the same is true with any investment. Sometimes people keep an investment or keep something by default just because they have it, or they keep it because of what they paid for it and they're waiting on something to happen, instead of thinking about the future. And you ask yourself, if I wouldn't buy it again because I don't think it's a good investment, why am I keeping this bad investment?

And in your case, it's not necessarily a bad investment. It's just kind of an alligator. It sits there and eats taxes, and it's not a very exciting thing. And, you know, no, I wouldn't buy another one. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Would you, if you were in my situation, would you just hold on to it? No.

As just an investment? No. We don't need to sell it to pay hold on to it? No. As just an investment? No. We don't need to sell it to pay off our car loan. No, it has nothing to do with whether you need to sell it. You wouldn't buy it again. And for the same reasons you wouldn't buy it again, sell it. Because every day you keep it, you're buying it again. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, you got other stuff you can do with this money that's more exciting for you. Even if it's spend it, it's more exciting for you than this particular investment. And so you can do this. And, yeah, I would get rid of it. You're doing good stuff, man. You're cleaning up your mess. And Hans is with us in Washington, D.C. Hey, Hans, yeah, I would get rid of it. You're doing good stuff, man. You're cleaning up your mess. And Hans is with us in Washington, D.C. Hey, Hans, how are you?

I'm well, thank you. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, my wife and I are on Baby Step 3B, and we are so appreciative of your course. We've taken it down about three years now, and we're rolling. But we're at the point now where since about the three-year mark we're starting to get to the point where we don't quite have 20 to buy a home saved but we don't know if we should start investing which lowers our monthly ability to save towards the home

so not this point where should i buy a house with less than 20% down, or should we keep saving for investing? Okay. How much longer would it take to get to the 20%? About a year. Okay. I mean, it's not a bad thing either way. There's no real wrong answer for this. In either case, we're doing smart things.

What is, how old are you guys? We're 27. Okay. So if you're 28 when you start investing you're probably okay yeah and we already have about 45 000 saved in a retirement account on pause and i'm saying that just because you're probably okay not because you necessarily have to put down 20 the only reason we try to encourage people to put down 20 is you avoid pmi which is private mortgage

insurance, which costs you about 1% per month of the loan balance. And so, you know, it's just, you know, it just adds a lot to the deal. And so I'd prefer to put down 20%. You're cutting up. I didn't hear you. Prefer to put down 20%. Yeah, then wait a year and, you know, save up your 20% and then start your retirement. You're not going to, you know, retire bankrupt because you started saving money at 28 instead of 27.

That's not going to cause you to retire bankrupt. If you retire bankrupt, there are other things that happen that you didn't do but if you start saving 15 of your income and every time you get a raise you adjust 15 of your income 15 of your income 15 of your income every single year from age 28 to age 68 you're going to be a multi-millionaire and you're going to own a house during that time 100 of the time i mean really it's just going to own a house during that time. 100% of the time. I mean, really.

It's just going to happen. All these millionaires we talk to all the time on Millionaire Theme Hour, it's exactly what they do. Chelsea is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Well, so we currently rent, and our landlord is about to sell the house. And we live in the middle of a cornfield, pretty much, and there are no real places to rent around us. I just got a settlement from a car accident, and we have about $20,000 in the bank. We're on baby step two, and we are looking into a couple options for living. We have the option to buy a $10,000 trailer and put it on my parents' property, and it may need gutted, so we may have to put some more money into it. Our other option would be...

Wait, wait, wait. I just got to stop, okay? That's three dumb things in one thing, a renovation, a trailer, and on your parents' land. None of this sounds smart. It sounds like triple dumb. Right. Because, you know, you're going to get yourself in a mess. Number one, trailers go down in value. Renovated trailers go down in value faster, and you're stuck on your parents property you're

never going to own anything and if you do own it you can't sell it because mama doesn't want you to sell the place next to her right next option that one isn't good next one um my husband's parents have a apartment above their garage. Oh, okay. And they'll let you stay in for a little while? Yeah. While you finish Baby Step 2? Yes, we're in Baby Step 2. Yeah, while you finish Baby Step 2, you stay in the free apartment for a short period of time?

