The Ramsey Show - App - Draft Episode for Sep 10, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 normal is broke and common sense is weird so we're here to help you transform your life from the ramsay network and the fair winds credit union studio this is the ramsie show i'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, and host of the Ramsey Network. Dr. John Deloney's show is my co-host today. Open phones here at AAA 825-5-225. Joan is in Florida. Hi, Joan. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a question. I would like to know if it's okay if I lock my husband out of my savings account. Wow. Tell me more. Sounds pretty dramatic. Yeah, it is. We've been married for 45 years.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Probably 20 some years ago, we got into some credit card debt, a lot of credit card debt to the point where we had to take out a second mortgage. I also borrowed against my 401K, and it took probably 10 years to claw out of that debt. And I mean, we were really good about budgeting. Now we have our home paid off, all our cars are paid off. We had absolutely no debt until probably the last year. I picked up a second job before to help, you know, get this debt out. Well, I've since left my second job. And we are just spending, I say we, it's not really we, it's him. It's just spending way more than what we're bringing in.

Starting point is 00:01:54 On the what? Oh, just, he is just, he, He's bought a boat. He's bought a truck to pull the boat. He's bought road bikes. He's bought mountain bikes. He has gone through $40,000 in savings in the last year buying these things. What is your all's net worth?

Starting point is 00:02:17 Net worth. Our home is worth probably $650,000. I have $650 in my 401K. I had $50,000 in savings. and now I have, I guess there's about eight in there now. You keep using the word I. How much does he have in his 401K? Nothing.

Starting point is 00:02:37 Okay. So you have a net worth of a million and a half dollars, give or take. Correct. And your household income is what? It's 82. Between the two of us, it's 82,000. And you guys are in your 60s? Yes.

Starting point is 00:02:51 Okay. And so what kind of midlife crisis is this dude having? It's 60. He is, he's saying that he wants to get all these things bought before he retires and he plans on retiring next year. So he wants to enjoy his life. We sort of had a significant event happen in our family. We had a family member of ours who just worked himself to death and died in his 40s and didn't enjoy life at all, didn't enjoy any of the money that he made. So my husband was like, well, he's not going to do that.

Starting point is 00:03:26 He's not going to be like that. It doesn't sound like the problem is the boat or the truck. It sounds like you come home from working your second job, and all of a sudden there's a new boat in the driveway. Oh, I hate it. I look out there and I see it, and I hate it. No, no, no, no, him doing crap without you guys being an agreement in it. That's the problem.

Starting point is 00:03:43 I agree. You didn't know this, you didn't go along with these purchases. They just occurred. No. Well, I did go along with the boat, but I didn't realize he was going to spend as much as he did on it, and I didn't realize that, um, He, I mean, he just keeps putting more money into it. For people that have been married 45 years, you all suck at communication.

Starting point is 00:04:04 Yeah, not good. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Or did he just change it on you? Have y'all been communicating well for a decade? And then all of a sudden this went sideways? No. No.

Starting point is 00:04:15 This isn't new. We've never really agreed on finances. You know, I'm more of, let's save, let's put it aside. And he's more of, let's enjoy it. It's just gotten bad in the probably last year and a half. So, John, I appreciate your frustration and even your anger, and those are justified, all right? But the problem is not the savings account. That's the symptom.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Okay. The problem is you all are not aligned. I agree, 100%. You're not unified. And so I don't think I'm hearing you say, because you said I went along with the boat, I don't think I'm hearing you say that you're opposed to enjoying some of the money. What I do hear you say is you don't like being surprised and people running roughshod over your hard work while you're working two jobs. Yes.

Starting point is 00:05:15 And that's fair. Second job. Yeah, that's fair. I gave up the second job, yeah. But to compare your all's life in any stretch of the imagination to the 40-year-old workaholic, he's not even on the same planet. so you can't use that as a justification to do something stupid and lie to your wife. It's the dishonesty, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Yeah. So you really do for the sake of, I mean, if you're in your 60s and you guys are healthy, you may have to be fighting with this old man for another 30 years. Right. So you need, y'all need to really work on this and get on the same stinking page. I agree. Yeah, Sharon and I make more money and have more money and I don't buy any boats without Sharon knowing what the boat costs and make.

Starting point is 00:05:54 and we make the decision together beforehand. And if the boat involved a truck, to pull the boat, we would be talking about that, too. We don't just make this up as we go when I come home and go, see what I did, honey. And we've been married 43 years and I'm 65 years old. So we're right in the same camp with you, kiddo. Okay. And here's the other side of it. He's not on the phone.

Starting point is 00:06:11 So just you are? Yes. The Gottmans are like kind of the goats when it comes to marriage research. Okay. Okay. And they created this thing called the four horsemen of the relationship of they can tell with 90 plus percent accuracy after watching a couple communicate just for a little bit whether they're going to make it or not and the the relational dynamic of contempt where one person

Starting point is 00:06:40 thinks they are better than the other person is the number one predictor that this thing's not going to it's going to fall apart and listening to your language this is mine I put this in my account he has nothing. I'm wondering if there's not a dynamic in your marriage that has established itself over the years of you're the good one and he's the bad one. Yeah. You're the smart one. You're the one who saves and he's the child. And these dynamics have a way of self-reinforcing themselves.

Starting point is 00:07:14 It doesn't give a pass. It doesn't give an excuse for his dishonesty, his line to his wife, his impulsiveness. Yeah, acting like a child. but it creates a context for where if you're going to treat me like a child for 40 years, I'm going to act like a child. Then excuse it, and if he was on the phone with me, Dave and I'd be letting him have it.

Starting point is 00:07:32 But you have to say this is the dynamic that we have co-created for 40 years where I think I'm better than him because I make more money, or I had a second job, or I have retirement account. The quality of his soul would be greatly increased if the two of you could mutually respect each other,

Starting point is 00:07:47 dignify each other with being in agreement before we make major decisions. There you go. And that usually starts. that also concludes combining ownership of everything. So you don't have a 401k. We have a 401k. You don't have a house. We have an income. We are doing this. This is what we have a boat now. And that kind of stuff. And when you sit down to have conversations about feeling dishonest, whatever, if you sit down and say, you went out and did this again and you did this, he's going to fight you. He has to. You've

Starting point is 00:08:18 declared war. If you sit down and say, hey, I'm hurt, I'm scared, I feel this way, start the conversation with eye statements, and that can be an invitation. And then if he continues to act like a child, then we're going to have to respond in some different ways. But you've got to reset this whole communication pattern. Yeah, you guys got to work on your skills. That's it. Your skills are low. And that may mean sitting down with a marriage counselor who's not, who's teaching you how to develop these skills. Brooke is in Pennsylvania. Hi, Brooke.

Starting point is 00:08:54 How are you? I'm okay. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Oh, hi, Dave. I appreciate you taking my call. Sure.

Starting point is 00:09:04 So just a little backstory. I'm 27 years old. I'm a single mom finishing my MBA. I work full-time and I raise my three-year-old son, mainly on my own. I live with my nana, but I would like to move out. sooner rather than later due to differences and just wanting to move forward in life. Okay. I do have some student loans and a little credit card debt, but I feel like I'm in a constant

Starting point is 00:09:28 cycle just, you know, just trying to keep up because my income is not very high. What's your income? I'm just honestly not. Right now I make $20.19 an hour. Okay. And you're finishing an NBA when? March 2026. So six or eight months.

Starting point is 00:09:46 Okay. Yeah, and I do currently have my bachelor's in computer science. Why are you making $20 an hour, then? Because I only work as a customer service representative. Why? You have a four-year degree in computer science. Oh, I mean, I know. I applied a job constantly, and I graduated in August of 2024.

Starting point is 00:10:10 So I've been out of school for quite some time. Yeah. Okay. So your career search process is not working. Thus, you have a horrible income compared to your education. Your MBA is not going to make this any better. Yeah. If we don't fix the career search process.

Starting point is 00:10:33 Agreed? I definitely agreed. Let me promise you that they're not going to suddenly start calling you just because you got an MBA. And there's a weird moment where the NBA might be a liability because they, they don't want to pay somebody an NBA salary who doesn't have the experience that that NBA salary would require. Does that make sense?

Starting point is 00:10:53 You might find yourself... You might find yourself in a leadership gap. Yeah. So, yeah, we got to get your career moving, kiddo. That's the issue. What challenges have you had? I think the main challenge is just that I have to work from home

Starting point is 00:11:10 because I have no help with my son. Oh. And that's what's a major Yeah, that's an issue Yeah What about child care? Is that not something you want to do? It's not something I necessarily want to do

Starting point is 00:11:24 I did recently try it My son had a hard time adjusting Plus it's just so expensive Yeah And with just my income It's just hard to make it Yeah I mean if you suddenly start making $80,000 a year

Starting point is 00:11:36 And you put him in daycare This whole thing changes And he's going to adjust Right right kids do every day and there will be a tough adjustment period he's been with you every day since he was born and there will be a tough adjustment period but yeah i think i think the problem is you put not sure where to go from here because i i i probably have applied to 3,000 jobs i'm being honest that's what i was thinking yeah so here's the thing applying for jobs never works

Starting point is 00:12:06 you can't get jobs that way um and i'm going to walk you through what to do and we're going to give you some help on that part. But part of the problem was, is you demanded to work from home and be a full-time mom while people were paying you for working. And they didn't want to do that. And I'm not shocked by that. I wouldn't hire you either under those circumstances, okay? Because I know what you're doing.

Starting point is 00:12:30 You're changing diapers. You're not working. That's the employer's viewpoint. Okay. Work from home, productivity sucks. corporate America and people that hire people know that including me okay and so this idea that you get a full day's work out of somebody when they work from home no one is under the illusion that's happening and it's all in the name of work life balance and I want to be

Starting point is 00:12:57 with my child all of that's great you just got to decide some options here so if you want to work from home you are limiting the quality and the number of positions you can get making $70, $80, $100,000 a year by 90%. Okay? So you can't, this is not an option for you in this situation. You have too many competing goals. I want to be home full-time with the kid, and I want to make a lot of money. These are competing goals.

