The Ramsey Show - App - DAVE RANT: It's Not About Me! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

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Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. My co-host today, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality Anthony O'Neill, is answering your questions with me today about life and about money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. We call Anthony A.O. for short around here.

So, A.O., folks on YouTube chat and on the Ramsey Baby Steps community, which has got about 300,000-something folks in it, it's THE, capital letters, THE Ramsey Baby Steps community. It's our official Facebook place where people can do things they do on Facebook, which is sometimes bitch. But anyway, the rumors going around since you guys started coming in and co-hosting with me during coronavirus, that apparently there's two rumors. One is I'm dying of cancer, apparently, or something. And so you guys are having to fill in just because I'm out doing whatever you do, I guess. I don't know.

And the other thing is I'm about to retire. Wow. Which would be somewhat like dying for me. Oh, wow. Wow. Which would be somewhat like dying for me. So, I'm 59 years old, be 60 in September, not going to retire until I decide I'm going to retire. But I don't plan to ever really quit doing this. I quit making sense. Take your time, Dave. I quit making sense on the air. Then you guys have permission to pull me off.

Okay. So, if I start saying stuff that doesn't, James is already, he's itching to do that now, but he just wants to hit that dump button over there. Oh, Lord. He's hoping I'm going to say something. I said something about my shih tzu the other day, and they thought I was getting ready to say something else. They almost hit the dump button. So, yeah, I mean, if I start, you know, babbling on or something, I guess I'll have to quit.

But here's the truth, okay? I have not done a Dave Ramsey live event where I was the only person on the stage in eight years. 100% of the live events produced by this company have had one of the other Ramsey personalities involved and me with them. I have not done a book in six years. During that time, we have produced multiple number one bestselling books with the Ramsey personalities. Financial Peace University has not been conducted exclusively by me on videos since, get this, 2003.

Wow. Wow. Now reach back there on that one, 2003. Wow. Wow. Now reach back there on that one, baby. Yeah. You know? And so, you know, we have been very, very intentional in our organization that this message is not about me. This message is about you guys out there in the listening audience.

It's about helping you. And so we started moving very intentionally about 12 or 14 years ago away from this being exclusively a dave thing because it was never really about dave to start with yeah it's always been about just helping people and what we figured out is we can help a lot more people if there's six or eight of you out there working while i'm not working yeah and you've been working i've been working you've been working. I've been working. You've been traveling. Hard. A lot.

Not lately, but, I mean, up until now, you've been kicking it around going, man. Yes, sir. And had a number one bestselling book already, and had another one that was a national bestseller that you did with Rachel. And then we put out the new quick read with you the other day on the student, getting rid of your student loans and so forth and so um and you know sometimes people say i'm reading a few of these comments i didn't read them somebody in the organization was worried about it just sent it to me so i wasn't worried about it but they said um you know i'm not gonna listen anymore if it's not just dave so let me

help you all with this during coronavirus i really enjoyed having the personalities in here we all got together and sat and talked about it and when i first started this show there were two other guys that alternated in and out with me and i enjoyed the banter you and i've enjoyed being together absolutely i love it i mean this has been amazing um i've learned a lot too dave to be honest you know with america um but i think at the same time what I love about it is we all come from different perspectives with the exact same message so now actually I believe this is

your show I'm an irrelevant boomer and you're a cool guy no I wouldn't say you're irrelevant I just said you're a little bit older see now it begins see there it is right there we have we have an audience in here Dave so I'm trying to be good good to see y'all y'all too today y'all look good um but you know i just love it because i believe this way that the route that that we're going as a company um we'll be able to actually help

more people which has always been your vision and goal from day one is to help a lot of people as possible so sometimes sometimes folks on the stage on the the right books or that are on the air have an emotional need for it to be about them they want to be stars yeah and um i just never really had that i mean i wanted to build our celebrity all of us to the point that it gives us a brand to lift things with but i never really had a need nor do i now have a need for a whole bunch of y'all like me yeah i really appreciate it but i'm here to help y'all to like me yeah i really appreciate it but i'm here to help y'all that's what i'm here for and i love you and and i want you to like me i'm not weird but but i don't have this like star thing like if somebody doesn't like me i don't get

five stars on a book or something i go in the corner and cry because i don't even give a rip i wrote the book and like i can rewrite it It's done. They put it out there. So just either like it or don't like it. So here's the thing. I like doing the show with these world-class thought leader, number one bestselling authors that are on our team. I like it. I'm having fun with it. And so we've kind of forced ourselves into it during coronavirus because we all wanted to get in here and help and support and be, you know, lift you guys up and inspire you and that kind of stuff.

