The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Climb a Ladder Only to Discover It's on the Wrong Wall (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today here on the air. We're taking your calls about your careers, about your jobs, and about your money and your life. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Angel is with us in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Hi, Angel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you doing? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? Yes, sir. I'm in baby step three right now, and I'm just trying to forecast what I'm going to be doing. I'm able to save around $3,000 to $3,600 a month after my baby step four and five. So I'm just looking ahead to purchase my house in the future.

I'm in the military. I'm in the military service right now. And I got about eight more years. Thinking about it, I'm able to save about $3,600 a month. I should be able to have about $350,000 in eight years. I'm just trying to see like where can i save this money whether a money market account or into the mutual funds since you've got longer than five years i would use a mutual fund or two or three i spread it out among several different types of

mutual funds eight years is great and by the way the money you put in during that time will be about $350,000. So you'll probably have between $400,000 and $500,000 by the time it grows some as well. All right. That's fantastic. So you're 101st? No, sir. I'm a different unit. Okay.

That unit. Okay. Thanks for your service, we appreciate you all right i love it man and yeah get in touch with one of our smart vesters click on smart vestor at daveramsey.com and um they'll drop down a list of the people that do mutual funds in your area that we recommend you choose which one you want and they'll sit with you with the heart of a teacher and get that going ty Tyler's with us in Seattle. Hi, Tyler.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, great to be online with you guys. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can we help? I got a question. Actually, I think it's probably good that Ken is there as well. I've heard him talk about a lot of out finding your passion and your dream in life.

And I kind of realized kind of following your plan and getting debt free, my wife and I ourselves, I really enjoy talking to people about personal finance. And so I've been contemplating starting a personal finance small business and wanted to get your take on whether, do you start that as like a sole proprietorship, an LLC? Like what do you do to get started on that business side? Well, if you're going to be giving advice similar to what we're doing, you don't have a lot of liability because there's not a lot of people going to sue you for getting them out of debt, you know. Now, if you're going to get into the investment advice side, you might have some liability,

and you may have some licensing issues there and those kinds of things that you need to look into. But if you're simply going to help people get out of debt or work through a financial crisis or learn how to get on a budget and begin their investing journey, and you're not going to actually be selling the investments, then I would just start with a sole proprietorship until you start making some money.

You start making a little money, you may roll it into an LLC. But, you know, until you're making $100,000 a year or something doing it, I wouldn't fool with that. Also, I'd recommend if you haven't gone through our Financial Coach Master Training that you do that. And you can actually, once you go through that training, you can actually sign up and become one of our Ramsey Preferred Pros, which means that we'll send, when people contact us and say, hey, if you've got anybody in Seattle that's been through your training,

we can send them to you. And some of those guys in the Financial Coach Master Training that are running coaching businesses are doing very well. Yeah. Well, that's what I've kind of been researching and looking into. I've led a few of your guys' financial peace classes here out in the Seattle area. And so that's kind of what's kind of spurred the idea of, you know, trying to look into starting this as a small business.

Yeah, Tyler, I'm just curious. If I talk to everybody that knows you well, what would they tell me are some of your top talents, things that you do well? That's a good question. I don't know how to quite answer that one. Oh, sure you do. What has always come easy for you? What do you do well?

You know, that's something I've been trying to put my finger on, and probably my personality. I always have a hard time, time like actually putting that on there. So what is it about financial peace that when you're leading a financial peace class, what is it you do that makes people smile? I love just seeing their change, right? Seeing their ability to go through that class and change their life for the better. And I think that that's what kind of jazzes me about the personal finance side, you know, going through that transformation ourselves,

um, you know, over the last, you know, seven years, really becoming debt-free paying off our house, doing all this stuff and looking towards this freedom that comes out of that. Um, I'm going to be able to help other people in that realm. And I find when I'm talking with people, I kind of always bring up personal finance and kind of share our story in hopes that it will get them excited about it as well. When was the last, I want you to go back for me really quickly in your mind, the last time you had a one-on-one conversation where you were essentially coaching, whether they were paying you or not, you were essentially playing the role of coach counselor.

