The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Pay for Your Education 20 Years Later! (Hour 3)
Episode Date: October 10, 2019Budgeting, Savings Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc I...nterview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king,
and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Amy is with us in Michigan.
Hi, Amy. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you for taking my call.
Sure. What's up?
So I know that I am a single mom with three children, and I know I have the right to file for child support on my ex-boyfriend.
But I just want to know if it is the moral thing to do or the godly thing to do in this situation.
I have never filed for child support.
I've had children with him for five and a half years. And he has never paid except for maybe like six payments just in cash, just random payments.
But he's never, other than about six payments of a couple hundred dollars, he's never paid me anything for the children.
And I'm hesitant in filing support on him because, number one, he's an undocumented immigrant.
So I'm afraid he will get in trouble or he will get found out and get in trouble with ICE for working under a false identity.
I'm not sure that he still does, but I know he has a job.
And so he may still be working under a false name. And then the other reason I'm scared about filing for support on him is just the fact that
I kind of told him to get out of my children's and my life because he's highly emotionally abusive.
And so I kind of feel like how this is just not right for me to file for support if I basically
told him to exit our lives. And the third thing, the reason that I'm hesitant in asking for support from him is that when I wanted to have a sibling for our daughter, I told him, will you? Because I can't even pay for our daughter.
So you know I'm not going to pay anything.
And so I'll help you as long as you're cool with me not paying anything.
And I was like, oh, absolutely.
That's totally fine.
Don't worry about it.
I'll take care of it.
Well, that was back when my income was really good.
But I'm a little broke now and basically having to take out loans to get groceries and things like that.
And so I'm just like, what do I do?
But I don't want to do the wrong thing just because I can't get groceries either.
So I just need your advice.
Well, there's so much going on here um uh the um
number number one stop having children with people who don't support them
and that you're not married and that you're not married to okay you shouldn't ask my advice if
you didn't want it but you need to stop doing that. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
Because you got yourself into a mess, obviously.
Right.
And this is a bad dude.
Okay?
He's here illegally.
He's an abusive dude.
And you told him to stay away.
And I don't even want to know the details. You told him you wanted to have another kid, but you'd pay for it, right?
Right.
Okay.
So it sounds like it's more hassle than it's worth.
It sounds like you, I mean, certainly for one of them, you would be,
you told him not, you wouldn't charge him, right?
Right.
I mean, you have a
deal on that you have to keep your word on that i guess keeping your word comes into this discussion
um and um but i mean here's the thing what we need to be what we need to be concerned about
is what is best for the children and what's best for the children is um is for you to get a career that's going
and him to not be around right right yeah so i think it's just the fact that things are tight
is the only reason you're considering this and it's um it's making you try to look past some of
all the these are the negatives that you did list out very thoroughly.
So you've got a pretty long list of negatives down the list on reasons to not do this.
Ninety-nine percent of the time someone calls up with this.
Actually, when I saw on the screen, file for child support question, Mark, that's on my screen waiting on you to come up.
I immediately go, well, of course.
The guy had kids.
He ought to pay for the kids.
You know, it's kind of like basic ethics, basic morality.
You ought to take care of your own dadgum children.
But this is not a guy who takes care of anybody.
Right, exactly.
He's a taker, not a giver.
And so you've got to commit in your life life for the sake of your current three children to not let this pattern continue in your life right yes definitely okay all right so um yeah
you do that and you work on your career and your character and you grow and you take care of these
kids because number one you probably don't get any money out of him either that's the other
negative on the list because as soon as they come to try to take
money from him at work he's gone i mean you're not you're not gonna be able to find this guy
he's gonna be a ghost and uh in you know as soon as he appears he's gonna disappear and
um and it would you know uh no it's it's not it. There's too much negative and almost no positive to going after him for this.
The thing you do is you learn the negative things that got you into this situation,
and you don't replicate those.
You don't continue in those patterns.
And then you do some things in your personal life to get your income up,
to be able to take care of these kids.
It may include moving near family. It may include whatever to get some support around up to be able to take care of these kids uh may include moving
near family it may include whatever to get some support around you to cause it to happen
sorry i wish i had a better answer but it is a complicated question uh gw is with us in kentucky
hi gw how are you i'm good dave how you doing better than i I deserve. How can I help? Awesome. I just had a question.
Me and my wife started our debt-free journey in June of this year.
And in that journey, she was talking to one of her friends from work.