And the problem was we just liked it, all of us. And so we kind of all got in a room, all the Ramsey personalities. And so that's Rachel Cruz, Chris Hogan, John Deloney, Christy Wright, Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman. And we all just kind of sat and talked. We do this every so often. And I said, guys, I think I just want to keep doing the show with you all. And so I'm going to have a co-host every day i like the show better when you're on there well you're gonna have to find an old show to listen to because there's not gonna

be more of those yeah i'm not gonna be if i if everybody's sick or traveling or something i'll do it yeah yeah i'm not mad about it but my i like doing the show with these guys i think it's a better show with different viewpoints and different people jumping in and uh is it perfect do we have some stuff we'll work on our chemistry yeah we're working on our chemistry we're working on our own air stuff we're aware of sometimes things get a little awkward between us but we're working on that we'll get it figured out but it's going to be a better set of information and it's what's going to be here yeah so if you don't like, you're just going to have to go listen to old podcasts or go listen to the 9 million hours on YouTube or something

because I'm not going to do it anymore, and I own it. So there you go. That's how it works. I mean, I like this plan. No, I'm not sick. No, I'm not going to retire. I like having you guys on here. And then someday when I do do less of the show or can't do the show for some reason or another,

everybody will be used to you guys all being around here. So it has a wonderful succession plan built into it. But, you know, that's part of it. Part of it is I just like the chemistry. Yeah. And also part of it, Dave, is you've been doing this for 25 years. You deserve a day or two off. And let us just carry the weight while you're enjoying

your life, your wife, and your family, your grandchildren. I can run best ofs if I want to and do that stuff, but I don't think best ofs are as good as these world-class number one best-selling thought leaders. Oh, man. Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much. I mean, there you go. So that's what it is, people. Like it or lump it,

this is where we're going. This is what it is. It's called the Dave Ramsey Show because I own it and I do what the flip I want to do with it. That's how it works. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Most people's money problems come from not paying attention. That's why before I spend a dime of my money on something, I do the research and make sure it's going to live up to what it claims. Recently, I got a great pair of sunglasses from a company called Shady Rays.

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use the code RAMSEY for 50% off two one, bestselling author Anthony O'Neill. Steve is in New Jersey. Hey, Steve, your question for Anthony and me. Hey, Anthony. Hey, Dave. My question is I'm 20 years old, part-time police officer. I'm looking for a way to invest for short term, such as a house, new truck, real estate investing, getting into that. I have a Roth IRA through Smart Investors, and I'm looking for short-term investing. Okay, cool. So you're saving up for a

truck or you're saving up for a house, right? Saving up. Good for you. I have a truck now, but I don't need to get a new one, but I'd like to get a new one. I'm looking to get out of this house now. I live with my parents, live rent-free, no debt. I have about 10 now, but I don't need to get a new one, but I'd like to get a new one. Sure. I'm looking to get out of this house now. I live with my parents, live rent-free, no debt. I have about 10 months in my emergency fund. Ooh, good job. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, yeah. What exactly was your question for us? Just make sure I'm clear on it. Do you want to save up for a truck or save up for a house? Oh, man. You know, let me ask you this question. Which one's more important to you? Because either way you can go, I'm more so on the house route because of the interest I can make there and then pay back. But which one's more

valuable to you? I would say the house part too. I have a truck now, like I said, I don't really need to get into one, but the house part. Yeah. So I like that. At your age right now, I would even say, take the time to make sure you really get to that 20 so that way you can put into it and go into a very solid oh but that's a great investment at 20 21 years old man i mean i mean if you say for a couple years even maybe 23 buying and if you put down 20 what anthony's talking about they don't charge you what's called bMI, private mortgage insurance, which is an insurance the mortgage company makes you buy to insure them against a loss if they have to foreclose on you. And if you don't put down 20%, they require that. And so you're in a position where you could just save like crazy.

