The Ramsey Show - App - Create Your Stress-Free Christmas Budget Now (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 10, 2018

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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, and this is your show, America. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Now, many years ago, I discovered that there are 31 proverbs. When you read the book of wisdom in the Bible written by Solomon, there's 31 of them, which makes it fairly easy to read one a day. So if you don't do anything else in your spiritual walk

or in your search for wisdom, you can read one proverb a day. And if you do that over and over and over 12 times, you will have read that book in one year, right? And 30 years later, I have read it a bunch of times. And, you know, Proverbs is a book of wisdom. And you know what? If you actually understand the stuff, you will get wiser. Isn't that interesting, you know? And here's what happens when you get wiser.

Your life gets better. Because you quit doing stupid stuff. You know? I have figured out the less stupid stuff I have, the better life I have. You know? That's fairly simple, isn't it? You kind of get back what you put out. You reap what you sow.

If you plant corn, corn grows. If you plant stupid, you grow broken, desperate. You know, you're going to get a crop of something in your life. What's your crop going to look like, right? For instance, Proverbs 10 says, A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Translation, lazy will make you poor,

and you work, and you'll have money. It's not a hard translation, is it? A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Interesting. Diligent. What is diligence? Diligence is excellence over time. Continued excellence. Not one moment of excellence, but continued excellence.

In ordinary things. When you do ordinary things with a level of excellence, that's called diligence. And by the way, that makes one rich. Interesting, isn't it? The hand of the diligent. What's the hand? The hand of the diligent makes one rich. So here's one of the things I figured out.

I read this study years ago, and now I've observed it in all the millionaires we meet with and talk with. And it showed up again in this millionaire study that Chris Hogan and the team just did for the Everyday Millionaire Project. You know, we interviewed 10,000 millionaires. And one of the things we found there and one of the things we found in this study before that that I read years ago was people who have wealth and keep wealth and build wealth have a long-term planning window. When they're making a decision about an action, a purchase, something they're going to do, they think to themselves,

how's this going to affect me five or 10 or 50 years from now? And they make decisions based on that. They buy a car based on that rather than based on, okay, people who are broke live with who thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's Monday. They have a short planning window. It's a, it's an emotional immaturity that can be for a 55 year old or a 15 year old. I don't care.

But if you have a short planning window, you are on track to be broke. If you're broke and you have a long-term planning window, you're starting to think like rich people. And if you think and act like rich people, you get to become rich people. The diligent hand, the hand of the diligent makes you rich. So we're thinking long-term. So an example of that is I have noticed that rich people have wills and poor people have fights when they die over nothing because they don't have anything but everybody's still fighting like a bunch of hillbillies you know we're just gonna have big

redneck fight here mama died and we're gonna fight over her three things that she had on the windowsill, you know, because there's no will. So, again, you think long term. And so, like, wealthy people start thinking about stuff like retirement and how I'm going to pay for my kid's college when the kid is born, not when the kid graduates from high school. It's like, woo-hoo, oh, God, right? It's like, woo-hoo, when the baby's born, we're going to start planning. Now you start thinking long term. That's how this works.

And so our team is going to help you with this because some of you are listening, going, OK, I get that. But where do I start? Well, we're the specialists in showing you where to start at anything, whatever it is you want to do. We're going to show you where to start at anything. Whatever it is you want to do, we're going to show you where to start. So we built a five-minute coverage checkup that shows you 10 things you need to do to think long-term to make sure you have the coverage in place. Do you have your long-term thinking dialed in? I'll go ahead and tell you one of them is a will, right? You need a will.

And do you have your long-term thinking dialed in 10 things you need to do coverages you need to have to make sure you're in place the right insurances check your credit report getting a will you can take this whole little you know you can go in here and check you can do the whole thing and find out exactly where you stand in five minutes. You stand in line to get bad coffee longer than five minutes. So don't think short term. Think long term. Go take the little five-minute quiz, and you're going to find out where you stand,

the ten things you need to be thinking long term to take the five-minute coverage checkup. Checkup from the neck up, baby. That's what you need to be thinking long-term to take the five-minute coverage checkup. Checkup from the neck up, baby. That's what you need. Now, if you're missing something, I'm going to point you towards the pros that I trust. You can do it or not do it. I don't care. But if you hear one thing, don't put this off. Protecting yourself and your family is diligence. And remember, the hand of the diligent makes rich.

