The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Let Your Present Circumstances Define Your Future

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk. Adeline is with us in Youngstown, Ohio. Hi, Adeline, how are you? Hi, I'm doing good. Good, what's up? Thank you. So, I'm a 21-year-old girl. I'm not planning to go to

college anytime here soon, and I recently started getting all my money. My dad would get my money before because, you know, take care of expenses and stuff. And I thought I knew how to manage money pretty good, but turns out I don't. So basically my question is what should I, as a 21-year-old, be doing to build wealth at this point? I have about $6,000 saved and, yeah. And you're working? I have about $6,000 saved and yeah. And you're working? I have a car. Yes, I work four days a week, 15 hour

a day job. What do you do? I work for my brother at his apple orchard. So what do you make? Yeah, $15 an hour. It's not steady income. Like in the wintertime, I make maybe $1,500 a month. And then in the busier times of year, I make maybe $2,500 a month.

What specifically are you doing for him um i run his market and i thwart fruit and yeah do a bunch of random stuff prune trees yeah are you living on your own or with your mom and dad um i'm living at home with mom and dad yeah okay all right cool so um what's plan? Where are you going to be and where are you headed? What's the 31-year-old version of you going to be doing? Hard question to ask at this point. I would like to either be married, and if I'm not married, be doing something in the medical field. Okay.

All right. Well, I'd start taking some steps towards that um and figuring out what that looks like in terms of the medical field part i'm not in charge of the marriage part but the uh uh it's not my department but but uh yeah you know uh i'd start saying okay what do i want to be four years from now that's on my way to being another thing 10 years from now and what classes do i need to be taking or certifications do i need to get what experience do i need to move because i'm usually you don't go from the apple orchard to the medical field you usually uh go into the medical field at some kind of entry-level thing. And so maybe you start talking about taking some early steps towards that, because your career is part of managing your money, in other words.

Right. That's why we're asking you all about your income, and then you moving out and having your own place. That's part of managing your money as you go with, as far as managing your money goes. And I'll let Ken speak further to your career that you just want, you've got to just make the money that you have behave and go where you want it to go. And you do that simply by, uh, having a plan before the month begins of where every dollar is going to go and that's called a budget and there's a budgeting app that we have called every dollar and i will give you the premium version of that to get you started on that and uh but basically you're going to sit down before the month goes enter your numbers into this app and go this is what i'm going to do i'm going to

tell this money what to do instead of looking up at the end of every month and going, I have no idea what happened. And then that will lead you away from debt towards savings, towards investing, towards investing into yourself and some possible education moves. Yeah. What I would add, Adeline, is the best thing you can do right now to move forward is to get as much knowledge as you can about the potential directions you could choose. The reason people don't move forward and they stay in the apple orchard, if you will, is because they're intimidated. They're scared. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about, I want you to write down tonight before you go to bed,

all the different medical professions that you might be interested in. Everything from a 10-level interest, 201. Just so you can get visually what's out there. So that's a doctor, a surgeon, that's a nurse practitioner. It might be a nurse. It might be somebody who does radiology scans. It could be anything. So look at that. And so then I want you to begin to identify people in your area who are in those fields. We call this the proximity principle. Get around those people, take them to lunch, take them to coffee, and be like a student doing a book report on their job. And what's going to happen is you're going to begin to understand what it takes to get there. That's the education piece and the experience piece. As Dave said, what is

the lowest rung of the ladder to require and look like to move into the medical position that you want? And so hang on the line. I want to give you two things. I want to give you the get clear assessment. It's about a 20-minute assessment. It's going to give you real clarity on professional direction. And then I want to give you the book, The Proximity Principle, because this is a deep dive in what I'm describing for you. But if you do that, you're going to have real clear direction.

One other thing I want to tell her, Dave, is for seasonal people, we get this call a lot. When you're in a seasonal job like this, you need to take that experience and skill set from the apple orchard to another job or two so that there's not this dip in income. There should not be a dip in the wintertime for you because you should be doing something else in a part-time capacity or two part-time jobs or another seasonal job that is hot during the downtime of the orchard. That's the mindset to keep your income level at the same level or create increase for yourself. It's very important. And so, Adeline, don't miss that the answer to your how do I manage money question for us was the income side.

There's two sides to the equation, the income side and the outgo side. And immediately, both of us honed in on the income side for you. So managing your career and your income is part of managing your money. And so when you're looking at picking up the extra jobs in the down season, when you're looking at making the first steps into the medical profession, all that's part of managing your money. In terms of the actual tactical, how do I keep the money that we have and make it behave? Well, that's the budget. So we're going to give you all three things to help you. They get Clear Assessment from Ken.

His book, The Proximity Principle. And we'll also give you the premium version of the app, EveryDollar, which will help everyone get dialed in on it here. So very good stuff. Good question. Thanks for joining us. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Ken, you coming on as a Ramsey personality several years ago

and opening up the whole career side of things even further because we had noticed for the years that sometimes when people are looking at money situations, they just need to make more money. That's exactly right. And we also realize that a lot of career problems cause money problems. There's no question. And a lot of career awesomeness can cause money awesomeness. You know, it works the other way too. So all of these things do fit together, folks. And the number of times that we have a debt-free scream and during their debt-free journey, they added income part-time and or got promotions and better jobs,

almost 90% of them did one of the two or both. Happens all the time because once people start paying attention, they're paying attention. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home

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Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. Amber is in Dallas. Hi, Amber. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Amber. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, what's up? So me and my husband, we're 34 and we're 35. We don't have much of a retirement. He's got $13,000. I just started mine, last paycheck, so I have $400 in there. We have about $49,600 worth of debt and that includes everything except for our mortgage which is $128,000 left. Not terrible but it's at 6.125 percent.

I've been I have been I'm an RN so I able to work extra. And I've been working extra since August. And we've been able to pay off just under $5,000 worth of debt, which is great. But I can't do this forever. You know, I miss my kids. I miss my husband. So that $49,600 that I'm kind of laser focused on to get rid of, and we've dialed back, or I feel like we've dialed back everything that we can as far as financially or monthly. I'm just not sure how to get ahead because our goals are obviously to get out of debt. But I also am really concerned about retirement age,

which I know is in roughly 30 years. But I don't want my daughter to ever have to worry about me whenever I'm older. I want her to be able to live her life. The best way to be able to retire with dignity is to get the debt cleared. So you need to stop putting money in retirement temporarily. Okay. And use all that money to help clear this debt. to get the debt cleared, so you need to stop putting money in retirement temporarily. Oh, okay. And use all that money to help clear this debt. That's a temporary thing because I want you to clear the debt fast

so you can get back to breathing again a normal life. What's your household income? While I'm working extra, we bring home about $8,500 to $8,800. It kind of depends. RN, it's, you know, finding our shift differential. What's your husband do? Huh? What's your husband do?

He's in, like, an investigator HR position. He doesn't have a degree or anything, but he makes $73,000 a year. But he also has to pay $12,000 a year in child support. So whatever that is. So $73,000 minus $12,000 is what we make. Okay. And so you're making about the same. You're making about $70,000 or so.

Well, when I'm working just normal and I'm not working extra, I bring home about $4,000 a month. Yeah, I'm not talking about bringing home. I'm talking about your total household income is probably about $150 to get home with $8,500. Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. Around $80,000.

What's the $50,000 in debt on? I have a $5,600 personal loan. That's at 13.95%. That was like a loan to pay off an ugly credit card from my 20s. What else? And that behavior is fixed. Like I'm not going to run up any debt. In fact, I've used credit cards to repair my credit.

What else? We have a $20,000 car that has 13.95% interest, $12,000 left on my car that has 8%, and then I have about $7,000 in school loans, and it has varying, but they're all around 4%. Okay. And then our home, of course, 128. Your old credit is bad, and you got screwed when you bought that $20,000 car. Yeah.

Yeah, at that time, I had not repaired my credit. Doesn't matter. You got screwed. You have a high interest rate, and half of your debt is one car. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? Yeah. Sell it. I don't know if we can he he has a about a 30 minute commute monday through friday like we and it doesn't require a 30 it doesn't require a

$20,000 car to do a 30 minute commute requires a $5,000 car okay if you had rid of that 14 interest rate 1385 on a car you couldn't afford and shouldn't have bought and it's half of your debt you and you quit putting money into retirement you're going to see these numbers start to flip for you kiddo it's going to start to work and he's not looking at this with you you're doing it by yourself right oh no no we are both very involved um i think we both just lack that kind of deep financial And he's not looking at this with you. You're doing it by yourself, right? Oh, no, no, no. We are both very involved. Oh, good.

I think we both just lack that kind of deep financial literacy. Good, good. Okay. Yeah, if you sell the car and you stop the other retirement temporarily and you get detailed on your every dollar budget and both of you are looking at that every dollar budget and beating the snot out of it, I'm making every, we're not going out to eat we're not going on vacation don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there's your second job and does he need a second job probably

you're working one and temporarily let's get this stuff knocked out and let's see how fast i can pay off thirty thousand dollars or twenty five thousand000 worth of debt making $150,000 a year really fast. Yeah, I don't know if he could get a second job. He doesn't get home until 6 p.m. most days, and then on the weekends he has his son who's special needs. Okay, all right. But that's the beauty and the blessing of the career I chose is I'm able to. Yeah. Amber, I want to make sure you're grasping the numbers that Dave is giving you. Okay. If you remove the car payment plus the actual debt on the car, just what you guys have

paid off since August, it's roughly four months. You've paid off $5,000. You got to listen to what Dave said and put real pen to paper right now. Like sit down right now before you do anything else today and run those numbers. If we sold the car and we bought a $5,000 car, what is that monthly raise we just got to put towards debt? I don't think those numbers have clicked for you, and that's okay. I would run those numbers in a real budget. I think you're going to be shocked how quickly you're going to pay that debt off, and then you're back to retirement. Here's what's interesting is you're tired and you find all these reasons things can't happen because you don't see how you're going to get there. Once you see how you're going to get there,

you're going to be energized and there'll be no stopping you. That's called hope. Power of hope. It's very powerful. And sometimes hope is literally the result of a mathematical equation, what Ken's telling you. And so let's do that. Hang on. I'm going to put you and your husband through Financial Peace University and put you into every dollar and get you guys going because you guys need to sit down. It sounds like you're like 80% of the way there. You're both on board which is excellent really glad to hear that he's carrying this with you that's amazing okay that's that that's very good

you're both you're willing to work extra that's amazing you've identified that i want to get rid of the debt that's amazing so you you've got all the parts there. All I'm doing is helping you polish the rough edges off of what you were looking at. And I think that's going to cause the ball to roll. And then the hope's going to kick in and weird stuff starts happening. When you start seeing away, then you just push your foot dry down on that accelerator and you bust it. You bust it. We're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. Get it, get it, get We're going to make it. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. Get it, get it, get it.