Okay, well, it would increase my drive about an hour each day. Well, maybe not. I'm probably going to find something to rent, I guess. And by the way, Chelsea, there is nothing to rent anywhere is not a true statement. You just haven't found it. Somebody somewhere is renting something in that area. It's, you know, nothing to rent anywhere. You just found two bad options so far.

You need more options. If you only have bad options, you need to keep looking for new options. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry. A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization organization CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually

supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. You hear people every day on this show changing the way they handle money when they start doing it on purpose intentionality matters and that's why over three million people are using the every dollar budget app that is free it's free your every dollar budget app you can get it at every dollar.com you can get it in your app store for your droid or your iphone it's free takes about 10 minutes to set

up your budget and then you can run the thing and people automatically then when you start doing it on purpose you know what people do they get out of debt they save money and they increase their giving their lives change because you're starting controlling things so i want to go back to my last caller for just a second uh before the break she was asking me where to move because they're losing their landlord sold their house one option was a to buy a trailer that needed rent of renovation and put it on her uh her her parents lot or i think it was her parents' farm. The other option was move in his parents' house, garage, apartment an hour away. Two bad options.

And I said when you have two bad options, what you need is more options. One of the things I have learned about money mistakes, and for that matter about business mistakes, and for that matter about business mistakes, and for that matter just about mistakes. When you limit yourself to one or two possible options because you haven't scratched and clawed and dug around the problem, you haven't worked the problem hard enough, you're almost always going to make a bad decision. And you can tell you're doing this when you make fatalistic statements a fatalistic statement is an absolute statement of truth that is simply not true in other words stuff like there are no rental properties at all in this town you know that's a stupid butt statement okay that's

just not true there's only one school my child can go to. No, there's a school on dadgum every corner. What about there's this one church? There's this one girl I can date, and I can't date her, so that's it. The one got away, that's it. I'm going to be a monk. What? I mean, really.

Because this is fatalism. You act like there was one shot or two shots at something, and all that is is you're working yourself up to about to make a bad choice is what you're doing. Let me help you with this. When you're negotiating or when you are making a decision, either one, the same principle applies. He with the most choices, most options, wins.

I've had this happen with small business people. I'm coaching them. They're going, you know, we lost our lease, and the guy is going to double our rent. He's going to double our rent. Well, move. I can't move. Well, you have to move because you're going to go bankrupt. I can't move. We'll go out of business if we move. You're going to go out of business if you stay.

Because see, the assumption there is that I have to, the only place on the whole freaking planet that this business can operate is that particular piece of square footage. Oh, give me a break. We've been here 30 years. Now I get it that it's hard to emotionally tear yourself away from that i get that but there's lots of places to operate and oh by the way change sometimes is a positive thing hello so if you have options in front of you that aren't really good get more options keep scratching keep keep work the problem work the problem problem, work the problem, work the problem. I'll give you an example of this in business. I've had young leaders come to me and they go, you know, we've got this position to fill,

and we've narrowed it down to three people that we're interviewing, and it really just, you know, it's the lesser of which evil. I mean, none of them are great, but this is the one that sucks the least, you know? I'm going, dude, you can't hire any of those. Oh, man, I'm so tired of interviewing. I don't care. You haven't found the person for the position yet. You're going to take the one that sucks the least and expect excellence in your business?

Give me a break, man. No way. No way. And I run the leader out of my office and say, you're not allowed to hire any of those three people. You have to go do the work. Work the problem. Work the problem. And let me just tell you, I've been doing this for 30 years.

You would not believe the number of times that two weeks later, the very person that God had designed since time began for that position shows up, we get the right perfect person to come on board. And we would have missed them if we had settled for the one that sucks the least. You know, you make a bad decision when you limit your options. The number of times I've almost moved our business to a certain place. And then I looked at one or two more things and there it was and i almost settled you almost settle for barely good enough or not quite good enough and then excellent shows up because you keep working the problem options options options options options options options and more options get more figure out there's more than one way to skin a cat.

