The Ramsey Show - App - Debt Is a Distraction. Get It Out of Your Life! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze discuss: Why certain areas of the country are more/less desirable, Selling the house to pay off debt, Why you shouldn't take out student loans. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. We help people build wealth, do work work they love and create actual amazing relationships rachel cruz ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today the phone number here is 888-825-5225 david and carolyn in tacoma washington are on the line it says on my screen you guys are debt free way to go oh yeah dave it's it's been a great journey that all started in 2015 we did our debt free scream in 2017 for consumer debt and now

we're paying off our house i love it how much have you paid off totally? Well, the first time it was $82,000, the consumer debt, and then our house was $172,000. Okay, I'm going with the $172,000 figure. How long did it take to do that? That took us four and a half years. There you go. And your range of income during that time? We started at about $117,000, and we finished this last year at 205 000 excellent what do you guys do for a living uh i do land development shout out to my company uh hoss for construction they

really helped me pay off that last big lump there you go and and i just retired from the state. I'm a compliance unit manager for the state of Washington, but I'm just retired in the month of July. So it's a perfect timing, Dave. Yeah, way to go, guys. That's an exciting month, David. Pay off the house, retiring, all of it. That's great. That's very cool.

It was because we paid it off in May and I retired at the end of June. So the timing was perfect and makes it a little bit easier to retire. Amen. Well, Tacoma's a great market. What's that house worth? We figure about $450,000. Phenomenal. How much you guys got in retirement savings?

Probably with my pension, probably around $500, but carolyn's eight years younger than me she's still working so that's my retirement plan for a while thanks oh i'm married up dave oh i'm not sure you're gonna be there there. That's great, man. So you're millionaires. You did it. Your baby steps millionaires. We're getting there. Yeah, you're right at it.

Way to go, guys. Congratulations. Well, tell us the story. What started this journey, and how did you get tied into this Ramsey stuff? Well, in 2015, we took FPU at the church. And so that took us 28 months to pay $82,000 off. And then in 2017, after we paid that off, we decided that we wanted to pay off our house. And we slowly did it.

And, of course, this last year, our income increased a lot and that really helped us a lot. And really, the biggest thing for us is our kids are listening. We tithe through the whole thing, Dave. We put God first and he rewarded us yeah wow very cool very cool what church are you in uh grace point northwest and enum claw wonderful yeah wonderful very cool well way to go congratulations you guys so how did it feel you know this past july where you didn't have a mortgage payment? Oh, it's just crazy. You know, it just gives you, Rachel, just gives you so much freedom. I think it's really, to me, it's really that debt is a distraction. You know, it's, the devil does all kinds of things to mess with your family and your goals and what God's plans are for your life. And that debt was really a distraction to us. And I know it is to a lot of marriages and families. And we just really feel like now we're ready to take on that next step, which is what what is God planned for us next? And all of the choices and the freedom that we have to do that is just such a blessing. Incredible, you guys. I just think that's such an amazing, not only accomplishment, but even the season of life that you guys are entering.

With David, you're retiring, all of it. I'm like, there is. There's just such freedom and margin and options that you guys have that's coming up. So I'm impressed, very impressed, and congratulations. Very proud of you guys. Very, very well done. Great, great job. We've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you, my latest number one bestseller,

How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth, How You Can Too. You're there, and you can read about essentially who you are because that's you. And we've got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away and maybe get someone else's journey and a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. The brand-new videos are out, the best class we've ever done, and you can send someone through it because it's what got your journey started. And so I'll give you plenty of things to give away, a couple things to read for yourself.

So beautiful. Well done, you guys. Well done, well done. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Oh, probably our kids. They watched from afar, but they were there. And we would give them little tune-ups every once in a while to tell them where we were. And, of course, our church.

We had people in our church because we did financial peace about seven classes before COVID hit. And we haven't done it since well thank you yeah we need to get started again way to go man good job good stuff so are your kids following in the stuff i would say they're doing ramsey ish dave they they hear what we're saying and you know they're doing things now like saying, Mom, Mom, we paid cash for that. I'm like, good job, good job. They feel the need to explain. That's good.

I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, way to go, you two. All right, it's David and Carolyn, Tacoma, Washington. $172,000 paid off in the second stage as they paid off their house in four and a half years, making $117,000 to $205,000. paid off in the second stage as they paid off their house in four and a half years making 117 to 205 took them 28 28 months to pay off the first 82 000 of consumer debt so it's a fairly

normal a little bit shorter than normal timeline that they've been on very very very well done david and carolyn count it down let's hear a debt-free scream one two. We're debt free! Yeah! That's how it's done, boys and girls. Man, I love it. I love it. They are set up. That was an interesting comment I haven't heard many times before, that that is a distraction. It's a distraction.