And somehow, when they go into their payroll, they can do a withhold on the federal taxes that are taken out of her payroll. And we've been doing that because I'm trying to get rid of our tax refund,
which I've heard you all talk about a little bit,
trying to get the withholdings down.
And I was curious, if we were to let that ride out for the rest of this year,
because we've always got a tax refund.
We've never not gotten one.
And I'm worried, what if we let this thing ride out?
And it comes tax time.
Is there any type of penalty if we have to pay when it comes to filing our taxes? If you under-withhold, you can be penalized.
Okay.
So how much is your refund last year?
Our refund was about $4,200.
What was it the year before?
The year before, it was less than that because we didn't have...
Okay.
So if you really want to know, what you can do is go to a tax ELP and go ahead and do your taxes
and estimate your taxes and then make sure you're having the proper amount
withheld and that's the most thorough way to do this or you can take 4200 divided by 12
you know which is going to give you 400 bucks and something a month and take that much more
home and you'll be pretty safe as long as nothing else has changed in your situation
but the safest way is just go ahead and do your taxes and have an estimate done and have the proper amount withheld. Folks, let's cut through the bull. Interest rates
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761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. This is Book Launch Week for Debt-Free Degree with Ramsey personality and best-selling author Anthony O'Neill.
Started out in New York and then over to Chicago.
Has been all over the nation this week, signing books and doing media appearances,
letting people know they can go to college and not have to go in debt to do it.
Hey, Anthony, how's it going out there on the road?
Dave, it's going amazing, man.
We just got into Phoenix, Arizona.
And the team and I have been going hard ever since about six o'clock this morning.
We've already done about three to four media hits.
The very first one was Good Morning, Arizona.
Now, that was fun with Scott.
And he was so passionate about the message that we ended up actually staying afterwards and talking about his fiance's kids.
And a bunch of the other team members actually came around, was asking me questions.
So the energy is crazy.
The momentum is going high, and I'm just excited about what's going on here in Phoenix right now.
Cool.
And we have a sold-out Financial Peace live event tonight with you and Mr. Chris Hogan, right?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Chris Hogan and I just did KTAR's Bruce and Pamela radio show here.
Completely sold out.
Nearly 2,000 people. I think it's right at 1, right at 16, 1700. And it's going to be amazing.
Chris Hogan and I together on stage is electric. It's fun. It's energy.
But they're going to walk away with some solid information on how to take control of their finances.
And of course, I'm going to be talking about debt free degree.
How do we get our kids through college? 100 debt-free, and also signing books tonight.
So I'm excited.
Very, very cool.
And then next week you'll be heading over to Colorado Springs and doing a signing there on the 16th, right?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
LA on Monday and Tuesday.
Then we go over to Colorado Springs, do some media, then do a book signing there.
Then we leave Colorado Springs and go over to houston do a lot
of media and then friday night i will be doing a book signing there in houston texas perfect okay
cool so where do you go from phoenix uh from phoenix yeah go home for 24 hours uh rest repack
some clothes up for next week i'm gonna get me a massage dave and then uh back back out to la man i'm i'm like
man this is my little bit of stuff but i i remember dave back in his days going hard hard hard so if
dave can do it so can i oh you can do it you you got you got this man you're doing great we're
proud of you very very well done well it's been a good week and uh a lot of people are going to be
able to go to college without having debt because of the work you're doing.
We're very, very proud of you.
What is the number one thing that they can do if they were to read Debt-Free Degree, if they were to get the book?
The parents listening right now, they've got a kid that's a teenager, and they're thinking,
how am I going to get my teenager to school?
What's the number one thing they're going to take from this book?
The number one thing they're going to take from this book, Dave, is the school choice.
They have to pick and choose the best school for them to go to school debt-free,
which is your dream school is an affordable school, and an affordable school is a debt-free school.
And we literally walked them through the process on, you know, list out three to five schools that you like, go visit them, ask the right questions.
And the best school for you to choose is which one's going to give you the most money to go to school,
which one's going to be cheaper.
And that's the number one thing they're going to walk away from throughout this entire book
is how do we get them into school, but how do we get them into the best school
that's going to be best for them and the route that they want to go to.
Yeah, and, you know, I think you and i both need to make sure that people
understand we are um we are not telling people not to live their dreams we we love you guys out
there we want you to win we are telling you that what some of you are calling dreams when you're
32 are going to be called nightmares nightmares dmares, Dave, when they're 60,
70. Studies are showing, Dave, that 20 years later after they graduate, they still owe nearly
50% of the student loans. And so that is scary. Just earlier today, Dave, if you look on my
Instagram, I just posted it. A young lady made a payment 20 years after she made a payment of $86
and 60 of it went towards interest.