So here's what you do. You want to do the five-minute checkup. You got to do the five-minute coverage checkup. All you do is text the word checkupKUP 33789 CHECKUP to 33789 or if you're not a text whiz like me, which I hear these text things

I don't even know how to do that crap but I do know how to go on the website and you can just go to DaveRamsey.com slash CHECKUP now that one I can do or just type in CHECKUP in the search bar and you'll to go on the website, right? And you can just go to DaveRamsey.com slash checkup. Now, that one I can do. Or just type in checkup in the search bar, and you'll find it on our website, okay? You'll find it. It's okay.

It works out. So text checkup to 33789. Doesn't cost a thing. This is completely free. We're just trying to get you guys going, man. You just need a place to start. You need the 10 things to do to be thinking long-term, if you think short term, you're just going to be broke. That's what it amounts to.

You got to think long term. Think like rich people. Rich people think in 5 and 10 and 20 year blocks of time. Poor people think in 10 minute blocks of time. If your whole life is a woohoo, oh God, that's going to make you poor. You can't do woohoo, oh God. Thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's poor. You can't do woo-hoo, oh God. Thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's Monday.

You can't live your life that way. And the way to break that is to start looking out longer term with all your decision making. And this is a good place to start. The five-minute coverage checkup. Text CHECKUP to 33-789 or go to DaveRamsey.com slash checkup. It's free. It takes less time than getting a bad cup of coffee. Do this, people.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I get asked all the time about what people need to do to improve their family's money situation. Two of the most overlooked things are term life insurance and disability insurance. Both plans make sure that you have income to pay bills and take care of yourself and your family if something were to happen. For term life, you need to carry 10 to 12 times your income, and I recommend 15 or 20-year plans for most families. Stay away from cash value or return of premium plans. They're just a ripoff. Disability insurance is just as critical. How are you going to pay your bills if you're unable to work? Disability is the leading cause of bankruptcies and foreclosures, and that's why I send you to

Zander Insurance. They've been helping my listeners find the right plans at the lowest cost for almost 20 years. Call 800-356-1780 or visit zander.com and compare online. That's 800-356-1780 or zander.com. Thank you for joining us, America. Dawn is in San Francisco. Hi, Dawn. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So, I'm 45, and I'm looking to retire at 55. I have a pension, and I'll be getting like 75% of my pay. Plus, I'm in 401K and stuff like that. But I've been recently started listening to you, and I've already paid off some of my debt, but what's left is only about 3,400, which I'm sure I'll be able to pay off in 90 days. But my question is, I've been looking into refinancing my house because I have an FHA and so I

have PMI and I, when I do the math, like the $6,000 in closing costs versus the $187 a month, it ends up being three years plus my interest rate is going to go up. So I'm not sure if that's the smart thing to do. Okay. If you're going to stay in the home longer than three years, that's the only way you're going to end up getting gravy on that biscuit, right?

Yeah, for sure. So that's how you analyze it um that's that's kind of borderline that's the tipping point is much longer than three years i probably on your break-even analysis i probably would not but if you're you know 90 sure you're going to be there longer than three years you're going to pass the break-even point start money, even at a higher interest rate, is what you're telling me, right? I'm going to, well, I'll get out of having to pay the $187,000. Yeah, but will your interest rate go up and offset that? Well, yeah, because I'm at $3.75 now, and everything I'm getting quoted is about like $4.

Yeah, so you're not going to make any money. So is it better just to stay in it and pay this off? I mean, you're probably going to be at $475,000 on a 15-year right now today. And so that's like a 1% spread. And so what is your loan amount? This one is $166,000. Okay. And over three years, I've already paid off $10,000.

Yeah, but 1% on $166,000 increase is $1,600 a year. Okay? And you're only saving $180 a month, which is about $2,000 a year. So, no, I wouldn't do this if that's the numbers. Yeah. You're basically breaking even to refinance, and I wouldn't do that. I'd just pay the loan off. And then I have one other question.

I just joined FPU, and in my area, everybody's already in session, but some of them have only done one class. Jump in. Should I still join and go in? Yeah, jump in. You'll be okay and go in? Yeah, jump in. You'll be okay. All right. Yeah, the first class is on savings, and you're already ahead of the game on that.

You didn't miss anything. And you can go back and watch it with your online because you've got a one-year membership, and you can watch and listen to everything online for a year. Okay. So, yeah, you go ahead and watch the lesson one, and then when you go in, you're right with whoever's on lesson two. You're right in sync. Okay.

Yeah, no troubles there at all. You're doing great. Way's on lesson two. You're right in sync. Okay. Yeah, no troubles there at all. You're doing great. Way to go, Dawn. You're killing it, kiddo. Christina is with us in Boise, Idaho. Hi, Christina. How are you? Oh, doing well.