There's a lot of different ways to get this done. We've got to work the problem, work the problem, work the problem, work the problem. If you haven't found something that makes you smile when you think about doing that in that situation, you're making a bad decision. You're about to cause yourself a problem. And people make financial decisions all the time that are multi-$10,000 mistakes. They buy the wrong house.

They buy the wrong car. They take the wrong vacation because they settle. Don't settle. You only get unreasonable levels of excellence when you're unreasonable. That's tweetable. You only get unreasonable levels of excellence when you're unreasonable. Work the problem. Work the problem hard. Get more options.

The more options you have, the more power you have in making the decision. Oh, and by the way, the better you can negotiate. If you're not married to a certain purchase, you can negotiate harder on that purchase. But if you have to have it, it's the only one on the planet, only of one supplier. Oh, no, you're getting ready to get screwed. It's coming. You're getting ready to get screwed. You're about to, and you did it to yourself with your fatalistic thinking.

Don't get locked in like there's only one way to do something. And that drama kicks in in your voice. I've done it a thousand times, and I've made this mistake, and it always leaves a bump on my head, and my wallet's a little lighter, I pay some stupid tax. Every time I violate this. But when I force myself to not accept mediocre as my standard, and I go, let's work the problem some more.

I still don't know how we're going to do it. I don't know where that lady's going to live. A garage apartment an hour away doesn't sound fun. And a renovated trailer on daddy's land really doesn't sound fun. So maybe there's another place to live than those two. What do you think? Work the problem. Work the problem.

Work the problem. I'm not picking on her. It's just a great example of how all of our brains do this. And if we're not careful, we get on that track and we go it's the only thing i could do it's not the only thing you can do drama queen stop it i do it i get in drama queen mode and you do it and she did it and we can't do that we it causes you to make dumb butt decisions or to rationalize a decision you wanted to make because you feel trapped. The number of times I've had people call me over 25 years of doing this show and they say stupid butt stuff like this.

Listen to this one. I was forced to buy a car. They had a gun? How are you forced? You weren't forced to buy a car. Yeah, I totaled my car. Youed a fifteen thousand dollar car is that why you bought a thirty five thousand dollar car i'm so confused you were not forced yeah but i we are we've outgrown our car we have too many children my six thousand dollar car will not work anymore.

So get a $6,000 van. But see, this is what we do, isn't it? We get all trapped, and that's our method of rationalizing stupid crap that we're getting ready to do, like going to car payments, right? Or rent the wrong building, or move to the wrong property, or buy a house while we're still in Baby Step 2

and we're broke, or whatever it is we're rationalizing because we're trying to present the case that we are trapped. You are not trapped. You just need more options. Options are power when you're making decisions. Okay. Okay, I need you to listen to this, because one normal routine that everyone does can cause total chaos in your life. Folks, I'm talking about the simple act of using Wi-Fi. When you're on Wi-Fi anywhere in public or at home,

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Download it now. My listeners can save even more by going to hotspotshield.com slash Dave. That's hotspotshield.com slash Dave. You can be secure in seconds. Download Hotspot Shield today. Carol is with us in California. Hi, Carol. How are you? I'm doing well. Like a good friend of mine says, better than I should be.

How can I help today, sir? So I actually bought the Total money makeover for my parents. And I was reading through it. I heard some good things about it myself. You know, the issue is I see that I've already made some mistakes that were identified in there. And because my name's Carol, like Carol Shelby, and my mistake I made was with a car. Right now I'm ending, I'm going to be completing a lease that I was into, a lease, I guess, as you call it. And the monthly price on it is about $330.

That lease finishes up in January. Now, I had gone in, I had actually gone, I completed the miles, and the dealer was like, well, you could bring it in, and if you get another lease, then you don't have to pay anything for the extra miles, you know, no turn-in fee, basically. But it seemed like I was getting swindled in at that point. So we decided not to. We were going to buy the car. But to buy that same car, I didn't want to put any money down on it only because I thought, well, right now with my income, it would have been better to continue putting money into savings. Now, I'm having a really hard time in coming up with a

car because now I've built a lifestyle. So it was a Mercedes-Benz, so then leased out. My current income is actually, I've been blessed with an income. I just finished up residency. I'm blessed with a very good income, but I see that I can make headway if I don't make a mistake with buying this next car. And this is why I wanted to call in and get some advice from you. Okay. So what is your household income? So I've been really blessed. I've got a great contract.

