The Ramsey Show - App - Decide What You Need Instead of What You Want (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

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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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. Thank you for joining us. It's all about you. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. Phil starts off this hour in Des Moines, Iowa. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Phil. How are you? Yeah, I'm pretty good, Dave. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? Love it. I've been listening to you about a year and a half. Really appreciate what you're doing here and your whole philosophy for everything for how to structure your life. Me and my wife, we're just finishing up maybe step three.

We're coming down the home stretch. And we need your advice on how to proceed with steps four to seven, which we've put on hold the last couple of years to get through the first three baby steps. That's correct. That's what you should do. Yeah, there we go. So we don't want to spread ourselves too thin between our goals. We want to accomplish what we want to do, but just get focused.

So that's the reason for my call, and I can just kind of rattle through what we're looking to do here. Well, baby step four is next because while you're doing four, five, and six simultaneously, the most important is four the next is five and five's weird because it's your situation that changes dramatically which is kids college and then whatever we can find above those two we throw at the house pay off the house at baby step six so baby step four is 15 of your income going into retirement any issue with that?

No, not at all. I was just wondering if we should do that first versus funding the kids 529. I would like to do something simultaneously. Yeah. I don't know that you have to fully fund 529. I'm going to put 15% of your income. What's your household income? Right now, our take-home pays about $8,000 a month. Good.

Why do you owe? And what do you owe on your home? Right now we owe about $180. Good. You've got a perfect situation. It's a case study. And so 15% of your income going into retirement, no more, no less. Matching 401Ks that are Roth are your first choice.

Matching 401Ks are your second choice that aren't Roth. Then start doing Roth IRAs after that if you don't have matches and whatever you need to do, whatever combination of all that to get to 15%, but no more, of your household income. So household income, gross times.15, then load your 401ks and stuff until you get up to that number. Now, once you've done that. Yeah, I wonder if we should allocate a bit differently.

I'm coming up to 50 years old. I got about $500,000 in my retirement. My wife has just started working professionally, so she's kind of starting from ground zero for her retirement funds. I'm just wondering if we should allocate some of my money to her... No, it's household income. I don't care whose name it goes into. Right. It doesn't matter. If it all goes into your name, it all goes into her name in the retirement. Wherever the best retirement plan is, the best place to get the match, the best place with the options, the choices, and that kind of thing is where you're going to go. I don't care whose name it's in because in a divorce you get each other's stuff anyway. At death you get each other's stuff anyway.

So it doesn't matter. It's all our stuff. Just treat it as a whole. Yeah, it's our stuff. 0.15 times your household income. Then do what you can towards kids' college. How old are the kids? Five and two.

And in one of the 529s, we have about $5,000. The other one, we just have about $500 in the other one. So you can start doing a couple hundred bucks a month or something per kid added to that, and everything above that, start throwing it towards the house, or something like that is kind of the way the thing is laid out. You could get a little more nuanced and detailed on what you want to do with college above your 15%. The more you put into college, the less you're going to put on the house, obviously, because that's the tradeoff.

But at the end of the day, we're going to get the house paid for. Then we're going to come back and slam 529s, completely max out every possible retirement. But that's all in Baby Step 7, which is where you just, you know, that's where you build wealth. That's where you become a millionaire plus. And, you know, your outrageous giving really kicks into overdrive at that point, too. Your giving all along, but outrageous giving really kicks in at Baby Step 7. Good question, ma'am. Thanks for joining us.

Jennifer is with us in St. Louis. Hi, Jennifer. Hey, Dan. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question on term life insurance. I hear you talk about it often.

I took the plunge, and I'm ready to cancel my whole life. So I have set up, but I've not yet signed the paperwork for a 20-year term for about 10 times the amount I make. My question is this, though. My husband and I are currently going through a divorce. We will both have the kids. So if something happens to me um my husband would take the children um so my question is and i'm on baby step two i have about 14 000 left in debt and i'll be

that pre in august of next year do i really need some life insurance um and that's to take care of your family you know dual home incomes so if you don't need to if you don't need to leave anything for your to your children for them to be okay financially then technically you don't need to leave anything to your children for them to be okay financially, then technically you don't need life insurance. If you want to leave some in addition to counting on him, I would leave it into a trust, not into his name or their name. I would leave it into a family trust, and you can name your parents as the trustee to manage the money for the good of the kids.

