The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Be Dumb About Education! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is donned, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. My co-host today on the air, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, Anthony O'Neill, is with me. We're here to answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rochester, New York. Margaret is going to start

us off. Anthony. Hey, Margaret, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you two? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Great. Thank you so much for taking my call. I have a quick question about supply chain degrees. You always seem excited when someone says that's their major. Can you expand a little bit on them, and what kind of characteristics would be a good candidate for that degree?

Okay. We used to, in the old days call it logistics a logistics degree but it has to do with uh you know everything from transportation to uh purchasing uh like for instance i've got a couple of supply chain guys on my team and so they'll they'll source help us source the vendor negotiate with the vendor to produce like like, the Rachel Cruz wallet. Okay? And then we've got to get it produced. We've got to get it delivered at a price point that we can sell it at.

And it's got to be here on time. And so it involves getting it from another country. In that case, I think they're being made in India or something this time, if I remember right. And so negotiating with that vendor and getting to know that vendor, making sure they're behaving. And so it's almost as if they're the producer of a product and the delivering of a product. Does that make sense? Yes. And the reason I'm excited is young people are coming out of school with a four-year degree in supply chain,

and they're landing jobs at $80,000 a year. Okay. Which, to me, blows my mind. I mean, that's a pretty cool four-year degree starting salary. Yes, I agree. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. You guys have a great day. Thank you, Margaret. We, I agree. Okay, well, that's all I wanted to know. You guys have a great day. Hey, thank you, Margaret.

We appreciate you listening. That's pretty cool. I mean, there's a lot of degrees you come out and you're making. I mean, you get a marketing degree. If you come out and make 45 or 50 at your entry level, that's not unusual at all. It's really not unusual. But I like that. I mean, I think that's a degree that would definitely grow with you and

even expand with you yeah i mean uh like i remember the i think the first time i took note of it was when my son daniel who's uh 28 or so he's been out of school four or five years uh when he was coming out one of his buddies that was one of his roommates in school that was a family friend was a young man that we knew he comes out and he's making i think 78 000 and i went what what you're kidding and then i look up a couple years later and he's making like a couple bills he's making a couple hundred yeah and he's not even 30 years old so it's a pretty stinking lucrative field to be in and it's not a field for everyone but you know when you're talking about student loans or you're talking about talking to college students, we're always saying, get a degree where you can get a job because of the degree.

And not just a job, but it's a career field that will grow with you financially. It's not just something once you get it, you're at $40,000 for the rest of your life. Get a good degree, get a good job that you can earn your way up and get some more money. Yeah. I mean, to me, you know, I understand the calling to social work. But if you go to work for the state as a social worker, you're making $35,000 or $40,000. That's it. And you got a master's degree. And you can make $35,000 or $40,000 with a high school diploma.

Yes, sir. In almost every case. You can make a $40,000 with a high school diploma. Yes, sir. In almost every case. You can make a lot more than that with a high school diploma if you get in the right field and do a lot of things. College is not required for everyone. But I'm always just encouraging parents, particularly, to not be a dream killer, but just be thoughtful about what are you going to spend this money to put tools in your belt of knowledge in a certain area is it going to lead you to something where you can make a freaking living if my son is going to say dad we're going to pay a hundred thousand dollars for

my education i'm like okay what what are you getting from that exactly so a hundred thousand dollars with a thirty five thousand dollar or forty a year return, I'm not a huge fan of that. But I agree with you, Dave. If you feel as if you've been called and that's what you have to do, go that route. But for me and for my house, if we're going to spend that much money, I want your salary to eventually at least be $100,000 or a year minimum down the road once you work your way there. I want to have an upside to this, and I want to have a good starting position. Yes. You know, as well.

But you don't pick something you hate. No. Pick something you don't want to do with your life. It's not being a dream killer, but sometimes if you do your dream the wrong way, it's known as a nightmare. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Good question, Margaret. Very good.

Matt is with us. Matt is in Danbury, Connecticut. Hi, Matt. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? All right.