Are you there with me? What did they say to you when you were done? After I told them? Yeah, after you counseled them. A lot of people think that it's a great

thing that we've gotten into. Probably the last person I talked about, we're kind of a little bit in the same mindset. So, you know, he's excited that we're there and noticed that that freedom comes along with it. Here's why I'm asking you this. And I just, you know, I want you to be excited. I want you to move forward. But I also want you to go to my website, KenColeman.com, and I want you to download the free career clarity guide. Here's why. I want you to be absolutely certain, crystal clear, that you have the talent, let's just call it, it can be a raw talent that can be honed into a skill, but you need to have those talents of communication and of discernment, the empathy,

the encouragement. And I'm just curious if you've ever had anybody say anything like that to you, like, you're so good at listening and those kind of things. You're a good teacher. You've got to have that. And, Dave, it's really important that people understand when you're thinking about doing financial coaching as a business, now it can be a ministry, but as a business, this is an entrepreneurial venture. Our successful financial coaches, They start off with one

person. They help them. They get the next person. This is a pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Go out there and get it done. That's why I teach that you use talent, what you do best, to do work you love, to produce results that matter. There's no question on my mind, Tyler, that when it comes to passion, the idea of coaching and counseling and listening to people, you love that. There's no question that you want to produce a result of financial peace. But before you start the business, just go do that. And he has a hard time kind of complimenting himself. A little feedback from people who know you best. Let's get confirmation that you have the raw talent to communicate, to teach, to instruct.

That's absolutely mandatory to win in that business. Amen. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. When we talk about living and giving like no one else, I'm always so proud of Zander Insurance and their continued commitment to help others during the holiday season. As in years past, Zander has committed to donate 25% of all their sales of their ID Theft Protection Plan to a worthy organization. This year, they've selected Team Rubicon, which is an amazing veteran-led disaster relief organization helping communities across the country rebuild from the devastating storms and wildfires. Listen, ID theft is out of control, and it's something that everyone needs. With Zander, you'll get the smartest, most affordable plan available while helping an incredible organization that works tirelessly to help others in desperate need.

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33789. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code, the magic word, Ramsey, to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Sean in North Dakota. He writes in, my wife and I have become a great team when it comes to do-it-yourself and construction projects. She's a realtor and I can do just about anything construction related. We have flipped one

house for ourselves, which is paid off, and it is now being rented. We have also done flips and remodels on about 10 other homes for other people. All have made a pretty decent return that we could live on if we did it full time. My question is, I currently have a job which pays okay, but I absolutely hate it. We were thinking about selling our rental and our current home and start buying houses to live in and flip as we go while also still doing realty work for other people. Is this a solid plan? I think it's pretty close to solid. I would just caution you that do you have to go all in on selling your current home, selling the rental

to get you that capital because it is paid off to get the capital to get started? Not a bad idea. The other thing that I'd throw out there, Dave, to Sean, is that what if they keep that cash home that they are making rental income off of, and he starts working for his wife. When she's got houses, you know, she's listing and selling. And inevitably, when people sell a home, you get that inspection report. You got to do some work. What if he becomes her guy that comes in and fixes these homes up? I think that's a way to juice his income.

But I think they've got a really good plan, and I would tell him start moving forward on this because he hates his job. He can do the construction projects. They're both in the same business together. I love this. I think it's a great move. Start moving forward today. I completely agree. The warning is the same thing. I probably would not sell my personal home. I'd probably sell the rental and no debt. That's right. Zero. Don't get so fired up about this that you start, you look up, you got 10 houses you own and you're in debt a million dollars. Don't do this. That's how people go bankrupt in that world. And they do it all the time. I will tell you this, someone who knows how to do home repairs, basic remodeling, or even extensive remodeling can, if you just show up on time, do the work on time and do highquality work, you will always have more work than

you can do. A friend of mine runs a one-person operation he made $300,000 profit on last year. Now, he's subbing out. Yep. That's right. That's the work. So he's basically GCing it, and he's doing some of the smaller jobs with his own hands. But he made $300,000.

Yeah. And he's running around with a pickup full of tools. And he can do anything, like this guy. You can build a deck. He can replace a dishwasher. I mean, he can paint a room. And if it's a bigger job, he gets a painter. If it's a bigger job, he gets a carpenter, right?