As far as what to invest it in or save it in, when you're saving for under three years like that, I would not put it at risk in a mutual fund. Instead, I'd just save it in a money market. It's not going to pay you much at all, but the secret sauce here is you. It's not the interest rate. Being able to save like crazy is you. You're the guy. And the fact you're asking this question at 20 is what puts you way ahead.

Michael's in Florida. Hey, Michael, what's up? Hi, David and Andy. Thanks for taking my call. I need you to settle a small debate in our home. We're currently in Baby Step 6. We have a primary residence and a rental, which is a rental by default. It was an old primary residence before I got married.

And we're scheduled to pay off our primary residence in six years. If we sell the rental today, we think we have enough equity to pay off the primary residence in about 24 months. My wife wants to sell the rental and get the baby step seven as soon as possible. Me personally, I enjoy the rental, and I don't want to pay capital gains tax on the rental, and would prefer to keep it for the sole purpose. Um, and it's, and it's a pretty decent property. Okay. Well, there's, um, you know, if you've got a goal to have them both paid off in under 10 years, there's not an absolute that we would throw down on. Um, you know, I love the idea of being debt free. So I'm probably going to come down on the side of your wife, although I love rental property. So I could come down on your side too but i i would want you to

if you're going to keep both um i'd want you to turn up some of the heat on these numbers and get them done faster but um personally it's just a house the rental it's not that big a deal and your capital gains aren't that much uh i mean, you've depreciated the house some. It's gone up in value some. But you also have a basis in the property as well. And at 15%, there's not a lot of money involved in the capital gains, I wouldn't guess, unless it's a very unusual situation. So what did you pay for that house, that rental? Yeah, the base, I paid $175,000. The basis is $125,000.

The capital gains is roughly $25,000. Yeah, so that's enough. It gets your attention for sure. But the thing is this. Where do you want to be at X date that both of you can agree on, and what steps do we have to take to hit that? Yeah. And her thing, you're really not arguing but about well

how much do you owe on the rental now 125 okay so is it eight years to pay them both off no uh well yeah yeah probably eight or nine years yeah to be to be done so the difference in 24 months and eight years so what we're discussing here is not rentals we're discussing six years yeah the difference in 24 months and eight years right correct yeah and i think i'd put on the table and look at that look at it that way now if she thinks you're going to go buy more rentals and go further in debt while you're doing all this then she's got a real case to make then. And that's what I was going to ask, Michael, is there, what's the deep down reason why your

wife wants to get rid of that one? Is it solely just y'all could be debt free or is there any other concerns in there? To answer your question, she wants to be debt free and we're both on the same page that long-term we would like to have a rental, but she would prefer to pay off the primary residence today than cash flow and pay cash for a rental, and I am on board with that. However, given that we already have the property, I'm getting really hung up on the capital gains, and then you've got to pay realtor fees. So for me to get out of that property is going to be about $40,000, which in the scheme of things I guess is not the end of the world.

I just hate to lose it. Yeah, that kind of helps you make your case the way you're feeling, but it's probably not the deal breaker. Either one's okay. She makes a solid case that you can own a rental and a paid-for house faster than you can probably get both of these paid off. Yeah. Yeah. I'm 99% with your wife.

Just because of me, I'm at a stage where I would love to see you be debt-free. And you can get there within the next 24 months. And I think with your grind and your wife's grind, you're walking. That should probably get there in the next 12 to 18 months. And then spend another two years to save up some cash and go buy another rental house up cash. So I'm 99% with your wife. Day is 50-50. I think I win this argument.

I love rental, and I get that you love the rental. And I hate giving the government money, and you hate giving the government money. I think all those things are, you know, that makes me kind kind of neither one of these are dumb answers yeah to eight years from now be 100 debt free on both these properties and there's not a dumb answer so the only discussion is six years and i think if you put it on the table and just go six years and i like this property and i don't want to give up 40 grand 25 and capital gains and 15 and other expenses because i'm kind of cheap that way. Put that on the table and just let her cook on that a little bit,

and then let's just keep talking about it a little while, and you guys come to a good, solid decision that you both have peace about. There is no wrong answer. There is never a wrong answer, though, when you're 100% debt-free, and that's where she's trying to take you. Bill's in Arizona. Hey, Bill, how are you? Very well. Thanks for what you do, Dave. And my question is, thanks for what you're doing

and teaching us. Our house is paid off. Our cars are paid off. No credit card debt. The only thing I have left between my wife and I is I am paying myself back with interest to my profit-sharing trust through my company $4,000. Are we technically debt-free or not? You own the company? No, no. But the company has given me the money. I haven't contributed to it myself.