I'm the only one working, but we're making about $350 a year. Awesome. And so how expensive a car are you talking about buying? Well, so the car that we wanted to buy was somewhere around $30,000. Do you have $30,000 saved? I don't, and that's where I'm running into the – I don't have $30,000 saved for a car. How much do you have saved? So right currently we are – let me look at my little number sheet,

currently I'm putting about 35% of what I'm making. Now, I only started working in November of last year. So this is, and then initially we paid off all of that. So how much do you have in savings? Savings right now, we have, let me look at the little numbers here because i knew i'd forget uh but so we have about 40 000 in savings and that's your is that your emergency fund then um the emergency fund i'm still building up to more than that but yeah that is apart from the emergency fund so in addition to that you have money saved for an emergency?

Correct. I have $5,000 saved for an emergency fund. Well, then the $40,000 should be your emergency fund with $5,000 in it. You need an emergency fund before you do anything else. That's baby step three. Are you debt-free except your home? Well, so right now I'm renting. I was really blessed.

Are you debt-free? Yes. So I'm really blessed with Are you debt-free? Yes. So I'm really blessed with not having school loans, which is amazing. So you're debt-free except this lease. We paid off all the credit cards, correct. That's why it took some time to put in the little bit of money. Okay, if you're debt-free except this lease and you've saved $45,000, and this is August and the lease is up in January and you make $360,000,

why can you not save $30,000 by January? So that's the question. Is that what I should do, just continue? Because I'll have to pay for over mileage. Should I just save the money? Here's the thing. Here's the question on whether you buy that particular vehicle. Can you buy that particular vehicle for at or less than it is actually worth on the open market.

And if you can buy it for what it is worth on the open market and you have the cash saved to buy it or less than it's worth on the open market, then buy it. You've got an early buy. I mean, you've got a buyout provision at the end of the lease. Otherwise, let's pretend that you can buy that car on another dealer's lot, a car just like it for $30,000, but they want $35,000 at the lease. Well, I'm not giving them $5,000 extra.

Okay. I'll turn it in and pay the mileage, because the mileage is not going to be $5,000 over, probably, but in that example. So you just look at what you're able to buy the car for. Is that a reasonable purchase price? If the answer is yes, then save the money towards that target between now and January. Making $360,000, you can save up and afford to buy a $30,000 car, and that's not abusive at all. It's a good used Mercedes.

You know the car, and I would buy that car as long as it is not over market. But sometimes the buyout provision on a lease is higher than the market value, substantially. And if that's the case, at the end of the lease, you just let them have the car. They apparently want it worse because they're going to turn around and sell it at a lot, you know, sell it below that anyway. So sometimes you can negotiate it through. But most of the time, the price is a reasonable around market value price. And if that's the case

and you've got the money saved, I would buy the car in your situation. Congratulations. You're right. You are blessed with your income. Absolutely fabulous. Carlos is with us in Tampa. Hi, Carlos. How are you?

Hi, Dave. How are you? It's actually Jupiter, Florida. Oh, good. How can I help? Yes, sir. Well, actually, I just want to say, I really wish I would have heard about you before, before, uh, in the most recent, the most recent

months, because I think I've made every mistake that you tell people not to make. Um, but thankfully they have been short lived mistakes. And, um, me and my wife have been lucky enough to be able to do steps, uh do baby steps one to five now. But I think just for anybody that's listening out there, as long as you learn that it's a mistake and you can call your way back from it fast enough, you'll be okay. It won't affect you that bad, I think. Absolutely.