Thank you, Dave. Good. So we have a great situation for our family, but I'm not quite sure how to proceed. We had sold our home in California and walked away with a lot of equity and have since moved to Boise. How much? But we, I'm sorry, what was that?

How much equity? About $240,000. Boom, boom. Love it. Yeah. So we're here just renting while we kind of figure out, you know, if we want to build or buy. But I'm not quite sure because we already have our savings.

We have our retirement. We have all that. Are you out of debt? Did we just go? Yeah, we don't have any debt. Good. But do we just go and maybe pay cash for a house? Yes. Is that really what we want, or should we?

Because what we want is we want more, you know, we want something that's going to cost us more than what we have. Oh, okay. We'll put a small mortgage on it and pay it off real fast. Okay. You don't have to keep it. I mean, what's your household income? About $150,000.

Okay. And what would you be talking about building or buying? What price range? Oh, price range between $4,000 and $6,000. Okay. And you have $240,000 in the bank. Mm-hmm. Okay.

So if we said $440,000 as an example, you'd have a $200,000 mortgage, right? Mm-hmm. How fast are you going to pay that off? Five years? Probably. Probably. Yeah, I mean, just knock it out. How old are you guys?

I'm 45 and my husband's 56. Do you have any money in savings or investments that's not in a retirement account? No, this is all. Okay. This is it. All right. Well, my rule of thumb is never take out a mortgage that is on more than a 15-year mortgage and the payment's more than a fourth of your

take-home pay you're not even going to approach that right right you're not even gonna be close to that and so if you take out a 200 250 000 mortgage you got a really fine house in boise idaho for a half million dollars. That's a lot of house. That's a wonderful property. Right. Well, we're hoping more for the property than the big house. It's a whole different world, though, obviously, from where you came from, right? And so, I mean, your bang for the buck is huge in Boise compared to, you know, big city California.

So, yeah, you're going to make a huge progress here. And, you know, you just, but whatever, if you take a small mortgage out and it's small relative to your situation, in other words, I'm not going to yell at you. Now, I don't borrow money. So me, Sharon, and I, we'd be buying a $250,000 house, and then we'd be saving money, and we'd move up later. That's how we would do it because we don't borrow money for any reason ever.

But it's the only thing I don't yell at you for borrowing on on this show. And in your case, though, just have the different mindset that the mortgage is just more like a car loan. And we're just going to knock it out real fast. I mean, like other people trade a car loan, like five years or something. You know, let's just put on there. And how fast can we knock this thing in the head and let's get after it? And that's how I want to think about it. So, really good question. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at

888-825-5225. Sarah is in California. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was wondering if I should sell my car worth about $18,000 to pay off my about $4,000 worth of debt and start my emergency fund. My car is paid off. What is your household income? About $30,000 a year.

You should not have an $18,000 car. Yes, you should sell it. You have too much tied up in things going down in value when your car or things with motors or wheels of any kind added up equals more than half your annual income. How did you end up with an $18,000 paid for car making $30,000? I was married and we refinanced our house and included the car in the mortgage and then he got and and then we got a divorce and we sold the house and so the car was paid off got it okay and i got the car in the so what is your um what is your income prospects meaning you're at 30 now where will you be in a year where Where will you be in three years? Right around 30, 32.

So you don't see this doubling then? No. Okay. Why? I haven't gotten to school yet. Okay. And I'm a single mother of five kids. Yeah.

You need the money more than you need that car, don't you? Yeah. And the car's going down in value quick. So yeah, sell it, pay off your debt, put your emergency fund in place and get you an inexpensive car that you pay cash for probably in the $5,000 range. Okay. Maybe $7,000, something like that. Something reliable and you can get lots of car for $5,000 to $7,000 right now. And you're debt free and you've got a good emergency fund. And that puts you in a much better position. But as a rule of thumb, cars are the largest thing that we all buy that goes down in value.

Anything with wheels or motors, for that matter. If it's got wheel or motor, it's going down in value. And when you have all of that stuff added together, you don't want too much of your life, financially, too much of the math going the wrong way. And when you have more than half your annual income tied up and things going down in value, then that makes it real tough to prosper.

And in your case, you're going to change your income by going to school and things are going to change later. But for right now, I'm with you. Yeah, I would sell that car. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. It's time to take another look at your budget. That means scouring every expense and making sure you're not leaving any money on the table. One of the biggest expenses is your mortgage payment. I recommend a quick Churchill checkup.