They give you your thing every year. What are the implications what happens if you quit paying it um well i yeah i kind of have to while i'm working well then you want to stop working i've been there 33 years yeah then you're in debt, so it's just put all, because everything else is done now. Yeah, I cleaned that up then. Put the rest of the snowball into that. Yeah. If your life gets screwed up because you don't pay the bill, I think that's debt.

Right? And then another quick question on the side is my wife's job is being outsourced. Do we put extra into paying that down now or wait until she gets another job? Either one's fine with me. There's no panic. You guys are in such good shape. Absolutely. But I can't tell what you've done here. He's borrowed on profit sharing. Yeah. It must be like a 401k loan is all I can think of. I may not know what I'm talking about here, Bill,

but just listening to you, if you have a 401k loan, that's debt. Yeah. That's borrowing your own money, but it's still debt. You put that in the debt snowball straight up. And if it falls in that category, that's what we would do. Right, Anthony? Yes, sir. And it sounds like it because he said he's paying himself back the interest.

So it sounds something similar to a 401k. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I think we got that right. Yes, sir. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Families all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs, whether they're anticipated or completely unexpected. For example, take the Olcheski family from LaGrange, Texas. Jeff and Carice had just celebrated the birth of a new baby boy.

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CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Trevor and Cassie join us on the debt-free stage. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. Hi, Dave. Where do you guys live? Lansing, Michigan. Oh, very cool. Welcome to Nashville and Tennessee, where it's open. It is.

And you can actually get something to eat and everything. It's hot, too. It is very hot. Compared to Lansing, Michigan, it's open it is and you can actually get something to eat and everything it's hot too it is very hot compared to lansing michigan it's smoldering hot yeah but not bad this week only 67 this morning so lots of humidity though we cut it with a knife keep it in a box it's pretty thick around here so uh but welcome so all the way down here to do a debt-free scream how much have you guys paid off 92 109 love it9. Love it. How long did that take? 24 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Between $121,000 and $130,000. Good. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a server engineer. And I do training in our

underwriting department. Ah, very cool. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the $92,000? So $78,109 of it were from my student loans. And then $14,000 was we didn't have enough for a down payment for a house that we borrowed from my parents. Oh, got mom and dad paid off. Yes. That felt better than paying off Sally Mae. A little bit. A little bit. You weren't too worried about it. Okay. All right so uh how long you guys been married um three years in august okay so a

year after marriage you look up and go student loans killing us and we want to buy a house and some other stuff's going on tell us your story what happened what got you fired up about this uh we just kind of fell out of control with our finances. We didn't have any sort of budgeting system in place. And then we bought our house. We had a mortgage. We had to pay his mom. I had my student loans and it's a little bit overwhelming. Um, and so after we got married, I started reading your book that I happened to find

in a bookstore. And while I was reading it, um, our church had started to advertise that they were holding financial peace. And I'm like, this is probably a sign. I should probably tell Trevor about it. And so I got him on board. You kind of regret it. You're kind of like, I don't know.

I don't even know if I tell him the wife to do it. Yeah, you didn't really want to do it, did you? She had to convince me to do it. Do what? She had to convince me to. Oh, that's what you were dreading. Yeah. You were dreading having to talk him into it.

Yeah, it was kind of a big step. But why was it, though? I you were dreading. Yeah. You were dreading having to talk him into it. Yeah, it was kind of a big step, but... Yeah. But why was it, though? I'm curious, Trevor. I mean, I never felt like we were struggling or we were, like, having any issues with money, but after doing all this, you can clearly see that there's a better way to do it than what we were doing, even though we didn't feel like we were having issues or anything. Okay, so she comes and says they're teaching it at church.

What'd you say? I think we were having issues or anything. Okay, so she comes and says they're teaching it at church. What did you say? I think we just signed up for it. I mean, I didn't really struggle that much with it. It was probably I more so told him we're doing it, and it wasn't like he was going to have a decision in it. Okay, we're going to this class. I sign us up. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. I like it. That's good. That's a good husband. So when you got in there, Trevor, what did it feel like? Did it feel weird to you or did you see something you went, oh, yeah, immediately, like the first day? I really liked the budgeting. Like once we got to that, like I really got into it there because I have an accounting minor and I thought I was going to be an accountant.