And subs that out. But he doesn't have any employees. And he's his own boss. And you can do that for yourself. You can do that for yourself you can do that for others and your wife can be a feeder for you on it as she's doing other real estate deals for clients and they need something help like like ken mentioned with the inspection reports go sideways on your something on them and you can just step in be the hero yeah i i'm doing this starting tomorrow right

well if he called into the show i would would ask and I'd say, how much are you currently making? Because one other thing I just add to that is if I know that it's a short term, like six months, a year before I leave this job that I hate, but I need that income still, I can change my mindset and I can start doing all these things on the side. And you're working hard on Saturdays and Friday nights, and you can come in and fix a kitchen at night. So you could do a side hustle and then build that as you teach us this idea of, let's get that boat closer to the dock. So he's got a lot of options here, but the idea is move forward. Yeah, definitely got to do it.

At the end of the year, you need to be doing this for sure. At the end of next year, 12 months from today, you need to be going on it. Open phones to 888-825-5225. Scott is with us. Scott's in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Scott. How are you? Uncle Dave, I'm doing so well.

It is so good to speak to you. Thanks for taking my call. Certainly. How can I help? So I have a question on kind of what would you do? So I just finished, my wife and I just finished Baby Step 3. And so, but I'm in a situation of do I pay for, I want to finish my master's degree next month, and I want to go back and get a second master's degree.

So do I do 3B, Baby Step 3B, which is save for a down payment, cash flow my master's, and then when do I start saving for retirement? Okay. Was it a question if you cash flow your master's or do, and then when do I start saving for retirement? Okay. Was it a question if you cash flow your master's? I don't understand. Of course you cash flow it. Well, so I've already cash flowed my bachelor's and my master's, and so I want to go back and get another one.

Why? Why do you need another master's? So I'm a pastor, and so currently my master's is in family ministry, and I wanted to go back and get a master's of divinity from the seminary. Okay, so it doesn't change your income one dime? No, sir. It would be more just to be able to have more knowledge. Exactly, exactly, which is a wonderful thing, and I'm not saying you shouldn't do that.

But this is what's known as a luxury since there's not a money return on investment. And so this is something you do after you hit some of your more basic financial goals. Okay. This is like I want to go on a cruise, you know, except it's not as hedonistic. Okay. You're getting this to serve other people people but the cruise will be serving you well nobody goes on cruises but we don't even know how that we don't know what those are anymore but um but anyway aside you know i want to go on a fancy vacation but yeah that you do that after

you save for your house and after you're out of debt and after you have your emergency fund in place and after you're saving 15 of your income towards retirement those are basic financial planning things and then you move up in car then Then you move up in knowledge that for knowledge's sake. And I'm not saying don't go get that. It's a wonderful thing. I've lots of friends that are pastors and lots of them have gone and gone back and gotten their master's in divinity. And it is a rewarding field of study, especially when you're, you know, theology, obviously, when you're going to be in as a pastor or something. It's very cool.

So I would do it, but I would do it later in the game plan than right now. Does that make sense? Of course. Thank you so much. Yeah. Scott, one little challenge. You know any friends that have recently done an MDiv? I do, yes, sir.

Yeah. You know what you should do just for fun? I think you do exactly what Dave said, but you can still be learning. I'd ask them what books they read, what papers they had to write. You can start writing and blogging or doing commentaries and all the things that you do and learn how to do in that MDiv program. I'm not saying not do it. I'm with Dave 100%.

But you know what? You can still keep this learning process alive while you're reaching these financial goals. I would dive into that. I'd call a friend, three of them, and say, hey, what books did you read? What commentaries did you study? I'd start diving in. Loan me your old textbooks. You don't have to press pause on the learning because he wants to learn for ministry purposes.

So I think you can do a both-and here and then do the MDiv officially later. That's not a bad idea at all. Very good. Good question. Hey, man, thank you for calling and appreciate your service. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for jumping in. Yeah, always ask yourself the question I asked you when you're going to tell me you're going to get X education.

I'm always going to ask you why and already have answered that and the answer is to make more money or something like he answered but then the answer will tell you when to do it and how to do it and certainly we're going to pay cash for it no matter what. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of The Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. Rick is with us. Rick is in Ohio. Hi, Rick.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I've got a quick question about the possibility of starting a side hustle business. Just a quick background. Both me and my wife, we're 100% debt-free,

including our home. Don't have a mortgage or anything. So if we start this side hustle, we would totally cash flow it. It would be totally paid for. But possibility of starting a hot dog cart vendor business. Any thoughts on that? Why a hot dog cart vendor business. Any thoughts on that? Why a hot dog cart?