Rob is with us in Tampa, Florida. Hey, Rob, what's up? Dave, how are you? Hi, Ken. How are you? Good. How can we help? I'm calling. I want to know.

I know what I want to achieve. I just don't know how to achieve it. If I can give you a real quick background. I'm 67. I'm divorced. I'm retired. I have an IRA. I just don't know how to achieve it. If I can give you a real quick background, I'm 67. I'm divorced. I'm retired. I have an IRA. I'm totally debt-free.

I have an IRA with $985,000 in it, and I have a brokerage account with about $115,000 in it. I have one son, my sole beneficiary. And what I'm trying to achieve, like I said, I'm in good health. I think I have 20 years left in me, possibly more if God's willing. I want to know how I can move some money now where upon my death, my son isn't hit with the mandatory, required mandatory distribution. Well, they're not technically RMDs, but under the SECURE Act that Biden passed, he'll have 10 years to empty a traditional IRA.

So he's going to empty $100,000 a year and be taxed on it, the way you're sitting today. The way to avoid that is to begin to move some of it towards Roth. And so as you make a pile of money, move a chunk to Roth and write a check. Because Roth is required to be distributed over

the same 10 years, but you can't leave it in there in inherited IRA, but there's zero tax on it because you will have already paid the tax. So develop like a 10 year plan to move 900 K plus, whatever the growth is towards Roth a little bit at a time to where when you leave him with nothing but Roth instead of traditional, he's not going to have any problems with taxes at all because there's not any taxes. I did that, started that on that process myself about 10 years ago, and I have zero traditional anything. It's all Roth. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks and you probably already know which ones I mean, but I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on

their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country so you can bank in person wherever you live. But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.

And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. So since we turned on the microphone today, I think all we've done is give stuff away, which is great because we're helping people with it. So if you heard us give away Ken's Get Clear assessment on figuring out what it is you're passionate about, what it is you're gifted at, and give you some insight into some directions you can go to enhance or even change your career,

that's awesome. The Total Money Makeover book, you know, 10 million plus copies now sold. The Baby Steps Millionaires book, all about the Baby Step now sold the baby steps millionaires book all about the baby steps millionaires and ken's book the paycheck to purpose all this stuff is on sale right now at the black friday extended event at ramsey solutions.com slash store like 12 books these assessments are half so this is like the best deals of the year. So have at it. That's the thing.

Do it right now. RamseySolutions.com slash store, or you can click the link in the show notes on the podcast or on YouTube. So Derek is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Derek, what's up? Hey, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, I just need help. I feel like I'm drowning in debt right now. Okay. Tell me about it.

So, I have around $10,000 in a personal loan because I recently consolidated my credit cards. I was in an abuse relationship, and after I got out, I found out that they probably racked up close to $6,000 or $7,000 in credit card debt in my name without me knowing about it.

And you paid that off? After contacting the banks and all that, they said there's nothing they can do about it. Well, of course there's something they can do about it. Wait a minute. Let me stop. Let's find out where we are today. Did you take, because you believe those lying, thieving bankers, did you borrow money to pay off debt that was not yours because it was done with identity theft basically yeah because they said not basically honey that's what you did you went and borrowed ten thousand dollars and paid off debt that this criminal fraudulently using your name

opened up without your permission and you paid that debt off yeah yes I had I paid two thousand of it off I'm talking about the $10,000 you borrowed that's what you used it for you paid off the credit cards with it yeah I paid off the credit cards and then is there any debt outstanding that the criminal did that you haven't paid yet no dad come at son you got screwed twice um basically you don't owe that money my fiance you didn't owe that money when someone fraudulently if i take your name and go open up a credit card in your name you don't owe the money that's called called a criminal act. It's fraud. That's what identity theft is.

I had the credit cards. I followed your show. I thought you said they opened up a card in your name without your permission. Yeah, basically what happened was I had them as an emergency fund, never used them. And then without really knowing. That's different than opening up a card. They took your card that you opened up and used it without your permission. That's different.

You understand? Yeah. If you hand Ken Coleman your card and say, go use it, you're liable for that. If Ken Coleman goes and opens up a card in your name without your permission, fraudulently signing your signature, that's identity theft. You're not liable for that. Do you understand the difference? Yes. So you handed the fiancé your card, and they went bonkers with your card.

So I didn't even give them the card. That's the biggest thing is. Honey, they used a card that was open in your name. That's the point, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. So you owe $10,000, and what do you make, hon?

So right now I make $45,000, and then in five months I'll be making $55,000. What do you do? So I am a child abuse investigator for the state. That's an irony. Okay. Yeah. And then I have around 7,000 student loans, but I'm in the government program right now, so if I work for the state long enough, they fully pay those off.

No, you need to pay them off. It's only's only seven thousand dollars it takes 10 years to do this so seventeen thousand dollars makes you debt free hun is that right yeah oh lord go get six extra jobs and be debt free by like spring you're not working by 40 hours so i work around so with my job now is it's a lot of on call and so most days i'm home around nine ten o'clock just because of the nature of the job so you're working 50 hours a week for you're working 50 60 hours a week for 55 grand yeah no you're not um you're on call when you're on call you can drive uber um so what our own call works if we have to initiate a report um we have to uh immediately drop everything drive to initiate that report um and there's a

lot of times i'm spending 12 hours in a hospital on my on-call days with a kid waiting for a reliever social worker to come and refill it. And the other idea is... All right. So what you got to do is you got to increase your income. You only need $17,000. This should not be overwhelming. Yeah. Sell something. It's not that much money. You got to have... I bet you got two grand worth of should not be overwhelming. Yeah. Sell something. It's not that much money. You

got to have, I bet you got two grand worth of stuff you could sell. Uh, you can work on weekends. You're on call days, whatever those are. You're not working seven days a week. So this is a season where you got to clean up the mess. 17 grand is very doable, but you're not a victim. Okay. You handed her the card. You knew this was going on. The only thing you're a victim okay you handed her the card you knew this was going on the only thing you're a victim of is being engaged to an idiot and you're not the first one that's ever happened to so um you know roll up your sleeves hon get on a detailed tight budget and get as many extra hours as you can as much extra. Don't go out to eat. Don't talk about vacations. Talk to your supervisor about, I'm not working 80 hours.

You're going to have to have some kind of a different plan here because 80 hours for 55 grand, don't cut it. The work you're doing is very important work and it's very good work. You're taking care of kids who have been messed up. Thank you for doing that. You've got a good heart. But also, you cannot sit and be a victim of $17,000, man. I mean, seriously. Let me help you with this. $2,000 a month, and you are done in eight months. That's all you need, and you make $55,000. So this is very doable.

You should be done with this in six months and then have zero debt. But this debt represents all this pain in your life. And so it's like feels bigger than it is. Mathematically, it's tiny emotionally. It's huge. And that's why you're, you know, you act like it's some kind of big monster. It's 17 grand and you know, know no i'm not staying in student loan debt for 10 freaking years for seven thousand dollars worth of forgiveness that probably isn't going to actually come because you're probably not going to cross every t and dot every i a high percentage of people that run that game don't end up with the forgiveness at the end so you don't want to get in that game you want to get in the game of i'm going knock this out, put it all in the rearview mirror, move forward in health and with enthusiasm.

Yeah, I can feel the stupid tax. We've all done stupid, every one of us, and that's what you're feeling. This is a breakup. She took your card. And so you've created this narrative. The way you led the call is that you have been victimized, and in all reality, you haven't. And I think Dave is absolutely right.

The more you can quickly go, I've got to get a victory, and if I were you, I would go sell something today. If I could sell it for $500 or if I could sell five things for $1,000, get a quick win and put $1,000 down on this debt, you need something to get those shoulders back a little bit. And there's nothing wrong with you. You aren't drowning in this. This is all a mindset because of what's happened to you and the way it happened. Learn from it, but get a quick victory. Like happen to this. Don't let life happen to you anymore. So quick lesson, folks, you need to have

Zander Insurance's identity theft in place. I do because they will take over an account that is actually identity theft. His wasn't. But actually is identity theft. They'll take it over and they'll deal with the banks. The banks will lie to you and tell you you're responsible for identity theft. You're not. When someone else misuses your name, that is criminal fraud. And you are not liable for a debt when a thief uses your name to open up an account.

Don't let some banker tell you that. That's bull crap. And you need somebody in your corner with identity theft protection like Zander Insurance. And that's why we've endorsed them for, God, a decade plus since this identity theft thing became a thing. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world, like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family. The key is finding an independent broker who represents a ton of

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give them a call at 800-356-4282. If you live like no one else, later you can live and give like no one else oh this is the season for giving generosity man we love talking about generosity we love encouraging generosity and one of your favorite shows we do of the year is the annual giving show around christmas time and we're going to be doing that. So we want to hear stories from you about a time that you were able to bless someone or a time that someone blessed you with generosity.