So a little background. I'm 34, single, no debt, and I've been able to save around $30,000 in cash. Now, I know that I should probably move that into my 401k, but psychologically, I'm just having a problem taking that money from my checking account and putting it into my 401k. And also, I know you're not supposed to do this and measure yourself against other people. I don't feel confident in my financial situation currently. I know it probably doesn't make any sense, but that's where I'm at. Why, Matt? I mean, for one, let me help you understand this. You can't take your $30,000 and put that into a 401k. 401k is going to be-

But not all of it. Yeah. Well, you can't take none of it. You can't put into a 401k. That has to go through your job, through your paycheck. Now, you can put that into a Roth IRA, but we'll talk about that a little bit later on. But let me ask you this question. Why are you having a problem investing into your future? I don't know. It's like a psychological issue where I just have that cash available to me if I need it. And I'm just having a problem moving that just cash into something where I can't touch it if I needed it. Do you not have the psychological issue that you're not saving for your future?

You're two years younger than me. Does it scare you that I'm not doing anything to protect my 50-year-old, 60, 70-year-old self? I guess it should. You're right. Yeah. So I get you on the fact that, like, hey, I have $30,000. I'm scared to move it. Okay, cool.

Here's the thing. You got to move some of it because we want you to keep at least six months into, three to six months into your emergency fund. But at the same time, I want you to go on ahead and to get some type of investment to your future because your 56-year-old self will say, man, you weren't thinking about me back then. You was only thinking about yourself. I hear you. What's your household income? By the end of this year, I'll probably end up making around $80,000.

Okay. What do you think three to six months of expenses as your emergency fund should be? Probably about $12,000. Yeah. Let's make it $20,000. Yeah. Okay. And just fund your Roth IRA, and let's get started after that,

then putting 15% of your income away into your Roth IRA and whatever, your 401K at work and those kinds of things like we talk about. Maybe step four is where you should be. But set $20,000 aside, that gives you that comfort. You've got an extra big emergency fund that way. You make an 80, that's a fourth of your income. That's not bad. And then, you know, let's get a Roth IRA open.

You can drop that 6,000 in there and not think anything about it. And sit with your SmartVestor Pro and they'll help you get started with all that. You can walk before you run. Life sure has a lot of twists and turns. Unlike a roller coaster, we never know what's around the bend. The same can be true with unanticipated medical bills. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a great option for those who are faith-focused and budget-conscious.

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To see if CHM is right for you, visit online at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Thank you for joining us, America. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. The phone number is 888-825-5225. David is in Sacramento. Hi, David. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey. David is in Sacramento. Hi, David. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, Anthony. How are you guys doing? Doing well. That's when we help. Hi. So I'm on baby step two. I have $2,000 in credit card debt, $2,500 in medical bills.

I just had a second baby, so that's where that's from. I have exactly that amount in the market in various stocks. I was wondering, should I just sell that now, be totally debt-free today? My income is about $120 a year, so I make good money. I could pay off these debts relatively fast, but would you recommend that I just sell either with it today or let the money grow longer while it's there? Now, would you say these are single stocks? Yeah, just, you know, Tesla and a couple other companies. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to sell those. Go ahead and get out of them and pay off your debt. Immediately. Yeah, okay. ASAP. Okay. Here's the reasoning behind that then is that all the data that we have from 30 years of doing this says the shortest path to you becoming wealthy is not playing single stocks while you have money in debt.

It is to become debt-free, manage your budget, use the fact that you don't have any payments anymore as you get on into baby step four to make more conservative investments than you've made in good growth stock mutual funds in your retirement and begin to grow that. Maybe step five is do the same thing with those mutual funds for your kid's college instead of playing the market. Okay. Out of all the millionaires that we study, virtually, I mean, I would say it was less than 5% of them made their money playing single stocks.

95% of them did not use your methodology. Yeah, it's not something I thought I'd be rich off of, but I was more curious what your recommendation was. I mean, if you keep it so low in the future that the amount of money is it's a hobby, and then you lose it all, that's fine. 78% of the day traders lose money. Yes. Okay.