In just five minutes, our friends at Churchill Mortgage can tell you if you could save some cash each month. They've helped thousands upon thousands of my listeners keep more cash in their pockets through a smarter mortgage. I want you to call Churchill for your checkup and see if you can lower your monthly payment, or better yet, see how you can pay off your house early. Think about it. What could you do with your money if you didn't have a mortgage? Call Churchill at 888-LOAN-200, 888-LOAN-200, or visit churchillmortgage.com for your Churchill checkup. That's 888-LOAN-200 or churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here.

Brad is in Nashville. Hi, Brad. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Yeah, I had a mortgage payoff question for you. I currently have a mortgage, 30-year mortgage, that remaining balance of $350,000.

And I'm wondering if I should use money in my after-tax stock account and savings account um that's excess of my emergency account to pay this off or just chunk put chunks on it at a at a time i have i have the money i just i'm just having trouble just what are you what are you having trouble with just the whole you know time value of money just you putting what I can make. What's your house actually worth? Probably about $600,000. Based on your concern about time value of money, why do you not owe $600,000 on it? I've chunked extra on it.

That's contrary to your time value of money problem. Yep, you're right. It's inconsistent. Okay. So here's what's going on. All right. You have some good information, but it's incomplete. And so that caused you to be left with a primitive analysis.

And let me walk you through that. All right. Because I used to think exactly the same way, so know where your brain is yeah okay so because you obviously have a good intellect on especially on financial things so your your concern is if i can borrow money at three four five percent and i can reinvest it in a good mutual fund at 10 11 11, 12 percent, am I not making that spread? Why would I ever, you know, miss out on that spread? And, you know, I've got the money invested now. It's making me 10, 12, whatever it's making me, not the day, but it's making me that overall. And why would I, you know, lose that spread? And I had to really wrestle that down because that's how I was trained in the financial

world, obviously, with a finance degree. And then I had to start wrestle that down because that's how I was trained in the financial world, obviously, with a finance degree. And then I had to start looking at – when I started looking at stuff through the lens of the borrower is slave to the lender, and there's no good mentions of debt in Scripture, and I'm going, okay, either God's stupid, and I've got something figured out he doesn't know about, or there's something I don't understand. And so what I figured out was that that formula that we just used, 10% over 4%, a 6% spread, leaves out risk. And in a sophisticated investment analysis, you adjust for risk, meaning I would never compare a growth and income mutual fund, apples to apples, with an aggressive growth stock mutual fund. The aggressive growth stock mutual fund might have an average annual return of 20%.

The other one might have an average annual return of 12%. But the risk ratio is completely different. The risk profile on those two funds is completely different. Agreed? Agreed. Okay. So what you would do is you would adjust, and in that world, you can actually use a thing called a beta with an inverse formula. I won't get into all that crap, but basically you can say because one is more risky than the other, we mathematically adjust for risk to be able to compare them apples to apples.

And that's the proper way to do an analysis between those two funds. But no one applies that concept, that level of sophistication to this debt analysis that says time value of money. And I could use this money to make more than I'm making now. But what I have found is this. When I do pay off my house, I've done – in other words, risk neutralizes a lot of the difference between the 4% and the 10%. It takes away most of that spread when you factor in risk, because there is risk when you have a mortgage. Now, it's not a lot of risk, because you've got the money in the bank today to pay it off, or an investment to pay it off, but there is risk. And so you have to admit that 100% of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. There is risk. And so getting rid of that, what I found is it's not completely quantifiable in a simple mathematical formula.

Because when you don't have a mortgage, you start making different decisions with your career. You start making different purchase decisions. You start having different levels of enjoyment with your money. Your relationship with your spouse starts to have a different depth because there's a level of security in your overall life that there wasn't before. And those things are really hard to put on paper. So what I have figured out is I'm going to live 100% debt-free, and I'm going to invest like crazy the rest of the money that I have in cash that comes in. And I've ended up with a ton of money doing that because I don't have any risk, and I'm just investing real money, not borrowed money. So all of that to say, if I woke up in your shoes, I'd pay off your mortgage today, and

if this discussion gets sour on you and you think Dave Ramsey's crazy a year from now, just get you another mortgage. No, I completely agree. I mean, that's the one thing that he said to me each day is just it's a lot of money I still owe. You know, I just, so, I mean, my debt's saying just pay it off, but my mind sort of just wrestled back and forth. Yeah, and what I'm trying to point out is your gut is not intellectually wrong. Your mind is.

