The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Be a Statistic in the Disaster That Is Credit Card Debt (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 18, 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Also host of the ever-popular Dr. John Deloney Show. If you check it out on Ramsey Networks and anywhere great podcasts are sold, you'll check him out there. He's our Ph.D. around here and helps folks with counseling issues. And it's going to work right into everything we do here today for sure. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Clay is in Amarillo, Texas. Hi, Clay. How are you? Good, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Oh, wind's blowing and we're dry.

That's about it. Sounds like Amarillo. Yes, sir. I'm a rancher down here. I'm 25. Bought my first ranch or bought my only ranch when I was 21. I had a question on, I follow you guys on social media and stuff like that, listen to you on the radio, but you talk about not having debt,

and I'm wondering how you run an operation without an operating note. Because even though cattle prices are through the roof right now, there's other things that are expensive as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sitting in a building that's about $600 million and a studio that this studio is probably, I don't know, $10 million probably. And the way we did that with a $300 million revenue, we started on a card table in my living room with absolutely no money, just me.

Me, myself, and I. That was the whole freaking board of directors. And I started with the promise that I would never borrow money because I'd gone broke borrowing money and because I read the Bible and it said the borrower is slave to the lender. And I'm a simpleton and I believed it and I'm just not borrowing money. So the way I have gone from a card table to where I'm sitting today without borrowing money is, it sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. But to start with, Clay, I just didn't borrow money. I mean, that's it, period.

I'm not going to borrow money for anything. Now, what that means then is, how do I run a business? How do I grow a business like I've grown this one without borrowed money? And that is, I grew it more slowly than some of my friends who are now out of business because the bank foreclosed on them during COVID. I grew it more slowly than some people thought I should, who thought they were smarter than me, who have less money than me now. I grew it slowly, frustrated the crap out of me because I wanted to go faster because what we do is help people. And gosh, by going slowly, we're not helping as many people as we could help and that's really frustrating and i grew it slowly because it's all i had because i i can only use my profits to grow

with i can only use my profits to buy equipment with i can only use my profits to add payroll and new team members with it's my only option and it forces me to be very selective it forces me to say no to a lot of things but then when times are tough i don't have a note and i'm still here and i'm still growing and we're still the number one brand in the entire space in the nation there's no one even close to us with the social media footprint in the space that we're still the number one brand in the entire space in the nation there's no one even close to us with the social media footprint in the space that we're in or the the podcasting or the youtube footprints or the revenue that we produce and the the amount of people interacting with every dollar nobody's even close we freaking own the space we are the 800 pound gorilla now

but that's the way we got there is we were a starving little monkey that didn't borrow money you know and so that's it i mean it's not it's not rocket surgery it's just it's just that is but it's hard to do because you're obviously a sharp dude i mean who goes and buys a ranch at 21 well it's not a wuss you're obviously a stud man you're going for it who's out there operating a business like you're already operating at 25 years old way to go man you know and so you you got ambition you got things you got things you want to do you have an idea in the shower every morning that you can't do if you don't borrow money and some of those ideas suck, by the way.

Clay, how much in the hole are you? If you put all of your liabilities out on the table, how big is the hole? About half a million. And I know you're not supposed to ask this in the 806, but how big is your ranch? It is 250. Okay. Good for you. What are you running on it? Cattle. Cows. Because cow prices,,000. Okay, good for you. What are you running on it?

Cattle. Cows. Because cow prices, you said. Okay. Cattle prices are up. And so, by the way... And nine-tenths of that is the place itself. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course.

Like, it's mortgage. I do owe a little bit of money on some cows. I've got two payments left on those. But other than that, that's the only debt that I have. Well, you've pretty much avoided debt except for your real estate mortgage. And so that's far beyond what a lot of people in your world do. As you know, the farming and ranching world is big on debt. And they think they can't do it if they don't have an $800 million combine that runs circles by itself with a gps and does a double backflip at the end of the row it's got a pool in the back i rode in one of those

dave it was air conditioned it was nicer than my car yeah oh way nicer the stereo system's better oh yeah much better hey uh clay i want you to check out the carbon cowboys these guys that are changing the way ranching is done and their proposition is you don't have to borrow this kind of money for the fertilizer for the equipment it's just a radical shift and they're and they're they're net neutraling uh the dollar their dollar for dollaring it so give them a shot too just to check them out how they're doing farming it's pretty impressive stuff so what i would tell you this clay is this in the radio world the broadcast world it's like the farming world in the sense that everybody borrows money

but most people don't make it 10 years they're out of business in a 10-year cycle because the risk that goes with the borrowed money you feel the pinch that's why you're asking the question oh yeah i mean we're not struggling but it's no we don't do anything extravagant no and it but it makes you think you have to stop and think i got this note every time you get ready to do something you got to think I got to make this note. And last year, it didn't rain. It got pretty dicey, didn't it? Oh, yes, sir.

