The Ramsey Show - App - Dave's Insight on Setting Goals for 2019 (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. When 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. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour, Adam is with us in Madison, Wisconsin.

Hi, Adam. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Not much. I got a question but I had a suggestion too, so you're always talking about

great side jobs and a great side job is like refereeing for youth sports and you know, because like I can do like a two hour, two and a half hour and I'll make 60 bucks doing an older kid game, so that's always, and they always need refs but I always wanted to suggest that as a

great side job, because it's a good one. But the question I had is, like three or four years ago, I heard you talk about like seven, I think it was seven goals that you should sort of set for the new year. And now that we're getting close to the new year, I can't find that podcast anymore and I lost the list. And I wanted to know if you could just sort of lay out the seven goals or maybe it was eight goals that you should sort of have different categories for the new year

and talk about that. Okay, I'll try to remember them if I can get it off the top of my head. It's a lesson I teach in Entree Leadership, but I think I've got it stored in my brain. You need to set goals in several areas of your life. Zig Ziglar used to call it the wheel of life, the different areas of our life, and they affect each other. So if you do one without doing it, if you win in one area without winning in the other, you can destroy the other.

So like, for instance, you set career goals and you set family goals. If you win at your career and all you do is work and you never see your family, your family will leave. But if all you do is spend time with your family, you'll starve to death. Well nurtured, but starve to death. I mean, you'll be emotionally fabulous, but you'll be skinny because you don't work and you can't eat, right? So that's two of them is set goals in the family area, set goals in the career area.

Another overlapping one would be the financial area. Obviously, we would talk about that one. Physical goals. Are you going to run a marathon this year or lose weight or bench 300? I don't know. Whatever. None of those are on my list. But anyway, maybe cookies, maybe chocolate chip cookies.

Anyway, so physical goals, family goals, career goals, financial goals, spiritual goals would be one um there's another one i'm trying to think social social that's the one i always forget yeah i don't have any friends i wouldn't have any friends if i wasn't married so uh yeah yeah social goals and so sit you know just sit down and go okay what are we going to do from a social perspective this year? I mean, those people you tell them you're always going to have lunch with them and you never do. Let's just make a list of them and say we really do want to see them. Now, the ones you're lying to and you don't want to see, then that's not who I'm talking about.

But, yeah, let's do lunch. You don't plan to. That's not what I'm talking about. But the ones you really do want to see. And you need to set some physical goals. If you don't take care of your physical body, it'll mess up your career because you'll be in the hospital. And so exercise is a physical goal, obviously. Exercise is a method of accomplishing a physical goal.

So let's see if I got them. Let's see. Financial, career, physical, family, spiritual, social. I think that's it. I think there were six of them on that wheel, six spokes on that wheel, if I remember. Okay. Yeah, and then to set goals, in addition to that, we'll just keep going, you need to have goals that are specific and measurable.

I want to lose weight is not specific. It is measurable, but it's not specific. So how much weight do you want to lose? 30 pounds. Okay, now we're starting to get a goal. The third thing is goals need to have a time frame. I want to lose 30 pounds. Great.

How often and how many times and how long are you going to take? I want to lose 30 pounds in 90 days. Now we're starting to get a goal because it's 10 pounds a month, 2.5 pounds a week. I want to make $100,000. When? Over 40 years? No, in one year. Oh, okay.

That's $8,333 a month. That's $2,100 a week. So now how are we going to get about that? That's $100,000 a year. So if that's what you want to make, you start breaking it down. As soon as you have a time frame, it divides out. If it's specific, measurable you have a time frame. It divides out if it's specific, measurable, has a time frame.

The fourth one is the goals have to be yours. You have to own them. My wife wants me to lose weight. That won't work. My wife wants my career to go better. That won't work. My mommy wants me to be a dentist. I don't want to be your patient. I want you to be a dentist because you're called to do it.

I don't want to go to your church because your daddy told you to be a preacher. But because your heavenly father called you, now that would be good. I'll go to that church. So that kind of a thing. It needs to be your goals. You need to own them. My boss told me I had to do this. It's not a goal.