You know, the good stories that make your eyes leak and inspire the rest of us to want to be more generous and be better human beings and all that. Yeah, we're going to do an entire show of generosity. It's called The Giving Show that we do. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask, put giving in the subject line and tell us a little bit about your story. We'll make you one of the stories we use that day. And that's coming up December the 18th. So you need to get this in. You just got a couple of days. ramseysolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line. Phillip is in Houston. Hi, Phillip.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my question is I am debating if I should buy a house. I currently own a little home that was given to me for my family, and I have it on family

land. Um, after my divorce, I kind of had to restart over and after a long, long battle, I was finally awarded sole custody of my kids. So my custody, my kids are with me full time. Um, but I live on a, uh, on a, in a, in a mobile home right now that I'm in, but it's fully paid for its minds, but I feel kind of a little bit ashamed of it because I make good money. What do you make? I make about $86,000 a year. Okay. And the land that it's on is not yours?

It's my parents' land. They have multiple properties in the area. And someone gave you the mobile home? Yes, my parents. Oh, they did. So they had a mobile home sitting on their land and they said hey while you're going through a hard time move into it yes they gave it to me and gave me the title for it and everything but they did not give you the title

for the land not for the land just a mobile home right okay all right um how old are you i am 35 okay all right hey you've been through hell and you you needed a soft spot to land on you found a soft spot to land that's not a bad landing spot that doesn't mean we want to stay there but it's not it's a nice thing that you're landed there okay and and i spent the lessons i i don't really pay anything i pay here's light bill. Again, it's a soft landing spot. That's kind of nice. However, it does not take you where you want to be 10 years from now. 10 years from now, you don't want to be owning an ancient,

rotting down mobile home on someone else's land. So this doesn't project well into the future, even though it's a very nice gift into the present. Does that make sense? Yes. So we can be very grateful to mom and dad. I'm grateful to them. I think what they do is very nice.

But it is not your 10-year plan, okay? Okay. You want to buy something that goes up in value and you own the dirt. Yeah. That's your long-term plan. There's no reason to be ashamed. There's nothing to be ashamed about. We can feel that on you, and you don't need to feel that way you've been through a fight yeah so throw your shoulders back here and figure out what do we got to do

to move forward but your kids don't care about the mobile home no i'm not ashamed of it that it's a nice thing but again it's not your long-term plan, not because of shame, but just because of math. And so I spent the last year kind of just maxing out my 401k, maxing out my Roth IRA. I was able to save about $22,000 in my savings account. The only debt I have is just a truck that I owe about $15,000 on. Write a check and pay it off today. Okay. Now save up a good down payment or save up a good emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then start and stop your 401k

temporarily and start saving up for a good strong down payment on a house that's going to go up in value. Okay. All right now how much land does your mom and dad have total? I would say about 15. The one I'm on right now is two acres, but they have two acres in different properties here and there. They own a property management company. Is this property that you're on adjacent to their home? No. It's a standalone property?

Yes. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, just talk to them about if they're in property management, they know that this is not going up in value and that you don't own the dirt. And so, Mom and Dad, I'm going to start saving for a down payment on a home, which means I'm going to be selling off the mobile home or giving it back to you, one of the two.

What's it worth, do you think? I don't know. I'd say about $4,000. Okay. Let's give it back to them. Let's give it back to them when you get ready to leave. Because they were renting it out before, do you think? I don't know. I'd say about $4,000. It's not a lot. Okay, let's give it back to them. Let's give it back to them when you get ready to leave. Because they were renting it out before, weren't they? Yes.

Yeah, you don't mess up their rental property by dragging that thing off. So just when you get ready to leave, just say, hey, I'm going to save up money, and I'm going to go buy a house. But thank you so much for letting me land here on your rental property for a little bit. And I'm going to give you the title of this back when I leave, okay? But thank you all so much. And just be very grateful because you should be. It was a very nice thing they did.

Yeah. But it's not your long-term plan. It can be both things. It can be a nice thing and not the long-term plan. And no shame is in either thing. Is that okay? Yes. Appreciate that.

You're a good guy, man. You're making good money you fought for your kids you landed in it you got good family that helped you land on a soft spot that's nice man there's a lot of good there's a lot of good in this story philip thank you i've been blessed but you have been in the middle of a dadgum tragedy you know you did it's good and he saved up 22 000 And he's giving himself a huge raise today. And pumping money is 401k. So he's paying attention.

That's right. And now he's going to get a massive raise when he pays the truck off today. Exactly. Oh, I forgot about that little detail. We want that. It's a big deal. And Dave, we've got a lot of new people all the time joining in. I think this would be a good refresher here of why we tell people,

if they're not familiar with the baby steps or they've just joined us, in his situation, it's going to change his life if he actually gets in order and does them the right way that's why we're telling him to cut it today cut the payment today write a check get rid of the truck yeah well i mean all that money that you're you're wasting on that truck payment goes to build up savings really fast and this guy's a natural born saver yeah partly because he's been through hell and he's real careful. Right. But, I mean, just accentuated his nature is what it did. And so just lean into that and go, okay, now I don't have a truck payment.

Now I don't have a mobile home payment because my dad gave it to me. I'm living here. All I got is utilities and I'm making 85K. I got to feed some kids. And other than that, let's go to town, baby. Boom, boom, boom, boom. As fast as he saved 22, he's going to save 52. That's right, and that's where he gets the house.

Yep. That's the magic of the baby steps right there. Big time. And listen, there is nothing snobbish about a couple of guys in Tennessee telling you not to do mobile homes, okay? It's nothing about that at all. It's not a class warfare thing. It's not anything.

It's a about that at all. It's not a class warfare thing. It's not anything. It's a simple math thing. They go down in value. When you put your money in things that go down in value, it makes you poorer. Why is this hard? So a mobile home is like a car you sleep in. It goes down in value. And so you don't go buy a $55,000 mobile home and then look up 10 years later and it's worth $10,000 and wonder why you're broke people. Don't do that. Buy something that goes up in value. You're better off to rent. At least you're not losing while

you're paying payments. When you pay payments on a mobile home, you're paying the payment and you're losing the value. It's like when you're paying payments on a car and it's going down in value. So, you know, I got a friend that's in the mobile home business. Dude, would you quit trashing mobile homes? I was like, oh, trash mobile home. It's not a personal thing, dude. It's simple. When you start making one that goes up in value i'll advertise for you but until then we're not going to talk about it we're gonna i'm gonna tell people put money it goes uh you know my grandpa said i'll put money i was bragging about my car when i was in college and he's like what's that and i said well it's kind of like an investment. He goes, honey, my investments go up, you know, well, duh. Right. And that's the thing. So you really want to have investments

like your personal residence going up in value. And the problem with a stinking mobile home is they set it on a piece of dirt and the piece of dirt goes up in value faster than the mobile home goes down so it gives you the illusion you made money you didn't the dirt just saved you from your stupidity so don't buy mobile homes now he didn't buy one mom and daddy gave him a whole four thousand dollar one this is not a you know this is not they didn't give him the taj mahal of mobile homes for sure. But that's the deal, guys. It's real simple. That's why we tell people to do that. Go buy things that go up in value.

This is what rich people do. That's how they became rich people, and that's how they get rich, get richer, and the poor get poorer. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The's the ramsey show we help people build wealth do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships open phones at 888-825-5225 ken coleman number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, host of The Ken Coleman Show here on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. James is with us in San Diego. Hi, James, what's up? Hi, Ramsey. This is a pleasure to be here i really really love what you do for people and thank you a little super i'm super nervous right now so we haven't lost a patient you'll be okay what's up uh so i have it's not this calls it for me um i have a

i have a buddy that's very financially literate and they've made some very poor financial decisions over the last few years. And I guess to start with, I guess where to begin is they have right now currently $37,837 of debt. Their minimum monthly payments for those debts is $1,743. Their gross monthly income approximately is about $100,000 a year, plus or minus a couple thousand. They have a mortgage. Right now, they're behind one month on their mortgage. So they're currently at $1,500 a month. That's what they're behind normally it's $1,250 with all their basic household bills they're looking at around I think $4,000 a month

or $4,500 a month so my thing for them is they have two kids they've recently had over the last two years and they find a struggle to be motivated to go to their job well they go to work, but they allow overtime and he could work a little more than he is now. Um, but I guess the problem with them is

they're just kind of stuck in this hole. They're at about negative $700 a month. So do you have any advice for them? I know right now they're doing 8% on their 401ks cause the company matches eight. Um, I'm just trying to help them out if they, if any way I can, I figured that you'd be the first person to call, but I recommended maybe you're very sweet. I don't know if you can help them cause I don't think they're going to do it. No,

I agree. I know. I agree. But, uh, so I'm going to give you just, I'm going to burn a few calories and try to help you help them cause you're a good guy.

But I think you're probably wasting your dad gum time. I understand. And I'm, to burn a few calories and try to help you help them because you're a good guy, but I think you're probably wasting your dadgum time. I understand, and it's worth it for me to try. Well, I mean, yeah, a little bit, but it's not worth it for you to care more than they do about their own life. No, I understand. So that's a boundary you need to set. You need to walk and give us a little drive-by. If they pick up a couple pieces of information and run with it, then you can help them a little more.

But if they sit back and go, well, you know, I just don't feel like working, I'm sorry, that one right there just kills me, okay? I'm broke. I have two little kids. I can't make my bills. But I really don't want to miss Yellowstone on the dadgum television. I've got to be home. You know, I mean, come on.

Get up off your butt. It's a 12-hour shift, so I kind of understand. Oh, you're killing me here. I know, I know. television i gotta be home you know i mean come on yeah get up off your butt it's 12 hour shift so i kind of understand oh you're killing me here i know i know call the wambulance all right so here's the deal okay all right here's the deal stop the 401k get on a written budget stay out of the restaurant take all the overtime you can and sell the expensive car that's in these numbers somewhere yeah so they have two car loans one is at 7 000 the other is at 15 um then yeah almost like i've done this before yeah sell the expensive car stop the 401ks get on a detailed budget pick up all the overtime you can pick up they really there's nothing wrong with any numbers here oh and before you start before you start paying any extra on your debt buy food pay the light bill and pay the

stinking house payment how in the world you're not paying your house payment of 1500 when you make a hundred thousand a year these people are mentally lazy too. Yeah, it's tough to hear because me and my wife are pretty comfortable, and it's hard to hear, and they make honestly more than us. Yeah, I mean. And we live in San Diego. Their house is not their problem, but, dude, you don't get behind on your house payment when you make $100K and you have two little babies.