And so the numbers really get me going. So like once we saw all that, it was like, this is going to be fun. Okay, cool. Did you use the EveryDollar app or did you do it yourself? We've used EveryDollar app since we started. Okay, wow. Okay, so an accounting guy uses EveryDollar. And a programmer, right?

What did you say? Server engineer. A server engineer. You're using the EveryDollar app. That's a good endorsement. All right, good. Very good, you guys. That's very cool.

So how old are you two? 26. And you have no debt. How's that feel? It feels good. I can't even describe it. And something that I keep telling him, too, is having all this debt is the normal. And like you say, normal is broke.

And now that we're not that normal and we're the weird people not having this debt, it's just indescribable. It's amazing. And like knowing all the opportunities we have now that we have our debt paid off, we have emergency fund, we've increased our retirement. Now we're working on paying off our house. So it's like, there's just so much possibility from here on. Like there's so much of our life left to do whatever we want basically now. Yeah. Yeah. You're free. Will you ever go back in debt? No.'re done we're done you learned your lesson huh yes if you learned your lesson at 26 you're going to be very wealthy yeah you're going to be very wealthy you're going to be in great shape i'm proud of you guys

who are your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you i would say definitely our coordinator wendy who's probably watching here um and then we've also had a couple people lead the class with us and we've led four classes now as coordinators you went all in we took a class and at the end our coordinator asked us if we wanted to help her moving forward and now we've kind of

taken it over and another person's helping us I love it very good good for you guys thank you a lot of fun. It helps you stay connected and stay accountable because when you're leading these people, you don't want to be not following what you're preaching. So yeah, it makes you do it. Yeah, you have to follow it. Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. So now that you're coordinators and you're successful, you did it. You paid off $92,000 and people say,

okay, cut through it. What's the secret to getting out of debt? What are you telling them? For me, it's creating that budget. And that budget really gives you a plan of where you're going to go. And so if you don't have that plan to reach your goal, you're never going to achieve it. And that budget really is your plan of how you're going to get out of debt or save for a house or whatever you're going to do. And we had this nice visual hung up on our fridge for two years straight. They were just out of his Excel because he's the nerd of anything with Excel. We had two pages on our fridge and anytime at the end of the month we'd throw our extra money towards it,

we'd highlight each $100 that we would pay off. And so each month we could pay off like seven or eight of them or sometimes 20 if it was bonus time we can just throw over bonus there and it was like wow we got to pay off that entire one plus half of this other one it was just it was super exciting and that helped us stay motivated a good visual a good visual is a big deal yeah i'm curious um young 24 months to pay off your debt What was probably one of the most difficult things that you all had to go through while paying, while on this journey? It's probably determining what is a need and a want. Because like at our age, a lot of our friends who are not doing this are going out buying brand new cars, going on all these expensive trips and all these things. So it's hard to not want to go do those where you think that's something I need

to go do because they're all doing it. Right. So just telling yourself like, yes, it's something you want and you'll be able to do that later and pay cash for it. Whereas they're putting it on a credit card probably and paying it off later.

Yeah. But now I'm making about 10, 11, $12,000 a month at 26. You can go places better than them now with no debt. Once we can travel. Yeah. You can do whatever you want to do.

That's going to be fun. Yeah. Very, very cool. Well, congratulations, you guys. You're heroes. We're proud of you. Very well done. Got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, because that's the

next chapter for you guys' story. We want to hear back from you when you're an EDMm an everyday millionaire it's another initial we needed another initial i like that edm that's good way to go you guys very well done all right trevor and cassie lansing michigan all the way to tennessee where it's hot 92 000 paid off in 24 months, making $121,000 to $130,000 and coordinating classes. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Well done, you guys. Very, very, very well done. Well, some of you are listening saying, I kind of want what that couple has. Well, a lot of people are asking, what now? After the coronavirus shut down and the economy came to a screeching halt, it scared the crud out of people. Rightfully so. They're saying, man, I wish I'd been ready for that. So what do we do now?