That's a quota. And so time has to have a time frame, has to be measurable, has to be specific, need to be your goals. And the last thing is they need to be in writing. Write them down. And if you don't write it down, it's not going to happen. The Bible says in Habakkuk 2.2, write the vision and make it plain. And so write it down.

Put it in front of you. Put it on your computer screen when it comes open. Put it on your car mirror. I don't care. But write it out. And something happens when you write it out now don't just put it in a drawer lay it around where you can see it but i want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year i want those 30 pounds in the next 90 days um i'm going to do

these six things to make my marriage better this year uh we're going to have dinner with 12 couples this year 12 families this year or whatever uh we're going to, you know, intellectual goals. That's another one I left out. I'm going to take some classes. I want to read a nonfiction book a month, which, by the way, the average millionaire does. And they can't tell you who got thrown off the island or who can't dance. They're not sure about reality TV, whether it's reality or not, so they don't watch it. And so on. You just adopt the habit patterns and take the steps to hit those goals once you do those

five things to hit those six or seven areas. You were right. It was seven because intellectual was the seventh one. And so what are you going to do to feed your intellect? Read, read, read, read, read, by the way. And there's several ways to take in content now. I appreciate all of you listening to my podcast. I appreciate you watching our videos on YouTube.

It does not stimulate the brain the same way that reading does. Your brain fires differently. The electrons in your brain fire differently when you read. And it stimulates thoughts and stimulates vision and dreams and ambition much more than media does, meaning audio or video media or mediums. And so even an audio book doesn't do what reading a book does. I'll be reading a book and have seven ideas about something that don't have anything to do about what I'm reading about.

That's partly because I'm a little bit ADD, but what it does is it fires the brain up. It gets your brain moving. And I'm not talking about reading fiction. I read fiction, too. I read a lot of fiction. It makes airplanes fly faster. It makes a beach get calmed down, all that.

But if I'm reading a business book or a leadership book or a nonfiction book on parenting or marriage or whatever area I'm wanting to study right then, it fires your brain up and you start having ideas that have nothing to do with the subject matter that you're reading a lot of times. And I've had that happen many times. I'll fill up a yellow pad with ideas while I'm reading a book and it has nothing to do with what I'm reading. So just keep the yellow pad there. It's not, I'm joking about being ADD.

It's not ADD. It's what happens to the physical makeup of your brain while you're doing that. It changes things. So it's very difficult to keep your brain fired up if you never read. So, some interesting discussions. Adam, thanks for calling in. Let me get up on my soapbox a little bit here and start this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show off. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. and our 4G LTE network provides the fastest Internet speeds like more expensive carriers.

We operate on the largest GSM network in the U.S. to ensure you receive reliable coverage virtually anytime, anywhere. Plus, you can keep your same phone and number and add multiple lines to save more. We're so confident you'll love Pure Talk USA that we invite you to try our service risk-free. Just visit puretalkusa.com, enter promo code SAVEDAVE, no spaces, and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com, promo code SAVEDAVE. Ashley's with us in Houston. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Ashley. Hello, how are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have a question. I'm going to be getting married, and we're trying to decide, should we continue to rent and pay off debt or purchase a home if the mortgage is going to be the same price as we are currently renting? You should rent. Okay. Because ownership is never cheaper on a monthly basis than renting is. You have to pick up all the expenses associated with owning that are an

additional drain hot water heater goes out heat and air goes out roof leaks whatever the other things happen when you have ownership that you don't have you just call the landlord when something breaks dishwasher goes out you just call the landlord and so um keep renting rent as cheap as you possibly can so that you can get out of debt that much faster so that you can buy. Because I want to get you to where you can buy as quickly as you can. But it sounds logical. It sounds like it's a dollar-for-dollar swap, and it's not when all the smoke clears out here in the real world, the way houses really work.