Yeah. The fires this spring. Yeah. That's right. There's fires. It's drought. I mean, it's tough. What we are proposing is not only countercultural in America,

it's super countercultural in the farming and ranching world. But the ones that do it have a longer life in business, and they have a better quality of life. But they grow slower. They grow slower. You don't go from 250 acres to 2,500 in 20 minutes. But you have those, if you do it right, you have those anti-fragile moments when, let's say it all goes,

let's say there's a bad drought for three years and you've just kept tortoise in the hair and you just kept plugging along and plugging along and your ranch got bigger by 10 acres and you bought 15 over here and you bought this. Eventually, the drought wipes out your neighbors and they have to sell you their ranch for pennies on the dollar. That's what, if you hang on and hang on and hang on that's what happened here suddenly oh i just tripled my footprint for very little money because i just went slow yeah the number of times i bought out vendors inventory of pennies on the dollar the number of times i bought out competitor stuff at pennies on the dollar over the years because i'm sitting on the cash i got no notes you're

going slow and i'm the only guy that's but boring it's so boring it's not sexy it's not nobody thinks you're cool you're not on the cover of fast company magazine yeah you know which by the way has been through four owners this is the ramsey show the number one best-selling book is building a non-anxious life that's his latest number one bestselling book is Building a Non-Anxious Life. That's his latest number one. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The best way to make the most of your money is by telling it what to do instead of wondering where it went.

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You can download it for free, and you should. Tyler is in Kansas City. Hi, Tyler. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for taking the call. Sure. What's up?

So my wife and I are particularly in an interesting situation. We are trying to juggle between prioritizing saving up for a house to get her out of a job that's not the best environment within the next two to three years, or prioritizing the debt we already have, which is not much, and paying that off now. And so I'm— Stop. I'm confused how you getting a house gets her out of a toxic environment. So with her job, we actually have provided housing on space for where she works. So as soon as she quits the job, we don't have the housing that we live in. Okay, so you could rent.

True. I left university housing and me and my wife rented a house. I was a dean of students at a fancy university. You can do it. Okay. So, okay, to further my question then, with the money that we have currently, should we just, like, go right into renting? Because the renting expenses are going to be more than what we possibly can afford

in the environment that we're in. We're saving up about $1,000 a month, not on top of the investing and all the other steps that we're doing with every dollar and the baby steps towards a house but you can't afford a house you can't afford a house you can afford the payment on a house but you can't afford a house do you know the difference yes yes okay i'm afraid you're going to wake up in six months and have gotten her out of this job and then y'all got this house payment and then you got this debt and then she's going to end up pregnant, or y'all are going to have a car emergency, and then you're going to have a mess. Yeah, there's just one toxic environment to another toxic environment.

Okay. And I've lived in a house two different times that I really couldn't afford, and it has created so much tension in my home that it almost cost me my marriage. I can't tell you enough. Don't do that. Okay. Go rent a house and let the smoke clear on my marriage. I just, I can't tell you enough. Don't do that. Okay. Go rent a house and let the smoke clear on your marriage, on her, all that pain, all

that toxicity, all that nightmare stuff. Let that smoke clear and then it'll give you some time. What is the nature of the toxicity at the work? So two factors. One, she works right now between 15, 70 hours a week in a labor intensive job. She's a female. She's's 120 pounds so that's impacted secondly uh the position that her authority is in is borderline emotionally abusive and it's not a good environment i mean there's nothing physically going on but it's just a really tough environment it puts a lot of stress on her i'm not sure i completely understand um uh because sometimes i hear things that people

say are emotionally abusive like somebody said hey go get your job done you're emotionally abusive no you're freaking lazy go get your job done that's not emotionally abusive yeah and so that's not that's not the environment I'm talking about. I'm talking about going back on their word or overworking or underpromising, stuff like that. And so that's where I'm personally in a space where, hey, I want her out of this position. How long has she been in this position? She's been in this position and the current position within the company for the last two years. And how old are you guys?