Your mind's using an incomplete primitive formula. Got it. That's what I'm pointing out. Does that make sense? Completely. Yeah. Pay it off, dude. You got this.

Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. See, your heart's where, it's not really your gut, it's really your heart. Your heart's where you measure risk. My heart's telling me to pay off my house. My head's telling me, I can make more money on this money than that money. But your head's missing some stuff. It's missing risk.

And it's kind of a fun thing. I was doing this with a class of MBAs, speaking to them. Because MBAs are all taught, you know, masters in business, they're all taught strategic thought, and they're all taught to borrow money. And I got a finance degree. I was taught to borrow money. My broke, and they're all taught to borrow money. And I got a finance degree. I was taught to borrow money. My broke finance professor used to teach us to borrow money. And so, you know, but a broke finance professor is like a shop teacher with missing fingers,

right, people? So think about this, right? It's like you just can't think that way, and you have a different way of looking at things. So, but you can really do a very sophisticated mathematical application of this. It would just take a lot of time, too much time really on the radio to walk through the whole thing. But what happens is this. Think about this.

How many of you, if you had zero debt and you looked over in your 401K and there's $300,000 and you had $40,000 in the bank for your emergency fund, would make different career decisions. Way too many of you just said yes, meaning I would leave this jerk that I work for and I would go do dot, dot, dot. I'm not saying you'd go in business for yourself necessarily. You might just have a different career. You might go in a completely different direction. That thing you've always wanted to do, why are you waiting?

You know, and here's the weird thing is that thing you've always wanted to do is probably where you'll make the most money you've ever made in your life if you're wise about how you do it. This idea that if you're going to live your passion, you make half the money. No, you make twice the money. You make more money when you're doing something you're good at because you work harder at it. You're creative. You think about it all the time. You can't keep yourself from moving because you love it. You don't think I love what I do? I can't keep myself from sitting at my laptop writing a blog article.

I can't keep myself from doing it. I can't keep myself from coming down here and doing this radio show when I'm in town. I love this. And I'm really good at it as a consequence. And consequence, I get repaid a lot. I make a lot of money unashamedly. I'm a capitalist pig, baby. I love this.

I'm here, baby. And I want that for you. See, that's what this sets you up to be. How many of you, if you didn't have any payments, would tell your boss who's a jerk to stick it? Take this job and shove it. How many of you would do that? Yeah, there you go. That's it, man.

And I'm not telling you quit your job today. I'm saying there are benefits to being debt-free that are beyond the simple mathematics of the fact you don't have to pay interest anymore. You start to be set free. Slavery is more than simple possession. It changes the spirit. It changes your relationships. Slavery. The borrower is slave to the lender. I love that call. Thank you, sir. That's a great call. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. our script for the day proverbs 14 23 all hard work brings a profit but mere talk

leads only to poverty john maxwell says dreams don't work unless you do. Very true. Now, the only cause of poverty is not lack of work. There's other causes of poverty. You can be born into poverty. You can be born in an area of the world or an area of the country where you're born straight into it. That's a possibility. And that's the, you know, the role of the DNA dice, right? The second reason you could be in poverty that has nothing to do with you directly is the oppression of other people.

For instance, these governments in areas of the world that are corrupt beyond belief. Now, we like to throw around hyperbole that our government or our Congress are corrupt, but they're not corrupt compared to some of the countries around the world. And these governments in these developing countries, they basically steal all the money. If you send a billion dollars in aid over there, they take it, put it in their own pocket, some of them. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's corrupt. So correct. These are people that oppress poor people.

We actually have some of that in this country. And what you see it is you see it in the poor ends of town. You see poor people being oppressed there with the payday lender, the pawn shop, the title pawn, the rent to own, the number one zip code that lottery tickets are sold in. Poor end of town. More people buy, poor people buy lottery tickets. That's your government oppressing you. They're giving you false hope. And you're like, somebody's got to win.

Well, no, you're not going to win, stupid. You're just going to be poor. But you bought the ticket. You know, it's a tax on poor people and people that can't do math. That's what it is. It's stupid. Oh, it's entertainment. It is never entertaining to lose money unless you're sick.