Yeah. This is just, are they doing drugs? No. You sure? is just, are they doing drugs? No. You sure? No drugs. Not 100%. I mean, this sounds like there's addiction in the house, maybe. It's $360 a month for cigarettes.

That's an addiction for sure. No, but I mean, really, because they're smoking weed. I don't want to work much, and I didn't pay my house payment. You sure they're not smoking weed? Well, the wife has. Okay. All right. I thought so. All right. Yeah. You sure they're not smoking weed? Well, the wife has. Okay. All right. I thought so.

All right. Yeah. Because THC is called an ambition killer. Okay. Yeah. Just completely destroys ambition. There are no ambitious potheads. Okay.

Yeah. There are no potheads with extreme work ethic. They don't exist. So this is the problem. All right. Yeah. I was just saying, James. It took a minute, but we got there you're

very nice james you're a sweet guy the best thing you could do is come to jesus meeting with this dude i just think it's a dude man time for you to grow up throw the cigarettes in the pot in the dadgum ditch you and your wife start acting like grown-ups you got babies you're responsible for come on man adult up man up you're making excuses for him i hear it yeah well he likes them he thinks they're sweet they're probably sweet a lot of potheads are but it's just you know golly you gotta be kidding me this is just uh i know this this call went sideways when he said you can have this much illogical stuff going on without getting down there. I've done this too long.

Right. He doesn't want to go in and work. Here's the deal. Larry Burkett used to say financial problems, including when Dave Ramsey went bankrupt because he was stupid, the guy I'm talking about right here, financial problems are not the problem. They're the symptom. What are they the symptom of in my case it was arrogance and the need to look cool and drive a car i couldn't afford and buy crap i couldn't afford with money i didn't have

and build a big real estate portfolio and i got rich quick instead of get rich slow because i'm smarter than everybody else and i was a stupid little snot nose, and I got the tar knocked out of me because I was an idiot. But the problems were not the problem. They were the symptom. These people's problems are not their problem. They're the symptom of what's going on in their house, the dysfunction in the household, and that's what you're facing. So another example of that is we've sadly with 30 years or 40 years

now of working with people with financial problems, we end up spending a lot and you do with careers to end up spending a lot of time with people that are recovering from addictions. And so we don't, we're not addiction counselors. We don't know anything about it. Technically speaking, we've only got 30 years of dealing with addicts because a hundred percent of addicts have financial problems. A hundred percent. You're addicted to porn. A hundred percent of the time, you're going to end up in our office with your stupid house in foreclosure. If you don't break that, you're addicted to gambling. Oh, that one will get you there real fast. Cause that's like money stupid, right? It goes straight to the heart of the thing. You're doing drugs. You're doing cocaine.

You're doing alcohol. 100% of these people. And I was with a buddy of mine the other day. He's been dry for two years. He was doing cocaine. He was doing mountains of cocaine. He's been off it two years. I'm real proud of him.

I said, why'd you quit? He goes, realize there's no old cocaine addicts. There you go. Wow. Yeah. But the addiction is the problem. The symptom ends up being the financial issue. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over

$11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Ben is with us in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. Glad to be here. Good to have you, sir. What's up?

Yeah, so I have a question regarding life insurance. So I'm looking at a policy through Zander at 10 times my income, and the last variable my wife and I need to nail down is the duration of the term life insurance. Now, I've taken FPU before. No, you normally recommend 15 to 20 years, but my question is if that's right for our situation. So I have other context to give there, but I'll let you go ahead and ask. Why would you think it's not? What is the context? Yeah.

So basically over the next 10 or so years, my wife and I intend to have more kids. So there's a lot of life coming at us in the next 10 years. And I've heard you mention on the show before that, again, life comes in stages. It's not all at once. And you want your insurance to reflect that. So my thought is, does it make more sense if we keep having kids over the next 10 years to get a policy that's 10 years and then at the end of that, get one that's 20? Because if I get a policy now that's 20 years, our child that's on the way, she'll be out of the house hopefully at that point. But if we have kids in 10 years, I would need to take out another one. So does it make more sense to take a shorter policy and then take out a 20 or maybe 25-year policy at the end of that, rather than just taking out a 20-year policy now that I know I will probably end up changing in 10 years? Does that make sense?

So your first baby's on the way? Correct. Congratulations. Thank you. Appreciate that. And you're a good dad because you're thinking about how to make sure your kids and your wife are taken care of. Way to go, Ben. Good man.

That's the goal. Well done, sir. Well done. So you're not going to mess up. You're doing fine. You can do your plan or you can do whatever. The only thing I'm positive of is you're a bit of a nerd and that's a wonderful thing.

I am too, by the way, that's how I recognize it. And so you're overthinking this. It's not going to unfold the way you've got it in your head. So the variable is not the number of kids. The variable is your income. So 10 times your income today is going to be different than 10

times your income five years from now or 12 times your income 10 years from now and so um that's what what i ended up doing and you've heard this apparently but i'll repeat it for the everybody else out there because the way you reflected this back i know you heard this i did 15 year policies and then every so often i bought an five years later, I bought another 15-year, and then those would fall off at the appropriate time as the liability for the children go down. So the goal is when the life insurance runs out for you to be debt-free and have a large enough nest egg that if you die financially, your wife doesn't care. Okay. So you got a million dollars in mutual funds and you have no debt and the kids are grown and gone. Those are the three things, right? So they're out of college. They're not on mom's payroll in any way if you're gone. And so that's going to work out, you know, and,

and here's the thing, as long as you keep your health you could do your plan or you can do you know three different versions of 15-year policies which is kind of what i ended up doing and then i ended up adding one because we're building a big building and sharon goes i don't want to finish that building with my money i want to finish it with your life insurance money if you die during the building so i had to buy one for her just because that's what she wanted it was swi sharon wants it had nothing to do with financial planning it was like a christmas present and so um but you're gonna end up that's what i mean stuff i had it all nerd figured out and nothing ever works out the way i've got it figured out when i look back on it 15 20 years later

so if you do it your way, you're going to be fine. You're covering your family for 10 to 12 times your income. If you pass away with one or two babies in the house, your wife will have plenty of money to live off of the principal or live off the growth of the principal without touching the principal and have replaced your income and she'll be okay and you know and that's not gonna you know if you got a three-year-old and a one-year-old she's probably not gonna just sit there and do nothing and play that out for 17 years exactly that way usually doesn't happen her life will change after you're gone too so that there's all these things that happen that are that are hard to quantify the variables but the good news is if you got a

good long policy 10 15 20 that's fine i wouldn't fool with 30s i don't think they're worth it but i i did 15s a series of 15s is what i did and each time i reassessed as my income went up i needed more insurance i just bought another policy and then as we got out the back end of the story and we didn't need insurance, they start falling off in five-year increments because I'd bought them in about five-year increments. So that's an okay way to do it. What you're talking about similar. And what you really end up looking at is the difference in premium between a 15 and a 20 it's not much difference and you don't save a lot and it's not a lot of difference between a 10 and a 15 usually because i mean you're young and the whole stinking thing is just the cost of a pizza

so if you're young and healthy if you're not obese and you don't smoke and you're in your 20s this stuff just doesn't cost anything and um but but those, I mean, smoking and obesity will run it up. But if you smoke, it's just double. Let me tell you what it is, it's double. And so, you know, that's the thing. But, you know, you guys did the similar stuff, you and Stacy. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, but we followed the income.

This was the key lesson. The variable is not the kids. It's the income. And so as my income increased, I stayed right on top of that and kept changing based on what you've always taught. This was before I even worked for you. So that's the variable. It keeps it simple. As your income goes up, then look at the policy.

Add a little bit more. And you don't have to cancel the old one and get a new one. That's correct. Just add a smaller one on top of it. That way you've got them phased in and phased out yeah and that's an easy way to do it and zander can help zander insurance can help you with all that right and they do a wonderful job they shop among a bazillion different companies they get you the best price guys when you're buying insurance of any kind particularly life insurance and uh&C homeowners and car, always go with an independent broker that will shop

among a bunch of different companies and get you the best deal. You don't want one that has a, listen, if they have a football player on their advertisement, they're more expensive. So let me help you, okay? Mahomes and Peyton Manning, okay?ning okay two of them state farms it's super expensive right somebody's got to pay for all those dadgum football commercials and it's you boys and girls so you state farm people that's who's paying for it so so you're telling me jake is not the friend that we think i'm telling you'm telling you that if I see another State Farm commercial,

like back to back to back to back to back every break until I'm about to throw up. That's true. Oh, my God, you can't even watch football for these people. Right. I wish they'd just get back on the field and play so we didn't have so many commercials. I agree.

Oh, man. That painting versus painting, that one drives me nuts. Painting versus painting, it's too much. Well, it's a walking dad joke. I get it. And I am a walking dad joke. And I don't want to be reminded of my weaknesses. I don't know my homies personally, but I know Peyton, and he's a wonderful guy.

And he does have a great sense of humor in general. By the way, I want to point this out because we have a lot of people that, again, brand new coming in. Our audience is growing. The life insurance, Xander, is so good at what they do. it is such a pain-free process from start to finish from the time you call them to the nurse coming out and taking your blood to the paperwork i get to tell you it is it i think a lot of people think oh what do i gotta do you just say the nurse taking my blood was pain-free i heard you say that i did it is did. It is. They come right to your house. It's simple. Paperwork is easy. I just, I want people to know it is such a easy process.

It is. Comparatively to the other stuff in life that you have to take care of. And it doesn't get more important. But you, you know, like for instance on PNC, if you go to one of the ELPs and you shop it on your homeowners and your car, you're going to save like $800 probably on average annually over what you're paying on car and homeowners. And that's simply because, not because they have like the cheapest insurance,

it's because in your situation, they're going to look at five or six different companies or eight different companies. They're going to find the one company in your situation that is the best deal. That's right. And that's what you want. When you're an insurance agent and you only sell for one company in the business, we call that a captive agent. So a nationwide agent, that's the guy that wrecks everything, right?