So I am going on 27, and she's 26. Okay. All right. Well, as far as I'm concerned, if I'm in your shoes, and I've been in similar situations over the years, there are two options. One is, you know, this is so bad for real. We're not just using the – this is so bad for real we're not just using the the fact that this is not just discomfort there's a difference between discomfort and a toxic environment if she's working 120 hours a week and she says i'm not willing to work 120 hours a week or i'm not willing to work 80 hours

a week or i'm not willing i'm willing to work this number of hours then they fire her then that's their option but you can just start having like boundaries like when somebody starts speaking to you inappropriately you say hey whoa whoa you know you can't talk to me that way you can fire me but you can't talk to me that way absolutely so your wife's ability to say no to her or to this environment is part of the problem her lack of boundaries and um that's why you know and so if she cannot put up reasonable boundaries to say okay i can only work a reasonable number of hours i'm 120 pounds i can't lift um you know heavy boxes all day long uh 16 hours a day i can't do that i can i can work eight hours or I can work 10 hours, and I like my job,

and I like the benefits, and I like the money you give me, and I can do that, and I'm not going to be yelled and screamed at or cussed at, and so you've got to talk to somebody else that way if you're going to. And suddenly, bullies pull back then and don't bully as much. That's one option, is deal with the situation, suck it up, and push on through. Or the other option is go rent something. But using this situation to justify doing something stupid and getting your family in a pinch and saying, oh, the only thing we could do to get away from this toxic, wicked witch of the West is to go buy a house we couldn't afford and go bankrupt.

These are two negative options. And I'm choosing between two negative options. No, let's go with C, none of the above. And Tyler, I want to double click on what Dave said because it's really important for the character and the strength of your home. If you leave an environment because somebody kept beating you down

and you have to, it takes years to heal from abuse. It disconnects you from yourself. If she has her head up high and said, you kept telling me that you were going to hire three people and you haven't, you're dishonest. I refuse to do work that I told you I'm physically unable to do. I can't work 90 hours a week. Like Dave said, I can work 50.

I can work 60 in limited runs. And the rest of the time I got to be with my family. If y'all can't be people of character and integrity, I'm going to walk out that door. And when you walk out like that, not it's emotional abuse. No, they're just not telling the truth. They're lying to you. But you walk out with your shoulders thrown back. And that sets the tone for your home that sets the tone for the next job she applies to it helps you see the world a little more clearly than walking through disconnected from yourself that's a little bit more of taking the victor position that's right

victim that's right yeah and that that's a setting us setting a solid boundary with people who don't like boundaries you generally drives them nuts and they go they usually lose their minds and they may fire you i mean so when people want that don't appreciate that they're standing on your property they're taking some of your hours they're taking some of your emotional well-being and then you say you can't do that anymore i'm going to set up a boundary i'm not going to give you as many hours and i'm not going to give you my emotional well-being you can't stand on my, get off my lawn. And when you say that to somebody who's used to getting away with it,

they generally go nuts. But I've had a boss that I said, if you say these things to me again, I'm going to walk out of that door. I've said that. And they circled back and said, I'm sorry. And it was offensive. It was rude. But they said, I'm sorry.

It won't happen again. but it didn't it never did again but it was me just saying you can't swear at me in this meeting again i'm gonna get up and walk out of the room and it was i'm sorry you're right i'm sorry but so there was just standing up but i also had to be prepared man they could have said well you can take your bag and walk out that door right they could do that too because they're in that position you're in that position and you know so if you got fired from a place you were going to quit if they kept screwing you, that's not like a loss. No. Yeah.

That's like a gain. Right. So, you know, because you said you can't do this anymore, they go, oh, okay. Well, instead of leaving, because I would recommend setting some boundaries at a minimum as a step one and to create, to lower the toxicity i don't know that you'll get rid of it because you're probably dealing with a moron but um but you can lower the level of moronic influence and um you know really you can't you could just by limiting it's what a boundary does i'm putting up a shield here you can't come inside the shield i you know i'm extending my personal space you you got all up in my stuff here and I'm going to create a little room here and you're in my personal space. And,

and when you do that, it changes a lot of stuff for you. Uh, I'd recommend doing that as step one. Step two is if you get fired or decide you can't take it and you quit, go rent something cheap and go someplace. If you got to move out of the city, go move out of the city and rent something cheap. I don't care, but don don't use it an excuse to do something stupid dr john deloney ramsey personality host of the dr john deloney show phd in counseling and he's here to help the uh the office hours are open the phone number is 888-825-5225. So, John, this is interesting to me. I've been doing this show since 1992.

