The Ramsey Show - App - Delayed Gratification Is a Key Ingredient to Building Wealth

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Leon is with us in San Francisco. Hi, Leon. How are you? Hi, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So I've been fortunate enough to amass some money over the years through just working and some very nicely timed company acquisitions. And now I would like to make one of my childhood dreams come true. I like to buy a supercar that's worth about $250,000. Cool. Which car? Specifically the Lamborghini Huracan, a used one.

That's a beast. Yeah, used one would be $250,000. You're right. New is what, $450,000? Yeah. I think so, yeah. Yeah, okay. Cool. So250,000. You're right. New is what, $450,000? I think so, yeah. Yeah, okay. Cool.

So what year model would that be? Well, looking on some of these websites, anywhere from a 2015 to a 2017, 2018. Okay, so a 10-year-old has lost $200,000 in value. Yeah. Yes. That's about right. Okay. Yeah. And what's your net worth? You sound like you're a bazillionaire or something. My net worth, so I can break this down. I have

a net worth if you include the mortgage, about $3.66 million. Okay. And what do you make in a year? I make about $300,000 a year, which doesn't include a 30% bonus. It's a single income. I am married with a one-year-old child, but my wife is a stay-at-home mom. And how old are you? I'm 39 and she is 41. Okay. All right. You can afford the car if you want it. The thing is, here's how I look at these. Here's how I decide this and I answer questions on this show like, what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? That's how I answer questions, okay?

You said you're how old? 39. Okay, good. Well, you've done really well. Congratulations. Thank you. There's a couple of rules of thumb. Generally speaking, you do not want to own all the things you have with motors or wheels to be more than about half your annual income.

Now, your income is a little wacky because you've made big chunks of money doing a few deals here or there that don't really include your 300 so this violates that you know what i'm saying it's more than half your annual income so it that's that's one rule i look at it's not a hard and fast rule the second thing is i the main thing i do today if sharon and i are doing something that feels kind of like a weird large purchase that strangely or even a large amount of money we're giving away in generosity the same thing we just we use the burn the money in the middle of the floor thing if i took this much money and set fire to it, does my life change? If the answer is yes, then it's too expensive. I see. I think you could lose 8% of your net worth, 250 as a

percentage of 3.8 million, and probably not miss it. Okay. Because the 250 is going to be worth 150 in 20 minutes you know that i mean we already established 450 turned into 250 right right it's going to go down in value and the bigger it is the faster it's going to go i mean the good news is most of the loss is gone the first 10 years you're going to lose the most of it um and don't get caught up in the illusion it's going to go up in value they're not they're going to go down in value and and let me just tell you the new ones are better they don't make them like they used to thank god i got a 1960 corvette frame up restoration compared to the new corvette it's a piece of crap i mean compared it's a beautiful little antique car but thank God they don't make

them like that anymore. We have like brakes that work and power steering and all kinds of modern conveniences now, you know? And so, um, you know, it's so number one, can I, if I burn the money in the middle of the floor, does it, does it affect my children, my grandchildren, my wife? No, it doesn't. You can, you can do, you can afford You can do it. You can afford the car. I think you can afford the car.

Then the last thing I do, Leon, is I ask myself some contentment questions, particularly about cars because I'm a car nut. If no one ever sees this car and only I see it and enjoy it, do I still want it? For me, if I'm driving that car, the answer is yes, because I don't give a crap what you think. I'm going to enjoy that freaking fine piece of machinery, right? But if you're buying it to impress other people that's a danger sign spiritually agreed agreed leon i i two quick questions uh is there anything you haven't told us that we should know i mean i i do have the mortgage um which is it you know it's in california and it is a sizable mortgage of about $739,000 at 6.74%.

But the house itself is worth about $1.9 million. All right. And then my second question is how much cash do you have total? So out of what I say they're not worth, about $2.1 million is in brokerage and index fund that follows large mid-cap U.S. market. And then about $150K is liquid, mixed between check and savings. About $510,000 in my 401k, about $500K in my wife's 401k. And so that's liquid, and then about 500k in company RSUs, which are investing in approximately one-third every year.

Okay, before we buy toys, we grow up and pay off the mortgage. So you need to pay off the mortgage, too. You've got the money in brokerage to pay it off. You've got the money in brokerage to buy this car, and you're still fine, and you've still got the exact same net worth when we're done with this discussion. So until the car goes down in value, and then it'll go back.

That's what I was wondering. In this current situation, I would say no. I just wouldn't do it personally. I'd want to have the house cleared. Pay off the house. I know, I know, but I don't know. I can't believe I'm actually saying a're a little bit more conservative than you, because I love cars, but when you walk through that,

I personally put myself in the what would I do if I were him, and I don't think I'd spring for that car at that price right now. That's fair. But you laid it out. He can do it. He can afford it, and it's not going to ruin him. That's correct. I mean, if you call me up and you tell me you make $ hundred thousand dollars a year and i dreamed about it since i was a child

kiss my butt you know um i'm gonna and you know i got no money and i'm gonna go get a car loan to buy that no i'm gonna rip you to shreds no that'd be dumb okay for your own sake because i love you but yeah yeah but i mean yeah really that's I honestly, it doesn't make the sale to me because I've had to quit doing that myself. Yeah. I always wanted that since I was a child. That's not justification for spending money you don't have. Wah.

So go make some money, you know? But if you have the money and it's just something you want, then go for it. Yeah. I mean, it's not the end of the world. But that's the trick. Well done. Well done.

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It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Merry Christmas, America. We're glad you're with us. Robert is in New Jersey. Hey, Robert, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I'm calling to talk about your favorite financial instrument, the whole life insurance policies. I have a question about policies that my parents bought years and years ago, and hopefully you can help me figure out what to do with these things. So long story short, me and my family, me and my parents and my brother opened a small business about five or six years ago. When we did, we borrowed money against my parents' whole life insurance policies to help fund the real estate purchase and construction.

It's a dog daycare, boarding and green facility. It opened five years, doing well, profitable, growing. It's in good shape. The first two years, we didn't make any payments on those loans. So the UN know grew as a capitalized the interest then I started making monthly payments on those loans for money that we were making in the business once we became you know fairly profitable so here's my question these loans they there's six total loans

excuse me six total inch policies and my parents took out about 1.4 million dollars and in face value insurance, plus the additional insurance they purchased over the years as they were, I think they made some overpayments in the past, things like that. I have borrowed about $600,000 against the policy. So here's my question. What's the remaining cash value? The remaining, the net cash value is of today is about $200,000,

and the death benefit as of today and all of them combined is about $1.06 million. Okay. My question is, do I bother paying these loans down? And if I do, do I use your snowball effect and go for the lowest balanced loans first, or do I pay them off all evenly because technically they all have the same interest rate. It's basically like one large basket, right? So am I even benefiting from the snowball considering there's no minimum payments on these things, right? I can pay them at any time, any way I want. I could make the payment. I could not let the interest capitalize. You know, you can manage them any way you like so what do i do with them should i pay

him should i not so apparently your parents don't need the actual life insurance um well i mean look they took these out uh thinking hey one day what i'm asking is that if your dad died today your mom's not going to get much money because the loans are repaid from the death benefit. Yeah, correct. The total value. So if you have a face value of 1.4 and you have loans of 600, they currently have $800,000 in actual proceeds would come to your mom if your dad died. Well, there's also an extra $200,000.

They also, over the years, purchased an extra $200,000 of insurance by overpayments. So it's $1.6 million. Paid up additions. Yeah, paid up additions, yeah. So they actually have a million-dollar in-depth benefit. But yet you are right, though, by the way. My parents, though they have an interest in our small business, they haven't come through that.

That's actually my second job. I have another job where I'm a trader. I flip the syndicate market, you know, I trade IPOs. I borrowed money from my parents to seed that as well and gave them a percentage of what I make off of that. So basically my parents had income through me. Do your parents have other wealth? Yes.

How much? How much? So I'm going to be honest, and I don't have total transparency, but I'm going to say all in they probably have assets of about a million and a half dollars. In addition to all this, okay. Yeah. And the income. Is that a million and a half dollars? In addition to all this. Okay. Yeah. So. Yeah. And the income.

Even though they are retired, they have income from two businesses that I run that they have interest in. So they, you're right, without their life insurance, they would still be financially safe. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't think you guys are going to do what I would do because you're so far afield and your parents are so heavily emotionally invested in this process that I don't think there's a snowball's chance that you guys are actually going to do this. But you asked, so I'll tell you.

I owe you that. What would I do? I would cancel the whole life policies completely, cash them out, and end it. I had a funny feeling you'd say that. Yeah, I would just end it. Because your mom is going to be fine. And if they want you to execute a note for $600,000 back to them,

then you would owe them that money because you've reduced the amount they're going to get from the cancellation of the policies by the loan you've taken out. So, you know, they either need to get equity in the business and or more equity in the business. They do have equity. I know, but does that offset the loan? No, you're still paying on the loan. Gotcha. Right? No, you're right. You're right. Well, let me ask you this, just because you definitely understand these instruments better than I do, right? So say I was to cancel these policies today. They're not yours.

You can't. Your parents can cancel them today. Well, you're right. They will put it this way. They basically, I've been managing their finances for them other than some just assets that they own that somebody else has helped them out with because they're both kind of, frankly, you know, they're a little older and both a little bit unwell, say. So they basically ask me what to do with these things and do, you know, they take my advice and trust me. And I don't want to put them in the wrong direction here, you know. Okay. you know, they take my advice and trust me, and I don't want to put them in the wrong direction here, you know? Okay, I got you.

But say that I advise them, say, you should close these things down today, right? Mm-hmm. So they do that. They get out of it what? The net cash value that's left, that $190,000. Exactly. They get a check for that $190,000. Exactly.