And so the insurance cost goes up, taxes go up next year, that kind of stuff. And, you know, rent doesn't always go up. So it does most of the time over time. But in general, you're going to come out on the short term while you're getting out of debt cheaper by renting. And you don't get yourself into a pinch that you can't get out of as well. So, hey, thanks for the call. Lindsay's with us in Pennsylvania. Hi, Lindsay.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm currently on baby step number two, the early phases, and I had a quick question about my car payment.

So I still owe $24,000 on my car. My current income a year is about $42,000. The problem is my first car was totaled back in January and they gave me $6,000 for my car. I had still owed $12,000. So the $6,000 then was added onto my new car with the car payment. So I'm at $24,000. And the car's not worth but $16,000 or something? $14,000. Mm-hmm. And so it's gone down rapidly.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, this hole's getting bigger, not smaller. Mm-hmm. And it's a car you definitely can't afford. Yes, sir. So is this your only debt? No, unfortunately.

I do have some school debt that I'm paying off, personal loans, and credit card debt. Ouch. And you're single. Yes, sir. And you're working 40 hours. 60. 60 to make $42,000? I work as a bartender and a part-time teller at a bank.

Okay. That's the combination of your two jobs. Mm-hmm. Okay. How clean is your credit? It's $720. Okay. I would slip down. Who's got the loan on the car?

It's a local bank. Yeah, I would slip down and talk to them about letting you sign a note for $10,000 to sell on this car and get you a $2,000 car. Okay. I'd rather you be $10,000 in debt than $24,000 in debt. Who said it was worth $14,000? I looked on TeleBlueBook. For private sale or wholesale? Private sale.

Okay. Wow. What kind of car is this? It's a 2014 Ford Edge. Okay. And you paid? $ car is this? It's a 2014 Ford Edge. Okay, and you paid? $18,000. Six months ago? Mm-hmm.

And it's gone down $4,000? Mm-hmm. Wow. You overpaid for it, didn't you? Yes, sir, I did, and I bought every single insurance policy I could because I didn't want the same thing to happen with my last vehicle, where I end up having to pay. You got the gap insurance. Do you have extended warranty this part of that $24,000?

Yes, I do. Ah, that's probably a couple grand, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah, cancel that. Okay. That'll drop a couple grand off of this. So now we're only borrowing $8,000. Okay.

And, yeah, that's a big help. Okay. And the gap insurance, is that financed in this? Yes. Well, we'll be getting rid of the car so you can get rid of that as well. So maybe you're not $10,000 in the hole. Maybe you're more like $7,000 by the time you cancel both of those things and get the bank to let you sign a note.

So have that branch manager that's at the local bank there sit down with you and have those numbers. Have what happens if you cancel the gap and what happens if you cancel the warranty and then what that brings the balance down to, if that was applied to the balance, if that's built into it, and see if you can't get this down to $7,000. That's a big help. Yes, it is. Yeah, and then just it you know just get you a little seven thousand dollar loan instead of a twenty four thousand dollar loan you may have

to borrow in a couple more grand to get your two thousand dollar car you know but let's get a hooptie for right now and let's get some of this mess cleaned up and then save up and pay cash for a little better car later on but and then move up in car only with cash in the future and if you're driving a cash car it changes the insurance situation as well. You're never going to be in a gap because you obviously have it all paid off, so there is no gap. Vicki is with us in Vancouver, Washington. Hi, Vicki.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So, my husband and I started listening to you after we did a really stupid thing. We bought a property with the intention of fixing it up and renting it, and we're just about finished with the fix-up,

and we are not going to make enough money in rent to pay the expenses. And so we're trying to decide if we just suck it up and deal with the deficit. Oh, so you owe more on it than it's worth, too? Well, technically we don't owe a thing on it. We did the really dumb thing of taking money out of our paid-for house to purchase it. So we actually own a little picture of it. How much have you got invested in this property total? $205,000. And what will it sell for?