So, 32 years. And the first year we went on the air, there was a huge problem in America with credit card debt. And there's still a huge problem. I doing no good i'm not making any progress there's still a huge problem with credit card debt google trends recently reported in the u.s how to lower credit card debt in quotes reached an all-time high as a search item for those that don't know google trends as part of the google reports what people are searching for there it is okay so what this means is that more people than ever before essentially well since google not ever but since google are searching for how to lower credit card

debt that makes sense in 2024 we now know that credit card debt has gone over a trillion with t dollars so how do you pay off your credit cards fast what do you do well this is what we've been doing as a matter of fact if uh you like google dave ramsey the first thing you're going to hear is how to get out of debt right john i mean it's like i'm they may not know i know how to do anything else but they know i know how to do that right on your license plate it actually is it says zero debt yeah on my license plate on a very nice car and so but that's because the car doesn't have debt. That was the message because you can't drive a car like that unless you have debt.

Everybody knows that. But you can't drive a car like that if you've got debt. So here's an interesting thing. Here's something for you to think about, folks. We live in the most marketed to society culture in the history of mankind. In the United States of America, you receive more marketing impressions across your eyes and ears in a given day, more money is spent, more brainpower and sophistication is spent to sell you things than any group of humans in the history of mankind ever at this moment. Marketing, selling things to you in ads, in Google pop-ups or whatever whatever it is you want to do whatever ad whatever version of advertising or marketing you want to think about you get a diet

out there of that that's greater than man has ever gotten any time in history no one has ever walked the earth that has been hammered like you've been hammered by marketing. That's a pretty bold and big statement, but it's also true. It's not hard to figure it out that that's the truth. And here's what's interesting. Among all of that, the most dollars that are spent to sell a single product line more than any other product line, any other mindset, any other thing you want to sell, any other brand you want to sell out there, the most advertised and marketed product in dollars and in brain power,

by far in the most marketed to culture in the history of mankind is debt. More money is spent to sell you on getting in debt in the most marketed-to culture in the history. This is a big deal. In other words, when you add up what MasterCard, American Express Discover, and Visa spend in a year, it's more than all the professional sports make in a year it's more than egypt takes in for their entire economy in a year just to sell you those four pieces of plastic and they are good at it they the things just

magically show up in your mailbox your inbox your dead dog from four years ago will be issued its own line of credit and it'll show up in a credit card on your mailbox frou-frou the dead poodle will get a credit card in america today i've got it i've got a copy of frou-frou the dead poodle's. A guy sent it to me from New Orleans. And a guy in North Carolina applied with a fraudulent social security number under the name Buck Naked and was issued a $20,000 line on a Visa card. Wow. Because they don't even look.

They don't even check your credit. But about one out of ten of the applications and so they issue these pieces of plastic like water going down a drain and you're walking around like i'm somebody because they you're not somebody you don't even necessarily breathe for you to get a credit card you don't even necessarily have to be a breathing human to get a credit card i've just proven that to you these are not made up stories it's the most aggressively marketed product in america today and people are walking around going i'm still i have i have a i have a platinum titanium it's a plastic version of a precious plutonium American Express card that you can't even cut up because it's made from plutonium.

Dave, can I tell you something embarrassing? In college when I got out and I had student loan debt and I was broke. Oh, I did. No, I did. I got a gold Amex. I got a card. I'm not lying to you. I called the number on the back and said, I need to talk to an account executive.

They sent me through. I told her her thank you i i thanked her for taking a chance on me and she was like you know we just felt like and i was like hey i like it's pretty awesome and she's recording the call they're playing it back the next morning right now they're playing it right now they're like see we're doing a service i thanked her man so what we teach people is here's wells fargo bank have plastic surgery don't fall for this you are a sucker to the man you're a sucker to the largest marketing machine ever known to man what's in your wallet money that's what's in my wallet money because i don't have this crap in my wallet i don't have to go to the chiropractor because there's 73 credit cards in my wallet and i sit sideways every day with my back pocket you know and my so my back's out of

alignment i've actually found people that did that. They're back healed. It's the George Costanza wallet. Yeah. When they got rid of this. So plastic surgery, having a plasectomy will change your life. Dave, you don't have any credit cards? I don't have any credit cards. I haven't had any credit cards for 40 years.