It's not even going towards principal. So you're right. We're saying that your dream is actually becoming a nightmare.
It's robbing, robbing your money is taking you away from your goals and your dreams.
So we just want to make sure that when you graduate, you're actually pursuing your dream career.
You're buying homes. You're really having a good time, not worrying about your past. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're going to pay a price, you just need
to decide when you're going to pay it, up front or after. And the price you pay after is always
a bigger price. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what, Dave, here's the thing. This is one thing
that I'm really, really telling people, that going to school doesn't have to be expensive.
There are expensive schools out there, but you don't have to pay that much money.
You've got to make the choice.
So I'm going to spend four years.
I'm going to work hard.
I'm going to save a lot of money as far as staying home, eating at home.
And you can still go to your dream school if you do it right.
But that's what debt-free degree is all about.
If you want to go to Harvard, hey,
follow these principles that are in a book and go for it. And if Harvard doesn't land the way
you want it to land, then go with the next best school that will give you everything that you can
get debt-free. And here's the thing. You start playing these schools off against each other,
they'll start upping their game. They'll start upping what they're giving you.
You can get them to negotiate against each other. Now now it may or may not mean you can actually get the one that
you'd think you want to go to uh the famous school as seth godin calls them he says they're not better
schools they're just more famous um and that's a good line really you know um because because it's
hard it's really hard to say uh academically that's, you know, let's just say, for instance, one school is $60,000 a year and it's a private Ivy League school.
And another school is $10,000 a year.
Are you telling me it's six times better academically?
Not a chance.
Is it better?
Probably.
Is it six times better?
No possible way.
One of them would have to be illiterate.
You know?
That's just ridiculous.
It is ridiculous.
You are paying for prestige.
You are paying for the fame of the school,
not the quality of the education in a lot of these cases.
If you have the money or they want to give you a free ride and you want to go do it,
Anthony and I are with you.
More power to you, baby.
But your dream is not to get a degree that is not usable and you're $250,000 in debt.
That is not a dream.
That's a nightmare.
Yeah, that is a nightmare.
Dave, you're a good friend.
I had an opportunity to sit down with him.
Mark Cuban says, if you're smart, you're smart.
Two plus two equals four.
No matter where you go, you are going to be successful. If you have a hard work ethic, if you have character and you're and if you're living with intentionality, no matter where you go, you will be successful.
You don't have to spend sixty thousand dollars a year to be successful.
So it just really comes down to who you are as an individual. Your school will not make you. Education and learning something every day helps you and enhances you to become a better person.
What you do with the knowledge is what makes you successful.
That's a big line right there.
That's a big line.
And getting moms and dads involved in making adult decisions about adult dollar amounts is the only way to do this with wisdom. The lack of that is what's caused this country to get completely upside down
and have this plague going across our land.
So get Anthony O'Neill's debt-free degree.
We have sold a bazillion of them.
It will be on the bestseller list the first moment that it can be sometime next week.
We'll let you know where it lands.
We don't know where it lands yet, but we've sold enough
to definitely be on the list. It's just
a matter of where. And we think it's
a number one. Thank you guys for buying the book.
If you buy it this week, you'll help him get there.
So we'd appreciate you getting copies.
Buy 20 of them and give them to every kid you know,
every parent of a teenager you know.
Debt-free degree. The third
episode Monday will drop on
Apple Podcasts and google play and everywhere
else great podcasts are heard and spotify wherever else and that that would be of course for borrowed
future and uh this uh this documentary put out by the ramsey network or this podcast in documentary
form put out by the ramsey network on the exposing the scams and the behind-the-scenes robbery of this student loan stuff.
It's unbelievably predatory.
More than I thought it was until we sat down and started working on this.
It's a filthy little business.
Big business.
So, Anthony, be careful out there.
We'll see you when you get home.
Thanks, Dave.
You too.
Congratulations.
Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, of the brand new book, Debt-Free Degree. Debt-Free
Degree, the step-by-step guide to getting your kid through college without student loans.
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Marsha is in Minnesota.
Hey, Marsha, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Good afternoon.
Afternoon.
How can I help?
Well, I'm 41 years old.
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 30,
and didn't think I was going to survive much longer mentally.
But two years ago, I got deep brain stimulation,
so I feel motivated to get control again.
Good.
And I've got two boys.