And then they have the $600,000 that is owed to them from the start of our business. Correct. And that's it. That's the start of our business. Correct. And, and that's it. That's it. Right. Right. Okay. And they got rid of all the expenses and you're not paying interest on your

own money. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, okay. That'll, that'll make sense.

The only, the only counter I'd have that if you could help convince me here, Dave is, so there is say that they were to pass away soon, unfortunately, right? I mean, my parents, to be frank, they're, you know, they're elderly. There's just over a million dollars of death benefit left over after accounting for the loans, right? No. No? Why? How come?

Because you got $1.4 million in death benefit minus $600. Well, it's a million. Don't forget, it's $1.4 million plus the other $200 in what do they call paid-up additions. Okay. So it's 1.6 minus $8 million. Yeah, all right. Well, I'm on minus six.

Yeah, so it's a million. So it's the statements and the death benefit amount for each one of these things added together is just over a million. So why walk away from that payout for taking, say, 200 years? Well, I mean, if they're terminally ill and got a year to live, if you want to play that gamble on your parents' death game, you can. I'm personally not doing that. And I don't think they are. I don't think they're one year from grave. I may be one year from grave.

I don't know. But, you know, you guys are paying so much in such extreme costs and have for so long on these ridiculous things that the last thing I'm going to do is keep giving these people money. I just couldn't do it. And so, but again, if someone's terminally ill, that's on one of these policies and you think they're, you know, you think they got a one year, as my grandpa said, he said, I'm not buying green bananas. You know, you know, you think we're running on the end of this thing. Then if you want to play that gamble

game against their death, that's called an actuarial table. It's the statistical probability of death versus the game you're playing. And I personally, unless someone is, you know, in hospice or something, I'm not going to fool with that. The other question is, are they okay? Have you got their finances set up in such a way that their mom's going to be okay if dad dies financially without these policies?

I think she is. And then the same question the other way. But, I mean, you do whatever you want to do. That's a different situation. And then the loan you've got back to them for the doggy whatever it was hotel or whatever it was the um if you've got uh siblings and so forth you may have some issues of dividing that up you may owe the end up on them depending on how this will is set up i don't know how the will's done for your sake but wow zero chance he doesn't agreed this is the Ramsey Show. And it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Merry Christmas Hey check out the last chance to grab some life changing books and ideas Better than an ugly tie for people you love Get something that actually matters like Building a Non-Anxious Life by Dr. John Deloney Breaking Free from Broke by George Camel Of course Paycheck to Purpose by my own Ken Coleman sitting here,

my co-host today. Obviously, Total Money Makeover, Baby Steps Millionaires. Those are all on sale. Questions for Human Cards by Deloney. Oh, all of this at RamseySolutions.com slash store. And I bet you, for most of you,

we can still get it to you. So check it out. But you better not wait. You better not wait. All right, Taylor is in Fort Worth. Hey, Taylor, what's up? Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. Sure, how can I help?

So my question is, should I go back to school and pursue my nurse practitioner license? And why would you want to do that? So I'm currently working as a nurse I'm newly married and I make about 75k before taxes my husband makes about 100k before taxes and it's something that I've always considered doing and I just we don't have any kids yet so I kind of feel like maybe it's now or never but my biggest concern is I've watched several of my friends go back to school and then they have had babies or kids in life come up and they have decided to be a stay-at-home mom. And so I'm a little bit nervous to make that decision,

that financial decision to go back to school before having kids. And then I don't want to regret when I have kids still having to work because of that degree. Yeah, well, the answer to that is not what you're concerned about. The answer is pay cash. If you don't go into debt, then there's no regret because then you could, let's just fast forward, let's say that you pay cash, you cash flow your way through this, and on this income, you should be able to do that. And then you get the nurse practitioner degree. You have kiddos. You want to come home for a season.

Then they get to school, and you go, I want to go back. That entire transition is very likely, but there's no regret attached to that, and that extra income is going to be worth the ROI, and it's going to be worth it. So the answer is don't go into debt. Cash flow your way through it. And with your income, you should be able to save up and do that. Right. Yeah, that would be the plan. We actually already have the cash set aside. Oh, well, then what's the regret? Let's say you spend that cash. I mean, is the regret that I spent the cash and now I'm never going back into it? And so now I've just, oh, I burnt

that money. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think it's just sacrifice over the next two years. I mean, if I didn't go back to school we would start our family a little bit sooner um i think probably within the year and going back to school means pushing that off for two years and so i think just kind of struggling with that and if that's right no i'd have babies i would too i was getting ready to say i think that's the school and the school will always be there. Right. You see?

And you already got the cash set aside. I'm going to say the same thing, because I'm thinking if Stacey and I were having that conversation, I would ask you, if I was sitting with you and your husband, I'd go, both of you vote. Write it down. Secret ballot or tell me straightforward. Which is the higher priority? And if you both say kids, then I think it's a no-brainer. Right. And I mean, I know kids are, I mean, we're only 28, and so starting a family at 30 isn't

crazy. So it's just kind of trying to decide if, you know, it makes more sense to go and increase my income before we have kids rather than having them and then trying to, you know, suffer through school and daycare and everything else. School will always be there. Yep. And I'm not trying to, but I'm just going to speak some truth over you. You have no idea when these babies are coming.

So you don't have any control over that. Now, I certainly hope it happens in a time frame that you'd love, but we don't know. Spoken like a guy who adopted two and then had one. Right. And our journey was a long time. I don't wish that on anybody as far as a long period of trying to have babies, but I am saying you don't have any idea what that's going to look like. So you can't hedge your bets on, well, if I go to school, then we have the baby. You just don't know. So I would move forward with the bigger life decision the bigger desire the bigger priority that's what we do then we manage the rest of the decisions against that another way that i've

learned on big stuff whatever the big stuff is that helps me and it helped me to make that's why i spoke so quickly is if i pan back and i say all right i'm now talking to 58-year-old Taylor. Which one would she have wished she had done? Ding, ding, ding, ding. It's real easy. Yeah. I heard it in your voice. Okay. And it's not your friends.

It's not what your friends are doing. I don't give a crap what your friends are doing. I was just listening to you, and you're trying to say, okay, should I go make more money and expand my career and uh therefore i have children later um i but i kind of you know i heard it yeah i want to have them now that's what you know question and and hear from us you've got plenty of money. Yeah, you're fine. You'll be okay. You'll be okay.

Just keep working your baby steps, and then at the appropriate time, you can work on a nurse practitioner, which, by the way, is an incredible, wonderful control. That's a beautiful career field. You're going to make so much money, and you're going to have so much access. You'll have all the work you'll ever want. You'll always have work.

So really good. Devin is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Devin. How are you? Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are y'all doing? Better than we deserve.

How can we help? I just had a quick question. Obviously, that's what I called. So my husband and I actually just finished paying off our debt. Good. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Like you have been a game changer for us.

Um, we are currently saving for our like three to six months and then going to be saving for a down payment. And I needed to know, should this just be going into just like a savings account or like a high yieldyield savings, or should we be putting the money somewhere else? Oh, high-yield savings is fine. Okay, okay. You're going to make a little bit of interest,

but the money you're going to have for your down payment is going to be from the sweat of your brow, not from the interest rate. Okay. Because you're not going to have it in there long enough to make any interest amount to anything no and i didn't think that and that's why i didn't know if it really mattered but um okay okay awesome you know you're the secret sauce to having a down payment not the investment um i mean just go ahead and get what you can get a high yield savings what four or five right now that kind of thing there's nothing wrong with that but i mean five percent of a hundred grand is five thousand dollars and that means if you had a hundred grand in there you'd

have 105 100 versus 105 does not change the house you buy the hundred is what changes the house you buy so the you're the secret sauce that put the hundred in there because you're again interest rates matter a lot more when you're thinking in a long term time horizon mathematically they matter a lot more um and so yeah just just i would just park it in a high yield savings you don't think about it yeah i love it and i love hearing the excitement i love hearing she's winning they just paid off their debt now you got a young couple the american dream is alive and well is what I take from that call. Absolutely. Despite what you may be reading or hearing somewhere else.

That's fun. Absolutely. Mary is on Facebook and says, at age 56, how much should I have saved for retirement by now? Oh, no, you're not going to make it. You're going to be fine. I don't even know how much you have, but you're going to be fine. There's not a set number, okay? The goal is by the time you quit working, whenever that is,

and the government made up the number 65. No one else did. It just made up. Okay, so you can work till 85 you can work till 105 i don't care you just work until you don't want to work or till you hate that job and you go do something different right so but if you can live off of eight percent of your nest egg and it's invested at 12 you'll be fine so if you have have $500,000, 8% of that would be 40,000 a year. And it'll be growing at a little more than that. It'll be growing at about 60,000 a year.

So if you grow 60 and you pull off 40, you'll be fine. And that, that, that program right there will run in perpetuation it doesn't have an end it doesn't have an end you never run out of money with that program so if you build a nest egg that you can live off of eight percent then boom you're going to be there just fine so just start targeting that and uh be serious about it be intentional about it but don't be anxiety ridden about it this is don't be anxiety-ridden about it. This is The Ramsey Show. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, or click the link in the show notes.