We bought it for $158,000. And we're not going to be – yeah, the rent that we can get will not equal the mortgage payment and the utilities. So do we keep it and pay the deficit ourselves for several months, a couple years, or sell it, take a loss, and move on? Yeah, so you've got $205,000 in it, and you finance that against your personal residence. Correct. And so how much do you own your personal residence total it would be the two we had our personal residence we paid off in nine and a half years back in 2005 wow so yeah yeah

and then some get rich quick real estate crap bit you on the butt okay so you got two thousand two hundred five thousand dollars owed on your personal residence. What will the rental sell for? We might be able to get between $2,000 and $2,500 for it. So then, you know, having to pay the realtor an additional $17,000, that's kind of what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, well, if we can get $2,000, we're actually going, I mean, if we can get $2,700, we'll actually end up with two. You know, trying to get just enough so we can walk away with exactly what we need to,

but we may end up losing $17,000 is my guess. Now, that would be if you sold it for $205,000. Correct. Let's not get too desperate here, but let's put it on the market and sell it. Okay. And take your lumps and be done. You made bad decisions all the way around on this. You paid too much for it.

You spent too much on it. Yeah. And you financed it on your personal residence. So there's like three strikes against this deal. And just rip off the bandage and be done with it is my thought. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

What's your household income? It is, I'm a freelance writer, so that's a joke. My husband makes $60,000, and I make about $16,000. Okay, and how much money? Do you have any money in savings that's not retirement? No, we just have baby step one, and then we just paid his truck off. So we don't have any, yeah. So we're good on that end, but, yeah, we're very cash poor.

Okay, so you're going to end up not being able to. We have some great assets, but we're very cash poor. You're not going to be, the bottom line is you're not going to be able to completely pay your home off with this transaction. It's going to take you a little while to pay that, whatever you're going to hold. That's my guess as worst case scenario, and I'm willing to accept that's what i think that's a good idea that's exactly what i would do okay yeah i think you take your lunch and you say we learned our lesson um real estate's not a bad idea real estate's a horrible idea when you're broke meaning you have to pay you didn't pay cash for it and it's a horrible idea when you don't know what you're doing and you pay too much for it.

It's a horrible idea when you put too much into it after you bought it. And, you know, you have to do it right or it doesn't work. And when it works, it's fine, but none of this works. I just love it when the companies we work with make it a point to give money away, especially during the holiday season. Once again this year, Zander Insurance will donate 25% of all sales from their ID theft protection plan in December to Operation Homefront. Operation Homefront is a very special organization that provides emergency financial assistance and housing to our wounded veterans and their families. To date, Zander has raised and donated over $300,000 with your help.

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or call 800-356-4282. There's no better way to protect your loved ones while also helping those who protect our freedom. That's 800-356-4282. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, James and Kayla are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great, how are you? Better than I deserve.

Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live? Stanton, Michigan, just north of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, yeah, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And all the way down here to do a debt-free screen.

Love it. How much have you guys paid off? $66,082. $66,000. How long did this take? It took us 345 days. Dangerously close to one year. All right.

And your range of income during that year? Only one of us working at the time, so $77,000 upwards to $140,000. Okay. And that's when the second job kicked in? Yeah. Okay, cool. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a registered nurse in the emergency department.

And I'm a registered nurse in the ICU. Ah, very good. Well, great careers. Well done. What kind of debt's the 66? Well, it was a mixture of a car or a truck, credit cards, a loan to my parents for school purposes, and mostly sailing me. Oh, so you had all kinds of debt. I mean, you were normal.

Yeah. A little bit of everything. Yeah, well, touched all the bases. Good. Okay. How long have you guys been married? Almost seven years. Okay.

What happened a year ago? A year ago, Kayla just finished up with school. We went to look at a house that we should have been able to afford. We went home, did the budget, and we had too many payments going out for all the miscellaneous things, and we just knew we couldn't do it.

We didn't feel comfortable with it. I wasn't raised that way. So we just... Said we're not going to buy the house, we're not going to buy the house. No, we're not going to buy the house. Even though we should have been able to afford it. Right. But we got to clean up this mess.

Then what? I then pulled out the Total Money Maker Overbook that my dad gave me at 15 years old. He told me if I wanted to know how to handle my money, then I had to read that book. So we did that. Didn't really follow your principles. We went through Financial Peace University. That was four years ago. Didn't really follow through.