Starting point is 00:13:28 And so I don't blame you for that. Those are all legitimate feelings and legitimate goals. But, you know, as you said, I'm a single mom. And so I'm boxed in this corner. So there's a period of time here that we're going to pay a price to get this family, this little tiny two-person family, stabilized and sustainable. Now, back to the other thing, the practical parts of looking for a job. The, we have, we hired at Ramsey, we have 1100 team members last year we hired just under 200 people, okay?

Starting point is 00:14:01 We had 15,000 applications. that's what you're putting your name in it's known as a needle in a haystack okay so you don't get through to good positions simply by filling out things on LinkedIn and on whatever other automated resume posting process you're using is to get 3,000 applications in 3,000 applications tells me you had absolutely no contact you just filled out the stuff and it went right in there and and no one saw it it's one of the 15,000 that came in here and we only hired 200 but I'll also tell you every person when I've called HR and said I know this person Steve or I know this person Susan and she's applying for a job here

Starting point is 00:14:48 a hundred percent of them have gotten an interview not all of them get hired they don't all get hired but they at least they they put them to the stack so you got to know someone or know someone that knows someone that knows someone that says hey my friend friend Brooke is solid she's finishing up her MBA she put in an app over there the other day would you guys at least give her a look and you got to work the phones that way you got to work the emails that way and it could be somebody down the street it'd be somebody your granny plays bridge with their grandkid works over there I don't care but some connection and doesn't have to necessarily be a professional connection it's just you know my wife the other

Starting point is 00:15:29 day, a lady that she was playing bridge with, a lady, the grandkid applied here at Ramsey. So then the grand kid gets a look. I don't think we hired that one. But they get a look, and they wouldn't have got a look otherwise. And you're not getting a look. That's the problem. So Ken Coleman calls this the proximity principle to get in proximity of the people doing what you want to do.

Starting point is 00:15:53 What field are you wanting to go into other than IT? I mean, I mainly look at positions for software developers, but again, it's very different. Are you, are you, are you, you have their ability to write code? Yeah, yeah, I do. Current code. Maybe not up-to-date. I mean, I definitely could learn it if it was something that they would, you know, give me the ability to do.

Starting point is 00:16:20 Yeah, okay, all right. Well, your information systems, your four-year degree would give you the ability to do more than just write code and your code if you're going to be if you're going to simply crunch code yeah you're going to have to really be cutting edge on that to get that position so anyway i'm going to put you on hold we're going to send you ken coleman's book proximity principle i'm also going to send you a book called finding the work you're wired to do but my advice to you would be to decide what it is that's most important and become comfortable with the discomfort of that decision okay if it's most important that I go make $80 to $100,000 a year moving towards my MBA.

Starting point is 00:16:58 Otherwise, there's no point in getting this MBA. You're just collecting degrees. You're not a thermometer. Okay? So you just keep going along, going along, going along. And so decide where it is I'm going to go. And then what I've got, the Earl Nightingale used to say that the impediments to success are not what you're willing to do to get there.

Starting point is 00:17:16 It's what you're willing to give up to get there. And so if I'm going to be out in my own apartment and we're going to have a sustainable income. It's not making $20 a target to grow our life together with this baby. It's going to involve some daycare. And it's going to involve being at the workplace. Or the other tradeoff is you're going to be at nannas. I'm going to be at nannas for seven more months until this little one goes to preschool. And then I'll make that move. But it's all going to come with a choice. And I think, Dave, the challenge that people in her demographic, they went and got the degree everybody told them to get and they said at the college you're going to make this much money when

Starting point is 00:17:54 you graduate people thought a that means i can live wherever i want to have this stuff all right when i walk out the door and you've got a a third challenge which is you're a single mom i want to be at home and so you're going to have to make some sacrifices short term and really get on the phone start calling everybody you know and every friend of everyone you know and that's going to be your way in the door right now and they're friends yeah and get uh get somebody to pull your application out of that needle in a haystack. David is in Pennsylvania. Hi, David.

Starting point is 00:18:33 How are you? Good afternoon. Fine. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, just wanted to call in. A company is switching a little bit of staffing model.

Starting point is 00:18:45 Currently, we have company cars and company-paid gas cards affiliated with that. We're going to switch that over, and I have to turn that in by the end of the calendar year here. We're going to get a tax-free stipend and mileage paid from the company going forward into next year. So I just wanted to talk through that with you guys and see what some of the best ideas would be. Some of the guys I work with are talking about leasing or getting something brand new. My wife and I, we've been on your program for a while, so we know where you stand with taking loans out on cars. Good.

Starting point is 00:19:23 We haven't had a car payment since 2018. Good. So we're in there. I just feel a little up-handed here. Number one, it's obvious, and we'll just say it out loud to make sure everyone knows. The reason the company is doing this is it saves them money. Translation, it's going to cost you money. Okay.

Starting point is 00:19:46 The net, net, net effect of this whole thing is you're going to, it's a pay cut. okay so because by the time you operate a vehicle the stipend doesn't cover it they know that or they wouldn't be doing this and so there's no other reason to do this and that's why they're doing it but that's neither here nor there it's still happening um and that that's where we are does the how many miles a year do you drive uh i'm pretty fortunate you know i'd say 15 000 oh so you're not you're not you're not a road warrior then okay good no so So they're going to give you the stipend, whether you have a car payment or not, right? Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:26 Do they have guidelines on the age of the vehicle or anything? Yes. It cannot be, it's got to be less than eight years old. Okay, cool. All right. Do you have any money? Yes. Okay.

Starting point is 00:20:41 So go buy a car. Wait a minute. Oh, you don't have a car because you're only running. You don't have a second car now, right? You already. We do. We have two other cars. but the one my wife uses to run around with the kids.

Starting point is 00:20:54 The other car I have is 12 years old. Okay, take some money in the 12-year-old car and upgrade to a 5-year-old car with cash and then take the stipend. Okay. No payments. Just pay myself back out of the stipend then. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Because here's the thing. If something happens, God forbid, and the company goes broke or they lay you off or fire you, or you decide that they're unethical and you have to walk out one day. You've still got a car payment. Well, here's what's going to happen. They start by not letting people go and they get rid of this, they get rid of the, everyone gets a car program to a stipend program.

Starting point is 00:21:37 The next cut they make, they're going to couch it as we didn't have to lay anybody off, but we had to make some sacrifices, and it's going to be the removal of the car stipend. That's what's going to happen. But you got the car payment independent of whatever they do. and so you don't take a car payment no and and you know I think you probably upgrade your car a little bit anyway if you got the cash to do it put a little bit with a 12 year old car and I get a five year old or car or whatever and and then collect that money put it in your pocket get your mileage put it in your pocket and know that the good news is with you because you're not

Starting point is 00:22:14 driving any miles you're just driving back forth to work I mean 15,000's nothing so A little bit more than that, but I mean, it's not, that's not like high miles. Road Warriors are putting 40, 50,000 miles on a car. So the good news is with you, I might be wrong. You might actually net out on this. It could be, yeah. But the more miles you put on it, the worst this is going to be for the other people in the company, they're going to lose their butts.

Starting point is 00:22:41 I give this program 18 months. I'm willing to bet that this is a phase out of we're taking care of our employees' vehicles, and this is a way they're going to phase this out. Or even if it's not a planned phase out, you know, 36 months from now, you've got a new CFO and they're looking at the whole thing again. We're trying to beat stock price and whatever the thing is. Whatever it is. We don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:03 We can let go to. It doesn't have to necessarily be with malice or forethought or evil, but it's just corporate America. They're going to look out for one thing and it ain't you. And so, but either way, yeah, take the stipend and put the money in your pocket and upgrade with cash. And don't count on it. Don't start budgeting it.

Starting point is 00:23:20 I mean, I mean, budget it, but don't start pretending it's forever. Which is what people do when they take a car payment. That's exactly right. Well, company gives me $500, and that means I need to go get a $550 car payment. Nope, that's not what it means. Mary's in Louisiana. Hi, Mary. Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Starting point is 00:23:38 Sure. How can we help? I am wondering if it is a wise decision to be paying for life insurance on my mom to protect myself financially from my parents' financial irresponsibility when she passes away. You're not responsible for their irresponsibility when she passes away. Right. And that is what my husband has recently been trying to... Not only morally, but legally you're not.

Starting point is 00:24:08 Okay. So if your mom... Tell me about your mom's situation. How much debt does she have? It's got to be over $100,000. Okay, do they own anything? Not outright. No, but I mean, did they like have a house?

Starting point is 00:24:26 Yes. They have cars with car payments. They still, they have no car payments. They still owe on their house. My mom is 66. My dad is 61. Okay, so if you were to guess, if you added up all of their debts, do they even own enough to cover their debts?

Starting point is 00:24:43 No. Okay, that's called a negative net worth, right? Yeah. And so what happens when someone passes away? When you die, what you own stands good for what you owe. Okay. There's no generational debt in America. It doesn't get passed down to me.