How do you? By the way, I just got back. I took a little tour from London to Iceland. And I just got back i took a little tour from london to iceland and i just got back day before yesterday and you know what i have a credit card it was amazing you know what they took over there debit cards just like credit cards they had no difference and did the currency exchange did the whole thing and and i actually had uh you know a big old wad of cash in my pocket because I always care because American dollars are taken almost everywhere.

It's amazing. They find a way to take them. You know, if you go, you know, you can go in the poorest country in the world. They'll go, yeah, I'll take that. But very few times, you know, I found a few people that snooted me and said, you need a euro sometimes in Europe. But most of the time you just walk around with a dollar. But I mean, everywhere I was, they took plastic.

And so I obviously had no issue, and I just dropped my little debit card in there. I have four pieces of plastic in my wallet, a debit card on my business, a debit card on my personal account, my driver's license, and my handgun carry permit. That's all that's in my wallet other than green president's faces and lots of those of different kinds, by the way. I like to click different colors or different different faces on there yeah so guys don't fall for this crap and don't tell

me your debit card is not safe it's got the exact same fraud protection exact same fraud protection as your credit card go look it up on visa.com it's called a zero liability policy look it up on mastercard.com they both have the exact same phrasing on their websites like they were owned by each other or something but the debit cards got the exact same stuff listen shut up you're not going to get rich borrowing money at 18 that's just straight up stupid on a string okay you've got to make a decision i'm not going to live like this and these people they're stupid're stupid, man. They just keep doing it. Look at this one. New Wells Fargo credit card program with a novel feature. You can use it to pay your rent, but it may not be working out quite as well as the bank at hope. Wells Fargo is losing as much

as $10 million a month on this new card. So you're telling me people that pay rent with their credit cards, a credit card that was designed to help them pay rent that they couldn't afford. Oh, wait, so you're loaning money to broke people and you're bitching because they don't pay it. Shut up, Wells Fargo. You're getting what you deserve. You signed up for this trip. Guys, boys and girls, really, you got to decide.

Are you going to be like everybody else? Everybody else is walking around collecting airline miles. Millionaires, they stack cash. This is the Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Dave is in Orlando. Hi, Dave. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. So my wife and I are really excited that we are adopting our two foster kids. Awesome. Way to go. Thank you very much.

We are super excited. They are two and three years old brothers, and we just couldn't be happier. So it should happen in August. And my question is, we've always tried to be really financially smart and good with our finances. Obviously, we want to pass that on to our kids. But being that they are in the system, they are going to get money every month, $650 a month per child until they're 18. And naturally, this is their money. I want to keep it for them. So my question is, what is the best way to go ahead and save this for them? Should I open up a brokerage account in their name? Should it be an UTMA? I was looking into a 529 but that's actually not needed because

they're exempt from paying tuition in Florida um so what are your thoughts what should I do what's your household income uh right now it's 230 okay all right um you're welcome to do whatever you would like to do I would not do what you're doing. You're going to discover very quickly that it costs a whole lot more than $650 a month to raise a kid. And so I would dump the $650 a month into the budget and then just raise the kids. And as a part of raising the kids, I'm going to invest and become wealthy and leave them a big old pile of money and have some money for them when they come out of college and have some money for them when they come out of college and have some money for them.

But you're not morally, ethically, and certainly not legally bound to set this money aside for them, and it's not inherently unholy to just mix it into the family budget because you're spending more than that on them. By far, you're going to spend a lot more than that on them. Okay. Yeah, that was actually, so that was my wife's thought when we talked about this, or she had that idea as well. So, you know. And 529 is not needed, but, you know, if you just have mutual funds that are not in retirement that you're investing in,

and those funds are nicknamed, you know, I'm going to make sure this is to help them get their first house. This is to help them get started after they get married and they're 25, right? And, you know, you dump some money in there occasionally and you try to, you know, and then when they – because you're going to be a multimillionaire if you're doing the stuff we're teaching. It sounds like you're very responsible. You're making a quarter of a million dollars a year. And so, you know, if you've got a couple of accounts laying around they got a couple hundred thousand bucks in them that are kind of earmarked for the kiddos and you're going to help them buy

their first house or you're going to help them do whatever out of that then but there's no compulsion to keep it completely separate and clean morally ethically legally or anything people do that with child support sometimes or they do it with uh if a spouse passes away you get uh social security money for the spouse that passed away to the kids they get they get big checks or not big check but good checks like you guys are getting and so um you know that kind of stuff and in all those cases we just say there's no need to mix child support just mix it in the budget there's no need to mix child support just mix it in the budget there's no need to uh take social security money and hold it aside just mix it in