I mean, you think it's entertaining to lose money? How is that entertaining? If you do that, just throw $100 bills out your car window on the way to work. That would be entertaining. Come on. Watch the rearview mirror and see what happens to people back there i mean you know something you know people crack it would be entertaining right so you know seriously now so there are things that happen to people that cause them to be in poverty and we're not mad at anybody that's in poverty

but the only variables you can control out of the three possible reasons someone's in poverty, you're born into it, you are oppressed by others, or your choices are stupid. These are the three things that cause me to be poor, cause you to be poor. And the only one of those three variables you can control is you, your choices. You can't control what other people do. You can't control what you were born into. Condoleezza Rice spoke to us a while back in a leadership event we had, our Ontario Leadership Summit, and she was talking about growing up in a segregated working class to poor neighborhood.

And she said her parents kept telling her her whole time growing up, and she's freaking Secretary of State, okay? So brilliant, highly educated woman, fabulous communicator. I think we can all say she kind of made it, okay? But she came out of that neighborhood. She wasn't born into, and obviously she was a woman. Obviously she's African-American. So a couple strikes right there, right?

But she said, Mom and Daddy told me. They didn't tell me about how to be a victim. They taught me it doesn't matter where you're from. It matters where you're going. Oh. It doesn't matter where you're from. It matters where you're going. And so I don't know where you started.

Most of us didn't start with a silver spoon. You have privilege. Okay, I take your privilege, whatever your privilege is. I don't know what your privilege is, but I've never known anybody that had privilege that made their life perfectly easy and with no obstacles. There ain't that much privilege out there. Yes, some people start further ahead than others. I get that, but I can't control that. I can only control my response. You can only control your response, and it's your decision. It doesn't matter where you are coming from. What matters is where

you are going. Love that quote. Hard work brings profit. Talk leads to poverty. Now, don't get mad at me. God said that. Hard work brings a profit. Mere talk leads to poverty. Hmm.

Doesn't matter where you're coming from. What matters is where you're going. I know you got it tough. I know that sometimes people don't treat you right because of the way you look or the way you think or your accent or you're a man or you're a woman or you're bald or you're not or you're from the south or you're poor white trash or your race experiences racism. I don't know, sexism ageism, or some kind of an ism. We all got an ism. Some of them are worse than others, but everybody's got an ism. I mean, I am predestined to not be successful. Let me tell you how I know that.

There has never been a bald president of the United States since television. Gerald Ford was not elected the president. He became the president when Nixon resigned. He was bald. There has not been a bald president elected since Eisenhower. Kennedy was the first product of television. Look it up. I have a baldism.

It's stacked against me. I can't make it. I'm not going to be successful. Everybody's got an ism. Some of them are worse than others. That one's fairly easy to overcome. You can get a little toupee. I could put a little rug on my head.

Get me a little raccoon hat. I could do something else, right? But everybody's got an ism, don't they? Everybody's got something that's holding you back. And yet, dreams don't work unless you do. All work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. So you can sit around and suck your thumb and talk about your ism, or you can get with it, baby. You can start

planting something in the ground, because stuff's going to grow when you plant it in the ground. That's the way this works. There has never been in the history of the world, look it up, do a little world history study if you haven't had the opportunity academically to do that. There has never been in the history of the world a governmental economic situation that is easier for the little man to start with nothing and get ahead than in the united states of america at this moment

at this moment it's easier now than it was in 1950 it's easier now than it was five years ago it's easier now than it was 10 years ago at this moment it is easier for the underdog the little man to get past his or her ism climb through the crap fight scratch, scratch, claw, win, and make good decisions and control the only variable you can control, which is you, and go be somebody. It's never been easier in any governmental system, economic system, or situation than it is today. Do you know if you want to start a business in other countries, you have to get permission? You want to start a business in here, you know if you want to start a business in other countries you have to get permission you want to start a business in here you know what you do by nightfall you have an etsy site an ebay site a craigslist site and it's all free you're in business just like that wasam

just like that you'll get you go online you can people to print free freaking business cards for you. You can just decide, I'm in business. Ta-da! You don't need the government's permission. And you don't even need any money. You can just set up a website. I mean, just let your little fingers do the walking across the internet, baby. You can do this.

There is nothing holding your butt back but you. And your perception that you're a victim of an ism. You is not a victim. You're not. I know stuff's happened to you. I know it's bad. I know it's hard. I didn't say it's going to be easy. I said it's easier right now than it's ever been.

The economy is booming. I don't care about your politics. You decide if you're going to be smart or not. Politics is another discussion. The economy is booming. You have access to information and access to education. Cheaper, quicker, faster, and easier than ever before. There is no reason for you to not succeed.

You can do this. You can do this. I know you can. I believe in you. I know you. I've talked to you all across this nation, and I know you can do it. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the friends of peace, Christ Jesus. 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, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.