Starting point is 00:25:02 No. Okay. The other half of the reason on why I did it is because if my dad passes away first, my mom is going to be okay. And then, I guess with what you just explained, I wouldn't inherit any of the debt. I would just have to clean up the mess and close it out. Oh, yeah, you just send them all a death certificate with a letter that says you're screwed. And they'll go away. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:29 They may have to sell this home if you had your eyes on this house. Yeah, you don't get to keep anything of theirs. Right. They're going to sell the house. Oh, I'm not expecting anything at this point. Okay. Yeah, but I mean, but if you wanted to keep the house, now you've got to go clean up the mess because the house is standing good for the debt. even if it's not a direct lien on the house what you own down one column versus what you owe

Starting point is 00:25:51 down the other column assets minus liabilities that's how it stacks out and you have to sell all the assets to pay all the liabilities if there's anything left it's called an inheritance if there's nothing left and it's in the hole the bank is screwed they shouldn't loan these people money they get what they deserve mary i'm going to ask dave a question on your behalf okay so dave let's say there's a house worth 350 grand it's got a hundred thousand bucks left on the mortgage. So there's 250 in equity and this family owes $270,000 in 401K loans and whatever. Who is responsible for selling the house and you have to, would she as the trustee or the beneficiary or the person, the executive of the will, would she have to sell the house and then

Starting point is 00:26:34 disperse the equity of that house? Or does she just hand the keys over and say, Merry Christmas, you all duke it out? You could do either one. Even if you're the executor, you could do either one. You could just say, I choose not to invest a year of my life to get you people all paid and I get nothing. So the credit card companies and the car dealerships would have to sue the mortgage company or they'd have to put liens on the house. And then after the foreclosure, if there was anything left on the house, then they would get that. But yeah, it just depends on how much trouble you want to go to, okay, and how much of your life you want to invest in, quote, sweeping up the mess after the garage sale. And so, but you're not obligated to. you. So a simple one is I had one the other day that was a friend of a friend. And the guy died

Starting point is 00:27:17 with like 14 credit cards and he was in an apartment and he had nothing. So that's a simple one, right? You really did just send them a copy of the death certificate and a note that says you're screwed. And those credit card companies got what they deserve, which is nothing because they shouldn't have been alone in that guy money. Right. He's a pauper. And so that's an easy one to clean up doesn't take much time and you know don't call me and they're probably going to try to chase down their money call you threaten you whatever fine just jump in the creek you don't know you anything yeah i didn't you ain't got my signature buddy yeah so that that's the deal and that's that but much better thing would be if you could get mom and dad to actually work on this and oh you

Starting point is 00:27:59 probably try it hon wow that's so sad If you died tomorrow, how would your family keep up with a mortgage and pay groceries and feed the kiddos and if anyone in your life depends on your income, you need life insurance. That's just basic adult responsibility. How do you choose from all the options out there? Well, we have told people for 30 plus years. The only thing to do is just buy term life insurance.

Starting point is 00:28:30 It's very inexpensive. 15 to 20 year level term, 10 to 12 times your income. So if you make $50,000 a year, you need $500 to $6.000. 600,000. That's simple. It's really not that expensive. If you're in your 20s and 30s, it's about the cost of a pizza. And so you've got to take care of your family. If you want to know more about this, just go to the term life insurance guide. It's free. You can get it at ramsysolutions.com slash term life guide or click the link in the description and we'll take you straight there. John is in Arizona. Hey, John. How are you? Hey, John. Sorry, hey, Dr. John and Dave. Oh, you can call me, John. That's what my mama calls me. That's perfect. What's up? Perfect. Thanks for taking some time. Hey, so we just, our family, we just finished building a home. We moved in last month.

Starting point is 00:29:17 During the construction, we were able to cash full a good amount, and the remaining mortgage is $600,000. We're still working to sell our old home. It's paid for. We should be getting around $500,000 from that sale. We have about $880,000 between investments and retirement and $100,000 in cash that has our emergency. emergency fund and some earmarked funds to landscape our new home.

Starting point is 00:29:43 The question is with the $500,000 from the sale of the old home. I'm kind of wrestling with not wanting my network to be so top-heavy with home equity versus investments, which is what it would be if I put it all towards that mortgage. Just want to get your advice. What's your household income? It's right around between $300 and $400 and $400,000 depending on the year. Okay, good. Way to go.

Starting point is 00:30:06 And what's your, what's the new home worth? totally cash flowed about a million so it would be about 1.6 okay all right yeah you're you know your house is a high percentage of your net worth and you're not going to get away from that you made that decision when you decided to build a 1.6 million dollar house yeah kind of got away from us there yeah that doesn't change scope creep is what got you it wasn't the uh it really isn't the the um the net worth situation doesn't change if just because you're high you can't hide from it now by not paying off the mortgage. It doesn't accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.

Starting point is 00:30:41 So what I would do is, you know, I'd get that mortgage paid off as quick as I could. You got $500 to throw it $600 when the other house sells and then I'm going to take a chunk of my other money and knock out that last $100. Might use some of that emergency fund instead of putting the bushes in for right now. Let's get the stinking thing paid off and I'm going to get it paid for. And then I'm going to start moving in that direction. So what we've discovered to answer your overall question philosophically, so to speak, not really philosophically, but practically, that's your tactical answer that I just gave you. Now, strategically, your answer is this.

Starting point is 00:31:15 That's a better way of saying this. As we were working with wealthy people, what we find is the larger their net worth, the smaller the percentage of their net worth is on personal things, home, cars, vacation. homes, toys, whatever. The smaller your net worth, the higher the percentage is on your home. So, for instance, if your net worth is a half a million dollars and you had 300,000 of the half a million in a paid four house, that's not disturbing. That would be fairly normal. But that's about your ratios and you're sitting there with about a $4 million net worth.

Starting point is 00:31:57 Three and a half, right? and you've got half your net worth right now sitting in your house. So that's starting to be disturbing. It's not anything to panic about, but we're not buying any more personal crap on the net worth column side for a while. You just did it. Your house poor, not technically house poor, but you see what I'm saying. You need to get the balance back, rebalance your net worth, because by dumping everything into other investments that are non-personal investments over the next. whatever number of years to where when we look up in a few years you got a $10 million net worth

Starting point is 00:32:32 and of that the house has doubled and it's $3 million. Now that starts to be pretty comfortable. But like I talked to a guy the other day that, you know, we're looking at his numbers. He's got $100 million net worth and a $10 million house. So his net worth is only, his house only 10% of his net worth at that. And yours is over 50%. So that's the, but again, that follows with the line of thinking of the higher your net worth, the smaller the percentage of your net worth is going to be in personal home cars,

Starting point is 00:33:04 vacation homes, toys, so on. And so, you know, you take a billionaire and they've got an $8 million jet and the billionaire has a couple of homes, they still, it doesn't add up to even 6% of their net worth in personal consumption. And so that, that again, validates the concept of the higher the net worth, the smaller the percentage. so but yours is as high as your net worth is i i don't disagree with you john it's a little bit unnerving to be there but being in debt doesn't change it well and you called it out this call should have

Starting point is 00:33:37 happened before we we decided what size house we were going to build you're already you've already committed it so cows out of the barn i want to i want to take that risk off of my risk profile my pet sucker off yeah that that helps the help situation it does helps the sleep at night factor right that's right just get it paid off and then let's just okay we have made our personal consumption pledge for the next six years. That's it. And we're sleeping in it. And in reality, that means we're going to be aggressive.

Starting point is 00:34:03 We're going to put 15% in these mutual funds. Are we going to up a little bit? Yeah, we're going to up it up until. Because everything's paid off. You're a baby step seven. So we're going to start doing investments out here big time, and there's not going to be much more person. So if you go to the beach and your friend has a nice condo at the beach, uh-uh,

Starting point is 00:34:17 you can't have one. Right. Because you, instead of buying a $700,000 house and a beach condo. Beach condo. You put some sand in the bedroom. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what we're doing here. This is, that's where you are now.

Starting point is 00:34:29 So you're just a little beach there in the second master suite of the 1.6 million, yeah. So, yeah, that, that's no, no more, you know, mama, you know, mama wants a Bentley. No, you know, mama ain't getting a Bentley. It's not happening here. We got a one and a half million dollar house. And here's the beautiful thing. You make 300, 400,000 dollars year. Yeah, you clean it up real fast.

Starting point is 00:34:47 This is two or three years. You're okay. It's more of a, it's more of a, it's not a, your stupid discussion or you've done something extremely dumb discussion. It's just like, I'm with you, John. I'm a little nervous about it. And I would based on that, start making the moves to not be nervous. First one, pay off the debt. Second one, redistribute most of your investing away from personal issues for the next five, six years. And then you'll get it bounced back again. You'll be okay. Cool. Victoria is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Victoria. How are you? Hi, guys. I've had better years. Uh-oh. How can we help?

Starting point is 00:35:24 So I'm calling because Sorry, I promise my stuff I wasn't going to get them off, but I feel like my life is a mistake It's okay, Dawn I really don't know I really don't know what to do We have a business It's a trucking company

Starting point is 00:35:42 My husband is one of the drivers And we currently have another one Do you have two trucks you're running in the trucking company? Correct Okay We had more but we've had really bad luck with drivers that really did some bad things for us. So we are selling some things to try and liquidate the assets to pay off some of the debt.

Starting point is 00:36:06 But essentially, we're probably about $400,000 in debt. How much of that is the two trucks? One of the trucks we own outright. The other truck, we still owe probably about $75,000 on. And what is the truck, the truck you own outright worth? It's probably worth about $100,000. And what about the other one that you owe $75 on? It's probably worth about $40.

Starting point is 00:36:38 Okay. So that's $140 of the $400 in debt if you sold both those and went and got a job? Correct. Okay. I'm just catching up. All right. Do you own a home? We actually own three.

Starting point is 00:36:51 So we have three mortgages, and all three of them are rented. Okay. Do any of them have any equity? One of them has equity. How much? We owe 267 on it, and it's probably worth about $450,000. Sell it today. Put it up on the market today.

Starting point is 00:37:13 Okay. So, okay, I'm a little short on time. I'm a little short on time. I'm going to give you a. Ramsey coach as my gift to sit down with you, okay? But you call me up emotional and thinking you're bankrupt. And when I sell everything, which is what's going to happen in a bankruptcy, I don't think you're bankrupt.

Starting point is 00:37:36 But you're going to have to turn loose to some things. You can't hold on. You can't be the monkey with the hand in the bottle holding on to the jelly beans because you can't get away from the bottle. You've got to let go of the jelly beans, pull your hand out of the bottle. And that's how it works. I think you can get out, though. I wish I had more time with you.