And so if he became unreliable financially as a dad, then you've got money for them to go to college that you've left into this trust, or you've got money for their medical care if they had an extreme situation that you've left into this trust. And so what do you make a year? I make about $56 a year. $56? Okay. And how old are you? I am 34.

Okay. Are you in good health? I am, yes. Do you smoke? I do. Are you overweight? No. Okay.

Smoking's double on the term life. Yes. That doubles the cost. And so, you know, you might, for instance, you could price out and see what, like a couple of hundred thousand and leave that into a trust is. But smoking and weight are your biggest things that drive cost of life insurance up other than an extreme illness like a cancer, heart attack or something like that. But those are the things that drive it up, keep you from getting premium. And so, you know, you can, but, you know, $300,000, it's going to cost you the cost of a dadgum pizza. I mean, even with being a smoker, it's not going to be that outrageous. So jump on ZanderInsurance.com and pull some quotes up and look at it.

Put in that you're a smoker if they give you the option to do that. If they don't, take the rate that they give you and double it because that's about what it's going to do. And then you can decide, okay, do I want to leave the kids something in case he becomes financially unreliable? And it could be that he's just never had a very good career. It's not that he's like a bad guy or going to beat the kids. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying financially, is he going to be able to take care of their future? And that was what you would use life insurance for in any setting,

but certainly in this setting. But you don't leave it to him or them. You leave it to them in a trust with someone else in your family or friend or whatever that you trust to handle your trust. They're called the trustee, obviously. Hey, thank you for calling in. We appreciate you listening in St. Louis, Jennifer. Folks, this is Common Sense for your dollars and cents.

It's called The Dave Ramsey Show. There's about 15 million of you hanging out out there between podcast and radio. We appreciate you. Thanks for being there If you do this one simple thing that we all do, you are literally at risk of being hacked and someone stealing what you've worked so hard for. Do you ever use public Wi-Fi? I'm talking about getting online at a coffee shop, a store, the airport, or even at home. Hackers can use a simple $100 device to mimic Wi-Fi, and with just a little bit of skills,

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That's 888-227-3223. You jump in and we'll help you get your life changed. It's what we do. Jill is with us in Houston. Hi, Jill. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I really need your advice. This is fabulous. Sure. How can I help? Okay.

I'm recently divorced. I have two high school boys. I have a quadro fund that I'm trying to decide if I should liquidate to pay off debt and put it towards my mortgage or if I should just roll that quadro into an IRA and deal with the debt on my own. How much debt do you have? And I just started Financial Peace University. How much debt do you have?

The debt is $40,000, and the mortgage is $179,000. That's the only debt? Okay. You have $40,000 plus a $179,000 mortgage. What's your income? $85,000 and possibly a bonus, but that's not guaranteed. Okay. That could take me up to $100,000, but I just bank on $85,000.

How long have you been doing this job? Four and a half years. How many times have you not gotten a bonus? Twice. Okay, zero bonus twice and got a $15,000 bonus twice. Well, let's say the last two years I did get it, so I'm hoping that trend will continue. Okay. Is that based on the company or your performance?

The company because it's an oil gas industry, so the slump kind of decides. Gotcha. Okay. All right. What kind of debt is the $40,000? $20,000 car loan and $20,000 credit card. Okay. And how much is in the quadro?

$167,000. $167,000. Okay. Cool. And I did take off time for the boys and their little, so my retirement in my 401K is about $111,000. Okay. Good. Well, you're fine on that.

You're tracking okay. We just need to get the debt cleared up so that you've got a little more breathing room to start investing again yourself. I'm going to try to leave it alone. You don't have, I mean, if I remember correctly, there's no penalty for cashing it, but there is certainly taxes. Is that what you've understood? Correct.