One's a senior this year, and my other one's 12.
And I want to not be a burden.
That's my main goal to my kids.
Uh-huh.
So I'm not in any school debt or anything.
I've got two car loans that one of them I kind of regret.
But my total debt is with the house, it's $134,000.
And with my cars, it's $12,000 and $14,000, two different cars.
You're a single mom.
Why do you have two car debts?
Well, my second kid, my oldest son, he drives to work.
Oh, so you went in debt to buy a teenager a car?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I had originally bought with cash, but it fell apart.
So I tried the used car approach.
But anyway, so yeah, that was one of my stupids.
Gotcha. Okay. So what do you make a year i am on disability so i get 3600 a month so that covers all my bills but i haven't i've got
thousands saving so um roughly it's 44 000 a year okay all right good how much did you say
you have in savings a thousand oh you have your 1000 so you How much did you say you have in savings?
$1,000.
Oh, you have your $1,000, so you're getting started.
Okay.
And you have the two car debts.
Okay.
And your question is about not being a burden to them?
Yeah, and I want to put my kids through school.
So I've listened to your podcast about not going into student loan debt.
Okay.
Well, they don't need to go into student loan debt for sure.
Yeah.
I don't have any student loan debt either since I was able to get grants and scholarships.
So your oldest one is a senior?
Yeah.
What is he thinking of going to college next year?
I told him to go.
I told him to go to a secondary college, like, nearby so he can live at home.
Like a community college?
Yeah.
And he wants to go for nursing, but I just don't see him doing that. He's very smart mathematically, so I told him to work on his generals first.
Okay. Here's the best way to do that
let's begin with a goal in mind and then flesh out every single detail of the goal and then you
know what you have to do to hit the goal okay and so let's say he had a goal of getting a degree
from a four-year school he's going to do two of the years at a community college because it's cheaper, and then he's going to go to an in-state state school, which will be the cheapest,
preferably one near you, and can live at home all four years that way, and complete. Now, you would
want to make sure that whatever community college and field of study he picks there will match up
with the degree he's wanting to go
and transfer those credits over into the next college, right?
So you don't want to go take a bunch of stuff at community college
and then not match up towards this four-year degree where he's going to transfer to.
So you can find all of that out now.
You just do the research.
It doesn't cost anything.
You get in touch with the local state school,
find out which community colleges match up with them the best,
and then go to those community colleges.
Make sure you take the exact classes that do the exact transfer so that they count for your basics,
your core stuff, your core curriculum stuff should transfer,
but not if you take a bunch of weird stuff and not if it's from a school that's not recognized by the school that you want
to transfer to so you've got to do some work here uh the other piece you'll get from this is you'll
figure out what it costs to go to the in-state school in your area the four-year school and what
it costs to go to the community college now we have a financial goal that we need to work towards
how are we going to get that money to do that? In your all's case, with you on disability, as a single mom with two boys making,
you know, making $40,000 a year on disability income only,
they probably are going to qualify for Pell Grants.
And Pell Grants are for, you know, they are for folks with income issues.
And I think the fact that you're on disability is probably going to qualify them for that.
So let's look at Pell Grants.
And you fill out a thing called the FAFSA, the F-A-F-S-A.
I can never remember the initials, but it's the federal paperwork.
Now, be very, very careful that none of these people lead you into a loan
because some of them do grant-sounding things that sound like a grant,
and they're actually a loan.
But you're looking for a Pell Grant.
Remember that phrase.
And so you need to go to both schools.
You need to make sure the curriculums line up.
You need to get your costs involved.
You need to find out about Pell Grants.
It's possible he could do four years. is there a four-year college near you there's actually there's two forms of nursing if you want to go for nursing at two-year it's associates
that are four years that i said is there a four-year college near you that's in state
yeah there's minnesota and u of. That he could live at home?
Yes.
Okay.
You may be able to just pay for all of that,
and he may be able to go there the whole time with the Pell Grants.
Pell Grants may cover it.
And so where do I find these Pell Grants?
Where do I start? You go to FAFSA, and you start researching Pell Grants online,
and you fill out his FAFSA.
And you need to start talking to the schools in the area, and they'll help you.
They'll have guidance people there.
But in no case do you need to get a loan under no circumstances.
And I'm going to send you a copy of Anthony's book today, Debt-Free Degree, and you read
it, and your senior reads it by Monday.
And you get started on this now.
You're late.
You should have already been working on this.
He's halfway through his senior year.
And so you've got to get moving here.