And then last year I pulled the book out, pulled out our information from the financial university and started all over again. So now it's time. It is. It was time then. It just had to be time. You had to have the I've had it moment. It had to be your idea. They had to have a reason to do it.

And just looking at it all piling up wasn't working. Correct. Okay. Well, good for you guys. Well done. Well done. 66,000 in a year is no slouch, man. You've been getting after it.

Once you decided, you decided, didn't you? That's right. We did. We work at the hospital full time. And then we also have a secondary job at a nursing home. So this was two jobs. She worked four days a month because two months into this, we found out we were pregnant with our second child. Oh, wow.

And our journey was supposed to go into February of next year, but we were not going to bring a second child into a world of debt. Okay. So you just went bananas on the work. Yes. That's what did it. Wow. Amazing. Well, well done, y'all.

Well done. Thank you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Always have that long-term goal. But on the way, always have short-term goals to meet so you can feel that accomplishment. That's good. Stick into the budget. Always stick into the budget.

Stick into the budget. That's it what do you think was i mean it's kind of an interesting thing to kind of think about the psychology of what you went through you read the book years later you went through financial peace university none of that took and then the house thing something flipped the switch when you looked at that house and went gosh what do you think that was that has made you all of a sudden decide, okay, we're doing this? We just, we wanted to do better than what we knew we, we wanted to do better than what we were doing. We wanted to succeed.

We wanted to bring a future for our children. We wanted to do more things than just work. And now this is going to give us the abilities to work less. Absolutely. We want to be able to help our children go through college as well. Amen. After paying all that money to Sally Mae. Yeah, we don't want them to be there.

Yeah, you can break that cycle for sure. Well, very well done. Who was your biggest cheerleader, not between the two of you, but outside the house? Our biggest supporters were probably our parents, especially spending time with the kids so we could study and finish up school and then also spend hours and hours and hours at work. I have to give some of the credit to her brother, my brother-in-law, Kyle. He, on multiple times, because we had to pause the debt snowball during the pregnancy. So six weeks after we were so close I worked two full time jobs and Kyle said you know you need

to pull the trigger and pay this off you'll be fine and so we went back down to a thousand dollars and it was probably the scariest thing that we've ever done watching all those numbers deplete and it was the best thing ever so with a brand new baby it's hard to drain that account

and he's also now enjoying debt-free life. Love it. Yeah, he was born into a debt-free house, or almost, but within a week or two. Yeah, very cool. Good for y'all. Well done. Well, you've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book signed by him, number one bestseller for you to take with you.

And we're also going to mail you a copy of the Everyday Millionaire's book that comes out in just a few weeks, the 1st of January. Because that's what you're going to be, Everyday Millionaires. That's your next chapter. It is. And to be not only debt-free, but now become wealthy and outrageously generous along the way. Way to go, you guys. Thank you.

We're proud of you here. I love it. You brought the kiddos with you to do the debt-free scream? Of course. So what are their names and ages? This is Owen. He is five months old. Oh, a little guy.

And this is Jackson, who is three. And Jackson's been practicing his debt-free scream. Oh, yes. He's ready to go. He knows the theme to the show. And everything. All right, Jackson, are you ready to do the debt-free scream? I'm going to count down.

All right. Ready? Here we go. All right, Jackson, are you ready to do the debt-free scream? I'm going to count down. All right, here we go. All right, $66,000 paid off in one year, making $77,000 to $140,000. It's James, Kayla, Jackson, and Owen. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! All right, Adam, how you doing? I love it. You're three-year-olds in well done you guys he's cute that's fabulous that's about as good as it gets right there man oh man oh man you know it kind of sounds like a lot of times with you guys, and I'm that way too, I guess. The old saying is true.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I was all around them. They've been to the class. They've read the books, everything. But boom, some kind of switch flipped on that house deal, right? You know, it is December. Christmas is almost here. Maybe you want to be the brother-in-law or the father that gives the Total Money Makeover book. They're on sale for $10.