So just keep that. I mean, it's like I don't gamble because I lose money and I work too hard for it, so it bothers me. It's not like a moral thing. For me, it's a practical thing. So I don't get a thrill out of losing money at the blackjack table. It doesn't make me happy. But I've got a good friend who makes several million dollars a year, and he'll go lose a thousand dollars as his

form of entertainment. That doesn't compute in my brain, but you could kind of put it in that category if you want to play single stocks. Yeah. And here's the thing too, David. Now, once you pay off all your debt today, I mean, once you sell your stocks and you pay it off, and make it $120,000 a year, you'll be able to get to your

three months, three to six months within the next four or five months. Yeah. And you'll be right back to investing. Yeah. So definitely make sure you check out our SmartVestor Pro, so that way you can get back to it. But I'm proud of you, man. Yeah, and get back to mutual funds for you and your kids.

Yes. See, if you're debt-free and you have an emergency fund with a second baby, that's just so much more important than having this little bit of money laying there in the market, messing around with single stocks. It's just so much more important. You would never borrow money to go do that, especially

in your family situation. That's why we're giving you this advice. That's the why behind the answer. Emmett's with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Emmett. How are you? Doing very well. How are you guys today? Better than we deserve, man. What's up? Well, great. Hey, I've got a little over $100K in a 529 plan for my daughter. Wow. Just started her senior year. So I have this all in growth funds within that 529. So I guess my question is,

should I start to tear that back a little bit and get a little bit more conservative since, I guess, next September or so we might expect her using this money? Yeah. Well, it's all in how you feel about what the market is going to do in the next five years. Because you've got one year before she starts school and four more years, right? So you have a portion of this that's going to be left alone for five years. You have a portion that's going to be left alone for four years, a portion that's going to be left alone unless she burns through it before her senior year, right? Right, right.

Where is she thinking about going to school? Probably in-state. She's looking at Ohio State right now. Yeah. Ohio is probably one of the top choices. Good. Okay. And right there in Columbus.

Yes. So you can do this for $100,000. Yeah. It's very doable. Very. But you are going to need some of that money in the fifth year. So I don't care if you leave it in some growth. You've just got to be willing to say it might go up, it might go down during that time.

There's nothing that says, I mean, if you're scared, you can just pull it all, set it in a money market. It's not going to make a dime between now and the next five years. Right, right. And if you want to say, I'm going to move half of it there, you know, you could do that. And that augments some of your risk. So, you know, you never know what the stock market is going to do uh but um generally speaking most years it makes some money yeah yeah and here and here's the thing too emin what i would do is before you made that decision either way you can't

go wrong like dave said uh sit down and just do the research see exactly how much money will you need over the next five years. And then from there, then you can make your decision. Lay out your project budget. Yeah. The project is school. Yeah. And let's lay out a budget.

We've got five years to do it. On $100,000, you might make $10,000 between now and next September. Right. And then you might make $10,000 the next year. So that's the kind of money we're talking about. So you make nothing or you make $10,000. Yeah. It's not the end of the world either way way it's probably not going to get her through school it's not going to keep her from going to school so if it's more about your emotions and how you

feel about it the chances of the hundred becoming worth 50 during the five years is almost zero statistically historically okay is it possible yes but we're saying the American economy is worth half of what it is today, five years from today. It's possible, but it's historically very unlikely. And so I'm not worried about that. That kind of move, and you're not going to make 50 grand on it either. Right. So that kind of move in the money is just, you know, but if it goes down 10 grand, are you going to be, you know, chewing your fingernails off?