Keeps your eyes all the other places. It keeps your eyes off the things it should be on. Instead, you're having to deal with this crap. You know, it's a distraction. I mean, illness is a distraction, right? There's lots of things that distract us from things that are the long-term play, that are the vision, those kinds of things. To allow you just to be in the present, too. Yeah.

Yeah, you just can't be where you're supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Very, very, very insightful, Carolyn. Very good. Good stuff. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. you've got a lot on your plate a job your home your marriage and your growing family while you're enjoying

the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey Trusted Provider. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Well, when it comes to real estate, everyone has questions, theories, and there's a lot of feelings out there about real estate. Rachel and George and I have spent the morning going over the material with our team, getting ready to do a huge live stream. It looks like there's going to be well over 100,000 of you viewing it tomorrow night. For most of you listening, it's going to be the 14th of July, Thursday evening, 7 p.m. Central, 8 Eastern. It is completely free to watch. It'll be right back. free we want you to join us and we're going to help you because there's a lot of anger and fear and angst and everything else out there about this and anytime we run into that then we know folks

are potentially getting ready to make mistakes and we want to keep you from having to do that we don't want you calling in and going oh you know back in back in ought 22 i made this huge mistake and you know i don't want you to do that so we we're going to help you. That's what we want to do. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash reality check. Get your free registration so you can watch tomorrow night free. And we'll be able to do that straight up for you. We'll send you a link and boom, you'll be on. Rachel, I'm excited about this material. I think it's solid.

No, I think it's going to be a great event, too, because the way we structured it is giving people what they need most, which in this point, it's facts. You need to know exactly why the real estate market is the way it is, what's happening today versus what happened in 2008. You want to look at supply and demand and inventory and buyers and population. I mean, there's a lot out there, a lot of facts that determine the real estate market. And so learning that and going through it is really important. So we wanted to do that side,

kind of that education piece, but then also address what the average American's thinking and feeling, whether you're wanting to buy or sell or nothing. You're just hearing the news and you're looking at social media

and everyone's opinion of what's going to happen and is the world coming to an end? And it can be scary if you go down the black hole of some of these things which i may or may not have in my lifetime uh you do like start to think oh my gosh but i'm also intrigued by some of the things we've learned just in preparing for this yeah you know one of the graphs we were looking at this morning, and we'll show it tomorrow night again, that four states have had almost a million people leave them in the last just under a year. And they all went to about eight states or six states. Yeah.

Okay. OK, and that was very interesting to me that these political decisions around COVID and around taxes and around violence and protests and those kinds of things are driving migration. And so you're seeing the states they're moving to. You've got like Californians moving to Tennessee in record numbers. We live in Tennessee. It's almost a joke now. How many Californians? Well, California, we just read a report that they've had actually, was it negative growth for the first time in 55 years? First time in history. Okay, yeah, 55 years.

Since they've been keeping records. Yeah. Yeah. California went down in population for the first time since we've been keeping records. That's pretty wild. And that affects it, right? Because if you're here in Nashville, we were just kind of a pretty normal city i feel like and all of a sudden we got this huge influx of extra buyers with all this money because they sell their homes in california and they come here and you're like

holy crap and they're overpaying what you're you bought you you had that much money you know nashvillians got greedy too it was funny it's like oh we got a california sucker fish let's just suck you know let's get that and they you know add extra $300,000 to the house price, and boom, and they pay it. And that happened in Florida, Texas. I mean, yeah, we have all the data to show it. But it's just, it is, it's wild how, though, yes, there's so much that affects the real estate market. And including that kind of stuff, like you watch. It was just interesting.

Yeah, geographically, how things are shifting. And depending on the state you live in, market you live in another one that was intriguing that i kind of suspected but i was a little bit shocked was the investor dollars and a huge number of institutional investors buying houses and so it's like 28 of the houses sold last year which is crazy it's kind of sad but um the uh but but they're they they have uh this is not investors like oh i'm gonna go buy a piece of real estate investment. It's not like a single person in your neighborhood that just wants to go buy a house. These are institutional big blocks of money coming in and swooping up houses left and right. So it's kind of not good in that regard.