I could be out of my work. You could be out of work still. You could be getting into a new job. You could be doing whatever. You could be going back to work. Well, this Thursday night, Chris Hogan, Rachel Cruz, and I will be doing an event called What Now? COVID-19 and Your Money.

What do you do now at this stage as what looks like to be the end of the pandemic we sure hope so so if you want to watch a free live stream broadcast from our studio this coming thursday night at seven o'clock text the word control to 33 789 we told you to control the controllables when COVID hit, didn't we? And that's talking about the financials, not the medical. Text the word CONTROL to 33-789. We will send you an exclusive RSVP, an exclusive Connect, so you can watch this coming Thursday night, June 25th at 7 p.m., a free live stream. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You may feel like there's not a lot you can control these days, but I'm here to tell you,

you can control your budget and you can control what you feed your family. My longtime friends at eMeals are here to help. They have simplified meal plans and created new recipe collections such as easy pantry meals and freezer meals utilizing basic ingredients. It has never been easier to shop smarter and stay on a budget try it free for two full weeks comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they will remake your blinds for free. They've got free samples and free. Check it all out. I mean, it's amazing.

So promo code is Ramsey. You can get the best possible deal. So, Anthony, what's our question of the day? Today's question comes from Elisa in Tennessee. She visits DaveRamsey.com to ask, Hi, Dave and Anthony today. I have the opportunity to go to Belmont at a discounted price. However, I don't have any money saved for school.

I just started financial peace university and I have listened to quite a few podcasts of yours about college. I agree with you about no student loans and I don't want student loans. I also know you say to go to state to a state school. I have researched state schools in tennessee and they don't have the the degree and that i am majoring in only belmont has it right now student loans feel like the only option what would you suggest well here's my first suggestion you should definitely get to know me as well you know and really uh research

uh you know my what are you looking for a date what are you talking about oh dave i just want her to understand my teachings around the whole student loan stuff yeah and here's the very first thing i'm going to suggest and suggest to you elisa is take student loans off of the table yep okay completely from the very beginning. That's not an option. So when you take them off of the table, you can start looking at things differently. And then you also will start finding things because now student loans are not an option. So I get it. Belmont, it's a beautiful school, nice school.

I know them very well. But I can almost guarantee you in the state of Tennessee, that is not the only school that offers a program. I wish I knew what program it was. I could help you out a little bit more. It's probably the music business program. They've got a wonderful program in the music business area that I think may be very unique to them. She's probably got a point there.

The thing is this. If you want to go into music, the business side of the music business, you can do that with a business degree and not go into debt and just go to a different school. So you've got to decide what you want to do in your life. Our recommendation is always avoid student loans. Belmont is a wonderful school. It is very, very expensive. Yes. Very expensive.

It's like $52,000 a year, if I remember right. And so, you know, we're like the University of Tennessee is $12,000. year if I remember right. And so, you know, where like the University of Tennessee is $12,000. Just to kind of give you an idea. And you can get a great degree and you know, you could pick up some, you could audit some classes at Belmont in the music business field

and add those to your resume after you finish school if you wanted to even. And do that a whole lot cheaper. Now I don't know how much of a discount they're giving you. I don't know how much scholarship money you can get gathered up, what other stuff you can do. If you can figure it out where you can go to Belmont without debt student loans, I'm not mad at Belmont. But is it worth going there to get that particular degree? No.

No. Not if it means you're going into debt. It doesn't. It's not. And I'm not going to send you anywhere ever. Anthony's not going to send you anywhere ever to do that. Yeah. So.

And also, too, here, Lisa, is the key thing that we really want you to walk away from is knowing we want you to go to the best school that is affordable for you. So do the research. There are a lot of schools right now with this coronavirus that are actually offering some great prices and actually even cutting off on the out-of-state fees. So you may find a school maybe next, not next door, but maybe in Georgia or maybe in Virginia that will allow you to come there for literally about the price of an in-state school that has a good music program if that's what you're going there for. So take that off of the table and do the research. Let me ask you this, Anthony, because I run into this question a lot, and I advise parents, and you talk to parents and kids both, but I advise parents to remember an 18-year-old sometimes, a 17-year-old sometimes, not always, but sometimes,

has a very narrow view. And you can get into what we call fatalism, which means if I don't do exactly this then the whole world comes to an end right you see what i'm saying right and so if i don't get a i will never get to live my dreams of being an executive in the music business if i don't go to belmont and go 150 000 in debt and so that's fatalism right meaning that there's no possible way to achieve this dream except that one track. Right.