Isn't that the commercial? Is that nationwide? I can't even remember now. No, that's all state. See, it didn't work. The ad didn't work because it's not even memorable. Okay. Yeah.

The guy's memorable, but I don't, yeah. Yeah. So, and, yeah. That's the only reason I watch those is because that's kind of fun to watch him destroy everything. Something. Yeah. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. So, shop.

Shop. Don't work with the captives. Shop among a bunch of different. Get an insurance broker. That's a different thing. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by why refi we trust why refi because they help people who have

defaulted private student loans they refinance with a low fixed interest rate you can't get anywhere else and it'll get you a payment with chris for instance they got his payment down 40 percent. Wow. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey if you have defaulted private student loans. The letter YRefi.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Vanessa in Indiana. I'm a 21-year-old who will graduate college in the spring with my bachelor's degree. How am I supposed to go about getting an entry-level job when they all want full-time experience? I had part-time jobs while in school, but they don't really relate to my career path. Well, I appreciate the question, Vess. I've answered this question thousands of times. The answer is it's not entry-level if it's requiring a bunch of experience. So it just can't be. So what you do is you recalibrate and you go,

I'm trying to get on rung of the ladder two, three, or four, and I need to drop down to the lowest rung on the ladder. And so if it is by definition an entry-level job, then they're not going to require a bunch of experience. And what happens most of the time is people have their eyes on something a little bit bigger, and they go for that, and they actually are requiring experience. So how did someone get into that job? Look lower.

I can promise you there is, in fact, entry-level jobs where you do not require any experience. So this is all about reality and patience would be the two words so that you see the right things. And I appreciate that you'll want to get something a little higher up the ladder. We all do. And Ken, I think it matters more. I'm thinking about from an employer position when we're hiring. It matters more if her degree is in a technical field, then all they want to know is she can accomplish the technical task.

That's correct. If it is in a broader soft skill field, let's say communications, and she wanted to go to work in PR, that's not a technical, tactical thing. There's soft skills involved there. I would be more concerned with experience there than I would someone as a developer. That's a technical skill. That's exactly right. Okay. So if you got a certification as a developer, we might put on the job offering, but we prefer experience. But we're not going to require that as harshly as we would in something where soft skills are involved. Does that make

sense? It's exactly right. Yeah. So it depends on the field. It depends on the field. So let's take that example. Let's say that you've got a degree in accounting or PR or something, and you're going for something, whatever it is. And they're saying, okay, you don't have any experience even in classes or in summer work. You've not interned, you've not done this. It's not the sky is falling. Then you simply go, okay, great. So I need to go get that. And so I might need to go get two part-time jobs or a part-time job. And I've got to get some intern experience and I get that basic level experience and so now all of a sudden I have checked that box. When the other thing that comes into play is that's just something an employer sometimes will put on there as almost a screen.

Yes. And would they necessarily never hire someone with zero experience? That's not true. They would in certain circumstances. That's right true. They would in certain circumstances. That's right. Because all they're trying to figure is, can you do the job? Yes. And you point out something. And so the proximity principle could help that. It can. And I think you also, yeah. And so the proximity principle is where I've got people that are in that industry who I've spent some time with, and now they're going to open up some

doors. But I want to go back to what you just said. And that's gumption. I think you're absolutely right. Here's what I would say to someone coming around out of college. If they say, you need experience in communications or you need experience with problem solving, you know what I would do? Instead of saying like this young lady said, and I'm not knocking her, my part-time jobs didn't have that experience. You know what I would do? I would look back into my high school and college experience and I would say, you know

what? I was in charge of the yearbook my senior year at a large public high school. And as the student editor, I had to solve problems all the time. I'm not saying you're going to get the job because of that answer, but there's the gumption point. They're looking for, do you want this? Are you hungry? And can you say, realistically, I solved problems. Point. Poise. Right. But if you say, i solve problems by doing this we had deadlines but if you look down and go well kick sand right i don't

know i don't know yeah i apparently don't have any yeah well you just managed to get a four-year degree that was like you pushed through something there you go there's just more transferable experience than people realize when you're sitting in these job interviews. They want to see that you can think on your feet, that you've got some gumption to say, I believe I can do this job. That's what they're looking for. Because they're going to train you. You're making a sale, baby, and you're the product.

Damon is with us in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Damon. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just had a question. My employer has offered me to buy into 10% of our company. I'm an electrician with a small company just outside of

Des Moines, Iowa. I'm on baby step two now. My wife and I, we both make about 110,000 together. Um, we, uh, let's see. Uh, I just didn't know if I should continue the baby steps, which, uh, like I said, I'm on baby step two, or if I should direct my focus onto trying to get 10% for $100,000 is how I would get that 10%. And I wasn't for sure if I should put my focus towards getting some ownership into the company to where I can... No, you should look at your boss and say,

thank you for your kind and generous offer, but I'm in the middle of getting out of debt right now and so my wife and i have to focus on that i'm so sorry i can't do it and let me tell you why okay a hundred thousand dollars for ten percent of that company is you said it's a small company and yet you let and yet you just valued it at a million dollars yes and i don't like i said i don't have all i don't have all the all the numbers on the company yeah he just kind of i don't either how many employees does it have uh we have 10 employees um i know this year he had told me that we're on track to do $1.4 million, and last year we did $1.7 million. How old are you?

My wife and I are 25. Okay. Do you want to work for him for the next 10, 15 years? Yes, sir, I do. I actually used to live in the city. I've worked with companies that have 300, 400 employees, and and i really enjoy the rural life and i really enjoy so here's the deal that opportunity will come back around if it is a good opportunity i'm not sure it is but it'll come back around later number one i think it's overpriced number two let me teach you something about small business

purchases okay what you are purchasing there is called a minority interest, meaning you do not have at least 51%, meaning you don't have control. You follow me? Yes, sir. so boss man can decide to run this thing in the ditch and suddenly you're 10 percent's worth nothing and there's not a stinking thing you can do about it so you do not buy minority interests in small businesses period and number one for any price if he wants to give it to you fine as a bonus that's okay but no we're not going to give him a hundred thousand dollars and you have zero control over anything in the company your vote means nothing because he oh he holds all the cards you follow me he can he can go he can go deeply in debt he can develop a cocaine problem he can do whatever and then, you can do about it.

And your $100,000 is going to become worth zero if any of those bad things happen. And sometimes those bad things happen. Not all the time, but sometimes they do. So don't do minority interests in small businesses, period. And I think this one's overpriced. And, Damon, you're in debt. So just be kind and generous to him and say, thank you for your kind offer. I'm honored to be working here. I'm going to continue to work and plow the field like I'm

supposed to. And we'll revisit this discussion later when I just buy the whole thing from you or something. But for right now, I'm getting out of debt and my wife and I are going to have to focus on that. That's what you should do, sir. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete Me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete Me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites and it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your

email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information, when they removed it, how many hours they've saved you. I mean, it is incredible. So detailed and it's beautiful. I love these reports. So far, get this, they've reviewed 27,000 listings on my behalf, removed me from 240 data broker sites, and saved me 77 hours of time. It's incredible. Absolutely amazing. And Winston and I now get fewer texts, weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindelete me.com slash Ramsey that comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindelete me.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's join delete me.com slash Ramsey.

Make sure to check it out. You guys. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. Folks, 100% of the people that do anything successful do it as an act of intentionality. Success is not an accident. It's not random. It's not a lightning strike, and it's not a DNA issue. He's a born leader. No, he's not. I've been to the hospital. They always say, it's a boy. It's a girl. They never say, it's a boy it's a girl they never say it's a leader leaders are developed it's a series of intentional acts you learn the character qualities and processes of leadership if you want to be a leader a successful one

he was born a great husband no he wasn't ask any wife ever There's no such thing as a born great husband. They have to be developed. I'm not sure if you ask many wives, they'll say there's such thing as a great husband. Yeah, there is. Hey, now. Yeah, there is. My wife's got one. So there you go.

Self-described. I love that. Because of the humility and all. But yeah, but the, so anyway, so the thing is this. Winning with money is an intentional act. You have to tell your money what to do because broke people always wonder where it went. Rich people tell their money what to do, and they have a plan. Broke people think, God, it's Friday.

Oh, God, it's Monday. I sure hope it all works out. I sure hope Trump will fix my life because Biden didn't Trump isn't gonna fix your life honey he's gonna do a bunch of crap but fixing your life isn't any of it I can tell you that it's not his job by the way it wasn't the guy before him's job the guy before him's job the guy before him it's your job so on paper on purpose you tell your money what to do that's called a budget if you want help doing that the world's best budgeting app is called every dollar it's in the app store for free or the google play store

get it and download it put it on your phone and start making your money behave it's an intentional act boys and girls brian is with us in san an, Texas. Hey, Brian, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello, Ramsey team. It's a pleasure. Pleasure, sir. How can we help? Well, I just wanted y'all's take on making sure I'm not crazy and considering an $80,000 new car, a Tesla Model S.

Cool. Nice car. Yes, sir. All right. So what do you make well i make uh 360 thousand dollars a year cool what's your net worth i've got uh without the house included no house is part of your net worth what's your net worth okay uh about 1.2 million. Okay. All right. You got the cash to pay cash for it? I do. Okay. Buy it.

Okay. Let me tell you the rule of thumb I use on this, okay? Yes, sir. The reason I ask you those questions. We tell people not to buy a brand new car unless they've got at least a million dollar net worth. Ding. Check box. Okay. Okay.