Starting point is 00:37:51 I'm sorry. Hang on. We'll get you some help, though, kiddo. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, Ph.D. in counseling is my co-host today. Todd is with us in Texas.

Starting point is 00:38:13 Hey, Todd, how are you? Hey, guys. I had a question about, I'm going to be 50. 59 and a half in about six more months. I just had a birthday. And my Roth IRA at my work, I'll be able to cash that out without any kind of penalties. And it's the one where you pay your taxes in advance. So I'll be able to get the whole amount out.

Starting point is 00:38:37 Yeah, I know about what that. And we want to build a small, excuse me, a cabin. And it looks like I'm going to have about $140,000 to work with. we've talked to a couple of builders and we can get about 900 to a thousand square foot place built for that. My question is, would it be more prudent to pull that cash out because it will take all of it and go ahead and build the cabin and be debt free as far as any kind of a mortgage? Or would it be more prudent to actually borrow the money and leave that in there because I think it's getting to the point where the compound interest is really starting to build over the years.

Starting point is 00:39:21 Money, that's not how compound interest works. Is it not? No, compound interest does not, like, get a running start. It just is, you just make interest on whatever's there. And over time, you make interest on whatever's there, and whatever's there is larger over time. But it's not, it doesn't mathematically get a running start. So do you have any other money? I have a little bit.

Starting point is 00:39:47 I have about $8,000 in my savings account. What about your wife? Are you married? Yes. And my wife probably has four or five. And then we have a household account that we have about probably another four or five. Because you're 59. You quit work.

Starting point is 00:40:01 You're going to retire. Oh, no, no, no. And you're going to be broke. No, no. I'm not going to retire. You can't take your money on a 401K unless you don't work there anymore. Uh, that's not what they told me. This is a TSP, and I work for the federal government.

Starting point is 00:40:16 Oh, okay. All right. And, uh, no, they told me. Okay, but let me tell you what you just did. You, you have absolutely no investments now. No, I would not, but I was, we would both still be working. Yeah. How does that make it smart? Well, I mean, that's why I'm calling you, buddy.

Starting point is 00:40:38 That's why I'm looking for an answer, my friend. The answer, you're not going to do my answer, okay? My answer is you can't afford a cabin. Oh, really? You don't have enough money. So you're saying that because, but now that's not my only, you know, I do have, you know, I'll have the Social Security and I have a FERS retirement account with the government. I know. Are you familiar with those?

Starting point is 00:41:04 Yeah, I am very. Yeah. Yeah. But, but I mean, dude, you have no money an account. cabin. Yeah. That's just, there's no way that this makes sense. The reason I'm, if see, here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:41:20 If I wait until I'm 70 years old to when I can retire and then I build a cabin, what good is a cabin going to do me? I'm going to be 70 years old. Well, you won't have to eat the logs. Well, my thought was go ahead and, you know, we have a home. We'll build the cabin. and in a year or so, if it's looking like it's not working out, I could either sell our home, our primary residence,

Starting point is 00:41:48 and move to the cabin, or I could sell the cabin. I guess what I'm saying is... What's the thing beneath the thing, dude? What's the thing beneath the thing? You've wanted a cabin a long, long time, and you haven't saved up enough money to buy a cabin. Well, it would be in the TSP account. I know.

Starting point is 00:42:08 You haven't saved up enough money to buy a cabin. a cabin because you're going to have to retire broke with a cabin and that just doesn't I can't tell you to do that I'm I'm not going to I like you too much to tell you to do something that's going to bring you harm sir and this is harmful to you you're in your mind you're not worried about having no money in a cabin and I'm really worried about you having too many calls from 65 and 68 and 72 year olds and so um you know if you want to go stay in a cabin rent one for the weekend and keep your money and your investments and um you know you have not saved enough money you've not done a good enough job with your investments to be able to afford

Starting point is 00:42:53 to have a second home and you just don't have the money i mean it's like call me up and going dave i want to buy a two million dollar yacht and i've always wanted one well you don't have the money i'm sorry if you always wanted one and it breaks my heart you can't get your two million yacht but you don't have two million dollars to buy a yacht and it's the same thing you don't have the money to do this you think you've got the money but when you go do this and you use up all your money you're going to be living on social insecurity broke with a cabin and that's just I'm sorry I can't tell you to do that because I like you too much I think you're a good guy you're going to do it anyway because you've got it all figured out but I can't stop you but you did call

Starting point is 00:43:33 and ask and so I'm duty bound to tell you the truth because I care about you I'm kind of speechless, Dave, and that's a rare moment for me. Well, I get really, really wanting something, but the thought of, the thought of relying on the government 20 years from now, like, no, they'll get, they'll take care of me. They'll write that check. That seems infinitely more foolish than, I don't know. Yeah, I can't wrap my head around it. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:05 And here's an interesting thing, folks, everybody, everyone falls for this, and I have in the past, too and some of you do are doing it right now that if you borrow the money it's as if there's no like I haven't um like that doesn't count I still got my money my I still got my money right is because I borrowed the money it's like it's like it's like it allows you to be in denial yes it's you're participating in denial when you borrow money because you're you're you're not admitting that you don't have the money when you borrow money. There you go. Okay. I bought this car that I didn't have the money to buy. I didn't have the money to buy the car, but I bought the car anyway because I'm in denial about the fact that I don't have

Starting point is 00:44:47 the money and I wanted the car anyway. And so, and I work really hard. There's that old saying, whatever you go looking for in the world, you're going to find it. If you really want a cabin, you're going to figure out a way that this somehow makes sense to you, which is why it's good to have wise counsel, but wise counsel doesn't do you any good if you don't listen to wise counsel. So I guess my promise to you, brother, is if you buy the cabin, I'll be here in 10 years and you can call me when you're trying to figure out what you've got to sell and I'll help you with that. But we'll be talking again. Yeah. I just, I can't wrap my head around that.

Starting point is 00:45:21 And by the way, I really, really want a hunting place with a big cabin on it. I really do. With all my heart, I want that. I just don't have the money for it right now. And... No, you really do. Personally, you're not kidding. I personally, really, really want that.

Starting point is 00:45:35 So if he builds it and it gets in trouble, would you buy it from him? Depends on what county it's in. How many deer it's got on it? But yeah, I'm happy to. I've got a feeling there's some deer around it. He's in Texas. Oh, man. The proverb says that the wise sees trouble and takes refuge.

Starting point is 00:45:58 The simple moves forward anyway and is punished for it. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by why refi. You may think no one can help with your defaulted private student loans, but why refi is different. They work with borrowers in tough spots without judgment. check them out at Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Andrea in Ohio. Andrea writes,

Starting point is 00:46:47 My partner and I have been together for over 25 years, and we have four children together. I've been asking him to marry me since we had our first child. Oh, geez. He recently stated that we can get married if I sign a pre-up. He had nothing at the start. start of our relationship is in his business has grown significantly he has over 300 employees and his net worth is in the millions i gave up my career 20 years ago to raise our children we are

Starting point is 00:47:15 financially well off and he has taken very good care of the children and me davis is so sick i don't want to finish this is he wrong to ask for a pre-up i love him but wonder if i should just let go the idea of marriage i don't really i don't really know i can help you i think you let go of the idea of marriage 25 years ago and you started having kids and Andrea you made a really terrible bargain yeah you gave up everything and he gave up nothing he raised his kids and help him build a business and he owns it you made a terrible bargain 25 years ago yeah this breaks my heart man and you know the the the the the ship has sailed. I mean, there's

Starting point is 00:48:05 I, you know, by the way, he here's another, I mean, I'd call his bluff, but I don't think you will. Because I think this guy's a jerk. Yeah. And I think the reality that you feel very, very exposed, you felt exposed

Starting point is 00:48:27 for 25 years. It's because you've been exposed. You've been exposed. I also think if this was to go to court, I think you would have some claim to a lot of this stuff, but it's going to be a mess. I have no idea what Ohio law is on this kind of stuff. You certainly got child support coming out your ears. The thing beneath the thing here is... But you're not going to do anything, I can tell.

Starting point is 00:48:48 No. You're so codependent. It's unbelievable. And he's such a jerk. He wouldn't... He's such a man who lacks any sort of integrity in any way, shape, form, or fashion. that the thought of even taking care of his common law wife of a quarter decade and the mother of his four kids he's thinking of his net worth protecting his answer is all this money i made while i was sleeping with you

Starting point is 00:49:14 is all mine is mine i mean i wouldn't want to be in the same room with that guy personally yeah he's slimy yeah he's a terrible human being but here we are um my guess is you've got Dave my guess is she's got bigger issues. And she's either unsafe. He either has people on the side. She is recognizing how completely exposed she is. And I think she needs to go see a professional counselor, but she also probably needs to sit down on an attorney. Because I think this type of question tells me this is just what's right above the water line. There's a big mess underneath this. Yeah, that's true. This is so. So, you know what it is though? I can't help Andrew. but you know what we can do we can read the we can read the email and here's a here's a point all right

Starting point is 00:50:03 you're 24 years old and your boyfriend wants to move in together I hope you read this email and realize how stupid that is I mean that's just just how unsafe it is how unsafe it is and how exposed you are it's just straight up stupid and I hope so some of you get pissed off about me saying this. I hope you say, I'll never listen to Dave Ramsey again, because some of the most smart things ever done in my life is when somebody made me mad. I'm trying to make some of you mad right now.