And it's all about planning and it's all about details.
That's what keeps people out of debt is setting the goals that are realistic
and funding them then, and it's all about that.
And download that podcast, and both of you listen to it the borrowed future podcast again the third episode drops on monday
but the first two episodes are out there and um both you and him need to listen to that you guys
need to get on the same page and you have a lot of talks about his future and uh so what it amounts
to is is what you can't give him in money you can give him in coaching and direction and motherly motivation.
And you can give him all of that, and he won't have to have student loans.
He needs to go take his SAT, ACT.
And then if he doesn't do fabulously on it, he'll need to take it again
because most of these places super score.
They use the best scores out of each category from the various tests that you've taken.
And so you need to go back through and do that over and over and over again.
This is very, very possible in your situation that this young man can go to school without a student loan.
Do not take out a student loan.
It's all about the planning.
It's all about the detailing.
And it's all about pushing through. And this book will show you exactly how to do it. It's written for you.
You're who Anthony wrote this book for. And so I'll send you a copy of it. Debt-free degree,
the step-by-step guide to getting your kid's education without student loans. Folks,
it's just really possible.
So here, let me kind of walk you guys through it that are listening out there.
Let's say he gets no Pell Grants.
Let's say she doesn't qualify.
I think she does, but let's say she doesn't.
Can a senior still get there?
Yeah, if he's living at home, the in-state tuition with a typical in-state school today is right around $10,000 a year.
$10,000 a year is $833 a month.
You deliver pizzas four, five, six nights a week in the rich neighborhood, not the poor neighborhood,
you're going to make $1,500 a month delivering pizzas.
You need $833 a month.
And in the summer, when you're not in school, you work a 40-hour job plus deliver pizzas at night.
And you pile up some cash to make sure you get through school.
What? You want little Johnny to work?
Yes, I want little Johnny to work.
Most of us that went to college worked while we were in college. It's hard to find an
individual that didn't work while they were in college. Most people did. This is the first
generation that is calling this child abuse. It's ridiculous. This young man can go to school debt
free. See, somebody's just got to say it out loud a lot, and we can end this student loan mess.
This is the Dave Ramsey Show. our scripture of the day psalms 25 5 guide me in your truth and teach me
for you are god my savior my hope is in you all day long. James Fowle said,
Honesty is more than not lying.
It is truth-telling, truth-speaking,
truth-living, and truth-loving.
Aaron is with us in Utah.
Hi, Aaron.
Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave.
Thank you for taking my call.
My pleasure.
What's up?
So I was calling. Right now, I'm about ready to graduate with a master's right now to prepare to bring my mother and she's going to start living with me because of major medical issues.
And I kind of don't know where I'm going to start with this, what do I do financially to kind of prepare for that.
Kind of lost.
And I'm also trying to figure out how to help her now.
She's got all sorts of issues and I'm trying to help her get steady again.
So how old are you?
I'm 29.
And what is the nature of her medical issues?
A number of things.
She has PTSD.
She has some anxiety issues.
Right now, the key issue that we're trying to deal with is her teeth.
They're pretty much falling out of her head.
So we're trying to figure something out with that.
How old is she?
She's late 50s.
Okay, so she's primarily dealing with mental illness.
Yeah.
That and nerve issues and things like that
That have happened because of car accidents she's been in
Okay
Alright
Is she seeing
A counselor or a therapist
She just started last week
And it's going well so far
Good
Because I think with the way you're
Describing this a lot of this is not medical.
And are you single?
I am, yes sir. Okay.
And you're getting ready to take a new job after completing your
master's? Yes, I have one more semester
and I'm done graduating from BYU with my master's.
And right now I'm applying for jobs and looking for work right now.
And where do you live now?
Are you living on your own now?
Yeah, I'm living on my own down in Provo.
She's up in the Vernal area.
So it's...
Depends on where you get a job as to where she moves and you move right
basically yeah okay all right well obviously you're a good man for taking care of your mom
there's no no reason you shouldn't do that what you've got to do is to create a situation that
um she's still very young and so uh it would be an act of love on your part to not enable her to continue to go down,
but instead to address these different issues and go up, heal.
Exactly.
Because she's young enough, she could heal and have a wonderful life,
and with a good coach, a good counselor, a good therapist, possibly maybe
there may be some medications that are helper.
And certainly you can help her by giving her a place to live and maybe help her with the
dental work and a few bills here or there.
That's a wonderful thing to do.