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and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. You'll have a payment you can afford with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else. So go to Y Refi dot com today. Slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y. R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Kate in Maryland. My daughter is a junior in high school and has no idea what she wants to do when she graduates. My husband and I love the idea of her owning her own

business, but neither my husband nor I have experience in this. We both wish we had made different career decisions that would have given us more independence. Where can we research with her to get a better understanding and vision for this option? Or would you still recommend college versus real world experience? Okay, I'm going to put myself into this particular situation and say, if this was my daughter, what would I do? And so because she's a junior, we would begin to identify areas of interest, not come up with a business idea. I think this could be very paralyzing for a youngster. It's paralyzing for a lot of people in their 30s and 40s, because we know, Dave, from the data that 70% of Americans want to be self-employed,

but only 6% are. So I'm speaking from data here. So what I would do with my daughter is we would begin to identify areas of interest. In other words, people that she wants to help, solutions she gets excited about, problems she wants to solve, and there's an industry. If there's a business, there's an industry. And so we want to get broad so that she gets some real interest and begins to see some areas of interest. At that point, we're going to shadow. I'm going to allow her to go have coffee, lunch with people that are in those industries or maybe run businesses in those industries, shadow at work if she can get shadow opportunities. All of this to begin to create a field of three or four of her most interesting options. At that point, then we start to have the discussion,

is college, is a degree the best decision? Or is it getting right into the workforce and working in an industry? I'll give you an example to help clarify this some more. If this were a young man, and by the way, it's not limited to young men, but let's say she decides she wants to own a business in the trades. At that point, then I want her shadowing folks that are working in those trades and getting a real world experience. The good, the bad, the ugly, the smelly, everything. And at that point, we determine whether or not she's really interested. And then the path is going to be to go to work and hustle and learn on the job. And eventually you'll work your way into spinning off on your own and starting your own business.

So that's a hard question to answer in such a short amount of time without back and forth. But that would be the advice that I would give because that's what I would do. These young people need to see it, touch it, experience it, smell it. Yes. And then they can decide. Completely agree. Because, Kate, you did not say she has this extreme passion and apparent natural talent and bent towards X,

because you did not say that, that would have led her towards a business. The people that we've talked to that are 18 or 19 or 21 years old that have had success and they call this show and they are really killing it and we're all kind of aghast at how far ahead of this curve they are running their own thing. They almost always had a natural gift towards something. Technology is not unusual for a 19 year old today to be something that they would go you know they've been screwing around writing code messing around building apps and all of a sudden they built an app and took off and ran a business okay uh or you know whatever

that's fine i mean that would be michael dell that would be Bill Gates. Both quit college. And Steve Jobs. All three. All three companies were formed by college dropouts. But they were super nerds with their eye exactly on what they wanted to do. There was no question. Instead, you're asking a very generic thing. My husband and I always wish we were in business, so we wish our daughter would go into business, but none of us have a clue. No, don't go in business. Business is too hard. That's correct.

Don't put an 18-year-old, 20-year-old out therelair and wants to do a business someday, maybe in the future, a great, you know, just get a business degree, get a degree in finance, a degree in marketing. You'll learn accounting. You'll learn statistics. You'll learn marketing. You'll learn strategic thought. I mean, you'll get some of these basic things and a good four-year degree.

That's what I have. And I use a lot of those classes I took 40 years ago every day running Ramsey. You know, it's a $300 million company. It's a dadgum good thing I had a couple of accounting classes. Hello. You know, rather than just trying to figure that out with a high school accounting class. And so it's a good thing that I understand marketing at an academic level before I actually get neck deep in it and then try to figure out how it works out here in the real world too.

So I would do that if she thinks she's going to go that direction, combined with Ken's advice of really go in there and study, study. Go visit these places. Quit talking about this stuff in the abstract. Here's what we know about entrepreneurs. Business is very hard. It is. And people that have never started a small business and run one have this romantic view.

Yeah. And there's a, but there's a lot of dirt under the fingernails, boys and girls. I mean, there's a lot, it's, it's a long hours. It's the hardest boss you'll ever work for in your life. That guy's a dadgum slave driver. Yeah, and to that point, the entrepreneurs that win are driven by deep, deep desire to solve a problem, and they come up with a solution.

That's the business. It's a solution, and they're deeply passionate about it. That's what keeps them going because you almost need that magnetic pull or else you're going to quit in air quotes i always wanted to work for myself yeah you're not gonna make it no no chance it's too tough you're gonna get your butt run over in the middle of street man i mean you're just gonna be roadkill and it's just too i mean because you put up with too much you shovel so much manure unbelievable to, to there's a pony in there somewhere, but you got to shovel the manure. I mean, it's, it's real and, uh, and I'm not

complaining and I'm not whining. I wouldn't, but I have a call for a certain thing. That's correct. And I've had two in my life. I mean, one on real estate and went broke and then one doing this, and I could do the real estate tomorrow and still be okay. But obviously God called us to this right here, and I'm happy with that. But, yeah, I wouldn't put up with the BS. Nobody will. That's why we see business people quit all the time. It's why we see a chef who is good at cooking and nothing else has a failed restaurant. That's why restaurants have the highest failure rate of almost any stinking business category.

Because somebody thinks because they can cook or like cooking for their friends that that makes them a restaurant owner. No. You've got to hire and fire people all day long. A restaurant has a 325% turnover ratio in a year. It means you have to hire three people to fill that one position during that year that's so you're in the hiring business you're in the firing business you're in the food sourcing inventory there's all this stuff that goes with running a business it's not cooking that's right and and that's that it blows a

chef's mind and they they go oh god i wish i I'd never. Yeah, we all wish you'd never. But that is a great actual example of do I want to run a business that serves food, or do I just want to cook food? Two very different paths. By the way, both honorable. But there is a big distinction between the two, and that's the key. You know, it's even like when we're talking with entree leaders, these small businesses, and they're getting ready to promote their best salesperson to be sales manager.

It's two different skills. That's exactly right. You're managing salespeople is different than making sales. So sometimes one of the worst things you can do is take your best seller and turn them into a sales manager because they don't have that skill set. They're good at selling. They're not good at managing salespeople. And don't forget, they may not enjoy it. They may enjoy the service. They may hate it. They enjoy the service that skill set. They're good at selling. They're not good at managing salespeople. And don't forget, they may not enjoy it. They may enjoy the service.

They may hate it. They enjoy the service of the customer. They don't enjoy the service of leading a team of people. Again, two very different. You lead a bunch of salespeople. It's like running a beauty parlor. It's drama. Two very different job descriptions.

So, you know, you need to get in there what it is. So that's a great question, Kate. And we'll have the team send out. I'd love the student assessment. It would be great for them. Okay, perfect. Because we've actually got that, and that's a young person can take that and get a pretty good idea of what a current snapshot of what a professional job description

of purpose would look like for them. And that can be a business. That's right. I'm not completely killing that. But make sure you understand that business is not romantic. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America.

We're so glad you're here. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of the Ken Coleman Show, and of course the book is Paycheck to Purpose. The other one's Proximity Principle. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Andrew is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Hi, Andrew. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey. Hey. Hey, Dave. Hope you guys are doing well today. Appreciate you taking my call. Sure.

So I'm 32 years old, and I've been following your baby steps and your content on YouTube and your website. I just reached baby step number four. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you very much. It was a big achievement. So in regards to investing, I just took a look at kind of what my current situation is.

And I'm enrolled in my employer's 401k and contributing 6%, which is what my company matches. Now, I think your advice is to next open up a Roth IRA and max that out. And if there's any leftover, put that back into the 401k to hit my 15%. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. Unless your 401k offers a roth and has good options good mutual funds to pick from in which case you could just put it all in there doesn't matter but um okay does your does your company offer a roth 401k um it's through fidelity so i'll have to go and check into that i was going to open up a roth ira through fidelity um just to keep it under one one roof i wouldn't you would not no i would go go find it's not it's not whether it's from fidelity fidelity offers roth 401ks to the employers that use fidelity to manage their 401ks and the only question is whether your employer allows that or not. If they do, you need to switch your whole thing to Roth.

Now, do you have good long-term options for mutual funds inside that 401K? I believe so, just based on the quick searching I've done. Okay. You know, if you've got great options there, I would just put it all there and I'd put it all in Roth. Okay. If that gets you to I would just put it all there, and I'd put it all in Roth. Okay. That's what, you know, if that gets you to your 15%, if it doesn't, then you can open a Roth, and I would go to a smart investor pro at RamseySolutions.com to get your investing started.

But the mutual fund family, the brand is Fidelity. There's Vanguard. There's Templeton. There's American Funds. Those are brands. There's Vanguard. There's Templeton. There's American Funds. Those are brands like Campbell's Soup. But then the mutual funds inside is the vegetable soup or the chicken noodle soup or the chili or whatever, whatever analogy or metaphor we want to use here. So you don't have to have all of your soup from Campbell's.

You could get a different brand of soup. So it's not required that you go get a Fidelity Roth with your 401k. I mean, just because your 401k is that. Not at all. I'm not saying they're bad. Most of these fund families, these brands, have good funds and bad funds, track record-wise. So you just need to learn about their track records. And if you want some further

helps do go to ramsey solutions.com and uh sit down and do that and and ken the the the big thing he's doing right is he's actually doing it yeah and uh that he worked really hard to get there i loved how he kind of paused after you said great job and he went it was a big accomplishment and and And, and, you know, what's fun to hear about that is this is a guy who now understands the pain that they went through to get to baby step four. And now you get to the momentum stage where we're like, now we're getting wealthy and building wealth. And that's fun to hear. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And yeah, it's like, God, man, I got rid of all those payments and I got some money to invest time to flip the switch from being a broke person to being a rich person. Right.

I'll ask a question because we've got a lot of new people all the time, and I know the answer, but I'd love you to address it. Because we tell people in Baby Step 4, 15%. So the 15%, explain that, because he's got 6%. He's putting in. His company's matching. Because I think a lot of people have questions about that, so about what we teach on that number.

Just take your household income. If you're married, you and your spouse's income total times.15, and that dollar amount needs to be going into retirement somewhere, somehow. The best thing you can do is take a match, regardless of if it's Roth or traditional. If your company's matching, like he's got a 6% match, the best thing you could do. And the 6% match does not count towards the 15.