How can I help today? My question to you, sir, was, How can I help today? each one of us, as well as our kids, 529s. So what I need is a logic check. My understanding is that when the time for me to retire, and I'm hoping to retire early, comes, I can roll over my 401K into my Roth IRA and avoid paying penalties on that. Is that correct? Avoid paying penalties? You mean if you retire before 59 and a half? Exactly right, yeah. Yeah, because you're going to pay all the taxes. I don't know if you can or not. You're going to pay all the taxes

on it. And that's probably not a strategy. No, I wouldn't use that strategy. You need to leave your Roth alone and let it grow tax-free. And I would go ahead and convert as many things as you can convert to Roth now and pay the taxes out of your other pocket and let those things all grow tax-free. Then if you need to build a separate fund in addition to that as a wealth issue to allow you to retire early without touching those, then that's what I would do. I'd build just an open market mutual fund to allow you to retire five years early or

10 years early without having to touch the other stuff. Let's leave those Roths alone. They're growing tax-free. And no, I would not have a strategy where I'm building up one, I'm going to roll it to a Roth, pay the taxes on it, and then cash it out. As a matter of fact, I don't think that'll work. I'm not positive on the tax law on that, but that's still not the direction you should go. You should be moving it all to Roth now, letting it all grow tax-free from this point forward, paying any taxes that that creates now out of your other pocket. Then if you need a separate fund to retire early, build that as a separate

investment strategy. So, hey, good question, man. Thank you for joining us. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. I get asked all the time, when in the baby steps is the right time to buy life insurance? My answer is typically now. Life insurance is not part of the baby steps because it's needed when your family has debt and not enough savings to provide for their financial needs.

That's when they're at the highest risk. And no matter where you are in your baby steps, it's a necessity, not a choice. This includes working husbands and wives, as well as stay-at-home parents. It's pretty expensive to replace those stay-at-home parent responsibilities. I only recommend term life insurance, since it's the most affordable way to get the right amount of coverage and not break your budget. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. These are the guys I personally use. Term life insurance is inexpensive, and your family needs this no matter where you are in your baby steps.

That's Zander.com. Or call 800-356-4282. Zander.com. Thank you for joining us, America. Mike is with us in Jackson, Mississippi. Hey, Mike, how are you? I'm good, Dave. Thank you for taking my call, sir. Sure.

What's up? I have, well, I heard you mention a couple of weeks ago, probably on the radio, about having that never again moment. And I had my first never again moment about 1992. And then I fell off the wagon about 2004. So it was never again, never again, sorta. Right. So now I have $35,000 in credit card debt. Goodness. But I only owe $25,000 on my house. And the interest on those credit cards every month is eating my lunch,

and I was thinking about borrowing the $35,000 against my house and paying those credit cards off to get them off of me. Not unless it's to avoid a bankruptcy. What do you make a year? What's your household income? $48,000. Okay. Well, I mean, the problem with doing that is, here's what the data tells us.

88% of the time, that's 9 out of 10 people that do that don't change their habits, end up with a mortgage and new credit card debt. Habits have to change. And that would scare me to death if I were in your shoes. So what I would tell you to do is this. At a minimum, what I would do is before you did that, you need some track record of paying off debt and having all the credit cards cut up and living on a budget. I would want to prove it to myself if I were were in your shoes, that I'm not going to take

out a mortgage and then turn around and run up new credit cards. Because you tell yourself that in your mind, but I'd want to prove it. Like for six months or a year, zero new debt, and I'm reducing the $35,000 dramatically during that time. Like half of it. And if you can knock off half of it in a year, well, you'd probably knock off the other half in the next year, and then you wouldn't want to take out a mortgage.

But that's beans and rice, rice and beans on a written budget, no vacation, no seeing the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You know the routine. You've listened to me. And that's what I would do. No, I would not take out a mortgage. I'd get on a budget, I'd cut my dadgum life to nothing and I'd clean this mess up

and you know you could be debt free in two years but that's $17,000 a year that's $1,500 a month but that's no life I mean you're going to crank back to nothing and like I said no vacation and all those other kinds of things so that's no life. I mean, you're going to crank back to nothing. And like I said, no vacation and all those other kinds of things.

So that's how I would get at this. Because the problem is what you've learned. I'm sure you've learned it. You observed it in yourself is personal finances, 80% behavior. It's only 20% head knowledge. And so that's what you're facing thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 bill is in st louis hi bill how are you dave it's such a huge honor you don't even realize honor to talk to you sir how can i help um so i

got a comment and then the question the comment comment is, I own my own grass-cutting business 17 years now. Good. Three months ago, you came into my life. St. Louis just picked you up on a radio station, and it was just crazy how I just started listening to you, and I just got obsessed, you know, like you said, just that crazy mentality. And I've always been able to kind of cash flow our lives, but haven't been that great about getting ahead.