Now, do you find that kind of thinking a lot? Because obviously I'm old and I go, no, there's nobody on Music Row got their freaking degree. Right. Everybody that works down there worked their way up. They got a business degree or a background that came out of banking or CFOs that came out of something else. A few of them went down there and it's a good degree. But is it is it the only way to be an executive in the music business well crud no yeah it's not and dave you're right i

think it's because young people have the lack of exposure um in a project that we're working on i won't say what it is but you know about this particular project i was interviewing a group of kids and one of the kids said i want to be able to draw and be a make cartoons so he said if i want to be a successful, that was a great interview. I got to see that preview the other day. Yes. And so he thought I had to go. He had to go to this one particular school. But then when he seen the price tag, when he saw the price tag, he started doing a research and found out that he could actually stay in state in Tennessee and go to another particular college here for a quarter of the price and he what he found was he talked to a mentor that was someone in in the cartoon industry and told him like hey just because you go to this

school doesn't mean that you're going to get a guaranteed placement you make your work how you draw how you design how you see things is what's going to get you the placement of course you need the education he was like but the golden ticket is you and your eyes go to any school and get the education but you got to work on your eyes and your skills and yeah it's like you know he wanted to work at pixar wouldn't yes sir he wanted to be in the you know computer generated animation and so forth you know he wanted to go to the number one school in the nation which is in california california and it was like it was 100 grand versus 20 grand or something like that i remember the numbers it was pretty impressive young guy yeah 125 dug through all that stuff and it figured out there's other ways i can get the tools i need to live my dream

without going so deeply in debt oh dave you just said something i love this show you know you can say tools i can give you the right tools but can you go build a beautiful home with only those tools? No, it takes you, your work ethic, what you see. We can give you the best tools in the world, but if you don't know how to build, if you don't have the eyes, if you don't know where to use the tools properly. If you don't show up and work in sweat. There you go, Dave. You're not going to build a beautiful home.

And work in sweat. And work in sweat. And work in sweat. There you go. And work in sweat. Yep. And work in sweat. And work in sweat. And work and sweat. And work and sweat. There you go. And work and sweat. Yep. And work and sweat. And work and sweat.

You're useless! I mean, that's so true. Yeah, that's exactly it. So here's the thing, guys. Anytime anyone is making decisions, including around here, I teach a class in Entree Leadership on decision-making for leaders. And any time anyone is making a decision and they bring you two options and both of them suck, that's a version of fatalism.

It's like, you know, sometimes I get a call here on the air. It's like, our house is full of mold. If we don't move out, our children are going to die. But we have to spend $250,000 to get rid of the house and the mold. And which one should we do? Our children die or go bankrupt? Well, these are both too dumb options, right? We don't want to kill the kids, and we don't want to go bankrupt,

so we needed a third option. Get a freaking bulldozer and push that thing down. I don't know, but let's find a different way. Let's always look for another option. The more options you have when you are making decisions, the higher quality your decision is going to be. And the more likely you are to lead to the right, the wisest path. But if you've got two options, very seldom is one of them the right one.

And you know what, Dave? That third option may take some time. You may have to just pause and step back. It always does. Yeah. You keep scratching and digging. And what you'll find when you find the components, the elements of the decision, when you're scratching and clawing and you start putting things together and you go, okay, I can do that and I can do that and I can put that part of that together. And now I've got like three or four pieces of the good pieces out of all the bad decisions.

I can line them up and make that into a good decision. And that's what makes us weird and different because the normal person would go and choose between the two. You know, our teaching is, all right, let's step back. Let's put things together that no one else would have saw. And now we have a third option, which is the best option. And here's what I love. We're leaders. And people will follow that.

Okay, if they can do that then so can i yeah well sweet elisa she's giving us two options yeah don't live my dream or go into debt and go to belmont both bad options i don't like neither one of them let's go to belmont and don't go in debt yeah let's find a different way to live your dream yep these are two other options immediately that's what all we're saying right here. And so just think it through, folks. Guide your young people. Guide your young people so that the 30-year-old version of your 17-year-old doesn't hate themselves later. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

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