Because new cars go down in value, including Teslas. Right. They don't go up, they go down and you can't afford a depreciating asset that's brand new. When you drive it off the lot, that sound blump, blump. When you go over the curb was 10,000 bucks. Okay. Right. That's what it is. You got to be able to, you got to be able to choke that down and you can choke it down and you don't buy new unless you've got a million-dollar net worth. You do. Okay. Second thing is don't buy depreciating assets, things with motors and wheels,

in your case wheels, all added together that equal more than half your annual income. You make 360, we're buying 80. That's less than half your annual income. I'm assuming the other car, if there is one, is not a know not a 200 000 car so you're probably okay yes sir okay so because you don't want too much of too much as a percentage of your income invested in things that are going down in value again same thing so like i got a friend that made 15 million last year and um he bought a 428 000 car that kind of blows my redneck mind i have my head i have a hard time getting my head around that but it's a very small percentage of his income it's like most people buying a biscuit right

and so yeah it's not going to hurt his finances at all even though you know we you know jealous people say stuff like well no one should ever right know, we, you know, jealous people say stuff like, well, no one should ever, right? Well, you, that's, that's what jealous people say. No one should ever. So you got, if you're made 15 million last year, you can afford a $400,000 car. It's that simple. You made 360, you can afford a $80,000 car.

You got a million dollar plus net worth. You can afford to buy a brand new car. That's how I just, and you're paying cash. You're not going to borrow money. That's the three things I was looking for. You checked all three boxes. Yeah, and hey, he's done it the right way, and so this is, he's had to wait. That's the other thing, that when Dave walks through those.

I'm just glad George and Rachel are in the air with their little Teslas. Yeah. Because I would have had to put up with the Tesla stuff, telling a guy to buy a Tesla, because there's no chance I'm doing that. But those two, both are Tesla drivers. Batteries. Even if they came out with a really cool-looking one? They actually are a cool car.

I just need like an app for it that makes a muffler sound. Right. Because a redneck needs a loud muffler, and that's just all there is to it. They do that. You know, they have these cars. Do they really? Yes, absolutely. But I don't think it's enough for you.

No, it's not. I think you want to smell. I still know I'm sitting on a battery. You like the hint of petrol in the air. That's it. You want to smell that you're driving. Actually, I'm trying to help the planet. Well, I mean, the planet gets destroyed by making those batteries more than me driving my Raptor.

I can tell you that. Oh, so you're green. Is that what I'm hearing? That's it, man. I'm totally. Okay. I'm down with the green. Right.

Not at all. This is very exciting. It's funny. I don't care what you say. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Fabian is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Fabian. How are you?

Hi. Doing, Fabian. How are you? Hi. Doing good, sir. I just want to say first, Rob, that's you, my future in life. I binge-watched your show. We bought your books, and I'm currently on Baby Step 2, and we appreciate you very much. Well, thank you, sir. How can we help you today?

All right. So I need you to do that thing that you do where you pretend like I'm your son, and if I'm making an overall good career choice, I want to be able to switch careers. I feel like I'm always in my 20s going on ventures. What are you doing now? What do you want to switch to? So the last few years I did project management and construction blueprints,

and I really like that. I've been doing restaurants for 10 years. I went back to it because it was a venture for the startup company that went downhill. So now I backtracked. I went back to what I was good at. So, yeah, doing restaurant for 10-plus years and construction blueprints to permit for two years, the past two years.

So you want to go from restaurant management to this construction blueprint stuff? Yes, sir. Okay. So what's the question? Do you think the construction industry is a good career path? Absolutely. Yes.

And then how do I make this switch over? Because I never went to school for it, but I learned how to, like, work with. Does it require, if I were to hand it to you today, does it require a college degree to do what you want to do? The answer is no. Project managing, reading a blueprint, most people doing it don't have a college degree. There's a few people who have a construction management degree, but almost none

in the business. Sounds like you've already got enough experience to get in the industry. So the question is, can you get back in it and make the kind of money you need to make? Yeah. Then do it. So my advice is this. Keep working in the restaurant business until you land the job doing what you want to do, and so there's no interruption of income. This is not scary if we do it methodically and we're patient and we don't stop working. And that's the advice I would give. You used to work at the startup, the construction business startup before. Where are they working?

It was a remote company. was uh were any of them local yes some some of the projects were local yeah find out where those guys are working they may talk they may talk nice about you and help you get a job there oh you mean like the guys you used to work with in the construction business find out where they are that company was a startup and went down you said now go find those guys and run that to ground and they'll get the door open for you and you can get going yeah but you don't yeah go you need to go do this man absolutely go do it you've already done it so you know where to look start looking you got this walk out there on the job site and start talking to people. Who's hiring? I know how to do this.

I'll help you. And just walk in there and start reading blueprints and project managing. You know how to do it. It can be done. You already know you don't have to have a degree because you've already done it. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Daniel's in Pittsburgh. Hey, Daniel, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm having a little bit of financial trouble. My entire paycheck goes towards these cash advances, and I can't seem to find my way out of it. I was wondering if you had any advice on... So you took out a bunch of payday lender loans. Correct. How many?

The four of them. How much do you owe on them? One of them is $300. One of them can go all the way up to $750. Another one goes to $50, and another one's like $100. And what do you make, Daniel? Hourly or for the year? Either one. Hourly is hourly is 1750 an hour okay and 1200 changes your life

somewhat yes no i mean you would go pay off all these and you'd have your whole paycheck back right correct you have any other debt i have about a thousand dollars in credit card debt uh i just signed papers for a new truck because my other one kind of blew up on me which i didn't want to but wasn't really left with any other option. Other than that, that's it. How much was your truck, Daniel? The truck was $19,000 out the door with $4,000 down. You just gave somebody $4,000, and then you called me on the phone and said $1,000 is taking your whole paycheck.

That's not logical. Right. Why didn't you take $4,000 and buy a car? To be honest, I wasn't really thinking. Uh-huh. I can tell. Wow. How long ago did you buy the truck?

Oh, he just did it. Literally days? About a month ago. Okay. Okay. All right. And what are you, 22, 23? 27. 27. Okay. All right. all right and what are you 22 23 27 27 okay all right so here's the thing anytime you get in a pinch you go borrow money to get out of the pinch you need a truck you go get a truck you need money

you go the payday lender and so you're thinking very short term and you run to debt to make your life better and it has as a result has destroyed your financial life does that make sense yeah okay so the first step of getting out of debt is to raise your right hand and say i swear to never borrow money on anything ever again the rest of my whole freaking life you got it right never if you can't do that I can't help you because as soon as I fill up one of these buckets you're going to drill a hole in another one right you've got to stop going to debt every time you have stress or a problem and i don't know who your buddy is that told you buying this truck was a good idea but he's an idiot

okay so what would i do if i woke up in your shoes i would sell the truck are you going to do that So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? I would sell the truck. Are you going to do that? I will try to. Okay. And I want you to get three extra jobs, and I don't want you to eat out, and you don't get to go to happy hour anymore. There's nothing happy in this story right now. We're going to get happy

because we're going to get these debts paid off because $2,000 will clean up all your debt except the truck. You sell the truck and that'll get you a little bit of that money back. And then I want you to get a car that you, whatever it is that you pay cash for. And I don't care how junky or old or beat up it is. You're going to pay cash for it, no payments. When you finish the execution of those things I gave you to do, it should take two to three months to do all of those, and you should be 100% debt-free. You should be able to breathe again. And then, without any payments, you begin to pile up cash and move to a better car or truck with cash from the junker i just put you in that's what i did when i was your age and went broke and now i'm 64 and ornery which is what i want for you i want you to be 64 and ornery but i did stuff i did stuff that was so much dumber than the dumb things you've done.

I mean, I made you look like a genius when I was doing stupid. I got a Ph.D. in D-U-M-B, dude. I know what stupid looks like up close. I used to look at him in the mirror. But I had to draw a line in the sand. I had to say, I don't borrow money anymore. You know who uses payday lenders? Poor people. You don't see any rich people in there.

Well, rich people don't need to go in there. No, honey, rich people won't go in there no matter what happens because they understand it is the biggest screw job on the planet. This is an 800% interest rate you signed up for. Payday lenders are scum. Stay out of there. It's killing you. And the problem, Dave, is Daniel, you don't know where your money's going.

The reason you're getting in this hole is because you have no plan. You have no budget, no discipline. And so the mindset here is so important, not just the commitment to say, I'm never going to take debt out, but to get on a budget and to really say, I'm going to be intentional. You're working too hard. Beans and rice, rice and beans, work all the time, get these things paid off, get this truck sold, get your life back, man. You gave your life away and you're 27 years old. You're everybody else's slave. You have no choices left.

And you gave them the keys and the chains and said, here, please lock me up. And now you're so locked you can't think about nothing else except freaking $1,100. A $50 loan is bothering you. See? And, you know, go pay that off today and go work. Like, go talk to your boss. Tell them you need 100 hours of overtime next week. And if they can't give it to you, then go to Target and UPS. UPS and FedEx will help you let you throw boxes right now.

There's people buying Christmas. And Amazon will work your butt off right now, and they'll pay you more than 17 dollars that's right can't imagine what his payment is on that truck too so just getting rid of that screwed on that too because it's a pattern i'll guarantee you he got a 14 interest rate you cannot believe how many cars you can get in the four to five thousand dollar range that'll be more than effective for you daniel that's's the other thing. Swallow your pride on this and drive a piece of crap for a while. If you go put $4,000 down, you're 27 years old making $17 an hour and you have four payday loans out, 100% you got screwed on the interest

rate on the truck. Oh, for sure. 100% they put you in a subprime. Yeah, you're probably 15, 16% on that stupid butt truck. So man, you got to stop this and you got to undo some of it and you got to go to work and get on beans and rice and get this cleaned up. You can do this, Daniel. You can do this. And then you just draw a line in the sand and say, no more. No matter what happens, I don't darken the door of those dadgum places because they're there to screw me, not to help me.

This is the Ramsey Show. Well, we've extended our Cyber Monday sale. That means you can get prices as low as $8 on gifts that actually mean something. Best-selling hardback books like Building a Non-Anxious Life, Paycheck to Purpose by Ken Coleman, The Get Clear Assessment by Ken Coleman, audiobooks are on sale for $8, Breaking Free from Broke, George Campbell's number one bestseller, only $12.