But what's interesting is the cities that have had the violence and the lawlessnesslessness running amok the investors are abandoning them you know they're having like two percent of the houses selling in seattle or in portland or in uh minneapolis uh are investors okay versus like nashville is uh 30 okay and so that's charlotte north carolina charlotte north carolina huge jacksonville florida huge i know but that's where my but but all the investors i don't know it's not well it's a mixed bag okay but it's it is interesting that the investors are staying away from cities where uh where there's an overabundance of COVID rules and or violence in the streets. They're staying away from them. And so they're ruining the economy in a sense.

Now, again, I'm not a huge fan of investors coming in and swooping up, institutional investors buying blocks of houses and taking them off the market. I'm not a fan of that. That's not the point. But it is an indicator of what happens when – the point is this politics and social policy and whatever you want to bucket this stuff in has economic consequences. Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors in that. There's economic consequences.

A lot of factors. I don't know what the other consequences would be. I don't know what the other factors would be. That's it. I mean, that's the only distinguishing thing between Portland, Oregon and Dallas, Texas. Well, taxes, socially could there's a there's a whole list of stuff i think that go into it too but but anyways for the average person though listening and watching the point of the event for us was to give instruction education and actual data of what's

going on into and to just simmer down the fear and the panic that this is going to be like 2008 because the data is showing it's it's just not the way the supply and the demand work like there is still a low level of supply with houses and still a high demand to buyers and so so looking at those data points i think is really really key and really important and it inserts again a level of like take a deep breath it's gonna be okay because when you start to fear and panic and freak out and go down your black hole of conspiracies which i may or may not have done you're like oh my gosh you know i mean what am i doing okay off the grid i'm going to montana you're never gonna find me again montana's not

a bad place to go that's great i know place. I know. I might end up there. I love it. If what I've read comes true. Let me tell you what. We were just in Big Sky. The economy there is booming. Man, they're building stuff left and right. It's crazy.

Hotels and houses coming out of the ground are crazy. It's a wonderful market. But yeah, Montana's good people. I'm just saying. I know, but I may be with them soon. I don't know why you picked Montana. Because it just feels like I could be off the grid. Well, yeah, you could. There's not as many people there, that's for sure.

Or North Dakota. North Dakota, yeah, for sure not as many people there. South Dakota, that's true. Okay, if that's what you're after, you can find it there. Yeah, lots of prairie dogs, no people. That's it. So, anyway, open phones here. We're talking to you about your life and your money.

But jump on RamseySolutions.com and plan to watch the live stream tomorrow night. We're giving you a little bit of a sneak peek there with a couple things. But it's always good for us as personalities, our content team, our production team, everybody else, to study some of these things more in depth and you know test our theories our hypothesis against the actual data and is there actual data there to support what we believe if not do we need to shift why we're doing that and so forth because you caught well because in the past because i'm just looking on social too on posts you've done on instagram and stuff people like you're so wrong dave you're so wrong it is going to crash. But you predicted inflation this time last year.

But you said on another show you did not predict the recession in 08. Matter of fact, I was very strong that it was not going to happen. I was completely wrong. So did you just not see the real estate market? Do you know what I'm saying? What did you miss that you're confirmed that you're not missing here? What happened there was I did not anticipate, nor did I believe, that the mortgage-backed securities and the hedge funds had screwed up the market with the subprimes as

much as they had. It was a lot bigger problem than I realized at the time. And that's just simply not there now. That's not even a factor in this discussion. So yeah, I missed that one. But so much of economics is self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe it, you act on it, and you cause it to become true. And you've got to be careful with that with predictions of negative things in the economy. This is The Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. Mark is with us in Nashville.

Hey, Mark, how are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than we deserve, man. Thank you. What's up? Hey, so we've been listening, me and my wife have been listening to your show for the past six years, and we're able to pay off all our student loan debt and follow the baby steps.

And we kind of got off the beaten path a little bit recently, and we bought a piece of land. We live in the Nashville area, and we're kind of facing this decision now. We want to be completely debt free. And if we sell our house and rent, we'd like to build a property or build a house on this piece of land in the next three to four years, we would be able to pay off the rest of the land and be completely debt-free and actually be able to save a little bit more money per month while renting. And we were just kind of wondering if that was a smart idea. I know there's just so much going on with the real estate market in Nashville.

We're just not sure what to do. I have a really good income, so we'll be able to save a lot of money in the next few years. Good. What's your income? Anywhere from $230,000 to $250,000. Excellent. Very, very good. Okay.