Yes. No penalty because it's still in the quadro i haven't rolled it over yet right and but you would have taxes on it if you roll it obviously you put it into a penalty situation then right um but that that's not the case today hey 167 uh i'm gonna leave it sit there um you know you can leave it there for a little while right yes and i could take partial out it doesn't have to be the full amount oh i know yeah i knew that i mean we could take out enough just to pay off the 40 which is all we would do plus taxes so you'd have to take about 60 out of and have about 100 left give or take yeah um here's why

i'm gonna let it sit there without rolling it so that you can get to it if you have to but with this in mind then let's let's get on a tight budget let's get game on let's buckle the chin strap on the helmet right let's lean into this and let's pay the 40 000 off so you don't have to mess with it when you do that then roll it to an ira but if you look up and two years later you're still not doing all this and you're still struggling, but you shouldn't be. You make enough to pay 40 off. Yeah, I can. And I just started the Financial Peace University,

so I'll get even more disciplined. Yeah, so let's say this. By this time next year, if you don't feel very confident you're on your way to finishing this off, it's going to probably take you 18 months to two years to do it okay but with a couple kids a single mom doing this at 85 give or take plus 15 if this time next year you make it relook the decision and if you feel stuck still this time next year yeah take some of that money and pay this debt off but i think you're going to be so far along on paying it off that and so confident that you're going to be able to knock it out without touching it that then you'll make the decision to roll it okay so you see what i'm doing

yes yeah but i wouldn't roll that long well whatever i mean it doesn't matter whatever however fast you want to do it but but but the point being let's get let's get your uh confidence in the numbers and in the traction and the progress that you're having towards the debt reduction before we make the decision to either cash it or roll it that sounds good and if that's if that's eight months if that's 12 months it's not a magic number but i'm looking for enough you got your feet under you long enough that you go i can do this race yes that's all i, it's not a magic number, but I'm looking for enough. You got your feet under you long enough that you go, I can do this race. Yes. That's all I want here.

Hey, you're on target. You're going to do a whole lot better than you thought. You're rocking it. I mean, you're $85,000 a year. You got control. You're on target. You know what you're doing. You're making your money behave.

I mean, you're going to win, aren't you? I am. I'm really excited about just being smart with my money and getting debt-free eventually. It's my goal. Soon. We're excited for you. We're proud for you. Good job.

Well done. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Greg is on Facebook. He says, Dave, if I got a term life insurance policy, what happens at the end of the term? Does coverage cease? Yes. You can re-up it, but it's hugely expensive and ridiculous. You're better off to buy a new term policy if you're insurable at that time.

Well, does that not mean I don't have insurance? Could. That's why we tell you to buy a 15- to 20-year level term. Let's say you're 30 years old and you buy a 20-year-level term policy, and you have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. 20 years later, you have a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old. They should be grown and gone. So you don't have kids to worry about if you die.

20 years later, your house will be paid for, because we tell you never to take out more than a 15-year fixed-rate loan. And even if you do that, you ought to pay it off early using the baby steps. Twenty years later, you will have been investing in your 401K, getting the match in your Roth IRA, in good growth stock mutual funds, and you'll probably have $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 if you're typical. You might have more. So let's get this straight. You've got $700,000. You800,000 if you're typical. You might have more. So let's get this straight. You got $700,000.

You're in your 50s. The kids are grown and gone. The house is paid for, and you die without life insurance. You think she's okay? I think she's okay. By doing financial planning and becoming debt-free, you have become self-insured. You've set yourself in a position that your wife is okay without you having life insurance.

The only life insurance, only need that anyone has for life insurance for their whole life is to make sure they pay their agent a commission. And I really, that's not one of my financial goals. So go to Zander Insurance, Jeff Zander, Zander Insurance, Zanderins.com, and get a quick, easy quote on 15 to 20-year level term. Your rule of thumb is to buy 15 or buy 10 to 12 times your income. So if you make $50,000 a year, you ought to have $500,000 to $600,000 in 20-year level term, 15-year level term. And really, I gauge the difference between the 15 and the 20 is about when the kids are going to leave home. Because I want to make sure that there's money there until they're gone.

Once they're gone, the house will be paid for or almost paid for. And you'll have a good pile of money, and Mama will be okay, and you'll be okay if something happens to Mama. So that's the game plan, to become self-insured by becoming wealthy and debt-free. That way you don't need term insurance forever. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost sharing ministry, a Better Business Bureau accredited organization CHM members share to

pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org Jason and Katie are with us in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Hey, guys, how are you? Doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, we're calling to do our debt-free screen. I love it. Congratulations. How much have you paid off? We've paid off $93,845. Love it. How long did that take? Well, we started this journey 45 months ago. We didn't know about you 45 months ago. We just knew we wanted to be debt-free. But when I started listening to your radio show 18 months ago, we paid off within the the last 18 months, $63,696.