Starting point is 00:50:40 Because this is, if you're 24 and you have a 24-year-old daughter and her boyfriend wants to move in with her, you need to grab both of them up and box their stupid butt-lil-ears because this is what it sets up. It's what it sets up And we've got all the data Right Not just the feelings and the research to go with it Here's some data for you

Starting point is 00:51:04 If you're 35 and you're married Your net worth is somewhere around 10x If you're shacked up And you're 35 Married men Live seven to nine years longer Than shacked up men Hello

Starting point is 00:51:26 cancer survivors. How much higher percentage of people survive cancer than are married than those who are shacked up in a toxic soup bowl like this woman's in. And we talk about this all the time, Dave. What if this woman gets cancer? Exactly. Because he's $300 million business. He may or may not want to help you out. And here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:51:53 We talk about this a lot, Dave. success and money makes you more of who you are. And if you're dating somebody who's a jerk to you and maybe you accidentally wind up pregnant and you say, okay, well, maybe down the road if this is how this plays out, somebody becomes very successful, they were a jerk before they had anything, they were a jerk when you gave up your entire career and your safety. Why? And then they become worth millions on your back and they stay a jerk. They get an extra humongous jerk. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:52:27 This is a mess. Love involves serving each other. Yeah. There's no love in this whole equation right here. This just burns my belly. Yeah. It breaks my heart for Andrew. I'm sorry, man.

Starting point is 00:52:36 Andrew, you're just, you have made some really bad choices 25 years ago and now you are sitting in the poop. It's unbelievable. And, yeah, I mean, you don't have any options. your option are stay in the poop or demand that we get married with no pre-up or I'm leaving and taking the kids, which is actually about the only healthy thing to do in this situation, load up and leave. You are with somebody who is not a person of them than they are.

Starting point is 00:53:09 You are the kids. And it hasn't been for days, for decades. For years, yeah. For decades. If he was, he would have committed to you and you'd be taken care of you right now. And you would have been taking care of him. you gave up wow but okay so but the point is this sometimes in your some of you in your decision-making framework if you think about Friday thank God it's Friday how's you feel in

Starting point is 00:53:35 the moment well that's what a child does adults devise and plan and and have a plan children do what feels good children move in together at 24 and it starts Then you, if you extrapolate that decision-making paradigm, if you use your decision framework and say, okay, how's this going to work out 25 years from now? Well, Andrea just told you. And then that tells you if it's a good decision or not. It might be an okay decision by Friday. You might get away with stupidity between now and Friday.

Starting point is 00:54:09 But when you extrapolate your decision-making out with a long-term decision horizon, vision horizon, then you end up with Andrea. and you can tell the decision's a bad idea. But this, I mean, this isn't just about the money and the kids. I guarantee, I guarantee this is an abusive relationship. Oh, I promise you it is. It is abusive, just with what we know. Psychological, financial.

Starting point is 00:54:31 With what we know, it's already abusive, but there's got to be more to it. Right. Like you said, tip of the iceberg. So, yeah, this guy. Andrew, hear from us, man, you're not crazy. You're not crazy. I will bet you dollars to donuts. He's got a couple on the side.

Starting point is 00:54:43 That's what I mean. At some point, you got to go sit down with an attorney and walk through and figure out this mess. yeah um but she's not going to no i love him well but also i mean also i want to i mean i don't being an abusive relationship man it's you can get trapped and it's it's a scary proposition quarter century being told you're useless you're worthless you're nothing seeps into your into your nervous system over time and maybe this is her first reaching out saying am i nuts the answer is no you're not nuts um you've done some stuff that's really damaging to yourself by allowing this to go on way too long and our encouragement will be to stop it now

Starting point is 00:55:21 stop it now yeah you're worth more than this i was going to say you know hold tell him the only way you're sticking around is if you marry him i don't think you marry him i think you just let him go yeah and take and take half his money i don't want to be married to a man who treats who does this a wife and i mean a woman and kids like this i don't either period and i don't want you like you and we don't want you to do that we love you we want you to win so yeah i think i think i think you're done that's but you're not going to do it If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free every dollar trainings. They're hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities, and we're doing one every week.

Starting point is 00:56:08 We're going to show you how to stick to a budget, find thousands of dollars worth of margin to get out of debt and start building wealth. Plus, you can ask us any question during the live Q&A. Sign up for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. Marie is in Denver. Hi, Marie. How are you? Hi. I am going to tell you my story.

Starting point is 00:56:32 I am recently divorced. I'm 73 years old and I'm debt-free. And I have a total of $100,000 in a money market, and I have to withdraw $1,000 or two each month. month for living expenses because my social security pays all but $100 for my one-bedroom apartment and I do have a trustworthy car and it's fine it's paid for and I don't I haven't worked in a while but maybe I can get a part-time job at some point but my question is if I'm doing the right thing by just keeping all the money.

Starting point is 00:57:18 Oh, we just lost you, hon. Oh, no. I'm sorry. She just dropped. Yeah. Kelly, see if you can get her back and we'll catch back up because that lady needs some help. Jordan is in Oregon.

Starting point is 00:57:30 Hey, Jordan, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

Starting point is 00:57:38 Okay, my question is, we did a family deal mortgage before. we found you. My wife and I are huge fans. We've been paying it like a 15. We have five years left. It was all done by a lawyer, so it's legit. But the interest is only 1%. I would like to pay it off early, but everyone around me saying,

Starting point is 00:58:03 don't do that. It's stupid, you know, because the money's making more just sitting in high-yield savings. You don't have the money in high-yield savings? We do. Oh, you have the money to pay it off? we do oh okay yeah well who cares what everyone says everyone's broke well i know but that's why that's why i'm calling you i know but everyone's broke don't take financial advice from broke people man yeah no i know or indebted people well our CPA's even saying not to do it fire him yeah he can't

Starting point is 00:58:32 add yeah who's who's the family member that owns this loan um it was my grandpa and that's part of kind of the funny equation is that he recently passed away so his wife who's not my grandmother is now the bank and everything is still okay but something in my gut just wants to pay her off your gut is correct you have a good gut so so here's the here's the thing okay the borrower is slave to the lender absolutely period no exceptions correct 100% of the time that you loan money to someone you change the relationship 100% of the time you borrow money from someone you change the relationship it is impossible for your step-grandmother to treat you the same as if you didn't borrow her money oh her money it is

Starting point is 00:59:25 impossible for you to treat your step-grandmother with the exact same honor or dignity as her as the former wife of your grandfather when you owe her money because we now have this transaction involved right and the way we say it around here it doesn't apply to this situation probably but, you know, Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master. Right. The borrower is slave to the lender, and if you're a slave, you have by definition a master. Even if it's a sweet, kind, little white-haired master, you still have a master.

Starting point is 00:59:59 Correct. And you probably have her kids. How many kids does she have? Yeah, she's got three, and one of them is fairly involved now with her since my grandpa's passed. And that's where you start getting this idea that, well, that's actually, they would be better siblings than most if one, if not several of them, don't think, well, that's our money, or we want to get our money settled, et cetera. Yeah, absolutely. So you're asking what David and I would do, both of us would clear this today. I paid it off by the end of the day.

Starting point is 01:00:34 Today. Yeah. You know what's going to happen? You're going to feel like you took a good shower. You're going to feel clean. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention you won't have a house payment forever.

Starting point is 01:00:46 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And there is, like, there is a financial calculation, and you're right. No. Well, there's a math problem to be made that you can, no. Not when you adjust for risk. That's fair. Not when you address for relationship damage.

Starting point is 01:01:00 Well, that's what I'm saying. Not when you address for the actual realities of what actually happens. That's true. Because these people who say, oh, you're making 4%, and they're only charging you 1%, so you're making a net 3. This is the most naive financial formula on the planet. You're leaving out risk, you're leaving out the strain on your body, you're leaving out the strain on your relationships, and all of those have an actual dollar cost to them over time

Starting point is 01:01:22 that no one has ever been able to calculate accurately, except God says the borrower's slave for the lender, and he meant it. There you go. And obviously, he knows I do math better than your broke friends. And so that's it. That's what it comes down to to me. I quit borrowing money, period. And the last time I'm going to loan anybody I love money happened about 40 years ago.

Starting point is 01:01:42 So if there's somebody that needs money that I've got in my family or friends and I've got the money and I decide they need my money, I'm going to give it to them. There will not be a loan. That's simple. All right. We were talking with Marie. I think we got her back 73. She's got $100,000. She's trying to live on her Social Security, but it barely pays her one bedroom worth of rent in Denver, Colorado.

Starting point is 01:02:03 Marie, why are you in Denver? I moved there from the South, and I have a daughter and grandkids. I'm there. Ah. And I've been there for like 17, 18 years, and it's hard to go back to the south. Yeah. I wasn't trying to get you to go back to the south. It's just a very expensive real estate market.

Starting point is 01:02:22 Well, it is. And I'm really north of there, but that's the main area. Yeah. You know, it's 60 north. Where are your kids? Are you like up in Aurora or? No, in Windsor. Okay.

Starting point is 01:02:33 All right. And so how close to your kids are you? Physically. You mean physical? Oh, real. I'm close to my daughter. real close to my daughter and grandson. Can you move a little bit further away and get a much cheaper apartment?

Starting point is 01:02:48 Well, it's $13.90, and that includes they started charging for water and all that, and that's about it's cheap. I even saw when I was looking. Yeah, I know, but I'm just asking because you can't afford the apartment. Yeah. That's what's killing me here. Okay. I don't know, because if you burn $1,000 a month and you don't make any,

Starting point is 01:03:12 anything on the 100, then you would burn it up in 100 months, correct? Yep. And so you're 80. Right. 81, 81 at that point. With no assets, no dollars, no nothing. And now you're homeless. Okay, we don't want, that's not a plan.

Starting point is 01:03:28 If we invest the 100 and we made 10% on it, that'd be $10,000 a year, $833 a month. That'd help, but you didn't have to live within that. Otherwise, you're going to burn it up still. Yep. Okay, so. I can make enough working inside. Yeah, so you're going to have to add something to it, and you're going to have to manage your expenses, and that includes the investigation of cheaper rent somewhere, somehow. Okay. And I don't know what that is.