What's your house payment? Like $900 a month. No, you don't sell your house. You can't rent cheaper than that. Well, we have to pay money on the land as well. Yeah, but you've got to pay money on the land if you sell the house and rent. Right, but we would be able to pay off the balance of the land if we sold our house. Oh, you'd take the equity out of the house and do that. Okay, so what do you owe on the land?

We owe about $260,000. And what do you owe on your house? About $200,000. Okay. What could you sell the house for uh about 500 okay i i would just sit right there dude i'd sit right there and i would plow through this land as hard as the money at this land hand over fist and get it paid off and then start talking about building a house on that land okay i guess we just um i would just feel like you know in in the next three to four years like if we sold our house it would it would take a lot of risk out of everything if you want to sell it sell it okay you don't need me to do that okay but but right but you got to live somewhere and you have a 900 house payment on a house that's going up in value while you're pulling off all these other tricks

and you're abandoning both of those good things to go ahead and get the land paid off that's what i wouldn't do okay but you can do whatever you want to it's obvious you know you make a lot of money you're doing great none of these things are in the stupid column it's just a matter of which one's going to be the fastest most expedient but i mean you priced rent in nashville right yeah we we uh in the area that we're looking um for the same size house would be about 2,500 bucks a month yeah and i make about 20,500 a month. And I make about $20,000 a month. I know. What you make a month is the static piece of information in either one of these scenarios.

But the two things that we're comparing against is $900 a month that goes up in value, or $2,500 a month in the middle of the table on fire. Yeah. Y'all just want out of debt is your motivation mark for asking the question because you guys just want to be pay everything off and it just feels better and then you're

renting like is that what you're is that what you guys are feeling both of you i guess it just feels more simple and it it just because because um i i know that that like you you say that the housing prices are supposed to go up, but there's a chance also that they could go down, and I just feel like... If you're going to sell, you want to sell now. I think you're making a mistake because you really do think house prices are going to go down, and I think you're wrong. Especially in Nashville, Mark.

Right. I think you're wrong. Yeah. I think you've been hanging out with the wrong people at the bar. Oh, my gosh. And they're all talking... Maybe. I don't know. No, they're wrong. Yeah. I think you've been hanging out with the wrong people at the bar. Oh, my gosh. And they're all talking trash. I don't know. No, they're all talking trash.

No, I want to hear Mark. Let's hear Mark. Your friends are all talking trash. I want to hear Mark, which you have to say. I really do, because I hear the same thing. So go. For our specific scenario, you know, in the next three, four years, it's like how much our house is really going to go up

and is that worth the risk of keeping it for that long? What's causing you, Mark, to think that, what's causing you, Mark, to think that your house price is going to go down here in Nashville?

Why, why do you think that? I don't know that it's going to go down, but I don't know that the amount that it'll go up. But why? Why are you coming to these conclusions? Give me like data. Give me a reason. Because the price of our houses has more than doubled in the past six years. And I just, I don't see that amount of increase or the percentage of increase. I think it's,

I mean, it may increase, but i don't know if that increase over three to four years is going to be worse the risk of us keeping the house versus being out of debt the risk of the debt on the land yeah like say well the the debt on our our house and the land like if say if something happened to my job or something in the next three to four years, it would be pretty, I don't know. You could sell either one or both of these properties. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I just worry about if the demand will still, if there's still going to be the

demand. At the core of all of this back and forth in your verbal is you really don't, you are really worried that house prices are going to go down. You really do believe there's a high probability they're going to go down, and that's at the core of your question, and that's why I think you're wrong. Okay? Now, you can do what you want to do. There's no real downside except a little bit of lost money on you selling your house today.

But so sell it today and go pay off your land and go rent but then go back and look when you finish this transaction three years from now and see what that house that you sold did and then we can determine if i was right or not but um you know and mark let me say this though because the marketing the market is softening it is making people be like oh wow so yes houses are going back to what they actually are valued at and what appraisal is coming in at not some bidding war yes versus in nashville we all knew this like three months ago i mean six nine months ago someone here at the office they got 56 offers over a weekend like and it was like 200 over asking probably just you hear the craziest stories

you heard the craziest stories you're not going to have that anymore so i think that's going to but that doesn't mean that the value of your home is going to tank because no supply is not going to catch up with demands here in the near future and i think that and i honestly do think that there are still these areas around the country we talked about this last segment. Assurance has 25,000 employees in downtown Nashville. Amazon has 25,000 employees in downtown Nashville. And the healthcare industry in Nashville, too. That's just two companies. You can't bag a house in Nashville right now because these huge corporations have moved in here and made it their headquarters. Okay?