the budget and you get what you guys are doing you're going to be such great moms and dads because your heart is so pure on this you guys are amazing thank you for for what you do what you're doing and those kids are blessed to have you thank you very Yeah. I'm going to try not to cry, but we love them so much, you know, and we weren't able to have kids biologically, but, but now that we're here and everything we've gone through, we, we know it was, it was all for a reason and we just couldn't be happier. And, um, just, just one last comment, you know, we, we are, um, baby steps millionaires already. So, so we are, uh, you you know on a good path and and last thing with the kids we're getting ten thousand dollars for each kid because i am a veteran as well so i'm

assuming with that too which is same thing to our budget and they'll be set up yeah yeah and you know again again your your biggest thing here is not the actual dollars that you leave them as you know your biggest thing is to transfer your value system, which got you where you are, called hard work and thrift and generosity. These are your financial values. You work hard. You've studied hard to get to be who you are. Teach them those things.

Teach them live on less than you make. Teach them live on a budget with a plan. them you know when you were three and we adopted you we started thinking right then about you paying about paying cash for your first house so that you never are in debt and that will set you guys up to be millionaires real quickly and uh but but that comes with some strings it comes with you being a good human because i'm not going to give you this money if you're doing heroin yeah you know and so you this is just you weave this whole narrative of handling money wisely as a part of your parenting structure and john that changed that does change everything doesn't it yeah it's it i'm just um

um i'm just overcome a little bit man i'm getting choked up a little bit but with the with the level of gratitude for a family like dave who took one of the most painful experiences um unable to have kids and they grieved it and then they said okay uh what's the next thing for us to do as a family and they're gonna adopt two uh two two little brothers and um it's beautiful now and i know it's gonna be hard give me a hard road to hoe and it's pretty amazing thing that they're doing but i think you're right i think parents get so caught up in stuff i want to be able to give them this thing and give them this thing. And man, the greatest gift you can give your kids is a living example of values in the real world, right?

Like, let him see you tip well. Let him see you honor that waitress who's the only person running all these tables and the food wasn't that great. Like, let the kids see you be who you are. And man, that's money's awesome. Money's nice. But let's transfer values. Let's transfer values. There you go. And man, that's money's awesome. Money's nice, but let's transfer values. Let's transfer values. There you go. Love it. Steve's in Wilmington, Delaware. Hi, Steve. How are you?

Oh, Dave. Thanks, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? I feel, oh, okay. Well, I think, I feel like I'm stuck in the mud. I read your book, Total Money Maker, with a new one. I've been following the steps. I think I'm on baby step four, but somehow I got backwards and my emergency fund that I feel is in a brokerage account and a smart investor fund. So my question to you is, should I leave that there and rebuild the emergency fund in a money market account? I think I could fund it probably in three to four months for sure. That's fine. But you do need a separate emergency fund.

Here's what happens that I had to learn because it killed me. The first time I ever saved $10,000 and I had to name it an emergency fund instead of an investment and I put it in a stupid money market account and it wasn't making anything. And then I could start investing the first time I did that because it's the only $10,000 I'd ever had in my life or since I've been broke anyway, i went broke is the only time i had ten thousand dollars and i'd worked so hard to get that ten thousand dollars and now i gotta not invest it for a math nerd that just broke my heart right and i had to figure out that the emergency fund the purpose of it of that ten thousand dollars in that example is not an investment the emergency fund i always make when i'm doing live events i

make the crowd say not an investment 4 000 people say not an investment right it's insurance everybody say insurance insurance right and what does insurance do it costs you money to protect the things that make you money that's what insurance does and that's what your emergency fund does it sucks if you look at it as an investment it's not an investment though it's insurance and so the money that you're not making what we call opportunity costs because it's in a high yield savings instead of in a brokerage account the money you're not making is your cost of that insurance policy i call it my soul tax i pay four to five percent every month to sleep soundly yeah and i love it yeah that's it so yeah

steve that's a technicality in your case because you've got it dialed in you know what's going on your intellect has grasped what you're supposed to do so yeah just get your high yield savings account and dump three to six months of expenses in there as your emergency fund. And just any time you look at it and want to puke a little, just say, not an investment. It's not an investment. It's insurance. And when I buy homeowner's insurance, I don't say, oh, that was fun. I always go, it's something I got to do because it's smart to protect that asset, but it costs me money to protect that asset.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you.