If it is, go ahead and move it to money market. Yep. But if you're going to go, yeah, went down a little, probably go up a little, whatever, which is me because I've been doing it a long time. So I'm fine with a little bit of ride. I don't want to lose 50%. No. But I'm fine with a little bit of ride on it.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Anthony, our question of the day comes from blinds.com. Satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your window blinds for free. Free samples, free shipping, new promos all the time. Use the promo code Ramsey. Today's question comes from Heath in Kentucky. He visits DaveRamsey.com to ask,

My wife and I are currently attending university and have no debt between the two of us. We have worked hard and have saved debt between the two of us. We have worked hard and have saved up around forty five thousand dollars in our bank account. We do not own or own a home and are currently renting a cheap apartment on campus. My question revolves around my future intent to go to law school, which will presumably be very expensive. Should we continue to save all of our money now and leave it in high yielded savings account, anticipating this large future expense of law school? Or should we begin investing 15 percent of our income now into our retirement? Dave, on this one, I'm going to say if you know for sure you are going to law school, I'm saving up for law school. I'd rather you have zero debt than to invest into your future and then you get back into debt so prepare for your future with zero debt go into law school

as soon as you pay cash for law school then yes invest 15 start babysat number four completely agree heath the best investment mathematically that heath can make is not a mutual fund. It's Heath in law school. So the amount of money you will make extra versus what you spend, if you go to a reasonably priced law school. Now, you can go to crazy land if you want to. But if you go to a reasonably priced law school, the amount of money you spend on that versus your increase in income

will be much greater than you would make as a rate of return on a mutual fund. You, and that's true of almost any reasonable career field you're studying, undergrad or grad. And so, you know, you go get a decent degree. It's not left-handed puppetry. It's some nuanced thing that nobody hires anybody for. But you go get a degree in something that has an actual use in the marketplace, and you study hard and you do that as quickly as possible, the increase in your income over your lifetime due to that money invested in education will be greater than a mutual fund could pay you.

Absolutely. And Dave, I'm glad you said reasonable. That's one of the things I wrote about in my book, Debt-Free Degree, that the greatest decision when it comes to school is your school choice. And your school choice needs to be an affordable, reasonable, and one you can graduate from debt-free. There you go. That's everything.

Because, you know, it's so dumb to me that education is the one thing we don't think about. We don't. You would think you would think about education. It's like we're dumb about education. It's kind of crazy. It's just been whatever. It'll all work out. No, it won't. This is the Dave Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Debt-Free Degree,

is my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show. Maurice is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Maurice. How are you? Hi, Anthony and Dave. I appreciate y'all taking my call today. Sure. How can we help?

Yes, sir. I have a 15-year-old stepson, and the question I have today is how do I get my stepson on board with the importance of saving money for his future as well as going to college debt-free? I want him not just to like the plan. I want him to love and just fall in love with everything. Myself, a little bit of – he's watched me use the baby steps to pay my mortgage down. He also has watched me follow the plans and use it as a tool, so he's not completely ignorant to your plan.

And as far as getting him involved more, I would love to see him be more involved and try to get him excited about paying down. I mean, he don't have any debt, but not having any debt, you know, staying out of debt and being motivated to live this wonderful life. Does he live with you full time? He does not. He's actually with his mother sometimes, and then he's with me sometimes. We all got a chance to go down to Savannah, Georgia.

He lived in the home with me for a period of time. We decided to follow the plan and separate from each other, getting away from the front of the same roof so that we can reunite and do the thing the right way to make sure that he understands the concept before getting married you should not share the same household. Hey, Maurice, and I could have missed. I could have heard you wrong. I just want to make sure I'm clear.

You said this is your stepson? Well, I like to refer to him as my stepson. He's legally not my stepson, but I've been a part of his life the last two years. Okay, so his mother is your girlfriend? Exactly. Okay, yeah. I'm almost getting confused. I relate to him as my stepson.

I appreciate that. That's good. How long have you been dating this lady? For the last three years now. Okay, good. Here's the thing for me, Maurice, is let me be honest with you. And I think all parents, Dave included, and if I'm wrong, please correct me, Dave.

I will. In that teenage life, right, the parent is always going to be more excited about their future. They're always going to be more, just have the higher drive than the kid because that parent sees their future. They're always going to be more, just have the higher drive than the kid because that parent sees their future and they know exactly where they're going. And so for me, if I was you, the hard part is you're not with the child every single day.