And they're moving out of New York. They're moving out of California. And they're moving in here and setting up shop because we're a tax-free income but again if you were houston mark if you were i mean another place maybe we could have you know another you're not in a market that's going to crash dude now again if you want to do this the only thing you've lost is whatever you didn't make on your house and so it's not a huge like nothing here in the stupid column but what i what i want to teach you and people listening is when you make decisions based on feelings instead of real data on negative feelings fear it almost never leads to good financial consequences

and so at the core of your concern at the core of your question is a false assumption that real estate in nashville tennessee is going to go down in the next two years it's not it's not if it does call me and i'll buy your house it's not okay Okay? Seriously. But now, if you just want the peace of mind. Go to the bar that Mark is hanging out with and tell all the friends I was wrong. I'll buy y'all. No, I'm not buying everybody in the bar's house. I'm not buying around.

I'm just buying his. But it's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. Okay? So, you know, you're okay. You're okay. But if you want to sell it, it's also okay. You're not dumb for being a hundred percent debt free. You're not dumb, but I just don't

want you to make decisions based on fear and, andverbs 4, 25, 26. let your eyes look straight ahead fix your gaze directly before you give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways ross perot said the most successful people in the world aren't usually the brightest. They are the ones who persevere. Stop. Unbelievable. You guys are so bad. I have all these charts and graphs for the real estate event for tomorrow night. We were going through the rehearsal stuff this morning. I said, this is just like Ross Perot.

And she said, you mean Bob Ross? No, no. What was it you said? I said, yeah. I was like, well, all your graphs. Dave got so many graphs for this event. And he was like, I know. I'm like Ross Perot.

You probably don't even know who he is. I was like, yes, I watched him all the time on PBS, painting his hair. And everyone was like, that's Bob Ross. Poor Bob Ross. He just got insulted being called Ross Perot. So we get a Ross Perot quote. A freaking quote from Ross Perot.

Well, these guys in the booth did that. They're unbelievable. They're messing with you. The most successful people in the world aren't usually the brightest. I heard this story right before the show. I couldn't resist. Whatever. Whatever.

Jesus. That is awesome. Jesus. I thought charts, art, Bob. So, Rachel, a little history lesson. I know who Ross art, Bob. So, Rachel, a little history lesson. I know who was. I know. Perot was running against Bush, and he would always get up with these parts.

He was running as an independent, and he actually caused Bush to get beat. Okay? He took his votes, and he would get up there, and he'd go, and he would do this whole thing, and this horrible nasal voice, and it was just running for president, And he always had charts and graphs. He was not a painter. I know. No, you don't.

You're a child. I know politics. I do. I know the history in like the 80s and 90s of politics. Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. Ross Perot, the painter. There we go.

Hey, by the way, folks, we are doing that real estate reality check tomorrow night. It is a live stream. It's free. We're doing four building wealth events in the fall in your cities, and that includes Phoenix, Arizona, which I just got an email at the break sold out. Phoenix is sold out. So those of you didn't get your tickets for phoenix we'll catch you next time um and you know be ready be watching be listening so sold out sold out and uh completely sold out maybe we'll talk them into opening up

another night or something but it's gone and uh sacramento is almost sold out um i can't think of the other cities off the top of my head, but they're all right on the verge of selling out for the fall here. You need to go ahead and get those tickets. Those are not free. The event tomorrow night, you go to RamseySolutions.com and register for the real estate reality check. It's completely free.

It's live streamed. Okay, Marco is with us in L.A. Hey, Marco, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you doing, man? What an honor. Seriously, how are you guys? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help you? All right. So, Dave, my question today for you is, so I'm 21 years old. I am on, I'm going back to school in the fall, and I've got two years down under my belt. I was a little, I was out of school for a little over a year, just trying to decide what I wanted to do.

Did some internships, lived in Florida for a little bit, came back. So basically, going back to school to finish my undergrad in business, decided I want to do that, kind of build a little bit of a career out of it. And also, my end goal is to go back to get my master's in theology. So being a pastor at Planet Church would be definitely, you know, what truly I believe God has called me to do. But here is my question. So I'm a first gen, so going back to college is a huge, huge deal. My parents are supportive in everything that I've done. But here's the thing. Like I said, my parents are, or I'm a first-gen, so that makes my parents South American immigrants.