And you could choose. We've got about 50 of our books and audio books and envelope systems and all kinds of goodies in the store that are down to $10 right now. The $10 sale is a big deal at DaveRamsey.com. And while you're there, enter to win our Ramsey Christmas giveaway. We're giving away $500 cash every week as we count down to Christmas and a grand prize giveaway of $5,000 cash. And you can enter daily to increase your chances of winning. Of course, there is no purchase necessary. So the Total Money Makeover, Smart Money, Smart Kids, Business Boutique,

The Legacy Journey, which is the last book I wrote, all these different books by me and by the Ramsey personalities, they're all number one bestsellers. They're all $10 right now. And you can even preorder the Everyday Millionaire book. It's only $20, but it's got $50 worth of add-ons if you pre-order it because we throw in the audio book and the e-book, the book itself. And, of course, we give you a video as well,

access to a video by me on It's Okay to Be Wealthy and one by Chris on Retiring Inspired. And so good stuff there. Check it all out at DaveRamsey.com. Everything's on sale right now. This is tis the season. And these are actually gifts that help. You know, you can give a gift that is just a gift, you know.

But Total Money Makeover book, Smart Money, Smart Kids book, business, these books, Business Boutique, they'll change your life. The information in them, if you apply it, will change your life. Sitting it on the shelf won't. That will not work. I can promise you that. Lindsey's on Instagram. My husband gets a set check every two weeks.

I'm a server bartender. I get cash daily. Does anyone have an income situation like this? I cannot figure out a good system for an every dollar budget. I'm super A-type and it's driving me crazy. Sure, you just set up what you think it's going to be, and you hang with that, and set it a little low. If it comes in a little high,

have a plan for how you're going to apply for the amount you get extra that you didn't know was coming. So set it a little low, and have a plan for the overage. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Margaret is in West Palm Beach. Hey, Margaret. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Hi, Dave. So I went to college that I couldn't afford, and I was pretty much homeless. So I graduated with my bachelor in 2008 during the crisis, so I couldn't find a job. And I went back to school for my master's and still was not able to afford it, but I was homeless. And so I got a job. I moved to Florida, and I made $45,000. The problem is that I have $118,000 on student loans.

And what is your master's in? I'm sorry, say that one more time. What's your master's degree in? In school counseling. In school counseling. In school counseling. Okay. And that's what you do, making $45,000? Yes.

And you have $118,000. Okay. How old are you? I'm 33. Okay. So now you've stabilized yourself. You've got a sustainable situation, meaning you make enough to eat and have a place to live, and the homeless thing is not at your door anymore.

Yeah. But now this thing's just hovering over your head, right? Yes, because I can't afford to make the payments for my student loans, not even the full interest. And it's just going up every month. Okay. And what are you thinking you're going to do? I'm not sure, but right now I'm babysitting on the weekends. I stay after school doing after school programs trying to catch up, but it just seems to be

impossible. And my friend told me that maybe I can just enroll in the Army and see if there's any way in the contract they can pay some of my student loans. Okay. Is the military what you want to do for a living? No. You're just trying to escape the student loans. Yes, because I feel stuck and I do pay my tithes and I feel like I need a breakthrough.

I cannot buy a property. I cannot start a business. When I have a lot of business idea, I cannot invest on anything due to my student loan situation. Well, you can start a lot of businesses with just sweat. You don't need a lot of money to get a business idea going, especially some kind of a side hustle that might make you more than you're doing with the after-school care thing. I don't know what you're making. But, you know, I don't think the military is the answer for you because you're not going there because you want to.

You're going there to try to escape. And I think that's going to end up being a miserable experience for you with that motivation. Yes. So I think we've got to just continue to work on ideas for your career and ideas for short-term income in the interim. What can you do with this degree that makes you more as your long-term career? And also, what can we do as side hustles with some of these ideas you've got going. Let me send you a copy of Christy Wright's book, Business Boutique,

Equipping Women to Make Money Doing What They Love. And maybe some of that material can help you put some of those ideas to use and get your small business ideas started. You do not need $10,000 to start a good small business. You don't. Lots of people start all kinds of small side hustle things with almost nothing or nothing. And it's not that unusual at all. Again, you've just got to think through what it is you're going to do and how you're going to do it.