You cannot develop some form of relationship with him every single day. The only thing you can do is just to simply keep encouraging, asking questions and just leading him down that way. But you can't force him and you really can't even motivate him because you're not in his life every single day. So what I would recommend doing is just keep asking him, Hey,

how's it going? What school are you looking at? You know, what are you saving for? You know, are you saving for you know are you saving for a car like what ask him a lot of questions to get him to engage you um in the conversation so when you're working with teens anthony if he said to a teen to if maurice said to this young man um i can see where you can be because I know things from, I'm old now and I can see if you did X, Y, and Z and it makes me really excited for you because I can see it so clearly

and I would be honored to help you out to walk with you man to man, walk by your side and show you how to get to heights that you have no idea but i can see that you can be there i love it i mean and that's the key thing right there david ask him hey what do you want to be when you know you want to be a doctor okay cool i'm excited i know you could be a doctor let me help you get there the right way the quickest way in the safest way because i've not been a doctor but i i've learned a lot along my journey and so here the steps go when you can relate to the child on their level make

them feel like they are controlling their future while you're guiding them they will be more excited to listen to you rather than you being the parent or the step parent in your in your uh situation marie saying you need to do abc and marie's don't bring dave ramsey stuff in there bring anthony o'neill stuff in there because anthony o'neill is way cooler and so what have you got we can give him oh man we definitely gonna give him debt-free degree okay i'll give you anthony's book debt-free degree but turn him on to anthony's youtube yeah and tell him start watching anthony's youtube y'all start watching a few of them together yeah and don't even talk about day ramsey he's the old guy he don't know nothing yeah and just anthony's a cool dude he'll i'm serious because anthony works with these teens all over america and the cool factor matters it does and so it allows him

to speak in and i'm just the old guy just yelling at him but um you know so you you really get get get to anthonyoneal.com get to his youtube site subscribe uh start sending uh the kid young man emails uh hey i saw this i saw anthony talking about this i thought you might like this yes and let anthony do some of the heavy lifting for you too and i do it i mean i do i do it a lot on my youtube channel uh because that's really my passion, Maurice. By the way, that's all free. Yeah. And so is the book we're going to give you, Debt-Free Degree.

Hold on. Kelly will pick up, and we'll get that for you. That's a great question, Maurice. And I love the way that, obviously, he was living with a young lady and decided to separate and say, We're going to do this right. I want to model for this young man, and I want to do this in the right way, and we're working your steps. The adults are working the plan. So it sets up a lot of modeling.

You know what Rachel always says, more is caught than taught. What he sees you do is what he's going to do more than do what I say. It's harder. Alex is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Alex. How are you? Hey, Dave. Hey, Anthony.

How are you guys? Great. How can we help? Great. I'm just calling because my wife and I just got married, just got back from honeymoon. Well, congrats. Well, thank you.

Thank you. We're going to be doing an account today, and we are renting an apartment at the time being. Currently, we bring in about $115,000. And my question revolves around money market accounts, savings accounts, brokerage accounts for a mortgage. So ideally, we're looking probably about two years could potentially be three i'm wanting to hit 50 to 60k to insure 20 down on the house um you know since it's in that gray area of the two to three and not the three to five that you normally say is brokerage account you know invested

in good mutual funds is that you, you know, the step we should take, or should we just simply keep it in our savings now, or maybe even go to the money market account? Okay, we skipped straight to buying a house. Does that mean you're 100% debt-free? Oh, yes, I'm sorry, yes. And you already have your emergency fund in place? Already have our emergency fund in place.

Yeah, no, we got a great head start for 26 and 25. You do. You're killing it. Okay. Now, let me just make sure we're clear on this, too. The 50-60 is not including the emergency fund, correct? That's going to be an extra 50 and 60. Yeah, definitely.