And so the financial decisions that they've made when they first came here weren't always the best. I grew up in, you know, we've had to suffer, we've had to sacrifice a lot, but we're not where we used to be, and I know we're headed to a better place. With that being said, that's kind of wired me to think 10 years ahead. So I'm enrolled at a school, Biola University here in L.A., and I've gotten the final numbers of how much it's going to cost me. How much? It's money that I –

How much? It's $13,600 for one semester. That's a little high. It's very high, and that's one semester. So that's just fall of 2022, and so I'm not even sure what spring of 2022 is going to look like. I'm not mad at Viola, but you need to go somewhere you can afford. You don't have any money, right?

Absolutely. Wrong school. I'm not sure if it's worth, I'm not sure if it's worth taking out the amount, you know, I'll be after two years of college, I'll be maybe in 40, 50 K in debt. And that's maybe like a base pay of a business degree, uh, you know, coming fresh out of college. Uh, that's maybe like the base pay of a salary. So I'm not sure if it's worth being the same amount of debt but the same amount of income i'll be making in a year no it's not not when you could have gotten the degree cheaper and worked your way through and had no debt right you just chose the wrong school you chose a school you can't afford i haven't i mean i haven't taken

out any loans yet good i haven't made any payments. Good. So change schools. So, okay. If Viola won't give you scholarships, and they probably won't, they may not, if you qualify for scholarships based on the immigrant status of your parents or something like that, that'd be awesome. But, dude, California has free community college. Right, yeah. I mean, I'm currently doing some classes online for the summer right now community college. Right, yeah. I mean, I'm currently doing some classes online for the summer right now

just to kind of get back into the rhythm of doing school again. But, yeah. If I were in your shoes, I would work 50 to 60 hours a week and I would go to a school I could afford and pay cash for. Right. I did that, by the way.

And get all your prereqs done marco if you can at at a community college that's free in california and then seeing okay what trans what credits transfer and maybe you just spend two semesters at a different university versus two years if you want a diploma from a different university then you can do that if the credits transfer go see the guidance counselor at viola and tell them you're getting ready to withdraw if you can't figure out some scholarships and we've got the immigrant status of your parents on your side we've got the fact that you're an adult student coming back on your side there's a lot of different programs out there for all kinds of people and see if they won't help belly

up and help you here if they cut that in half you can afford to pay cash for it and work your butt off if your ultimate goal too is to get a degree in business and theology, well, eventually theology, what's causing you not just to go down? Is that just like a far off dream in the way future? Or is that something that you could just pursue now and skip the business degree if that's what you want? Well, you know, I've thought a lot about it. I've talked to pastors of mine i've talked to you know financial advisors that are also friends of mine and everything and you know they told me

i'd love to be able to build an income outside of the church um to be able to have something uh more so kind of like a either whether that be a passive income or something i can do so i don't have to take a salary from the church that would would be a goal, of course. Not always like that, but just to do things a little bit differently. Yeah, I hear that. Very cool. What I want you to do is I want you to look at a lot of hard work, look at some scholarships, and look at affordability of where you're going to school

and go get your degree in a way that you can pay cash for it between those three things. And even if that means pausing another semester. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. And even if it means because there's no magic to Viola, okay? I mean, I'm not mad at them. I'll hire you if you graduated from there, if you meet the other things on our hiring process. But where you went to school, we have 1,200 employees, 1 1200 employees 1200 team members we have never in the

history of this company we've hired 2000 something over the years okay never in the history of this company we hired someone because of where they went to school and you and a lot of small business owners across america where people are working like almost all companies so a majority where you went to school they care did you learn something while you were there. And so don't tell me where you went to school and act like that qualifies you to be something. That's just prestige throwing it around. And prestige will buy you nothing in this world. And very small industries and very small sectors of different parts.

Well, I mean, if you can find that 1% of people that are so snobby that they won't hire you unless you went to a certain school, that's fine. But it's 1, 1.5% of the jobs out there. That's what I'm saying, though. Like, it's majority of people out there don't care where you went. Yeah. I care, can you hustle and grind? I heard that you learned something.

Can you pull those tools out of your belt and kill something and drag it home? That's what I want to know. As an employer, that's what I'm looking for. And so, cool stuff. You're a good man, Marco. Good luck to you, and congrats on everything. You're doing an incredible job. Well done. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you. Before you know it,

in the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz, co-host on with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.