But I don't want you to get caught in a thing where she sits down on your couch with an
intention of staying there for 40 years oh no that won't happen um i i we talked about this if she
were to move in with me it would be for two years at maximum okay she can get herself she can get
herself stable yeah we want we but yeah the point is that's real help then. If she sits on your couch for 40 years, that's not help, that's
enabling. Exactly. So help is to help her
get the dignity of carrying on her own life
again. And boy, that
would be a gift you have given her that would be unbelievable love. And so
I appreciate who you are
and how you're doing that good job sir good job mike is with us mike is in florida hey mike how
are you i'm doing great how are you doing dave better than i deserve how can i help
awesome so my wife and i are both uh we're debt free um and on Friday, we will actually have had our house paid off as well.
Woo!
And, yeah, I know.
All thanks to you.
And we've actually got about $30,000 left hanging out after the sale of one of our investment properties
that's actually going to help pay off our house.
Mm-hmm.
And we're wondering what we should do with that $30,000.
I thought you were going to use it to pay off your house.
It's left over after you pay off your house?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Left over after the house.
Okay, cool.
Great.
So you'll be at Baby Step 7, right?
You have your emergency fund.
You're 100% debt-free, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
Well, at Baby Step 7, there are three things you do with money,
and you should do all three the rest of your life.
You need to be generous and give.
You need to be investing, and you need to be enjoying.
Okay.
And it might be a good practice to take this $30,000
and divvy it up somehow among those three things.
What's an item or a thing or something that you've been wanting to do
that you've not been doing because you've been hitting these goals?
Actually, you know what?
Our big thing is investing right now.
We're both relatively young.
We're 28 and 29.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I was talking about going on a cruise or buying a car.
Oh, yeah.
We're going to travel, actually.
We're going to head over to Italy this December.
Good.
Okay.
So that's enjoying some of the money.
You would invest some of the money, and then you need to get in the rhythm of generosity
with some of the money.
So what I do, and that's exactly what I do in my personal life, Mike.
I take all excess money because I make a ton of money above what I need to live, and
I live a good life and anything above that I set aside 40 for taxes 10 for tithe that's half
of it right and then in that next 50 I divvy that up among enjoyment general additional generosity
and investing and you can put whatever percentages you want to put on it and you can change your
percentages they're yours but a guy i talked a guy i talked to the other day he said he takes
he already has a good life and he takes an additional five percent out of every check
and adds it to his enjoyment fund so he has a really nice enjoyment fund because he makes a
lot of money okay but uh and then he takes another 15 percent uh giving, and he invests 35%.
And so he's basically giving with his tithe 25% of his income in his case, total.
And then I do have one more question.
For the $30,000 or for the portion of it that we decide to invest,
is there a specific vehicle?
Because this will be above and beyond our Roth IRA.
Yeah, you've maxed out all your retirement, right?
Well, you maxed out all retirement available to you.
Okay.
So I'm self-employed, so I don't have a 401K or anything like that going.
You can start one.
Okay.
You can start a simple – how many employees do you have?
Just myself.
I'm an independent contractor, basically.
Okay, good.
You can do a SEP is the easiest thing to do,
and you can save another 15% of your income into that, your net profits.
What was that?
You can save another 15%.
It's a SEP, S-E-P-P, self-employed pension plan.
And you can do those as a Roths or you can do them as IRAs,
I mean, or as traditional IRAs.
But it's called a SEP IRA, Self-Employed Pension Plan.
Just click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com,
and it'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area
that are folks that we endorse.
And you pick one of those.
You get to choose who you want to talk to,
or if you want to talk to all of them and interview them, you can.
You're looking for someone with the heart of a teacher
that will walk you through what your options are but what i would do is learn all the possible retirement
plans that are available to you of any kind and max every one of those out in mind with my with
my investment portion of the money that i have coming into my home now and so anything you need
but anything you have left over above what it takes to operate
your household needs to go into this formula now and it's a percentage to giving a percentage to
investing and a percentage to enjoyment and um if you if you only do two of those you're going to
get out of balance only do one of them you're going to get really out of balance so enjoy some
of it invest some of it always be generous with some of of them, you're going to get really out of balance. So enjoy some of it.
Invest some of it.
Always be generous with some of it.
That way you're going to have a great life.
That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.
Our thanks to James Childs, our producer.
Madison filling in for Kelly this week, associate producer and phone screener.
I am Dave Ramsey, your host.
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.
This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show.
Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify?
For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our showcase at DaveRamsey.com slash show.