Total Money Makeover, only $12. Check it all out at ramseysolutions.com. Claire is in San Diego. Hi, Claire. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How are you? Better than I deserve.

How are you? I'm good. So I'm finishing up my last semester of college, and I work full time. I'm just wondering if it's a good move. I'm trying to transfer from my current job to the same job in Oklahoma, and I'm just wondering if it's a good idea. Okay. Are you going to make more money if you take that job?

It's about the same. Okay. Does it have a better opportunity to move up over the next couple years? Does it give you upward mobility? I think so. Right now I live at home. What do you make? I make $17.25 an hour. And you're going to graduate college and continue to make $17 an hour? What's your degree in?

My degree is in communications. So why don't you get a job making more than $17 then? Well, right now I love the company that I work for. I don't. They suck. You're getting paid nothing. Yeah. Don't you think you're worth more than $17 with a four-year degree in communications?

I do. Yeah, I guess so. No, I don't guess so. I know so. What's your role? I'm a cashier and self-checkout attendant. Okay, well, then that helps. That's a little more information there. You buried the lead. So that's an entry-level kind of situation. So what do you want to do long-term? That's a job for a 16-year-old. You didn't go to get a communications degree to be a cashier. No. So at this current job, I can work my way up to manager of the store. That's what you want to do. You want to be in management, in retail. Yes.

Why do you, why? Well, I just love the company that I work for, and they're really good to us. They offer ESOP every year. And so this transfer to Oklahoma is going to allow you to accomplish that faster? Yes. Yeah. I don't know if you can live on your own on 17 can you can you um well uh i've been doing it for over three years now no you don't live you live at home you live at home yeah you don't have rent you don't have electricity? You don't have electricity? Well, I do pay rent.

How much? $500 a month. That's not rent. And you're going to find that in Oklahoma City? Not? Mm-hmm. Okay, so it's not a good idea to move there? It's not a bad idea to move there. It's not a bad idea to move there.

It's a bad idea to work for $17 an hour with a four-year degree and think you can stand on your own in a major metropolitan city in North America. Okay? Oh, okay. You need to get a job, girl. You have a teenage job. And I don't care if they've been sweet to you or not. You're not making enough money to be a grown-up

so you need to go get like a good job and get you a communications job I hope you can making 40 or 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year 70 thousand dollars a year and if that's in Oklahoma fine move but just because they have a cashier opening at $17 in Oklahoma does not, you don't know. No, you don't do that. This is a bad plan. And yes, you do need to get a life and you've graduated from college and move up and out of your mom's house and get on your own two feet and all that. But that's going to require you play in the grownup world rather than the teenage world. That's right. And you can always come back to this company in a management role once you've got some great experience you've made well you can tell them i have a four-year degree

in communications if you guys want to put me into leadership and pay me you know a good strong wage we'll talk about where what store i can do that in if you want to stay with that company that's fine yeah but um no that's not a um yeah rather you stay where you are until you get something more stable and you need to sit right there do you have a better plan yeah and you need to get a better plan in the next 90 days because i don't want you working more than 90 more days at 17 an hour with your graduation okay time for you to go on and be an adult now claire because the way you, you know, you're this, this thing, I feel like I'm talking to a 16 year old. Okay. You need to step it up here.

It's grown woman time, girl. Dave, let's give her a Christian. Let's give her a copy of find the work you're wired to do that has the get clear assessment in it. She's going to be able to see some real clear purposeful job description and allow her to maximize her income and the meaning that she wants out of work. So that'll be our gift for you. That'll be early Christmas present. Take the assessment and read the report. Look at the purpose statement as a job description and begin to look out into the world of work. And you're in the San Diego area. That's a good job market. You should be making way more money than you are well and or leave that market and leave mom and go to Oklahoma for a better paying job better but but you need

it's time it's time for you to go make you know three times what you're making yeah that's right immediately right now David is in San Francisco hi David welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? I'm in about $50,000 of credit card debt, and I recently got a letter in the mail that they opened up a collections case for me in my local county. I haven't been publicly served, so I was just wondering what rec like what recourse i i can take to to have this resolved well number one they're probably not going to do anything this is about this probably is 90 of the time they stop right there that's as far as they take it but they do all of that just to induce fear in you and it worked didn't it yeah for sure got you off your butt so why have you not been able to pay them uh i was uh i was laid off last year um i worked a good software engineering job

but over the last year and a half i haven't been able to find any positions you know how to write you know how to be a software engineer, and you can't find work. Yeah, it's been really difficult in California. I've been, yeah. In the meanwhile, I've been. There's a shortage of software engineers, dude. I understand, but there's a lot of positions that I've applied to. I've worked with a lot of recruiters, and they're telling me it's the worst market they've seen since the dot-com days. I've been applying everywhere.

And meanwhile, I've been working for Uber Eats and bartending a little bit. Do you own a home in San Francisco? Are you married? Not married. I do not own property. I have a car. I would start shopping jobs in other markets then and get out of California. Because if Silicon Valley recruiters are telling you that,

I don't know that that's not true in Silicon Valley, but I know it's not true out in the open market out here. People are hiring developers and software engineers left and right. I got them on the board at Ramsey right now. So this idea that it's the worst since the dot-com, that might be true in Silicon Valley, but it's not true anywhere else. That's bull crap. So if you're willing to move, you can probably get work.

Yeah, I would like to move. Unfortunately, I'm taking care of my sick mom out here in California. She owns property, and she kind of requires my assistance to get around. So what recommendations do you have for me to resolve my credit card debt? Well, you've got to have money, income, discipline. If you get some money, then we can solve this. So obviously the card they're suing you on or threatening to sue you on, what's the balance on it?

About $17,000 for the ones that are suing me. Yeah, okay. So on that one, if it's like six months, a year old, you could probably settle it for $5,000. But you would need the $5,000. So if you offer them a lump sum settlement on a defaulted card like that, an old card, they'll take it. But you've got to be able to offer them something.

You can't offer them payments. They don't want payments. You've been proven to not make payments so but if you can offer them a lump sum you can settle it for 30 25 30 cents on the dollar but dude remote work software engineer from somewhere else in the country immediately you got to lean into this you got to you got to lean into this. You've got to go get this. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jay's in Austin, Texas. Hi, Jay. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call, man. Sure. What's up?

Well, really, I just had a question for you about managing my money. I've made roughly a million dollars over the last four years making content online, and now I'm just kind of wanting more direction when it comes to my finances, I guess, because realistically I just know that that type of income for myself is not going to last forever. Well, well done, sir. Congratulations. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. How old are you?

I'm 28 years old. Good for you. Well done. So you're making like quarter million a year, huh? Give or take a little bit, yes, sir. Yeah, good for you. Good for you. Well, investing wise, there's a couple of rules to use

one is uh it does not need to be fancy to be correct two is you don't put money in something unless you understand it you don't do it because i said to or some goober on tiktok said to okay you've got to understand it and so it may take you a minute to get your hands around something before you put money in it. Um, and the tortoise wins the race. Every time I read the book, not the hair. So we're not gambling. We're not trying to get rich quick. We're trying to invest steadily. But if you were to bank a hundred grand a year for the next three or four years, I mean, you'd be a multimillionaire in your old age. Okay. So, you know, you just get start, you know, you start laying that down and you go, okay, what can I do? How can I put some

of this in a retirement type plan and mutual funds? How can I open some mutual funds? Do I buy some real estate that creates an income, cash for it maybe not maybe um but what i have found is is that the wealthy people that we have studied and that i've coached with over the last 30 years uh the the plans that they use are very simple they're almost boring the only thing not boring about them is they work and you end up with money, but it's not, it's just, it, there's not much to it. Like for instance, my, my net worth. Okay. I own a bunch of real estate cause I came out of the real estate world and I love real estate and it's all paid for. I don't have any debt on any of it. And I buy good growth stock type mutual funds in my 401ks and outside my 401ks. So I've got millions of dollars in mutual funds and hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate.

And I pay cash for everything. And that's all I do. I don't have any other investments, nothing else. I picked out two things that I understand and that I'm very comfortable with. And I steadily, constantly, consistently put money into them. And the building that I'm sitting in is the campus at Ramsey is paid for, and it's somewhere around $650 million. Just this, just this piece of real estate. Okay. Wow. And so, but I did this over 30 years. You know, it wasn't right out of the, I didn't do it at 28 years old. I started broke at 28, and I wasn't near as smart as you've been. So you've done a great job.

So, and you're asking the right question. So go slow, stay out of debt, because debt destabilizes everything, and it leads you into dumb things and you know so pay off your debts have a good emergency fund and and if you want to learn about mutual funds you sit down with a good financial advisor that here's what you're looking for has the heart of a teacher they're not a babysitter they're not to take over your life and tell you what to do. You're asking them to show you what to do. And then once you make your selection based on your new knowledge that you study this with them, and good news is it's not that difficult. It's not that complicated. But

if you want some help with that, just click at Ramsey Solutions. Click on the SmartVestor Pros that we recommend. If you want to learn about real estate, talk to people that own a bunch of real estate. But I pay cash for real estate, and I put money in mutual funds. That's all I do. And then when we studied millionaires, that's the kind of stuff we found. We found one guy in Kansas that was worth about $10 million, and he didn't invest in anything except farmland. He was a farmer. But he had $10 million in dirt.

And he just kept buying and he kept going up in value. And every year he buy a little more, every year he buy a little more, every year he buy a little more. And it went up in value. And so, you know, he's just sitting up there worth about $10 million. And he's like, I think you'd probably be ashamed of me, Dave. And'm like you got 10 million dollars i'm not ashamed of you you know you're killing it dude so that's the kind of stuff you want to do don't make this complicated and don't try to make don't try to get rich quick don't try to find some special thing that nobody knows about the secrets of the rich the secrets of the rich are there's no secret it's kind of boring that's the secrets of the rich. The secrets of the rich are there's no secret. It's kind of boring.