But I believe that's what we work on in your situation is just work on your long-term career goals. And in the midst of it also, that could overlap with a side hustle idea, a business idea as a side hustle. But in the meantime, you've got to make some extra money until you get the full-time gig where it's producing more, whether it's a career choice or whether it's a small business idea. So hold on. I'll have Kelly pick up, and we'll give you a copy of the Business Boutique and get you going. Mike is in Nashville.

Hey, Mike, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for everything you do for people. It's a pleasure to speak with you. You too. I'm having trouble with your phone. Can you speak directly into it? Yeah.

Is this better? A little bit, yes. Okay. I had a quick question about retirement for you. Okay. I want to make sure I'm doing everything right. I have an IRA individually, and then I have an IRA through my workplace that just started up this year. I also bought a house in West Nashville about five years ago, and as you probably know,

the market has taken off. And I have a $40,000 equity loan. I owe $119,000 on the house. I know Zillow is not completely accurate. It says that the house is worth about $310,000. So I'm very tempted to sell the house and pay off the home equity loan, and I would have about $100,000, and I would use that towards a down payment on another house and put a lot of it away for retirement because I just don't feel like I have enough saved right now at 35. At 35 years old? Yeah. Okay.

Do you like the house? I do. I actually have become uber intense on paying off the home equity loan. I sold my Audi, which was really hard. So my workplace was five minutes away, so I biked to work every day. Wow. I'm eight minutes from downtown. It's a nice neighborhood.

I do like it, but... I would not sell it. What is your income? I make about $50,000 a year, a little over $50,000. And so you have this house debt, the home equity loan, which is how much? Together both would be about $160,000. Okay. And what other debts do you have?

That's it. And what's your income? $50,000 a year. You told me that. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. No, I would not sell that at 35 years old.

I would put you on a budget, a written plan. You're concentrating on this money thing, but you're frustrated by your level of traction. And so you're debt-free. Do you have any money saved for your emergency fund? Yes, I have about $1,500 in the money market right now. Okay, let's get that raised up to three to six months of expenses as your first order of business. In other words, $10,000, give or take, in your situation, just for emergencies, never to be touched for anything else. Above that, then let's begin to save 15% of your income. Now, if you'll jump on ChrisHogan360.com and use his RIQ tool, it's a free tool, a retire-inspired quotient. Calculate what 15% of your income saved from 35 to 65 will be.

30 years of saving 15% of your income, which is $7,500 a year, is going to be huge. It's going to be millions of dollars without selling your house. And so you need to get in a situation where your budget allows you to save 15% of your income. You should be there once you get that emergency fund in place. And the fact that you don't have any payments except the payment on this house, this is very doable. But you've got to get on a game plan. If you need some help with the budget, jump on everydollar.com and use the budget app. It's free.

And it loads on your phone or on your desktop, whatever. It takes about 10 minutes to lay your budget out. But you get that puppy laid out, and then you've got the ability to control the money that you've got, be putting 15% away. Again, ChrisHogan360.com, check the RIQ. When you put the numbers in on that, you're going to have plenty of money. You're going to be fine. 35 years old, you just need to get started and do it.

That's what it comes down to. So, hey, thanks for the call. We appreciate you joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. By the way, folks, when we're talking about selling your house, unless you don't like your house, because you'll hear me ask that sometimes when someone asks if they should sell their house, unless you don't like your house and you're thinking of moving anyway,

most of the time, the house is not the problem. Now, if your house payment is 50% of your take-home pay, the house is the problem. It's got to go. You're not going to make that unless you have an income increase coming in the next short term, just over the horizon, you're going to have problems with the 50% of your take-home pay being a house payment. That's not going to work. But other than those situations, usually the house is not the problem. Usually it's getting organized, getting on the budget, getting your other debts paid off,

maybe sell a car, which he did in his case, that kind of stuff. It puts you in a different position than when you do that. So, hey, thank you for listening. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. 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.