You are putting 15 in. The fact that they give you 6%, that's irrelevant. It's wonderful, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. So you put in 15%. That was your point. That's right. But it's kind of a rock paper scissors except it only goes one way match beats roth beats traditional so you go down

the order you first get all the match you can get if they have a roth like i suggested to him he may then you get the match in a roth that's a double win. Then you max out in Roth. And if you can't do anything except traditional beyond that, because, for instance, your company only has a traditional 401K, so you got the 6% match. Like he may have. He thinks he might have. Then you move on from that 6%.

We move on down. We do Roth at the SmartVestor Pro. Well, that Roth amount plus the amount you put in the 401K at 6% match, still not up to 15%. Then the last stage is you go back and finish off with the traditional, which he had that exactly right. That's right. He'd been listening and had that figured out exactly.

So match beats Roth beats traditional. Because a match is 100% rate of return. You put in $1,000, they put in $1,000. You made $1,000 on your money instantaneously. And there are no mutual funds that have 100% rate of return. None. And there are no taxes that are 100% tax rate. So you can always win with a match.

Always. A match is a trump card. It wins the whole thing. Tara is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Tara. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. I'm happy to be here. Good to have you. What's up? A little background. I have a degree in healthcare administration, and since I had babies, I found some jobs where I could do billing from home.

So I do insurance billing, and I run co-pays and things like that. My husband is a licensed therapist and just this year he became independently licensed. So he started his own private practice where he sees patients on Saturdays. And so he works at his 40 hour a week job and then Saturdays he sees his patients. And I want to be involved in his business's finances. This is what I do from home for other offices. Like I understand insurance and co-pays and deductibles and he doesn't want me to touch his business at all. Why? It's not so much that I don't trust him.

Why doesn't he want you touching it? That's weird. Yeah, he says he's worked for companies before where like the husband and wife have both been in charge and he's like, I just see that their marriage isn't great and they're fighting over business things that he's like, I'd rather not have business conflict in our marriage. So he kind of wants to just have that. He's like, you can manage all the money I take home, but I want to run the business myself.

I mean, did Sharon help you when you were starting your business? No, but she also didn't want to and didn't have the skill set to. She does not have an accounting background like you do. So this is not a compliment. This is like someone who says family should never work together. That's bull. Family can work together just fine as long as they know how to do it,

as long as they know how to have the relational skills. A therapist that does not have the relational skills to do this scares me yeah i mean he's not a marriage therapist but yeah well i mean he's there up in something you're doing some kind of teaches people to function with other human beings that's what therapy does yeah that's interesting dave it's all it's like run the business is one thing she just wants to help with the finances. No, he doesn't want her involved at all. Yeah, that's weird. It's weird. No, I think you should be involved, but I think you also need to learn to work together sweetly. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely

preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week, in the middle of all that grief, like it's just, it is, it's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies.

It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you want to help us out, we could use your help. Click subscribe on the format that you're listening or watching, YouTube or a podcast. Click the follow button maybe.

Maybe the share button also where you can share the show or cut a link out and send it to somebody and say, hey, listen to the Ramsey Show. It's helping me. Check these guys out on Spotify, Apple, wherever it is, Google Play, wherever it is, on our local talk radio station. Help us share it. Tell people about us. When you do that, it makes a big, big difference. Thank you very much.

And those five-star reviews, you can keep those coming, too. They're very, very helpful. All that changes the algorithms on those things and pushes those formats right up into somebody's face, and we're able to help more people because you guys followed, shared, subscribed, and left nice reviews and so on. Jan is with us in Tampa. Hi, Jan.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Oh, hi, Dave. What what an honor thank you so much sure how can we help uh well i've got a lot of things but this is a this is my main thing right now well i i am an accountant who's learning embarrassingly late in life how to start to manage my own finances um Um, and I've been trying to, I've been following your system. Um, I'm working on trying to pay back my debt and I was, before I heard what you had to say about working with places like AmeriCorps and stuff, I was working with a debt settlement company and that was horrible. I finally saw that the fees and stuff that they were charging, I can do better, you know, just on my own. So I quit with them. Okay. And then I negotiated,

um, like synchrony, um, got that one paid off. And the next one I was going to, I wanted to call you before I did this, but I called capital one. I hadn't talked to them in like a year and a half. And I kicking myself because I got set up on this 20 month debt repayment plan at like almost 300 a month I mean it's almost the full balance of the debt and I thought then I after I did that I thought I heard you say on another show that you that you can you know settle it for I mean I understand paying back what I owe believing that's weighing on my conscience a lot too. But I have heard you offer to, you know, that you can settle these things for like quarters on the dollar.

Yeah, if it's a two-year-old or one-year-old debt, yeah, they're going to, in a lump sum, they won't do that on payment plan. How can we help you today, Jan? Well, do you think if I offered them $2,500? No, you have a payment plan now. Oh, no. you have a payment plan now oh no they have you I mean if you quit paying those payments and they don't have anything coming in they might if you want if you want to do that but um if you can pay this out now that you've done it pay it out but if you're not able to do it then you're not able to do it you settle a debt when you're not able to do it, then you're not able to do it. You settle a debt when you're not able to pay it.

Well, I'm really not, but, I mean, it's a hardship, but I do understand about paying whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's a balance, and it's a balance in there. It's not, it's are you able to, in the next 20 months, you know, pay your lights and water, food, work some extra jobs, and pay your bills? If you are, then pay them. If you're not able to and you're behind and you call them up

and you offer them pennies on the dollar as a lump sum, which is what you're talking about, I recommend. But that's only for someone who can't pay. It's not a get-out-of-debt technique for someone who's able pay it's not a get out of debt technique for someone who's able i have ten thousand dollars in the bank i owe ten thousand dollars write a check don't settle a debt like that if you took out the money on the credit card right yeah it gets down to ethics and character now that doesn't sound like she's trying to violate that but i'm just trying to distinguish for i think she tried to get a deal for a listening

audience payment plan and now she regrets that yeah that's that's exactly what it is yeah but that does also sound like you can pay it yeah it's hard but you can pay it if you can pay it and do your other stuff then do it uh finish it out you'll be done um and and you know maybe they waive some interest or something like that that that's fine. Austin is in Spokane. Hi, Austin. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello, sir. Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, so I'm kind of in a little bit of a dilemma. I've been with my current company. I've been with them for 10 years now. I started with the company when I was in my mid-20s. Me and my wife were having a kid at the time.

We're like, okay, this seems like a good option for us. They have really good benefits. I've had good medical care. I have a great time off, flexible schedule. But the pay has been lacking. And 10 years down the line, I still have the same job I started with. I was hoping with this particular company, there'd be growth opportunities, ways to move up, and it just hasn't happened. So I kind of feel

like I worked myself or backed myself into a corner being with the company for so long. So one, no, like what do you think the possible options are to possibly move away from this company or because the benefits are so good, do I stick it out for a little bit longer? Kind of my dilemma, do I move forward or do I just move on? You move forward mentally, move forward, you know, looking through everything financially involved with the move, and then you make the move. But your soul has kind of left your body already around this job. You feel like you've hit a lid. And the answer to your first question is, no, you didn't paint yourself in a corner unless you're not telling us something.

You know, painting yourself in a corner is you have no options. You can't get out. That's the very idea there with that. So the question is, go back to 10 years ago. Where did you see yourself going up the ladder? What did it look like? Was it in this particular field or was it a different field, different industry? Yeah, so it was this particular field.

So I currently work, I guess you can call it a customer service role. I've been doing that for 10 years. Well, I kind of thought, like, this company is so big, it's got a good name for itself. If anything, it's going to look great on a resume. All right, but what did you think you wanted to be doing? Where would you like to be today? Let's answer that question. If you could snap your fingers, no risk, what would you like to be doing right now?

I was like, I would, I mean, the dream scenario, I would love to own my own business someday. No, that's down the road. You went a little too far. Give me the, you already answered the question, and then you edited it. I heard it. So what's the spot on the ladder you'd like today had the 10 years gone the way you wanted it to? What would you be doing? If I was doing customer service now, if I were in a management position in that same particular field,

I would have been happy with that. All right, so you get to management by virtue. In other words, you do good work, and you're in a company that has a growth environment, meaning they do this. You've not grown for 10 years. One of the things I would challenge you as your coach, if we're sitting in a one-on-one session, is do you have good evidence as to why you haven't moved at all in 10 years? I'm not saying it's your fault, but I'm also not necessarily blaming the

company. I just don't know enough to just make them the bad guys. But you need to know, homeowner assignment number one is, do I have some real clarity from my current leaders and through my records over the 10 years as to why maybe I haven't moved up the ladder? Let's make sure we're not walking around with a blind spot. Second thing is, okay, what positions are available to me in different companies, same industry, where I know for a fact I've done my homework and they have a culture of growth. Like Ramsey Solutions moves people up. You do a good job here and you stay with it, you're going to get an opportunity for growth here. And so you're going to be looking for that. We announced 32 promotions and staff meeting this morning.

Exactly. Very normal. So you know the industry, Zach. You know the industry and you know the position. Go get it. Don't overthink this. But before you move, we're going to have something that we're going to move into. We're not going to jump and start looking.

It's just never a good idea unless for some reason you've got all kinds of wealth. Is it too late at that company to go in and sit down with the supervisor and say, how can I add value? It might be. That's my next question. Have you ever sat with a leader in your 10 years and said, hey, I want to grow? What are some opportunities for me? Yeah, yeah, I have. I've had the same answer for quite a while, and we've had those conversations, and I have moved or done rotational roles that only last for like six to nine months. And I've tried those opportunities and I've unfortunately haven't really accumulated or turned into anything beyond that. Yeah, I think Dave's right. I think one more time I'd

sit with him and go, hey, I've been here 10 years and this is the kind of gig that I'd love to have. You've given me these opportunities. Shoot me straight. Let me know where I stand. I can handle it. We've been together a long time. Tell me, what are my options here to grow? And be okay with whatever the answer is, and that'll give you some clarity moving forward. But you're probably looking somewhere else, is my guess. This is The Ramsey Show. You ever stood in the grocery store line nervous

that when you spent that money it was going to cause a check to bounce? I have. That's scary. Life's too short to live scary like that. You want to stop it? You have to tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That happened to me when we were going broke.