Just something that my wife, before we got married, she was a waitress that really liked working with the public, and it's something that I think she would enjoy. Yeah. How much cash would it cost to get up and operating? Between $5,000 and $10,000. You've already got that set aside? Yes. Yeah. Why not?

You've got the cash. There's no risk here in the sense that you've saved up the money. It's something your wife has always wanted to do. You've been disciplined. You guys are debt-free. I absolutely love it. If you fail, how much do you fail? You really don't fail really don't fail that what does she do for does she have an income now yeah both both me and my wife work we work in a uh a shop setting um so we're both currently

employed and uh been employed for years and years are both of you planning to quit and do this full-time? No, it'd just be a side hustle. It's a side hustle. Okay, side only. So there's no doubt. Yeah, what we're talking about doing is possibility doing it full-time when we retire as something to do. How old are you? We're both 58.

Okay. Well, what I would do if I'm going to start any kind of business is I'm going to try to find someone else who's doing something similar and learn from them what they did wrong and what they do right. And in this case, I'm going to figure out if I make a buck a hot dog, I've got to do 10,000 hot dogs before I make a profit. Okay. And that makes me pause a little bit as a return on investment, as a side hustle. I mean, if that's true, if that number is right, and you put $10,000 into it, and you make a dollar a hot dog, you have to do 10,000 hot dogs.

And so, I don't know. I mean, as your side hustle, how many do you do a week? Then for how many do you do a month, and how many do you do a year? And how many hot dogs? You know, that's a lot of hot dogs. Yeah. Yeah, I think what changed initially for me is that you guys want to retire and do this as opposed to a side hustle. I think, you know, you're going to have to build this business up substantially based on what's our retirement number that we feel we need to make in addition to our investment.

So that's a very different deal. But if it's a side hustle that the wife has always wanted to do and you saved up the cash, I do agree. You need to talk to people who've run hot dog trucks and you think about location. I mean, there's a lot to do here in your area. You know, how many areas do you have in that zip code where people are? It's high traffic. You both have full time jobs. So this is a largely weekend business. You're going to have to you all are going to get tired of selling hot dogs after a while on Saturdays and Sundays. So now you've got high school kids and college kids. There's a lot to think through here on getting this going.

But I will tell you. It's not going to cause you to go bankrupt. No. The question is, what could you do with $10,000 that if you're not going to make any money, it's called a hobby. And so, you know, I want to see what my ten thousand dollars is what kind of business results yeah i'm getting on this it's not a high margin business yeah but if it's something you've always wanted to do and you cash flow it i i lean towards sure give it a shot but

do your homework you know and understand this is a trial and error process and it's a low margin business yeah adriano is with us in new y City. Hi, Adriano. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've been in my job for 16 and a half years now, and I made some dumb decisions, taking some pension loans throughout the years. And basically, my question is, my wife and i are currently just starting baby step two um we're about 150k in the hole right now wow and i owe myself about 19 000 pension loans do i include paying myself back as part of baby step two yes because if you don't pay them back they're going to take it out well they are taking it out uh no pay them back they're going to take it out well they are taking

it out uh no but i mean they're going to take it out of your pension true yeah so no we need to get that cleaned up that's just like a 401k loan uh okay yeah you borrowed from yourself but not really you borrowed from them and they're going to take it out of your hide if you don't pay it back that's what it amounts to so yeah that goes right in there it goes right in your baby steps or right in your baby step two and your debt snowball and you knock it out as fast as you can so now you've got 169 000 to clear ouch open phones at 888-825-5225 michelle is in springfield missouri hi michelle welcome to the dave ram Show. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Well, it's job-related, specifically ministry-related.

I work in a church. I'm on staff. And my question is, how do I ask for a pay raise? I feel like I should get one, and I think that I work really hard, but then I feel guilty for wanting to ask for one. And so I'm wondering if ministry, if it's treated differently when looking at asking for a pay raise and things like that. Yes and no, but let's first just talk about the facts. You need to do to the best of your ability, and in the church world, I don't know how much research is out there. I know it is for pastoral positions. Are you in a pastoral position or in a support position? I'm not a lead pastor, but I am a pastor over one of the areas. Okay, great. So that information is available. So you need to start with what's the range, the median salary for a pastoral position,