Starting point is 01:03:55 I don't have a magic wand to wave. I just know that Denver is very expensive. It's a beautiful city. It's very expensive. And so do you move 30 miles out in the country somewhere and, you know, rent a little garage apartment from some little couple that's sweet? and I don't know. I don't know. But you're close enough to family, but you cut your costs in half. You need to get with a smart vester pro at Ramsey Solutions.com and get the majority of the $100,000 invested. So it starts making something. Making 4% versus 10% is a deal breaker for you.

Starting point is 01:04:28 So you've got to get up there making, get the money in some mutual funds and get to making some money. And this is a heartbreaking thing to say. It's one of the hardest things I ever have to say on the show for a 73-year-old recently divorced woman that tells me you've been through a lot but you might have to go get a part-time job yeah she said that yeah if you have to go get some money coming in somehow so i would do three i would twist three knobs on this and try to get it to where it runs sustainable because the math you're giving me is not sustainable it's going to burn up knob number one get the money invested so it makes some more money knob number two get your expenses down by considering different rent and knob number three create some income by doing some

Starting point is 01:05:07 of work while you can and let's try to get this where you create a thing where you're not burning through the money and and you know end up in a really horrible situation Blake is in Minnesota hey Blake how are you hey Dave how you doing better than I deserve how can I help all right so I'm 39 years old Um, the only debt I have right now is a personal loan for $30,000. Um, it's a 10.9% interest rate. Um, I have about 140 in my Roth IRA, over 50 of that is what I put in. I'm just curious if it's worth taking the money out to pay off the personal loan to, uh, free up some cash. How old did you say you are?

Starting point is 01:06:03 39. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that. No, no, no. No, you're going to get hit with a penalty of 10% plus your tax rate and so you're going to get hit with like a 35% or 40% of hit so it's like saying Dave I want to borrow money at 40% interest to pay off the loan no no we're not doing that okay I thought I thought what I put in I could take out on your Roth you can but I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't unplug your Roth what's your household income sir um well between me and my wife almost 100 okay and how much do you owe in your cars My wife's car, she has about 12,000 left, and I have 14,000 left. Is that the 30?

Starting point is 01:06:44 No, the 30 was about a year ago we consolidated all of our credit cards and everything into one. Okay. Okay. So you actually owe 60. Yes, besides with the cars in the personal loan. Yeah. All right. So now, what will have you to do?

Starting point is 01:07:01 And you've got two years of pretty extreme discomfort coming. You're going to live on beans and rice, rice and beans. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there is your extra job and you're not going on vacation. Scorched earth on your lifestyle. Get on a detailed written budget on the every dollar app. Lay out your budget and live on nothing. And with your extra income that you create and the stuff you sell around the house

Starting point is 01:07:28 and the tight budget, you pay off $30,000 a year for two years and you're 100% debt-free except your home, now you've got your life back. but you guys have chip shot at one little thing at a time, one little thing at a time, one little thing at a time, and then bought a car, and then one little thing at a time, and then one little thing at a time, all the way into $60,000 worth of debt, making $100, and you can't breathe. Yeah, I mean, we're not struggling by any means. Yeah, you are. You're broke. You're broke. Bro, I've been there.

Starting point is 01:08:00 Both of us have. This is not fun. I mean, you're not bankrupt, but you've got no wiggle room in your budget. It's no fun. That's why you're trying to do something about it. It's just, it's uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:08:13 And there's no, but there's no hack. The hack is hack through it as fast as you can by living on nothing for a short period of time. You and your wife sit down and say, what would it feel like if we had no payments? What would it feel like how fast could we build some wealth? What kind of generosity could we do? What would, how would, how would we change our whole family tree if we had no payments? if we had no freaking payments and then you get in attack mode and knock it out i don't know if you're ready to do that or not because you call me looking for an easy way out you're not quite ready to be

Starting point is 01:08:45 disgusted yet but the people that change their lives sir are the ones that say i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired i've had it and you kind of got to get that thing going in your voice when you do that well now you're going to start to see some things move and that that'll work so but don't rob future you because you can't quit consumption right last time you tried to borrow your way out by the way borrow your way out of debt it didn't work

Starting point is 01:09:13 at credit card debt we got a consolidation loan now we're going to cash out we're trying to find it always trying to find an easy pill there's no easy button on this you got to get it and that's a hard thing so John I was

Starting point is 01:09:30 being interviewed on one of the podcasts the other day one of these famous guys and he was asking me because we've got so many Gen Zs and so many Millennials here and I kind of had a thought I thought I'd run it by you Oh, oh, kind of came to me in the middle of that

Starting point is 01:09:48 Well, I often get asked because I'm such a proponent of Gen Z and Millennials I love those two generations I've got 600, 700, 700 them on my payroll that work here and I love them They're incredible team members They do a great job And the guy was going

Starting point is 01:10:03 And why is that? And he goes, you've got the good ones. Yeah, there's some bad ones. There's some good ones. There isn't every generation. And but why is it? It's because they grew up with this magic wand in their hand. And so anything is possible because if I push a button or download an app, anything's possible.

Starting point is 01:10:19 I push a button. Stuff shows up on my porch. I push a button. I can answer any question. I push a button. A, I'll write my paper for me. I push a button. I mean, everything is possible.

Starting point is 01:10:28 So they're possibility thinkers. Their abundance mentality is unbelievable. What the toxic version of that when it goes too far is it's entitlement correct the but the other thing I thought he said well what's the main thing we could teach them I was actually speaking at a college too recently with a bunch of young young ziers and he said what's the first thing you would tell this generation I said well what comes with this instantaneous abundance not only is the positive of it is you get this thing of uh anything's possible and so you're you really think positively rather than negatively. Where, like, some of my generations, it's around with their lip stuck out whining. My granddad's straightened nails, right? Yeah, exactly. The world's coming to an end and everything's so bad.

Starting point is 01:11:15 And, you know, everybody's got a bunch of whiners in the generation. But our generations were like negative thinkers, and we had to teach them with Zig Zigler how to be a positive thinker, right? But these guys all think positive already. What they don't have is the patience. And that comes out, that lack of patience. When a boomer or somebody's looking in from the outside, they call that entitlement. I don't think it's really entitlement. I think it's, I'm used to getting something quickly, and when it doesn't come quickly,

Starting point is 01:11:42 I don't know how to act. It's an expectation. It's not even entitlement. It's just the way it's always worked. It's the way it's been. Right. Every time I push a button, something happens, and then I pushed a button and nothing happened. And it's a, it, you have to be able to distance food apps from developing a great

Starting point is 01:11:58 relationship with somebody. It takes time. Or, like, paying off $60,000 worth of debt, man, $100. Right. Right. There's things that just take time. That's two years of grind. Right. Oh, you mean I can't push a button?

Starting point is 01:12:12 Yeah. No, it's two years of grind. You mean I can't? No, it's two years of grind. No, no, no, no, there's not an app. There's not a hack. There's not a shortcut. TikTok ain't going to help you.

Starting point is 01:12:25 It's two years of grind. And then you'll be free forever because you will be changed, not just your money. And the hardest sell for me is people realizing you're going to be out of debt, but you're not even going to recognize yourself. You'll have muscles you'd understand. You'll have strength you didn't understand. And you take that level of discipline and strength and ability to grind and then put that on top of or underneath this endless possibility mindset.

Starting point is 01:12:50 And literally the world is yours. But that only comes from high reps over an extended period of time. That's it. This is not I lift two pushes on the bench press. this is high reps low weight every day for years every day and then you are transformed you're transformed and then the money is transformed too but that's just the that's that's like you said it's not the best part the best part is you are changed you're different when Sharon and I went through the crucible of losing everything and then having to claw our way

Starting point is 01:13:27 back out with our fingernails it isn't that we went through that it's that we went through that Right. I mean, it's, it, we are so freaking permanently changed from that in such a good way that, you know, it makes the strain worth it. And so if I could inject with a needle, a big syringe into a generation that is fabulous, the ability to persevere over an extended period of time, add that to their incredible abundance thinking and possibility thinking. It's going to be the biggest, baddest, coolest generation in history of man ever. And that means whereas I remember my granddad, my grandmother, they got a sack of oranges for Christmas one year. Yeah. Because there wasn't oranges everywhere, right?

Starting point is 01:14:14 And that was a big deal to get oranges in December, right? That was huge. Well, you knew somebody in Florida. You knew somebody who knew somebody who got a sack of oranges. That was a cool thing. They had to inject, go manufacture, go work at optimism. This group has to, everything is possible, but it goes. can detach you from reality. So you have to inject hard, regular practices on a day-in-day-out

Starting point is 01:14:37 basis. You have to learn to cook in the crock box, not the microwave. And wait. And you have to learn to be bored and not scroll in a Walmart line. You have to learn to pay off your stuff over time. You have to learn to exercise on a regular basis. And you will be stunned at who you become on the back end of that journey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studios. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for being with us. Dr. John Deloney.

Starting point is 01:15:08 Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. The phone number is 3,8-825-5-225. Michael is in Arizona. Hey, Michael, how are you? I'm doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Starting point is 01:15:24 well Dave I'm married I'm 25 years old I have a toddler and another baby on the way fun and I'm a bit of a pickle financially um my job hours are really inconsistent and so we're about 13,000 dollars in debt most of it is medical or dental um and I'm barely working enough to cover the essentials some weeks some weeks I'm making overtime up until now I haven't made the best financial choices. But I decided to start school, so I'm going to school for IT. I just don't know if I should try to focus on getting out of debt or try to focus on school to get a better job and then try to work from there.