I got a brand new baby, a toddler, and a marriage hanging on by a thread Sharon would have left but she didn't have a car I mean we were not it was not good at our house and I remember I can show you the Kroger I was standing in line I'm writing a check and I can't figure out in my head if when I buy these groceries if there's going to be enough money to pay the electric bill, if the electricity is going to get cut off because I bought groceries. See, when you have a written, detailed plan, you'll never have that feeling again. You'll know. This is how much I have for groceries, and that means I have enough for lights

and enough for water and enough for the rent and enough for the kids' school activity and enough for whatever because you've got it written down. And you know, if I stay inside this number that's written down for this category, that means the other categories get to exist without any trouble. The stress goes way down. The anxiety evaporates. The old word we used to use is you are empowered. Remember being empowered for things, Ken?

That was a long time ago. Yes. Scary word to a lot of people now. Yeah. It's okay. You're empowered. You're in control of your money instead of it. Money is a great slave.

It's a horrible master. You need a written, detailed game plan for your money. It's called a budget. And that's why we developed EveryDollar, because EveryDollar gets an assignment before the month begins, and you agree on it with your spouse. You can download the world's best budgeting app called EveryDollar for free in the App Store or at Google Play. Or you can click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube. Kathy is with us in Indianapolis.

Hi, Kathy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thank you. Thanks so much for taking my call. I feel like I could use a group call with all of you all, Rachel, Jade, John, Ken, and Dave. But, Dave, you're like my financial father. I think we're the same age, but I've been listening to you for a long time.

So I waited till a day that you were here. So I think I have two main questions. Can we afford to own two homes? And the second was, if we divorce, what considerations are there for our investment account? So just a tiny bit of background. We're living separately at home. I'm 65, my husband's 67. I travel two to three weeks out of every month to go and help our daughter who lives in a different state with her tiny little ones with another one on the way. I've gotten involved in a church up there and starting to develop some friendships up there. My daughter and son-in-law, they want me to come as much as I want want to spend time with my husband. Why? Behavioral and emotional immaturity, I think I would say. Is that her dad?

It doesn't seem to. No, I said, is that her father? Is that her father? I'm sorry, yes. Okay, so she doesn't want a relationship with her father if she wants it no more than a couple days at a time because she's concerned about him being around the young kids um what's wrong with him um well i have involved our church um and attempted to talk to him but i'd say it's emotional immaturity spiritual immaturity relational immaturity um focus on politics and things that just don't matter.

Um, and he has asked for forgiveness every time these things happen. What are these things? I mean, he yells at people or what? Um, I'm trying to think of a real quick example. Um,

uh, he doesn't know when to quit. When people say, I don't want to talk about that. He, he won't know when to quit. When people say, I don't want to talk about that, he won't quit. And I've talked to my pastor about it, and he's tried to set up times to talk with him, but he just says that he will go to counseling, but then it never happens. So we've been living separately in our own home here for about six months.

Okay. Yeah. I do not like that your daughter and your grandkids are driving this. You owe your marriage more than that. How long have you been married? We've been married for 41 years. And maybe I'm not explaining it correctly. You need to go, you, without your daughter's input,

I'm tired of her input already, you need to go sit down with a counselor and start talking to the counselor about how to talk to your husband of 40 years that you're going to require him to sit down in counseling with you, and you need to be able to give some words to that for you to stay in the marriage. Okay, well, and I've put boundaries around things, and I may have, I think maybe I jumped ahead. This has just been getting progressively worse. Yeah, because you ran off to another city for three weeks at a time and griped with your daughter about how bad a man this is

that you've been married to for 40 years. Of course it's not getting better. Well, and i hate to correct you there i really do but that that is not how it's panned out and what you told me well yeah i'm trying to be careful here um because this has been ongoing for years and years and my going there so much has just recently started to pick up because of the need there i am not running away from my home here and my responsibilities here and i'm confident of that and my pastor's confident okay all right then you you guys have to decide if you're going to be married and then you need to decide that and then you'll decide whether you're going to do stuff no i would not try to live in two different cities and act like we're not married when we're still married.

That would be suicidal, relationally, emotionally, financially. Yes. So I'm deciding our home here is paid off. When you divorce, you turn your balance sheet into a business. And you're just going to look at what we own and what we owe and that's going to be split and so you guys start thinking about that yes and i have and i um i contacted it i have my investment account the 1.3 million left um one of the brands and i went to another one of the brands to have

because i'm right now 90 10 in stocks and then uh bonds and you don't need to move anything until you decide if it's what's going to be split exactly exactly so right now you need to decide first thing we got to do just add it all up and start talking to a diverse attorney and how much of that's going to be yours how much of it's going to be yours, how much of it's going to be his. Because in most states, it's down the middle. Right. It's 50-50 here. And he says, my husband says he understands that, I mean, I've managed all that.

I've built it. We've done it together. But he said, you know, you deserve more than that. But I said, well, beyond that, we just need to figure out what we're going to do. And they worked out this plan for me with a 50-50 split, but with it changing from 90-10 stocks and bonds to 70-30 stocks and bonds. So I had a question for you about that. I was thinking about going with a second company, but they do individual stocks, and I know that that is generally you do not do that. No, I wouldn't do any of that.

I think you've got a whole lot bigger problem than whether you're in stocks or bonds, honey. In a marriage of 41 years, you need to think about it. You all need to concentrate on that. You need to put a bow on that one way or another. Either we're in a healing mode or we're in an ending mode. When it ends, you take your poker chips off the table, then you sit down and, you know, you can go to Ramsey Solutions and click on SmartVestor Pro. They'll sit down and put you in some mutual funds is what I would do. It's pretty simple. I wouldn't be in stocks. I wouldn't be in bonds. I wouldn't be in 70-30. I wouldn't be in 90-10. I'd be 100% in mutual funds. That's what I'm in. And you've been listening to me. You already knew that. So, wow. That's a sad place

you're in, honey. Real sad. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey-trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest

expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchillmortgage.com. That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSConsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host. This is the last segment on the podcast and on YouTube.

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in that using that to consume this show nicholas is in washington dc hi nicholas how are you i'm good how are you d I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I just graduated college. I took my last final today, and I have a job offer that I've actually taken already for $130,000 a year.

You graduated from college and took $130,000. What's your degree in? Computer science. Way to go, dude. dude man look at you wow okay uh and on that note i i have absolutely no idea uh how to uh structure this income and and how i can save it the best i have the blessing that i can live with my parents for a while uh after starting this job so i think for first six months i'll probably be living with them and just saving up as much as I possibly can. But I'd love your insight on whether I should be maxing out my 401k, any other investment tools.

I do have debt. I have roughly $30,000 of debt. Okay. All right. Here's what I would do in your situation. You need to do a detailed written plan, and you're good at detailed written plans with a computer science degree, of what you're going to do with every dollar before the month begins. Now, you do not know exactly what your take-home pay is yet,

but you can probably get pretty close, okay? And I would not stay with your parents six months to save money. I would stay there three months until you found a nice place and get out. So I know that roughly my take home after taxes will be, uh, around seven and a half thousand a month. Okay. Perfect. Then budget that out, stay there three months and find you an apartment and get the heck out, man. Start your your life i i'm ready to start my life but on that note uh what what should i be aiming to pay for rent because this is a very expensive area uh kind of hence the the large uh salary um and one bedroom apartments in the area

of where i work go for around 2 500 is that something you think I can afford? Nope. You need to bid a fourth of your income. Fourth of your take-home pay. Fourth of his take-home, okay. So you may want to get a two-bedroom, get a roommate, or you may want to live a little bit further out with a bit more of a commute than you were looking at. You're not going to be able to live in the cool area of D.C., not on $130,000. It's not a $130,000 budget. Yeah yeah but you can live in the area you just can't live in the cool kids area and that's where the apartment was yeah yeah it sure was uh do you think i should be maxing out my 401k no i think you need to dump everything you got on the 30k until you get rid of it and then after that then after that i would start i'd make sure you had an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses.

After that, I'd start putting 15% of my income away towards retirement in my 401k. And really, you should be there within a year. But let's take this year and get the 30k and build you an emergency fund of 20,000 cash. Start talking about maybe buying a house someday. And let's start putting money in our 401k at that point. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, which outlines what we call the baby steps, Nicholas, and it'll walk you through every little bit of that,

and jump online and get every dollar of the budgeting app for free, and get started on laying out your budget and give every dollar a game plan before the month begins, but completely concentrate on the debt until it's gone. And, you know, two to three months at your parents' house is plenty in this situation. Yeah, I was going to say, Nicholas, the one thing you're going to need to fight is that you've been in college, presumably for four years, and you got a dorm room or apartment in the cool part of town, and life's been a big, big blast.

And you've done well, and you've got a good job. Now it's the time to start being patient. And I think the roommate living further out, learning how to manage your money, you're going to be so far ahead if you just can be patient and not try to keep a portion of that college lifestyle going. This is the real world now, and that means not getting an apartment in an expensive place, getting one, two, maybe three roommates for a year, whatever that is.