Whoa! I love it. So what's your range of income in the last 45 months? I started off at a household of $51,000 with the two of us, and we were down to zero for a little while, and then now we're at $85,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I am a truck driver.

I haul gas for Marathon. I am a domestic engineer with a side hustle. Love that. Very good. Very good. So what kind of debt was this? $94,000. Well, it was like everybody else. It's all the normal stuff. We had cars, credit cards, medical bills, a small student loan when I went and got my CDL, owed parents money, furniture, and I guess our craziest thing, we actually financed with a golden doodle, which was like $2,700 worth of the dog and everything. Is the dog still alive? No, we actually got rid of it two weeks later because we realized that, well,

we didn't have a conducive living environment because we lived in like a small box of an apartment in Florida. And we ended up getting rid of it and took a huge loss on it. So you're paying payments on a dog you don't have? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You guys are fun. I mean, you made every mess possible.

Wow. A golden doodle for $2,700 and our living conditions aren't conducive. Oh, my gosh. All right, fun. So tell me the story. What happened that got you guys on board? You went, okay, we want to get out of the land of stupid and we want to visit the land of smart. Well, in short, it was basically our biggest why was this.

It was when our daughter was born 19 months ago. You know, after she was born, I knew we had to do something to get out of debt because we wanted to give her the life that she deserves, and we didn't want her to see her parents battle with foreclosure and bankruptcy like I had to do with my parents. I've had to see them go through that and um so that was the biggest why you can't really get rid of those if the living environment isn't conducive yeah and and just excuse me just to backpedal just a little bit further than that um even before that uh before my you know i was living in florida and

i was working for my stepfather at the time. And, you know, unfortunately, he ended up taking his own life due to severe money issues. And, you know, I ended up finding him. It was a pretty bad situation. And just between that, you know, seeing what my parents had to go through. So you got two big wake-up calls, a new baby and a suicide, man. I mean, wow. Yeah, it was bad so that's 18 months

ago that's when it lit you up so what did you guys do when you got lit up now the baby gives you the motivation we're gonna do this we're getting out of this mess and 63 000 of the 90 goes in 18 months i mean you guys went hard then didn't you yeah, really all I had to, all it really took was for us to look in our daughter's eyes. I mean, that was really the biggest thing. And I knew we had to do something because my wife, she wants her little girl to go to Catholic school, the same school she went to when she grows up. And obviously that's not cheap. And I told her it wouldn't be nice just to pay for this in cash rather than make payments and be stuck with other payments owing other people.

And she was like, yeah. And so that ultimately was the biggest sell for her. So what did you do? Tell people what the main thing you've got to do if you want to pay off $63,018 minus making $85,000. Definitely a lot of sacrifice. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And, you know, really coupled with that is you've got to have that huge why. Just like you always, you know, talk about on the show, Dave,

you've got to have that huge why, that come-to-Jesus moment. What did you say? The other thing really is you've got to come to reality with the numbers and set that budget. When we listed the amount of debt we had, the types of debt, it was just amazing just how much we had when we actually listed it on paper. And you can't get where you want to be if you don't already know where you're at. So you got to really come to reality with those numbers. What did you sell? Well, really the biggest thing that we had to sell after we bought it, like I said, was that

dang dog, that golden doodle. Because I know you make the joke on the show all the time, you know, sell everything to the point where the dog thinks it's next. Well, literally, the dog was gone. Yeah, that's funny. That was not a joke. Do you sell any cars? Well, yeah. Well, see, really long story short on that, before I met my wife, I financed a 2009 Mustang GT.

Oh. Yeah, that was kind of cool at the time, but stupid now thinking back on it. Had an impulse buy moment three years later, got a 2013 Mustang GT. Now when my wife and I are together, we got rid of that to try to save money. And this is how you always say you can't outsmart stupid. Well, I thought I could do that by trading in that Mustang for a pickup truck because I thought I could save money each month on our payment. Well, I did, but ultimately put myself a little further in debt in the long run,

so that was really dumb. So, yeah, I had three new cars, and when we figured out our daughter was going to be born, we ended up doing our last rollover. We got rid of the pickup truck and got two pre-owned cars rolled over the negative equity among those, which was the Ford Fusion and the Ford Focus. And anyway, to make a long story short, we paid those off, and we were done with that cycle because I realized how stupid that is. Wow. Good for you guys. This is fun. You guys got a bright future. How old are you?