again, in relation to the size of the church you're in. So pastoral positions in larger churches, they break that information down. You need to start with that because you need to know where you stand. Before you go in and start talking about how hard you work and you feel like you deserve a raise. You need to know what the actual marketplace bears out in churches that size. That's step number one. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes. Have you done that? No, I have not. Got to start there. And then I tell people not to ever go in asking for a raise because it just puts your leader in a defensive posture. When you come at them and they're not expecting it, even if you're nice and humble and hungry and all those things,

it puts them in a situation where they feel like when someone says something to the effect of, I'd like a raise. Can we talk about a raise? It puts them and they feel like they've got to answer return serve, you know, across the net. What I prefer that you do is say, I've got some information. And this is if you see that you are on the low range of what your pastoral type position will pay. If you're on the low range, then I think this conversation happens. If you're in the middle, I think you can still have it. If you're on the high end, this is where I do think, Dave, ministry and the professional world is different because this is not a profit-type situation. This is, in fact, ministry. But if you're in that range of medium to high, then I think you've got to be really, really careful how you do this.

But here's what you do. You sit down with them if you're on that medium to low end, and you say, listen, I've done some research. I've been here X amount of years. I want to continue to serve here. I want to grow in my responsibilities. Here's what I believe God's calling me to do, and here's how I think I can do that in the church. You've got a big picture.

Let's say that a pastor, when you do a little bit of a compensation study, which you can do online pretty easily, and a pastor of your type makes $50,000 a year and you're making $30,000, then you've got information that shows that for your position you are underpaid. At that point, there is no reason to, in quotes, feel guilty. No, not at all. Just because you are employed by a church, Scripture says the worker is worthy of his hire. Scripture says don't muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain.

We underpay way too many positions in churches, and therefore it's hard to attract high-quality talent to doing some of the most important work on the planet. Just because it's super important in its ministry does not mean it should be done without compensation. You shouldn't feel guilty at all. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Job 8-7, And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

John D. Rockefeller said, Don't be afraid to give up the good to go after the great. That's true. Steve is with us. Steve is in Montana. Hi, Steve. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

You're awesome. It's a pleasure to speak with you. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you. How can Ken and I help? Well, my wife and I, we're both retired. We have a pretty good income, and we own two properties. One of the homes we own here in Montana is paid off, and the other one we have a mortgage on, and we owe about $250,000 on it. Right now, the interest rates are pretty low.

We were thinking about refinancing the one we owe on, either that or selling the one that's paid off to pay off the one we actually live in. You know, we're just trying to make the best financial choices. And I didn't know if, you know, it's smart during these times with the low interest rates to keep a lower mortgage and a payment and maybe keep the other property or sell the other property, pay off this house and still have some cash left over. Yeah. When Chris Hogan did the book Everyday Millionaires, we interviewed and surveyed in detail over 10,000 millionaires. And basically, we were trying to learn how they got there and which ones got there the

fastest and what they did. And so you can develop a series of data points to get you there. We had way less than 3% of them say they became wealthy because they borrowed money at low interest rates. Right. They said we became debt-free, and so we had ridiculous cash flow in our lives because we weren't giving the bank our money, and we used that ridiculous cash flow to become wealthy. And so the net goal needs to be clearing the debt.

Now, then there's two possibilities. One, you sell the rental and you clear the debt, or two, you set about the business of clearing the debt out of your income and keeping the rental, and you look at what the difference in time is for those things. If it takes you 10 years longer to get out of debt on your home because you kept the rental, I'd probably sell the rental. If it takes you three years longer to pay off your home because you keep the rental, I'd probably keep the rental.

You see what I'm doing? Right. But the point is, I don't want to drag this rental along for a long period of time when I could have just cleared this and then get on the shortest distance between where you are and serious wealth. What's the shortest distance between two points of a straight line? And so, you know, you just look at your income versus the mortgage you have and say, all right, I can do this in three or four years. If I sell the rental, I can do it in three or four months.

In that case, I'll probably keep the rental if you like it. And it sounds like with the words you're using that you like it. And that's what I would do. Sarah is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon. Thank you.

Sure. How can Ken and I help? Hi. So I just kind of wanted some advice. I just found you. In regards to having a career, I'm 19. I do have some debt, but I want to cash flow, of course, my education. I wanted to be an accountant in high school, so I took some classes, but I don't want to be an

accountant. I'm looking at being someone who does taxes or like a financial advisor, but I'm having a hard time finding somewhere that has like good graduation or good hire rates to get an education from. I'm not sure where to look, like if a community college would be good. Well, I think what you need to do is explore both of those paths and see if there's anything else in that financial space that appeals to you. So if we talk about the financial advisor, we call those smart investor pros here at Ramsey Solutions. One of the things I'd love for you to do is go to DaveRamsey.com. After this call, let's find out who all is in the Salt Lake City area.