So that's my encouragement to you is now things are changing, and the mindset has to change with it, or else you're going to feel like, oh, I should have this, and I've been doing this. Well, you can't afford to do that. It's a very different world now now we have this sense when we uh take a step up when we level up and you're leveling up by graduating and getting a great job you know it's human nature to have a sense of going i deserve that's right and let me help you with what you can do what you deserve you don't deserve anything unless you can pay for

it that's your measure whether you deserve it or not i no i don't know i don't i don't care if you have the money you deserve it if you don't have the money you don't deserve it you haven't made enough yet and that that slows your butt down and pushes you into a contentment zone which goes okay uh then I'm going to live like no one else so that later I can live and give like no one else Nick's in West Palm Beach hi Nick how are you hey Dave I'm doing good how you guys doing better than I deserve what's up so I'm in a little predicament here I've been running my business I started about about eight years ago. It's a party and event rental company. We're located in South Florida. And I have just recently, probably within the last

six months, kind of been listening to a lot of your videos and watching you guys consistently starting the baby steps. I've had about a little over $70,000 in debt between a vehicle, uh, or two, as well as just mainly credit card debt. Um, within the last six months, I've paid off over half of that. I have about $30,000 in debt remaining with 22,000 of that being, uh, one of my vehicles and then about $8,000 left in credit cards. And now with it being December, I've got Christmas bonuses that need to be going out, you know, that I'm normally paying every year and that, you know, I've got about 10 employees total. And I'd say four or five of them have been with me for a few years now and are used to, you know, that Christmas bonus.

This year, I've just been, you know, I've been tightening everything up and I'm just in a predicament right now and wondering, you know, if I should pay those Christmas bonuses or if I should have a, you know, conversation with my employees about... Do you have the money? I've got the money, yeah. You know, I definitely have the money to pay them for sure right now. How big a bonus are we talking about? Not a lot. I would say, you know, over the 10 employees, they're all going to be small bonuses, maybe totaling up to $3,000.

Okay. How much money do you have? I mean, right now, just liquid in the bank between my personal accounts and my business accounts, I'd say approximately maybe $35,000. So you're just wanting to save the three this year to keep going towards all this debt elimination? That's your why? Right. That's my why. How do you think they're going to react to that? What do you think their real reaction is going to be if you told them today?

Definitely some disappointment, for sure. I'm sure they're kind of counting on it. It's later in the month than I would have normally paid it to, because I'm just, you know what I mean? Have you ever seen Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase? I haven't, unfortunately, no. Wow, you're going to watch that tonight. That didn't go well when he didn't pay the bonuses

and he gave them the jelly of the month club. These people are counting on it. Listen, it's a comedy, but people are counting on this and you waited way too late to change this on them. It's my opinion you have $30,000 in bonuses and $30,000. Sure. You have the money. It's not going to kill you. It's really not even going to change your get-out-of-debt plan. You're just more cognizant now where money's going, and that's a good thing. But in terms of communicating with the team on something like that, you should have communicated before Thanksgiving. Yes. Yes. Okay. I agree.

And if the truth is we're not profitable enough to pay out bonuses this year, but that's not even the truth here. The truth is you have the money. You just want to put it on debt instead. And so in that case, no. I think part of running your business is a small, and these are small, Christmas bonus. And, yeah, I definitely would give that out i'd

give it out today by the way in cash as soon as you get off the phone this is the ramsey show live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions it's the ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas to you. Maya is with us. She's in Seattle.

Hi, Maya. How are you? Hi. How are you? Thank you guys for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Yes.

So I just wanted some advice. I am, you know, I'm just wanting to level up in life. I'm tired of that whole debt cloud over me. So, um, I also want to be a landlord in the future. So I do still have $103,000 in debt and I have been paying minimum, bare minimum on those. And then in the meantime, I've been just saving all of my money. Um, so yeah, saving and still having a lifestyle to be fair. And right now I have $42,000. So now I'm thinking maybe I should just, because I'm all over the place with your baby steps. I'm thinking I should take that $42,000, put away like $24,000 as an

emergency fund, and then just start paying these student loans aggressively. Okay. Is that a question? Yes, it's a question. What should I do with the $42,000? Just making sure. I heard what you're thinking, but okay. Yeah.

One of the guys taught me in business and it really applies to everything um uh 30 years ago said the thing that keeps any of us from achieving our goals is not the price we're willing to pay to get there it's what we're what we have to give up and and you're trying to do three things at one time and so far you've accomplished none of them i have a debt cloud hanging over me i'd like for it to go away i want to save money and i want to be a landlord and you're working on all three things at the same time and none of them are getting anywhere right the power of the power of focus is we're going to point every ounce of anything in your life oh oh and i want to maintain

a lifestyle that was the other goal right yes yeah so you've got like four competing goals because each one of those are robbing money lifestyle costs money landlord costs money saving money costs money and the debt hanging there over your head is costing money right and so what we figured out years ago is if we can get people to be uh sold out crazy on fire like like their hair is on fire we're going i'm only doing my broke friends are making front of me my mother thinks i joined a cult that kind of focus for a short period of time you can clean up the debt so what do you make um i let's just say like I make $8,000 a month. Oh God, you're killing it. Okay. What do you do? Yes. Travel nursing.

Good for you. And you can probably even make more if you went crazy. Yes. Let's pretend lifestyle was off the table for 12 months. Okay. Could you do that? If you got debt free in 12 months, would you give up lifestyle for 12 months?

Yes. And I don't have a big lifestyle. You said it. I didn't. I get my nails done. No, I get my nails done. I get my lunches done. Sometimes I like to go to the Caribbean, and that's about it.

We'll just throw the Caribbean in there like we're going to the market. Let's go to Circle K and pick up a pack of gum. She went from nails to the Caribbean. I went from nails to the Caribbean. It's really good. That was handy the way you did that so here's the thing and here's the thing you can keep doing whatever you want to do but you called and asked us and we love you and we want you to win what we have taught millions tens of millions of people to do is to completely focus to the exclusion of everything else on clearing the debt yeah and that's the exclusion of lifestyle it to the exclusion of everything else on clearing the debt.

Yeah. And that's the exclusion of lifestyle. It's the exclusion of saving. Everything is temporarily on hold until we get this stinking cloud out from over my head because life's too short to work around with a cloud over your head. So for 12 months, I want you to work the baby steps the right way, not your way, my way. Your plan sucks. Your plan sucks. Your plan sucks.

It's not working. Your plan sucks. It's not working. You ready to work mine? Yes. All right. If you want to do this, I can show you how. But you can't sort of kind of do a bunch of crap at once, girl.

Nothing happens. Can I ask one question? Very quickly. Okay. Should I put $24,000 to the side? No. Because of a rainy day? You should work my baby steps.

You don't even know what they are, do you, yet? $1,000. Oh! And you have $42,000 in the account. You should put $41,000 on the did i hear that right 41 on the back on the student loans as soon as you get off the phone oh shit i don't know why i can't just yeah like i don't yeah okay see what's happening okay this is gonna if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, we call that the definition of insanity.

That's insane, yeah. Try to do something different. Okay. I want you to do nothing but work and live on no beans and rice, rice and beans. I want you to do your own nails, and you're not going to see any warm weather because you're in Seattle. Oh, God, yes. Until you get this stinking cloud off of you. Then you're going to be making then you're going

to be a travel nurse that makes a hundred thousand dollars a year you can save up a pile of money you can save up another pile of money and go travel you can save up another pile of money and go be a landlord but you're not going to get to do any of that all you're going to do is have stress stress stress stress stress because you're going to be a normal american whose finances suck if you keep doing it the way you're doing it time to change girl you can do it okay you're smart thank you you're smart you're just not focused no and and as you can see i i'm all over the place and that's how my head feels and that's how my world feels and it's like yep i'm a single person i have no kids why do i feel like this yep you feel out of control because you're out of control.

Yeah. It's chaos. And chaos always has stress and anxiety with it. This is going to give you this deep sense of dignity and pleasure because Maya is going to be in control of Maya. Yeah. If you'll follow this, it'll work. I can't make you do it. want you to do it i love you

i think you're cool i like talking to you but i think you're also scattered as hell and you're going to dial this folk a laser laser is focused light and you can do surgery with that but if you just disperse it all you can do is light a room at best. So you're laser freaking focused. Hang on. I'm going to send you a copy of the total money makeover book, and I want you to do exactly what it says. And don't you call me up and tell me you did your plan again, because your plan sucks.

We've established that. Do not work your plan. It's awful. She took it well. She took that very well. She's sweet. I like her. She's got spunk. Yeah, she's fun. That's why it's good uh she took it well she took that very well she's sweet i like she's very she's got spunk yeah she's fun that's why it's good i mean yeah maya here's the deal you've been letting life happen into you yeah and it's time for you to happen i just think you're cool i think i think you ought to do it oh yeah god man life's too short to get a lot of hundred

thousand dollars of student loan debt and you know travel nurse you know what you do that's hard work i remember being on with you not too long ago about a year ago, travel nurse, you know what you do? That's hard work. I remember being on with you not too long ago, about a year ago. I remember a travel nurse came in and said how many hours she worked, and she paid off over $100,000 in debt in a short amount of time. Yeah, it was like seven months she did it. But she worked like all she did was work. But it's doable, Maya. We've heard this story.

I think you got the stuff. All we got to do is get you pointed at something. Time for you to be in control of you. It's a good idea instead of everybody else being in control of you it's a good idea instead everybody else being in control of you this is the ramsey show ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host linda is with us in fort worth texas hi linda how are you pretty good how are you better than good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. I have got some credit card debt. I had an accident, which I ended up living off the credit cards.

Now I'm paying 27%, 29% interest. I'm making about $600 a month payment on these three credit cards and a air conditioner loan that i have my question is should i go out and try to get another credit card at zero percent interest and pay these credit cards off faster or what i am paying so much. What's your loan balances? I'd say it's probably anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. Total? Yes, sir. Okay. And then I have

a house payment. Okay. Let's just call it $20,000. Okay. Yes, sir. At 25% is $5,000. That's your interest? Yes. Per year? Yes. sir. At 25% is $5,000. That's your interest? Yes. Per year? Yes.