Extra on top of emergency fund. Okay, so it's the same discussion we were having a few minutes ago. Absolutely. You've got two to three years or one to three years rather than three to five. Do you take the risk of an S&P 500 mutual fund or something like that? I wouldn't fool with a brokerage account, but I never fool with brokerage accounts. But I pretty much dump it into an S&P or a long-term invested in mutual funds through my Smart Investor Pro. But I think, you know, the difference is about a 10% swing.

Yeah. And so we're talking about $4,000 or $5,000 more you're going to make or lose if you put this in a mutual fund versus you're going to make almost nothing, but you're not going to lose anything if you stay with the money market. So you guys can just look at that and say, emotionally, what can we do? Financially, you can take the risk. It's not going to keep you from buying a house. It's not going to cause you to be able to buy a house. Either way.

Right. Either way. So it's just a matter of what you want to take the risk on. If I was a husband, I'm taking a risk. Okay. There you go. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture today, Psalm 128.2, You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands.

You shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Margaret Thatcher said, I do not know anyone who's got to the top without hard work that is the recipe it will not always get you to the top but you should but you should get pretty near that's pretty good i like that uh right now i want to ask you something what if you never again had to question what to do with your money what if you were like that young couple that was just doing their debt-free scream, where you had a plan, you were getting out of debt or out of debt, so that you can live your dreams, so that you can be outrageously generous? Does that feel impossible?

It's not. You just need the right plan, and that's what Ramsey Plus is all about. It is one membership that coaches you step-by-step through our best products so you always know you're doing the right thing with your money. You'll be guided through our three big hitters, Financial Peace University, that that couple right there went through, the premium version of EveryDollar, our budgeting app, which is world class, and our new Baby Steps tracking app. And you get a ton of different courses and tools and access to financial coaches.

Ramsey Plus is the whole package. And you know you're doing the right thing with money. You can take a free trial and see if I'm telling the truth. Check it out. A free trial at DaveRamsey.com slash FPU. DaveRamsey.com slash FPU for a free trial for Ramsey Plus. Check it out. Watch some of the videos on FPU. Do the budget on the budgeting app. Look at the Baby Steps Tracker. Look at the groups and the communities. All of it's accessible during the free trial. We don't mute any of it you can check it all out and you can see if

it is what we say it is it's helped millions and millions and millions of people tyler is with us in illinois hey tyler welcome to the dave ramsey show hi mr dave and mr anthony how are you guys doing great how can we help yeah yeah so um hoping you guys can speak some wisdom into my situation. I'm 22 years old. I'm currently, well, should be a senior in college. I'm on my fourth year. I'm about two and a half years out from my degree. A little back story.

Out of high school and into college, I struggled with intent and direction, which we know is very important. I kind of felt like I had a means, but didn't have an end. So right after high school, I went into college, community college, because it was just the normal thing to do. And then after that, I went to my four-year degree and I've switched majors a few times. So that brings me today. I've got about two years left in business school and I've got about $20,000 in loans. And it wasn't until about last month that I kind of decided that I wanted to go into real estate.

And so after looking into it and talking to a guy I know who owns a broker locally, I've realized that obviously I can go into real estate a lot cheaper than I can go get my degree and just trying to figure out where I should go from here. The job that I'm working now, I could probably pay off most of the rest of my education at school if I go that route, but then I probably wouldn't be able to put as much time into real estate. So just trying to decide which way I should go. Okay.

So you're working at a place that gives you enough money to finish your degree? Probably close. I might have to take a little bit loans to to finish off it's the same job i've been at for six years okay well and so you like you like a year a year and a half probably about two and a half years left but you said you're entering your senior year yeah i'm in my fourth year but not curriculum wise oh i see i gotcha so so i guess all my friends year, but not curriculum-wise. Oh, I see. I got you. So I guess all my friends are seniors that I graduated high school with. They're all seniors, and they're all graduating, going on,

and I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going. You know, this is a tough situation right here, man, because there's a lot of young people like you and yourself halfway through realize that this is not what they want to do. I am at the place to where real estate, while Dave is a huge, he's huge in real estate. I don't know at 22,

if I, if I'm comfortable saying that's the route that you're going to want to go for the rest of your life. Then you have two years invested into education. I like the route of you finishing this debt free because he says the business education, correct? Yes. So I like that route because you can still use that. But as long as you could do it debt free, I don't want you to drop out now.