That's the secrets of the rich. Rich people don't play Bitcoin. That's poor people doing that crap. They're speculating. They're trying to get rich quick. They're trying to get rich easy without effort and without steadiness. Yeah. The tortoise is just steady. He's slow and he's ugly, but every time I read the book, he wins. It's a big deal.

Yeah, I would just say, Jay, on your actual income, because Dave covered the investment piece, on your actual income, the fact that you know that this type of online content has a shelf life, I think that's huge. And so I would begin to be thinking about what is the bridge like that I need to build to take the skill set that's allowed you to make really about what is the bridge like that I need to build to take this skill set that's allowed you to make really good money, the experience that you've gained from it, and find new opportunities. So I would start diversifying some of your skill set now. Don't just wait until it kind of dries up, and I don't think that's who you are. But I would begin to start tinkering, testing very wisely how you will transition or how you could transition from that

particular type of work. It's really important. Exactly. Well done. Lindsay's in Dallas. Lindsay, how are you? Hey guys, can you hear me? Absolutely. What's up? Well, thanks for taking my call. I have a question for you. I am 35 years old. I have two young children and my husband and I are trying to decide if I should become a stay-at-home mom or keep working. I like working. I have a good career and I like being home with my kids. So I'm kind of torn on what I should be doing. What's your heart telling you today when you called us? Where was it leaning? I mean, I feel like it's leaning towards being with the kids but i also enjoy my career and worry that how old are your babies you know two and three yeah what's

your career i'm a cpa oh what a cpa cpa okay i want you to finish the sentence you were saying i worry and i think i know what it is but i want you to hear it, and I want Dave and I to hear you say it. What are you worried about if you were to go home right now? I worry that if I go out of the workforce, it's going to be hard for me to come back to the workforce later if I want to at this level that I'm at. Okay, so give me some evidence. You know the industry better than Dave and I. What is the evidence that, let's say, you're home for? Give me a projected. We're not holding you to this.

How many years would you be home before you'd say, hey, maybe I want to go back? Like five. Kids are in school. Get the kids in school. That's right. So what's the evidence that if you were five years out of being an active CPA that it would be very difficult for you to come back in? What evidence is there? What industry standards are you aware of that would make that a reality?

It's really just my own concern. I mean, I know that if I was going back and looking, like I know I can find something. The great news is that the accounting principles aren't going to change. Yeah. Yeah. And I have an idea. So, Lindsay, I got an idea for you, okay?

What's your favorite part of being a CPA? Favorite task or role? I like the people that I work with. I like the projects that I'm working on. Okay. And I generally really just enjoy my job. Okay, great. So, is it possible that you could be home with the kiddos and take on a project or two just to keep your mind in the game, but it's not stressful?

And your name. And keep your name in the game. Is that possible? Potentially. But I kind of want to be like all or nothing. Like either. Fine. The kids full time.

Fine. I think we just proved that you can jump back in when the time is right. So I was just giving you an idea. I don't think you have anything to be afraid of go home and be with the babies i don't think you'll ever ever ever regret that yeah and you'll go back to work and if you go back to work two notches down from where you start now whoopee so what you're gonna climb that ladder so fast that everybody else will be wondering what happened. So, I mean, I wouldn't worry about it. The trick is do what you want to do.

But if you want to be at work, I'm also okay with that. But I think we heard you say you wanted to go home. I think we heard you say that. This is The Ramsey Show. Our Scripture of the Day, Philippians 2, 14 and 15. Do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. Thomas Sowell said there has now been created a world

in which the success of others is a grievance rather than an example oh wow javier is with us in denver hey javier what's up hey there dave um so to get straight to the point sir thanks for picking up my call uh My dad wants to get a HELOC, but he wants me to co-sign because I don't think he can get it on his own. The HELOC is 55,011% interest. And I'm just kind of like wondering what I should do. Well, you know what you should do. You just don't know how to tell your dad no. Yeah, I guess so. How old are you?

I want to help. I'm 23. Why in the world does a father need a 23-year-old to sign a HELOC, co-sign a HELOC with him? He must really be a mess. I mean, from the outside looking in, I can probably, yeah. Listen, if he needs a cosigner that's a 23-year-old, he's made a mess. Otherwise, he'd be able to get it on his own.

Roger that. Yeah. So play this out. Play this out. Let's say you do this, and he keeps making a mess of his life, which he already has. You acknowledge that. What does that do to you and your personal finances, and what does it do to your relationship?

Yeah, it's going to affect it in a negative way. Absolutely, young man. So we're not trying to be unkind. We're trying to save you from uh getting pulled into this save him from some grief that's what you want the heloc for do you know yes sir um so uh he owned a towing company and i work for the towing company and uh he wants the heloc to so that we can get insurance for the tow trucks um and he also wanted to pay off a loan and some credit cards and um that's what he wants it for.

Why is the tow truck company not making money? Well, the tow truck company was making money, but the insurance payment is what's kind of like, it's kind of a lot. It's not making enough to pay its own insurance payment. It seems to be that way. Yeah, one of the expenses of operating a tow truck company is having insurance, and it's not making a profit enough to even, or not making enough revenue to even pay these expenses is what you're telling me.

Yeah, I guess so. No, I mean, really. If the company was making money, he'd have the money, right? Yeah. How much is the insurance payment, do you know? So he wants to do a down payment on the insurance for $7,000, and I think I asked him what it would be annually. He can just do like an annual payment, maybe $35,000.

You know what the gross revenues of your company is? No, sir, I don't. I don't know what the gross revenues of your company is? Uh, no, sir. I don't, I don't know what the gross revenues are. How many trucks are y'all running? Uh, we run two. I run one and then he runs the, uh, another one of our drivers runs the other one. And then my dad works a full time job. Hmm.

Okay. So the guy that trained me said that financial problems are not the problem they're the symptom so the problem of not being able to pay the insurance and having run the credit card up on the tow truck business is that the tow truck business is not profitable enough. That's the problem. That doesn't get better with a loan. It gets worse with a loan. You follow me? Understood.

So what this is is if I were coaching your dad as a small business guy, which we coach small business guys all the time, I would tell him let's work on the business and fix the business problem. What do we do to increase our revenues drop our expenses because he's not making enough he's not making enough to pay his own insurance so it may be that they need to get out of the tow truck business because not even his real job it's yours but it's not his and you can get another job um but you know so we got to fix the business to where the business is profitable because let's say the business had $50,000 cash in the bank because it was making so stinking much money.

You and I wouldn't be on the phone, Javier. Yeah, that makes complete sense. Yeah, so the business has got issues. It's got problems. And your dad's not a bad guy. He's a hardworking dude. He's just trying to figure this out. but I'm coaching him through you right now. And my coaching to him is let's fix the business problem, not borrow and cover up the business problem and let the business

problem continue because the borrowing is going to make it worse. So no, honey, you don't need to co-sign for a HELOC. Your dad doesn't need to take out a HELOC. He needs to get above this problem and solve it for the tow truck business or get out of the tow truck business. But don't go borrow on your home, sir, to pay your insurance when your tow trucks aren't making enough to pay their own insurance. That's a bad plan for your dad. Such wisdom. I hope people that are out there that may be struggling in a small business or a side hustle, you've got to know when to fold them. You know, you've got to know. And if you can't fix that business, go ahead and shut the business down. Don't keep digging a deeper hole and fund it personally through debt. We see this a lot and this breaks people. It breaks them. Yeah. And

he's, you know, and here's the thing, this dad, I'm dad i'm gonna i'm gonna give him a benefit of doubt his son is driving the trucks it's his side hustle yeah dad's side hustle but his son's job that's right and he's trying to keep this alive for his kid i think that's right i think that's right and that's a bad play too yeah it's not it's not a good play if it let's either get this thing working or let's fold it up and sell the trucks. You've done this way longer than I have. How do you fight that real emotion? Because that emotion is so strong to fight, to stay, to try to keep bailing water out of the boat. How do you conquer that?

I just use Henry Cloud's necessary endings rule, and that is when I don't have any real facts in front of me that indicate that there's a way around a way through this then i'm done but if i if i've got a fact and if i try these three things and it works i'll be okay then i gotta go try those three things before i give up right but if i if everything i played and i don't see a way around other than borrowing and making it worse then it's time to fold time to close up sell the trucks paul's with us in canada hi paul welcome to the ramsey show hi dave and ken how are you guys better than we deserve how can we help sir um well here's here's our uh my situation i'm sitting here with my wife and um we stole our house two years ago. We were in some pretty deep debt, and we're in our mid to late 50s. Are you out of debt now?

We are 100% out of debt. We have some credit card, a little bit of credit card debt, nothing too dramatic. That would be like not 100% out of debt. Well, okay, $2,000 and $1,500. Okay, so you still haven't learned your lesson. Okay. Okay. You sold your house to get out of debt,

and you're still playing footsie with these plastics. Okay. True. We own our vehicles. We don't owe anybody anything. Before I run out of time, Paul, uh, we have, we, we own our vehicles. We, uh, don't owe anybody anything. For a run out of time, Paul, what's your question? My, first of all, um, I'm actually glad that Ken is, uh, online there with you guys. Cause, uh, it's direction right now.

Uh, we have about 50,000, just under 50 grand in the bank right now. And, uh, my wife wants to buy another house, and I don't. Why? Why don't you want to? Well, I know the stress that I was under when we did own a house and making sure that the mortgage was really set. You guys have incomes? Pardon me? guys have incomes pardon me you have incomes uh my wife has income i'm actually injured right now um i'm off work uh until the new year okay and i'm only working part-time okay well when you're working and your incomes are there if you take out a 15-year fixed rate loan where the payment is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay, you're 100% debt-free, you've cut up the stupid butt credit cards,

and you have an emergency fund in place, there shouldn't be any stress. Those numbers there don't give you stress. And you buy a home that you can afford. I think before you had a home you couldn't afford, and that's where the stress came from. So owning a home is a good thing. Owning a home is not necessarily stressful. Paying too much and spending more than I have on a home, that's what causes stress. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and 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. We'll see you next time.