And I'd call them up, tell them you're a 19-year-old student, and you may want to do what they do one day. And you talk to Dave and Ken on the air, and let's see if one will do a phone call with you, you know. And you do almost a high school book report or term paper on what they do, right, so that you understand what their day looks like, what do they love most? What do they like the least? How'd they get qualified? How much money they make? How long it took them to get there? I think when you start to do that with a tax advisor,

and we have tax advisors as well, if you go to DaveRamsay.com, that becomes a really good barometer for you to kind of measure what your head and heart are saying. And when you do that and you find out what's involved, how to get there, how long it's going to take, how you can make money, your head processes that. And then your heart will either go ding, ding, ding, or and it just begins to help you see, oh, and so getting clarity there is what I want you to do first. Then you make your education decision based on the direction. That's where I'd want you to start. I think that's very helpful at 19. Yeah. How much time am I going to have to spend to get qualified? And how much money am I going to have to spend to get qualified? And I qualified could be a four-year degree. It could be a

certification program. It could be whatever it is. I don't care. I mean, if you want to be in the real estate business and sell real estate, what you have to do is you have to take some, in most cases, most states, you have to take some pre-licensing educations. You have to take a couple of classes. You sit for your test, you pass the test, and you're in the real estate business. That's the quality. So you can look at it and go, it takes four months, it takes three months to get qualified and be able to be a real estate agent. And now then you've got to learn how to do the business. But, I mean, that gets you in. That's your table stakes.

That's it. That gets you into the game. That gets you to the table. And so if you want to be a CPA, the shortest path these days for most people is the master's in accounting, which you've already determined you didn't want to do. So you're not going to be on the CPA track probably. If you want to be working in the financial advising business, selling mutual funds like our SmartVestor Pros do,

there's not a technical education requirement. Obviously, you've got to have a lot of knowledge about finance, and you could work towards the designation of CFP. Very difficult to get if you don't have some academic underpinning in finance, though. So you may want to do some four-year work towards that. But, again, one of those smart investor pros could tell you that if you interviewed them for 10 minutes on the phone. They could say, look, if you do it this way, here's how hard it's going to be. If you do plan B, here's how hard it's going to be and how long it's going to take

and what it costs to get those certifications. And you may find, Sarah, that they would be willing to hire you in an administrative support position and they begin to pay you. Maybe they even pay for some of that education because they feel like you're a potential rock star for them down the road, but you're at least in proximity and you're around those people. So hang on the line. Kelly, let's give her a copy of my number one bestselling book, The Proximity Principle, The Proven Plan That Will Lead to the Career You Love. And really, we're going to unpack the people and the places that you get in and around

so that you begin to clarify and verify. What I just told you, Sarah, is that process. We clarify, we get the knowledge on what the path might look like, could look like, should look like, and our heart will kind of verify, yeah, this is in fact what I want to pursue. And then you begin to build the plan by saying, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? That's education and experience. How long is that going to take? Excuse me, how much will that cost me time and money? And now I've got an expectation. I know how long it's going to take? Excuse me, how much will that cost me, time and money? And now I've got an expectation. I know how long it's going to take to get there.

That knowledge will give you tremendous confidence and courage to step out and stay on the path. Yeah, it's very smart to not climb a ladder and then discover it's leaning on the wrong wall. And that's what people do with education too many times is they go, well, I thought if I just got a degree. Well, that's leaning on the wrong wall. You've got a degree in left-handed puppetry. I mean, that's ridiculous. You have medieval poetry knowledge here. I mean, you've got a master's in medieval poetry.

Give me a break. You know, so where did you think you were going to make a living doing that? And so the beauty is Sarah's on the opposite end of that spectrum being very smart very wise on the front end and getting very uh into the weeds and figuring out exactly what is required what's it going to cost and how long is it going to take and then that's your education path yep and that can be a four-year degree there's nothing wrong with that absolutely nothing wrong with that but uh in in her, it probably is not going to be. Again, depending on which area she's going into, though.

That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to Ken Coleman. Good job, Ken. Thank you, sir. James and Kelly in the booth. Great job today. Very well done. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

We'll be back before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.