Starting point is 01:16:07 What do you do now, sir? Now I drive a submit mixer. Okay. And they pay you what when you're driving? I'm on track to make about $65,000 gross. this year okay and you can't live on that um if on that i i could barely live there would not be much extra for um much of anything with 13 thousand dollars with debt you can't live on 65 thousand dollars well i i haven't made the best financial

Starting point is 01:16:45 okay we don't have a system we don't have a system so we don't know okay that i believe That, I believe. All right. That makes sense. I need to change my ways. Yeah, so you and your pretty wife sit down tonight and open up the every dollar app. I'm going to give you the upgrade version of it for free and to start laying out a detailed budget of what it takes to live each month. And your income is not as volatile as your behavior.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Okay. So when you get that system down, that's going to help you a lot. because more, you know, and I don't, if you want to change careers from cement truck driver to IT, I'm perfectly fine with that. So what are you spending on the IT? I'm not spending anything between scholarships and federal aid, it's all paid for. That's awesomeness. And what are you studying? A certification program?

Starting point is 01:17:45 It's an accelerated bachelor's and master's program for a bachelor's and IT and a master's. and IT management. Okay. My biggest, oh, sorry. Are you able to do this like in the evenings after you get done driving? Yes, I've been working on it each day when I get done. The biggest problem that I'm having is my hours are so inconsistent, and with the way the market's been, they've been cutting our hours.

Starting point is 01:18:13 So I'm making less and less money, and that could continue to go down. I may not make. all right let's um five thousand this year all right let me reset you for a second okay to be making 200 thousand dollars a year you do not need a four-year degree or a master's degree in it you need to have certifications and you need to know how IT works and you but you can get all of that a whole lot faster than you can do an online bachelor's online masters even if they're accelerated what you've signed up for is complete overkill for your goal I've got tons of tech people like 500 of them working in the building and I don't know of any of them

Starting point is 01:18:55 that have a master's in IT one or two have a four-year degrees most of them have industry certifications they've got Microsoft certs they've gone to code school they've learned to code they've learned you know some of the cyber security moves that need to be done they They've learned platform technologies, but they are not, they don't have a master's degree in IT. But the time you finish a master's degree in IT, what you have learned will be irrelevant because the market moves that fast. So I'm going to ask you not to do what you're doing. I know that's very hard. But if you were my son, I would say, yes, IT is a great path for you.

Starting point is 01:19:39 The good news is you can get a couple of certifications within six or eight weeks and go get. a job in that field making $60,000 be a lot more steady. Oh, and by the way, they'll probably pay from that point forward once you're working for a technology company or a company that embraces technology and digital technologies like Ramsey does. They'll probably pay for you to continue to study and get more certifications. We do that here. We teach people new languages. We pay for their certs. We pay for them to go through because we want better and better technology people on the team every day. But, you know, a master's degree is 1,000% not necessary to move into that field.

Starting point is 01:20:19 I'm the hiring person. I can tell you that. I mean, I'm your employer. So I'm sure I know what I'm talking about. And Michael, tell me about the jump from cement mixing to IT. Is that something you want to do? Are you just listening and hearing what people say is the next good job? You're just going to try to do that?

Starting point is 01:20:36 when I was in high school I took a certification and I really enjoyed it but I just never did anything with it and then when I got married and then we had our first baby I was already in the construction field and I kind of just stuck with it because it's it's what I knew well you got a job and you're trying to feed your family good for you you're a noble man I'm proud of you That's a good thing. So what I'm saying is that, number one, I might reset how I'm trying to enter the IT field. And with that, let's go ahead and get a different job today. We don't have to stay in the cement business until we get cement driving business until we get to a master's degree completed.

Starting point is 01:21:28 That's not necessary to do this. So you could get a job very quickly in the IT world and be in the proximity of the, the people that you're going to be working with anyway, they'll give you better advice on how to get tools in your belt, how to get educated to move up through the ranks in the IT section of a company, and a lot of times they'll pay for it. And so it solves several things at once. It shortens the time between you and the cement mixer and the IT, and it fixes the fact that the cement mixer hours are going down now because we're going to start moving into IT now.

Starting point is 01:22:03 And that's what I would tell you to do across the board. on this because you have you're a good guy you a noble person you're willing to work hard you're willing to do whatever it takes to feed your family uh you just hadn't had a good uh uh a track to run on and you got to develop a track and you reached out and got a track and i'm just thinking and there's a better one than the one you grab the hold of i'd also recommend sitting down with somebody you got a degree you got a phd in higher ed does this guy need a master's in it i mean i don't know enough to know about it i don't know any of the guys that work on the stuff that i'm working on that have master's degrees in Nashville that we're in the building here that work with you you know more than I do about that kind of stuff do you know any of them that have I don't know any of them I don't have a single PhD yeah no not a one you'd get a PhD in IT if you want to teach IT that be it right that be it

Starting point is 01:22:48 um teach people things that we don't use anymore I would love to see you go sit down with somebody not in the university setting but somebody who's working in IT in your local area and ask what do I need to do to get in the door right and they might say why don't you just come work here right now we have a $40,000 job, but we'll train you in X, Y, and Z, and you and your wife could take a six-month hit and you're back on, you're back on the road. Yeah. But go sit down and have coffee with somebody in your area right now. That'd be the path. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:23:15 And don't wait until the cement mixer job just dwindles to nothing. It's going to. The boat has a hole in it. Go ahead and get off the boat if you can. Yeah, yeah. Hang on. We're going to send you a copy of Proximity Principle from Ken Coleman and help you get going. Only one.

Starting point is 01:23:34 smart way to do a real estate transaction, especially in a world like we live in today. Have a high quality, high-octane, high-protein Ramsey-trusted agent that you can trust, make your home a blessing, not a burden in your corner. You can compare agent profiles, you can interview them, choose the right one to work with, all at Ramsey Trusted. So find a local Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Pro for free, Ramsey Solutions.com slash agent, or click the link in the show notes. Stephen is in Michigan. Hey, Stephen. How are you? Doing good, Dave.

Starting point is 01:24:09 I'm doing it. Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I got a question that I think I know the answer to, but I'm going to see what you're going to say about it. So bought a house last year in my interest rate is 7.375, and my mortgage was sold, and the new mortgage lender is saying, hey, we can save you some money if you refinance. Now, we're on the back half.

Starting point is 01:24:34 of Baby Step 2, my wife and I, and I have the money to pay off our car. It's approximately $6,600. And the mortgage lender says, I would strike now while rates are a little lower because if you pay that car off, that's the last piece of debt in my name. You said your credit's going to start to drop off, and that'll start to hurt you. So I guess my question is, do I pay off the car, or do I refinance and then pay off the car? What should I do? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:25:02 Well, your mortgage lender only makes a commission when they say, sell you a mortgage. Right. So we know their advice is tainted in this case. This guy's pitching pretty hard. Yeah, they are pretty aggressive with the calls. Yeah, yeah. So that right there tells you that something's up, right?

Starting point is 01:25:22 And so, yeah, I'm paying off the car and I'll get around to the mortgage later. Why did you take such a high interest rate loan? Well, we were living in... Oh, no, but that's above market. Did you have bad credit? No. Credit score is up for sevens. Hmm.

Starting point is 01:25:45 Yeah, 737 is ridiculous. I mean, the market for a year has been at six. That's weird. Yeah, so I don't know a whole lot about finance. I've recently started learning everything and going through the financial piece and the baby steps. So I am making up for lost time. All right, let's do two things. Let's answer your question in two parts, and so we get the whole thing, and that'll help you.

Starting point is 01:26:10 And it'll help some people that are listening to, okay? Number one, if the only choice is between paying off your car or refinancing, we'll pay off your car. Okay, so that part's answered. And number two, the mortgage lender being aggressive is your hint that he's self-serving, not you serving. Okay. That's why they're calling back all the time and trying to make a commission. And so number three, here's how you calculate when you refinance a mortgage. Your break-even, you do a break-even analysis.

Starting point is 01:26:42 All right, let's use an example. All right, let's pretend that you had 737 and you could get 6.37. That's a spread of one if you refinanced, right? And your loan balance is currently what? Uh, 380,000. Okay. So 1% is 3,800 bucks a year. Correct.

Starting point is 01:27:09 That is your savings. Okay. So if it costs you $15,000 to refinance and you recoup at the rate of 3,800, it's going to take five years to get your money back. Right. You follow that? Mm-hmm. That's called a break-even analysis.

Starting point is 01:27:29 How long before I break-even with a savings of $3,800 versus a cost of $15,000? If your cost was $7,600, you break even in two years. And everything after two years, you're putting $3,800 in your pocket. That one starts to make sense. Right. But 15 years doesn't make sense. And so what we've got to do is we have to figure out the closing costs and divide the annual, interest rate savings into the closing costs, and that number should be to maximum of

Starting point is 01:28:05 three years, two to three years or less. And so what that ends up telling us is the lower the closing costs and the greater the difference in interest rate when you refinance, the more likely you are going to be to do it mathematically, because the faster you're going to break even. I agree. Okay. And so if these rates drop on down, if we see some continued movement, and we've seen a little bit of movement in the last few weeks, we're 15 year right now is 5.86 on a 15 year.

Starting point is 01:28:37 Okay. It's 5.95, you know, so it's only a tenth of a point. It's just barely moving. It's just hanging around. But there's all this discussion around the Fed and all these other things right now. There seems to be some downward pressure. So I disagree with your guy that now is the time. I probably would wait a little bit.

Starting point is 01:28:51 But if you could save 2% right now, and you can make your money back in two years, I'd refinance it right now, but not with your car money. Okay, yeah. So the way you do the analysis is divide your interest rate dollars saved, interest dollars saved, into your closing cost dollars, and that's your number of years to break even, and that number of years needs to be two to three years, maximum. and so just to throw a few more stats at you guys listening out there and hearing this

Starting point is 01:29:25 the average home in america for the past 25 years has sold every 6.5 years and the average mortgage only lasts 5.5 years and so if you have a seven-year break even on your refinance you got screwed because on average you're not going to be there that long oh it's my forever oh shut up I'm giving you the averages I don't hear about your forever nothing okay so the the deal is that your refinance needs to break even in two years, maybe three. But as we see these rates slide down, and some of you're sitting in some six, even some seven percent interest rates,

Starting point is 01:30:03 and we see them slide down towards five again, you're going to see that 2% margin, and that 2% margin is going to take a whole bunch of you and make this formula work to refinance. Why would I, I'm asking for a friend, why would I pay off that car with that $6,000 versus pay this thing off and lower that rate substantially? Because we've got to clear the cash first. The cash flow on the car payment is much greater than the $3,800.