Okay. But you don't have a $5,000 problem. You have a $20,000 problem. Correct. So what's your income? Are you married? No, sir. I'm single.

Cool, cool. What's your income? I'm 60. 60. I'm 60 years old, and i make about fifty thousand dollars oh okay and how much is your house payment my house payment is nine hundred dollars that's not bad all right and how much is your car payment uh two hundred dollars and how much do you owe on the car uh that's i think four thousand okay and so you owe about twenty four thousand including

heating and air house i mean heating an air car and three credit cards correct okay yes sir and you're 60 years old and you make fifty thousand what do you do for a living i'm just an administrative assistant good perfect i love that all. And you're working 40 hours? Yes. Perfect. And you're single. Do you have children at home? No, you're 60. No, sir. No. Good. Okay.

And I have no family. Okay. All right. Other than my son. Okay. Your finances make you normal. The only thing is normal sucks, as we can both agree. That's why you called me. I don't like the where i am i want to change this okay so the only thing that is out of control is the credit card i'm sorry i did that pay down um program that you have and i got rid of two of those credit cards oh good not two but two prior to that. I got you. So you made some progress. But let's do some math for a second, okay?

$24,000 makes you debt-free except your home, right? Correct. That's $2,000 a month for a year. Yes, sir. That sounds like some extra work as a virtual executive assistant can. Yeah, absolutely. Like your new second job. You're going to pick up a job working another 20 hours a week,

and you'll be debt-free in a year. Where would I get that job? That's my problem. I've checked. Jump online and go to a site called Belay. They sponsor some of our stuff. How do you spell that? B-E-L-A-Y.

Belay. They're one of the largest and highest quality virtual assistant organizations out there, and they actually sponsor some of our small business stuff, furnishing virtual assistance to small business people. And you can do that on a part-time basis, 20 hours a week, and you can make $2,000 a month, and you're going to get on a really really tight budget and you're not going out to eat i don't think you're a splurger

but i also think that you've not been uh you're like 80 percent tightened up not a hundred percent so some of this was from the accident and some of it was just from sloppiness well i was having to pay out of pocket for physical therapy, and I put those on credit cards. I haven't gone shopping for myself probably in eight years. One hundred percent of the credit card transactions were medical. Yes, sir. You're really, you're a hundred percent sure that that's a true statement

i gotta tell you it's very unusual and food uh-huh and food okay okay and yeah you paid the light bill so you were off work with us with the accident um i was still working but i had my insurance went up almost 50% my car insurance. Okay. That's what I'm saying. This is not 100%. Yeah. And then, no. And then prior to here to that, I ended up making a claim on my house.

I had hail damage, which broke out the windows and the air conditioner. I'm not saying you hadn't had hard times i'm just saying that life happened medical was the biggest thing that exposed the weakness that you had no savings and no written plan correct if you'd had a written game plan and ten thousand dollars in savings we would have never been talking we would never have been talking you would have been just going on your merry way and that's where i want to get you to i want you to get you out of debt with a fully funded emergency fund and a detailed plan where you're telling every one of these dollars what

exactly what to do no wiggle room no mercy like it's six hundred dollars like i'm paying on credit cards you know on the savings honey five,000 doesn't fix your problem. $24,000 does. Yes. If you've got 0% interest, that's fine. I don't care. You can go do that if you want to do it. But it does not fix your problem.

Your problem is you need to increase your income at least temporarily, and you need a really tight ship on the budget for the rest of your life. You need to make every dollar behave for the rest of your life. That's what we all should do. I do. Someone managing a division for Ramsey working here and managing one of our departments that has P&L responsibility, they have to turn in a budget and then they have to stick to it.

So if you manage money, you know, you would get a c plus on your budgeting at maximum based on talking to you i'm not saying you're bad you're just normal the normal is not cutting it you got to get better and i want you to get better so um guess i'm gonna put you through financial peace university and show you how to do this stuff and put you into every dollar our world's best budgeting app i'm gonna pay for all of it doesn't cost you anything but i want you to go do it okay go do it she can do this it's very doable and just that belief that what can i do and the other thing i would i would throw out there

linda is if you can't get on doing some type of virtual assistant from you know remote situation customer service online customer service people are looking for people all the time. Crip target pays $20. They do. It's a holiday. You got so much skill. Go down there today. They'll hire you right now. Yeah.

With what she's been doing for as long as she's been doing it, she makes things happen. Dots the I's, cross the T's. People will pay her. She's somebody that's dependable. So more income, it would help tremendously. Not afraid to work. And I'm not suggesting you work an extra job the rest of your life. If you didn't have any payments but a house payment, you'd have a good life.

Let's get it cleared up. Like you said, the $600 is weighing down on you. And it comes out to be more like, you know, $5,000 a year, which is not quite $600, but it's close. It's $500, $400. So that's where you really are though in interest alone and yeah just the list these debts smallest to largest including this car and knock these things in the face just smack the crap out of them i'm not living like this one of the things that happens

linda in a situation like yours it too and it's again normal for those of you out there facing this stuff um the good news is when you're single like she is she doesn't have to talk somebody into this the bad news is that there's no there's not a natural built-in accountability and encouragement and sometimes it feels very lonely and very financially lonely not emotionally lonely but it's like i don't have anybody to bounce this stuff off of and uh we're sh I, man, we get on something. You and Stacey get on something. We're like scheming and scamming.

We're going to beat this thing, whatever the thing is. And the money thing is one of those things that we have to beat together. And so the singles have a distinct advantage of you don't have to talk some reluctant princess overspending spouse into something. Some husband that won't stay out of home depot or quit buying bass boats you don't have to do that but you do have to you have to endure and have this singular courage that you don't draw off of other people and that's a key point one of the things you always ask people during debt-free screams is you know who are your biggest fans yeah get some people in your corner she needs that cheerleaders cheerleaders get some people in your corner. She needs that. Cheerleaders. Cheerleaders. Get some people in your corner.

They're cheering you on, holding you accountable and loving you. You hang on. I'm going to give you all that stuff as our gift to you, Linda. We think you're worth it and we appreciate you calling in. This is the Ramsey show. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today thanks for hanging out with us this is the Ramsey show there's a lot that goes into buying and selling your home and all those decisions can feel overwhelming but you shouldn't have to tackle the process alone that's why we

created the Ramsey real estate home base it's a place with all the tools, all the resources, all the articles, everything you need to get ready to be prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. And let me just give some of you a heads up. Q1 is going to be one of the best quarters we've had in a long time. Q2 is going to be better than that. So your January, February listings is going to be better than that so your uh january february listings are going to be amazing and just wait a just freaking wait until april gets here april and may you guys watch this real estate market i've been doing real estate a long time It's been sitting on its hands about as long as it can. And so if you want to get ready, get over to the real estate home base, start reading about this stuff, start figuring out where you stand,

where you are, and what you're going to do next to get ready. You can click the link in the, if you're on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the show notes there, and it'll put you right on it. Malcolm is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hi, Malcolm. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how's it going, guys? Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So I know your kind of views on the husband and wife sharing their finances, and my wife and I do not share finances. And we're at a point in our life where I think, you know, we're fighting about money and the things that other married couples fight about. You know, there's the top issues list. And it's not that I don't want to include her in our finances.

We've been married for nine and a half years, together for 13. I have and do pay 100% of our bills. And in the next couple months, my plan is to pay off all of our debt, including house, vehicles, everything like that, move into the new year debt-free. And I'm nervous because she's a spender, and I just don't want to get ourselves in a little hole again where we have credit card debt or, you know, impulse car or anything like that. And I just want to know, how do I bring somebody into the

finances as a spouse that really has absolutely no interest. Oh, she has more interest in doing it than you do in her doing it. Well, every time that... You really don't want her near it. You said that real clearly. Well, I do. I do. you said that real clearly well i do i do the problem is is that like she never she has she's not able to establish any sort of savings she doesn't care about a budget anytime i talk to her

about budget or saving investing anything like that it it actually is kind of an explosive thing um and and her i quote is i don't i don't care about money i don't care about money. I don't care about money. I don't care about money. Says people who are always griping about not having any, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a classic line right there. It's creating a lot of resentment. yeah i can hear it you know you have no respect for her and she feels controlled she thinks you're her daddy because you dole out on allowance and i'll take

care of all the big boy stuff like handle the debt and the cars and you can't have any big decisions little girl and because you're irresponsible and boy what this is intoxicant crud dude um the um i think i okay let me back up and try to um help you um if i were in your shoes what i would do is to sit down and attempt together to reset the table this table is poorly set and um if i can't do that by myself then i'm going to do it with a marriage counselor the two of us together sitting with a marriage counselor because there's some under hear me out hear me out hear me out because there's some underlying issues here money problems are never the problem they're the symptom and money problems in the relationship are never the problem they're the symptom and so um an example would be in our

early days uh i i am more like on your page and that i'm the hard-driving A-type. I'll just make a decision, and, you know, I'll tell you what we're going to do later, and I'm just going to go get it done because I get stuff done. It's who I am. And you're not paying attention, and the dadgum car is just rolling down the street in neutral. I've got to get something going here. And so I'll just go get it done.

Well, what that ended up developing was this tremendous resentment from my wife because she thought I didn't respect her. And the reason she thought that is because I didn't respect her. And so, um, uh, we had to sit down and reset the table and go, okay, your opinion is valuable. It's way different than mine, but we have to have some ground rules because you can't just run this car down the street in neutral. I can't stand that. And I can't stand that there's no control on spending or purchasing. We have to have an agreement that these are the dollars we're going to stay within our budget. And you get a vote on the budget, but we're going to stay within it once it's written down.