I am 31. I am almost 31. All right. Good for you. How's it feel not only to get control, which is the biggest thing that happened with you guys, because you were just out of control on every front. I mean, cars and golden doodles and everything. And then not only did you get control, but then you not only got control,

but you wrestled it all the way to the ground and got out of debt. How does that feel? It feels, it just feels liberating. It just feels really, just it feels really good. I mean, when we made our last payment, which was on her car, I paid off my car literally this past January this year, which it had only like $5,000 and some odd dollars left. I had some money, and, you know, we had some money,

and I'm like, let's just knock this out. And then I got a bonus and then our tax refund. And we had about, you know, we kind of did things a little goofy, but we had $10,000 in savings that we had just sitting there, and we didn't want to touch it because, obviously, with our baby. I mean, to make a long story short, I said, you know, my wife and I came to an agreement. We said, listen, instead of fronting this money up front now, let's wait until we get to the last part of our debt snowball and, you know, use the $10,000 then because then we know we're out of debt.

We owe nobody anything, and then, obviously, we can rebuild our emergency fund. So that's our last car payment, which was her car. We paid our largest payment. It was $10,847.14. And we were done with it in February. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you.

We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, for you. We want that to be the next chapter in your story, that you become millionaires and outrageously generous along the way, and I think you're on your way. Jason and Katie, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 94,000 paid off, 63 of which in the last 18 months. Great story. $51,000 income down to zero, back up to 85 along the journey. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah. There you go. Wow. Just like that. Boom.

Doesn't get any better. Man. You know, it's amazing. These stories, there's always a moment in a story it's almost like you're watching a movie where there's that moment and the music changes you know where people's lives hit that point and they go uh-uh no more no more i'm done i'm done i've had it i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Do you hear those?

I always hear that. It's like you come right over the top of that story arc in every one of these stories. It's really there. They're heroes, man. Heroes always say it. They always say at some point in the story, I've had it. I'm not living like this. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 13, 20.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm. You become who you think or hang around with, don't you? Tennessee Williams said, Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose. Be careful who you hang around with. You become them. Charles is in Denver.

Hey, Charles, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? So I'm 22. I'm currently a student. I'm going to enter into a career as an air traffic controller in roughly more than the next six months.

Great. So thank you. Um, so my question was when I'm really starting out in a career, what's, should I be investing? Like once I begin, like once I start the job, should that be my focus or should I just start piling up cash or a house? Um, I'd rather not take out a mortgage. So my plan was to kind of rent for a little while and then buy a house. Okay. Do you have any debt? I have no debt. Good.

That's a great first step. The first thing after that you would do is make sure you have your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. And that's not college student expenses. That's out there doing the adult job expenses. Okay. So what's it take me to operate my life times about six? And that's just your rainy day fund. And then the next thing we tell folks to do is that's baby step three, we call it. Baby step three B is save up a down payment for a house,

and baby step four is 15% of your income going into retirement. Now, if you're just fresh out of school and you're making good money as an air traffic controller, which you will be, it should be fairly easy to save 15% of your income and still be very aggressive on saving towards your house as a single guy who's used to living like a college student. Okay. You don't have some big lifestyle need that you've developed yet, you know? It's not like you're like...

Yeah, I try to avoid that. You know, you're used to living like a college student, so just keep living like that, and you ought to be able to pile up some serious money towards getting a house over just a couple of years. Meanwhile, starting your 401K and getting a match and getting some good mutual funds, getting in the Roth 401K, getting in the Roth TSP, whatever's available to you there. And, you know, also your Roth IRAs as well, but all in good mutual funds with long track records. And if you start that at 23 years old, you will be wealthy. It's just a matter of when. And, of course, the more aggressively you save, the faster you'll be wealthy, the's just a matter of when. And of course, the more aggressively you

save, the faster you'll be wealthy, the more aggressively you save for a down payment. But the two primary pieces of millionaire status as we study millionaires is that they use their 401ks, their retirement plans, to build wealth with mutual funds, and they get their house paid off. Those two things are the first two things that millionaires do that lead them to millionaire status. And that's your first level of wealth is millionaire status. And moving beyond that, there'll be some strategies and some things that might change. But, you know, to getting to that first level, and, you know, I'll give you my prediction. I think you'll be there in about a decade just listening to you,

depending on if you decide to marry someone who's going to spend all the money. But if you don't do that, if you get somebody of like mind to you and you keep your eye on the ball, you keep focused, and you live a good life but a frugal life, and you invest, invest, invest, and pay off your house, pay off your house, pay off your house, you're going to be wealthy, and you're going to be wealthy relatively quickly. So well done, Charles. Well done.