Waste is $20,000 to go pursue something that you may not like in the next five years. Because real estate, Dave, you can speak into this, it's hard, especially in the first year or two. Yeah. So, Tyler, I got my license to sell real estate when I was 18 years old. Right. And I sold real estate while I was in college. It's how I paid my way through school, most of it. My grandpa helped me some too.

So I did what you're talking about in the sense that I sold real estate full-time while I was in school, worked 40 to 60 hours a week selling real estate while I was taking a full load and finished in four years. It was very difficult to sell houses to people when I was 21 years old, 22 years old, because I didn't have much credibility. And so I actually grew this Tom Selleck-looking mustache trying to get a little credibility, and I wore these goober suits that, I mean, I'm walking around in disco suits with a Tom Selleck mustache trying to sell houses, right?

And this is the early 80s, and I'm trying to talk people into this. And I worked so hard that I actually did make some sales in spite of my age and my obvious shortcomings. But it's a very difficult road because you're trying to convince someone as a very young person that you have the expertise to help them market their most expensive asset. So it can be done, and you can become proficient and professional. And I'm not saying it can't be done but it's a very difficult thing for you to actually make some money in the next say three years during that three years i'd love to have you finish your degree yeah um so i have a degree in finance

and real estate a business degree that i got while i was selling real estate all the way through college okay and i still have my real estate license to this day. I'm a broker. And so I don't do anything with it other than it, you know, runs the ELP program and I buy some property from time to time. But I love the business. It's a wonderful business. I would tell you to stay with it and, you know, keep working it part-time while you're working your other job full-time

while you're going to school full-time. You're not going to die from hard work. You can do it. And you'll be learning some stuff about the real estate business. The second reason I would, number one, I'd love for you to have the education, a business education under your belt when you go into real estate, because then you can do a lot of different things with real estate,

because you see things that other people don't see because of the academic underpinning. Okay? The second thing, and I want to say this real carefully because I'm not trying to be hurtful, but I think what you described to me in yourself was that you have changed directions many times. Yes, sir. It's probably going to be healthy for you emotionally to finish something. Yeah.

Right. You need to finish something. Right. You need to finish something. And that's another reason I don't want you to change horses. The degree fat track that you're on is usable in a lot of different ways throughout the rest of your life. Pay cash for it. Work like crazy. Exactly what Anthony told you.

And if I'm you, go and get your real estate license, and that would be your third job. I mean, school's a job and a full-time job to pay for school, and then just be hanging out, be the real estate rat like a gym rat, you know, where you're hanging out with the guys and the gals that are good at it on the weekends and Sunday afternoons. Your buddies are goofing off, and you're at an open house watching, seeing how it's done. And that's a time you might not have been working at the other job. And all of that's going to start putting tools in your belt. And you're going to make some sales.

You'll get out if you keep scratching around. But I think the full-on change to that is probably premature. Yeah. I think it is premature. It is. But, you know, you can do it. You can pull it off. And if you go pull it off, you can say, Dave Ramsey said I was nuts, and I did it anyway.

That's okay. You can do that. I'm not saying you're nuts. I'm not saying you're crazy. I think you're having some good thoughts. And I'm with Anthony. I love the business. Yeah.

And I think in talking to you that you're going to do really good at it because I think you're articulate, and I think you've got good people skills. Yeah, I do. And, Dave, this is one of the main reasons why I talk about in my book, Debt-Free Degree, have a vision before you go into college. Yeah. You've got to play through a lot of money. You've got to play through.

You can't change horses three times. Yep. It'll kill you. Financially, it'll kill you. Emotionally, it'll kill you. Yep. All this stuff. Man.

That puts us out of the Dave 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. Hey, guys, this is Kelly, associate producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 16 million people listen to The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.