So I don't have a lot of debt. What little debt I do have could be taken care of. You know, it's just sort of lingering just because I haven't made the right moves yet to get it paid off, but it will be paid off. So my question, well, and another part of the comment is, for three months now, it's funny, my wife is finally starting to buy in because she told the neighbor, I heard her say, I don't know what's going on. He's just got cash envelopes. Things are just getting crazy around here. I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to hold on for

the ride. So I'm starting to kind of just get involved but when i went to the library to get your book this is how popular you are there's 96 people ahead of me uh so i've been waiting to read your whole book but i keep you know checking my line and i'm that far out but i am going to read it so i'll know exactly what you're talking about but well i'll give you one we'll take care of that so how can i help you today well my question is it's we got kind of the same climate i'm assuming in nashville as st louis so every year around december january february my work just gets to be nothing i don't really save for it because i can't so that's where that little bit of debt comes in and usually i can can pay it off April, May, I'm done. I thought,

how great would it be not to have that hole? So I'm just trying to figure out what you would recommend 17 years of doing this. Would you A, try to just figure out another sideline, hustle, whatever you want to call it? Or would you recommend me getting a job? Now, I don't, you know, I'm up to anything. I just don't know. I don't know what to do. I would find something complimentary. I mean, you guys don't get a ton of snow, but you could get in the snow removal business in the off season.

You're used to running equipment, and maybe even some of your equipment could have some adaptions to it that would allow you to do that. So anything you can do like that, snow removal. And, you know, if you're doing lawn care, I'm going to start working with those folks about, you know, pre-treating your lawn in the winter and getting ready for summer. Any kind of prep you can do, even more detailed landscape prep and that kind of thing. Tear out. You can do, you know, tree surgery type stuff and limb removal. That's the time of year to do it. Best time of year of thing. Tear out. You can do tree surgery type stuff and limb removal.

That's the time of year to do it, best time of year of all. And people get in the firewood business sometimes that are around that. I think you find a side hustle if I'm you. And I think you get your budget straightened out throughout the year so that you're putting money back in the nest egg uh you're putting some money aside just for the two year or the two month or the three month downtime and so you need 90 days worth of money in addition to your emergency fund that you need to set aside and you need to concentrate on that as a budget item uh because you know it's it's a predictable event that you can prepare for, just like

Christmas is, you know. These are predictable events. They're not emergencies. We know this is going to occur, and so you should not turn into debt. And you really can get ready right now for this winter. Between a side hustle and savings, like a crazy man, on a written budget with your wife looking at the budget with you, the two of you using every dollar, I think you can get ready for this one

and make up some of the difference with everything from snow removal to firewood to whatever. And just get in some of these other edge businesses that are complementary in terms of the season, have a different season than you have. And you can move right into those, and there's a lot of stuff you can do to fill in those holes. But I don't think a job's the deal. I think it's a side hustle and a savings program. And getting your plan and your budget fine-tuned.

I think that's the big deal. Thanks for the call. Jacob is on Facebook. Dave, in 25 years of doing the show, what is the most important thing you've learned? That's a good question. I've learned a lot of important things. I don't know. I'll tell you what pops into my head,

because I don't pre-read these questions and get all ready and spend two hours contemplating a deep philosophical answer. But I'll tell you what I think it is. Anybody can win. Anybody can win. Sometimes it takes some people longer. Some people have more obstacles to overcome. Anybody can win.

And when someone tells you that you can't win because of where you grew up, because you're a man, because you're a woman, because you're black, because you're white, because you're Hispanic, because you're whatever. When someone tells you you can't win, you need to prove them wrong. You need to make the decisions, take the steps, fight the fight, scratch and claw, get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. Anybody can win. I really have learned that. But they have to think they can. That's called hope.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey guys, this is James Childs, producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you,

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