Rob is in New York City. Hey, Rob, how are you? Hey, good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have a career question for you. I'm currently a teacher, and i'm looking to get into physical

education which is really my passion and was the teaching job was meant to be a bridge to that um i've i've read 48 days the work i love i've read star and they all lead to the same thing the other part of this though is like i'm also interested in educational leadership and um eventually i could see myself doing that, which would be, you know, increase my salary as well. And I'm just a little hesitant because of family time, and it keeps coming back to phys ed because that's really my passion. So I don't want to make a lateral salary move.

I've just been throwing this around for a while. Okay. So what are our two choices right now? So really I'm looking either to get into phys ed or to go back to school and get the educational leadership, which would increase my salary but decrease family time, which is a big thing for me. But then I'm not going into my passion either. So I'm very interested, and I can see myself going into leadership in the future.

It's just, you know, it's tough right now. So very interested. Are you very interested because of the money or very interested because you have a passion for leadership? So there's both. They're both there. The money is nice, but I'm also interested in leadership. It's definitely something I could see myself doing down the road.

How old are you? Right now I'm 31. Okay, so when you're 41 or 51, what do you want to be doing? Definitely leadership. Then what's the path to get there? I would just have to go back to school and get that degree and then get into it yeah i'm just you know the family time is the thing for me too but and but uh you know and also phys ed is a big it is also a passion of mine but it's a lateral salary move and i'm also

a little more at risk it's a salary lateral salary move but more importantly than that when you're 51 you don't see yourself doing that right that's true and so it's not a lateral salary move, but more importantly than that, when you're 51, you don't see yourself doing that. Right, that's true. And so it's not a lateral salary move. It's your old dream. Your new dream is leadership. Okay. And then I guess what can help me be more efficient with family time if I was to go into that?

How long will it take you to get your degree? It'll take me probably a year and a half, two years. Okay. And, you know, I think the thing, we've done a lot of things as we've grown this business over the years, and our children were never abused in the process, but we've worked our butts off, you know, to get things done, to be able to hit our goals.

And none of our children will tell you that they lost out. And so one thing I would do is prioritize important dates, and that's things like birthdays or proms or hockey tournaments or whatever. I coached my son's hockey team while I was busy as crud here, and I never missed a hockey tournament okay except one when they moved it but um but you know other than that and i never missed a prom date uh in terms of the you know boys coming to pick up the girls and we take pictures and all that or girls going to pick up boys or whatever works and that's not right but anyway the however the whole you know we were there for the important dates birthdays that kind of stuff we scheduled around those on whatever we were doing. The second thing is we made it a point to be there while we were there.

Too many times people call, oh, I need time with family, and they're sitting in front of the stupid television. So turn off your television. Unplug your television when you're home with your family. And, you know, actually engage. So when you're studying, study. When you're with family, be with family. People, you know, too many times we've got our mind on the other thing than the one thing

we're with. So be focused and focused in on what you're doing right then. And, you know, sometimes people call that quality time. And, you know, it's quantity and quality time. But be present wherever you are. Be and quality time but be present wherever you are be there be in the present wherever you are and i think your kids will be fine and your family will be fine over a year and a half because you're living out a goal and you're showing them what it takes to go and hit a goal and you know the power of education i'm going back to get my

degree to move into leadership and this is something something I've wanted to do. And they'll look back and go, I remember that time my dad went back to school and got his master's so he could move into leadership. And, you know, you're setting a precedent for them on there's a price to be paid for something that's worth doing. And I mean, that might mean you don't you're not there for every dinner and you might not be able to make them eat their broccoli every night, you know? But that's so what? You work around that.

You work with it. And it's only a year and a half. It's not throughout their entire childhood. It's not like you work 100 hours a week through their whole childhood. It's a year and a half. So you pay a price, and the family just has to be on board with you. Your wife has to be on board with you and be part of the goal and be in agreement with the goal. And then you'll be fine.

You'll be just fine. It's a temporary thing. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We will 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 guys, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer

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