And we began to reestablish some lines of communication and respect um and i really have come over the years now to really respect her opinion she's very wise and has a very strong spiritual sense about where we should be going vision with some of these things that's way different than mine and it's very valuable um and i know our data now among the millionaires almost no one achieves serious wealth like a million-dollar net worth or in excess in a relationship like you're in. Very seldom does it happen. It's almost impossible. You have to make so much money to overcome that that it's unbelievable.

Instead, the couples tell us over and over and over again that they work together in the harness together, pulling the plow together towards a shared goal, a shared vision, a shared dream for our lives. And we're both willing to give up a little bit of our selfishness to get to that shared goal and that shared vision. We're both being grownups here to get to that shared goal and shared vision. And if you can't reset the table with her without it being explosive, you guys will need some marriage help man yeah and that's a pretty common barrier that we hit when we try to have this discussion as she brings the difference in our incomes together and i know from this point it's like wiping the slate clean and kind of moving towards my goal which is it's not it's not there's no difference in our incomes because we're married

it's our income i understand we have a household income i'm sure i'm sure your taxes are married filing jointly um no i don't think so well dude you're just giving the government a bunch of money then that was a dumb tax strategy okay uh malcolm this is a trust issue i i if i were going to try to boil it down to one word, what I'm hearing, both of you, she doesn't trust you. You don't trust her. Maybe two very different reasons. And I suspect there are two very different reasons, but both of you are lacking trust. And I think Dave's right. This is ground zero. You've got to reset, really, I think this trust issue in your marriage. At that point, then we can get on the same page in several areas i'll tell

you man for in my life when i had screwed this up and when um i've sat with other couples over 30 years of doing what i do um this has very little to do with money it's got everything to do with you're all being on the same page and having a shared goal a shared vision for your life and where you're going and where you're moving towards. And, um, then you start, then you can say, okay, there's two different ways to get there your way, my way. Let's come up with a new, a third way, a wee way. What's the way we are going to do this at our house? Because Sharon's a natural saver. I'm a natural spender. Um, I'm, uh, um, obviously gifted with with math she couldn't give a crap less about math she does stuff by feel and uh both of those bring something to the table when you're putting this

all this together and you've gotta you've got to use all of those strengths to get to your goal um but just tearing at each other and heading off in two different directions and being mad all the time. Very few people succeed financially doing that, like almost none statistically. And it's the number one cause of divorce. It's the number one cause of a marriage ending. So, man, it's just, I would pull out all the stops. I'd pull all the fire alarms, turn all the lights on, as Deloney says, I'd say, hey, there's a problem. This is a real problem, and I'm part of it, you're part of it, and we've got to work on this.

I probably would sit down with somebody and get some help. I think it would be good to have a third party that you both trust their input and help you put language to some of this. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 104, 24. How many are your works, Lord? In wisdom you made them all. The earth is full of your creatures.

John Wooden said, Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given be humble fame is man-given be grateful conceit is self-given be careful that was a quote machine he wasn't trying to be he wasn't your regular yogi bear yeah that's great uh chris is in syracuse new york hi chris merry christmas to you how can we help merry christmas guys thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I have been presented with a pretty substantial promotion,

but there's a lot going on in life right now that is making my head just spin. I have a daughter with my beautiful wife. We have a second one due here in a couple of months. She is currently working, and her dream is to stay home. And for the last couple of years, I feel like I've been working like a dog to get us there. And we're almost there. Now, this promotion I'm being offered is about an hour and a half away from where we currently live. So the con is, you know, we're away from all of our family. We don't know anybody in this area. The pro is I get to replace my wife's income and she can stay

home. So I just don't know what to do if this is the right move. What do you make now? We should, uh, I make about 100 to 105 with commissions. And your promotion will be to how much? It's going to be about an extra $30,000. And that's what your wife makes? She makes $44,000, but child care costs $10,000 a year, so it just about evens out when we don't have to pay for child care. What's the future look like with this promotion? What does it position you for? Well, it would put me on a fast track to the next step up, which would be to, I work in sales, so I run a store in retail, and this is essentially going to a much bigger, higher traffic store, and it would fast track me to run a district. Which is what kind of a bump? That would be about another 25 to 30K.

And how long is that normal jump be? Five years or 20? About a year, actually. If I can take over this position, it would be about a year. If not, I could be looking two to three years before I can make that jump. Let's keep playing this out. Is there a continued ladder? Absolutely, yeah. Next would be a a market which is about 50 stores and pretty much about 25k a year every step up so wait a minute when you're a district um you live anywhere you want to live right uh essentially yeah in the district this is

oh yeah uh i mean they prefer you to be central, which, oddly enough, my district, I live central, and I could potentially take over my boss's spot when he moves up. I already know what I think, Chris. This is a no-brainer if it's me. I'm going to tell family, you're only 90 minutes away. That's a nice, easy drive, and I can make friends. And my wife's quality of life is going to be so much better it's what she's been longing for uh you you set yourself up professionally i just think let's pretend that this is not a lifelong decision that this is a

one year or a two-year decision because that's what you just told us yeah i do a lot of stuff for a year or two years as a way to get to where i want to go you know what i'm saying yeah and um uh i mean i'd look at it like i'm in the military and i got deployed you know know, or something. I mean, just again, if you were going to move here and you say, okay, never again will we ever be near family, ever. That's a different statement than we're going to go up here in a year or two. We should be kind of back in the district and probably, if not, we may be in a different district and something else is going to change. But you're 90 minutes away for this period, too.

Let's call that what that is. Yeah. That's not. That's an easy afternoon. That's a quick little Friday night. If you're in L.A., that's three blocks. Yeah. That's true.

We've been working the baby steps for a couple of years now, and we're making quite a bit of progress. We started with about $150,000 in debt, and now we're at about $65,000 to go. And I know that this move is like a lateral financial. What's your wife's side? That's what I want to know. She can't imagine being away from her parents. She knows that it's a good career move.

We're kind of back and forth. Well, I think I would recouch it and say this is not a permanent move. This is an adventure. Like, I mean, did recouch it and say this is not a permanent move. This is an adventure. Like, I mean, did you ever hear about the people, we ran into this a few years ago, I haven't heard of it in a while, but like after Afghanistan, there were independent civilian contractors, and folks would go work for a year doing something in the sandbox and make like triple triple quadruple what

they could make doing something else and they come back you ever heard of that kind of stuff i haven't no yeah people were doing stuff like that just again it's a temporary assignment sure it's not saying you know i'm 30 years old and when i'm 60 i'll still be doing that no you won't because i guarantee you this you probably won't even be with this company when you're 60 probably not no yeah all right so question chris if your wife was on board would you have called us today would your head be spinning um i don't think so all right so let me tell you what i would do i would put your wife in the car and make that drive that's what i would do has she been up there or down there?

I'm sorry? Has she been to the new location? Oh, man, she's pregnant. How pregnant is she? Very. She's due in two months. Not taking her nowhere. Oh, she can handle it.

Listen, you be the doctor. I'm not doing this stuff. So, anyway, the – Wait, wait, wait. Let me make my point, though. If the doctor says that she can take a 90-minute car ride, then I would stick her in the car and drive her from your house to this new area and let her see how close she is to Mama and Daddy. This is absolutely a no-brainer, and she's got to get on board,

and you've got to start getting creative with it. I live in the same neighborhood. I'm 30 minutes from the grandkids. And I'm in the same neighborhood. It still takes 30 minutes to get there. Everything's 30 minutes. He's got a cast vision is what I'm saying, Dave. I get her wanting to be close. More than anything I think it's always helpful to reframe this

because often times when we look at these things like buying a car, buying a house, making a move, taking a job, we act like it's permanent. Like it's a tattoo that's right you're it's not going to be with you forever well you we walked him right up to the point you kid you figured it out you can be back here in two years living right where you are well or maybe not or maybe not maybe not district might not that district might not be open that's right but

it's all possible but yeah it's anything i i'm gonna give it a run and worst case is you you don't like it and you quit that company and you come back and do something else. You know? I mean. I just don't ever want to be in a situation, thankfully Stacey didn't put me in it, where I turned down something that was good for our family because we weren't comfortable making that change. And moving here was one of those things.

She left her sister. We left great community in Atlanta to come here. The kids were little, but they were in schools that she loved. Our neighbor. I don't want him to resent her if he doesn't take this opportunity. Yeah, but she already knew we liked her. Yeah, but she still. She worked here before you did.

I know, but she still didn't want to leave Atlanta. Like, you know what I mean? She didn't want to leave Atlanta, but she knew it was right mean she didn't want to leave atlanta but she knew it was right yeah that's what i'm saying i don't want resentment to be there and i'm just bringing that up this is this is far more than just a you know because he's passing up an opportunity and though i about what i heard just a little bit there is more to moving than simply the math and the career i I agree. You do have to say, okay, my church roots, my community roots, my family roots, my quality of life is going to shift. Right.

It was hard. Is it worth the tradeoff? And that's why his head's spinning. And I get it. And it was hard for Stacy to come here. That's more than just his wife doing that. That's right. It's both of them.

That's human nature. Yeah. And that's fair. That's a fair consideration. It just helps me to frame it if I look at it as temporary it as temporary yeah i agree with that i think that's really that takes the pressure off of this has to be oh god if i miss it i'll never get another opportunity yeah you will and or if we move and it's bad we're stuck there forever yeah no it's not the hotel california you can leave that's true yeah i don't want to put too much urgency on it to where he feels like he's blowing it if he doesn't take it. But man, you want to look at that

from all sides. Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, it's tough. Hey, you're thinking it through well, Chris, and you're talking it through well. That's the good news. The people that don't do that are the ones that do make mistakes. So well done, sir. Ken Coleman, good hour. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.