Starting point is 01:30:32 Good call. So I'm probably paying $500, $600 a month on that car versus... The average is $7.80 right now. Then the $3,800 divided by $12. Okay. And the mortgage is going to be sitting there, and the car, it's like an impedimentary. in this whole thing. It's like the, it's like the fly in the ointment. I love that. And the mortgage is sitting there. I've got to clean up the mess so I can go work on

Starting point is 01:30:54 and fine tune the stuff that's not as big a mess. Yeah, okay. We don't mess with the fine tuning while we still got baseballs being thrown through the window. So if somebody clears the cars and they've got $35,000 in student loan debt. They need to clear the student loans. Before you go refinance your. Yeah, unless, if you want to roll your refinance costs into the mortgage, you can do that. Okay. But you don't need to drain cash to do it. Okay. But, Because again, but only if you're breaking even then. Because you now owe more on the house by $7,000, but you're going to save $3,800 a month or $3,800 a year.

Starting point is 01:31:26 So that's in two years. Two years you come out ahead on doing that, even though you owe more, but you'll owe less when you're done. So all that works out mathematically. But, oh, wow, a little bit of a barrel of fish hooks. But, yeah, that's guys and gals how you work your refinance calculator. And Churchill Mortgage can help you with all that. we've endorsed them through all the ups and downs of interest rates over all these 30-something years

Starting point is 01:31:50 they've been on the air with Ramsey and they can help you whether and they'll tell you the truth they're not going to do what this mortgage lender is doing to Stephen and just hounds you to buy something you don't need to buy. I'll tell you my favorite thing when I called Churchill and said this is several years ago and refinance my house and the first thing the guy said to me was I need you to hear me say it I'm not going to take your money unless this works out for you in the end and so let me run the math on it and I'll holler back at you. And then he called back and said, oh, yeah, this is a great deal, X, Y, or Z. But that was the first thing is, I'm not going to just make a sale on your back.

Starting point is 01:32:23 I'm not going to take your money if this isn't going to work out for you and your family. And I was like, man, I'm all in. I appreciate that. And just a little inside baseball guys, mortgage companies have been dying for the last three years because they existed for the previous 10 years, 20 years on refinances. And refinances have disappeared as some of you're sitting on 2.2.3. and you're not going to refinance at a 5.8. You'd be dumb to do that. And so the refinance market has dried up and they were living off of refinances.

Starting point is 01:32:54 So a lot of mortgage companies have gone broke. And so that's where some of this pressure is coming from. And then you've got people like, rocket. Woo! Are you all right? on track with the baby steps you can take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan just for you simply head to the show notes click the link titled are you on track with the baby steps and complete the free quick quiz erics in ohio hi eric hey david how are you

Starting point is 01:33:33 doing better than i deserve what's up well i'm looking for maybe some advice in a sounding board so i'm uh 37 years old married i have four young daughters my oldest is in second grade. My wife and I both have very good jobs. Combined income gross before retirement taxes is about 310, 315. Wow. Yeah, so we're doing well, right? So about seven, eight years ago, we had the opportunity to buy from my uncle's estate,

Starting point is 01:34:03 the family farm that's been in the family for, you know, 150, 60 some years. And it's appreciated more than we would ever thought, you know, in that amount of time. Um, so we bought it for 7,700 bucks an acre, you know, the neighbors just sold for like over 18,000 an acre. So we're something like, I know, great. Those things don't happen. That's like I'm saying like these are, this is, this is a real life. You know, should we just get out now? So we still have a note on the farm.

Starting point is 01:34:33 We didn't buy it in cash. We didn't have that kind of cash. But it's relatively cheap money because that was back in 2019. Um, then we refinance it's about a four in four point one two five is what we have on it. Um, so 80 acres, you know, it would probably, you know, 1.4-ish, it's hard to say, you know, it's worth what somebody will pay for it. And you owe what? And you owe, like, uh, about 400, just a shy of 400, I think, 395. All right.

Starting point is 01:35:02 And, um, you, you have a mortgage on your home? We do have a mortgage on our home, yeah. What do you owe on your home? Uh, 235. Okay. And you make 315. Do you have any other debts? No, none.

Starting point is 01:35:16 How much in your nest egg and retirement and so forth? So I was just looking at this afternoon. I think mine has 205, and my wife, she started a little bit later. She has about 100, 105 somewhere in there. So how old are you guys? We're about 37. Okay. Wow.

Starting point is 01:35:35 Well, if you hadn't called us, what normal people would do would be just continue to service the 400 and let this thing continue to skyrocket and value. Right. I'm not as happy with the $400,000 as most people would be in debt. You got a million dollars equity laying there. And so I start asking myself, if I'm you, and I've got a million dollars piled in the middle of the table, and I don't own this farm,

Starting point is 01:36:04 would I go buy this farm or would I do something else with a million dollars? Right. And you would only buy the farm if you thought it was going to continue to go up in value pretty rapidly, right? It's an investment's why you would buy it. Well, in this case, it's actually got another added element. It's been the family for a hundred. It's been in the family for 150 years.

Starting point is 01:36:24 So that's emotional. It has been in the family for a while, but, you know, at the time, nobody else wanted it. And so my wife and I were like, I mean, we had some money. We were able to make the payment. We kind of, you know, pencils it out and all that, and it worked out, knowing that it's a good pool. Do you have any money that's not in retirement, any cash or investments that are not in retirement.

Starting point is 01:36:45 Yeah, I mean, we have some savings. We also have, like, a brokerage account. The brokerage account has, like, 80-some thousand, you know, just savings at the, you know, at our bank, it's about 50,000. Okay, so what, what, here's two options, and either one is fine with me, all right? Option one is, um, you said, how much is in the brokerage again? 80, no, no, no, 80, 85, 85, and you make 315. And then you got 50 in your emergency fund?

Starting point is 01:37:13 Mm-hmm. Any other money that's not returnment? No, not really. I mean, some checking account, but that's maybe $20,000, so I guess that counts, but I don't look at it as... No, it's not a lot. I mean, you're making $315,000, so that's not, that's a month. And so, all right, the, so what I'm going to do is look at our budget, you and your wife, and say, all right, I want to pay off our house really fast. I'm going to throw $85 at the house, that leaves $150, and we make $3.15, and we make $3.

Starting point is 01:37:43 And so we're going to pay off the house in the next 24 months while paying minimum payments on the farm. Yeah. And keep the farm. That's option one. Option two, sell the farm and pay off the house and invest the money somewhere. Okay. I mean, either one's fine. So the question becomes, where do I want to invest a million dollars?

Starting point is 01:38:08 Right. Do I want to invest a million dollars in wonderful dirt and more? wonderful Ohio or which is not obviously not a bad investment it's done really well yeah it's not a bad investment one of the guys we studied in the millionaire study had 24 million dollars worth and it was just dirt i mean it's kansas i like dirt farmer in kansas i mean just straight up man i mean soybeans and corn baby hello you know and um what it is 24 freaking million dollars all right so it's just you know so don't talk it's good there's nothing wrong with i I'm not mad about dirt at all.

Starting point is 01:38:46 So, but you just need to ask yourself, the reason you bought this was not because you woke up one morning and said, I want to systematically invest in dirt. No, it was presented to you because of the family connection. And that kind of woke you up and you went, well, that might be cool. Let's go do it. So you almost kind of backed into it. Definitely. But it wasn't the implementation of a strategic thought. That's true.

Starting point is 01:39:13 Okay. And so now what I'm saying is I'd back up and look at this through strategic eyes and say, all right, I can keep it. It's no sin. And I'm, but what I'm doing is I'm investing a million dollars into dirt. If I'm going to do that, then I'm going to get my house paid off pretty quick. And then we're going to turn our attention to getting the 400 knocked out and be sitting here debt free with by then a piece of ground that's worth $2 million and a house that's worth what? What's it worth today? Your house? No, $350-ish, probably $3.75. Yeah, so it's going to be $400,000, $600,000 by then. So, I mean, you're going to have $2 million worth of dirt, $600,000 worth of house, and then you're going to be loading up your mutual funds in your retirement, and you're going to be looking at $5,000 net worth in about a four to five-year period of time by leaning into these things and thinking about it strategically if you keep the farm. If you don't, then you pay off the house, you take the money.

Starting point is 01:40:05 You do the exact same thing, but you do it with different investment vehicles. So either one of those is fine. But if you keep it, it comes with the pledge with the two of you to not beans and rice, but to be intentional and systematic about clearing the house pretty quick and then clearing the farm pretty quick after that. No more debt. If you're going to keep it in five years. All this paid for it. I have a couple million dollars worth of real estate, which is not.

Starting point is 01:40:29 More like three or four million dollars worth real estate in five years. Yeah. Yeah, that's where we're headed. And that's if you keep it. And it's obviously gone. I mean, I thought it's. It's been a minute, but I thought I read that tech companies are looking at some of these places in the north that were old Rust Belt places where they can go in and buy dirt cheap and put out big ecosystems of whatever. It could just be farmlands doing that.

Starting point is 01:40:51 And it might just be good dirt for farmland. Yeah, who knows. I mean, Ohio, it's, you know, so I don't know. But I do not have personal knowledge of that marketplace. I don't either, but. So it's just interesting. I'm so happy for you that you made all that money on it and that you have this problem. It's awful.

Starting point is 01:41:08 I have a strange attachment to dirt. So my answers are never rational. Yeah, mine too. Brett is in Wisconsin. Hey, Brett, what's up? Hey, Dave. Really great to talk to you. Thanks for chatting with me.

Starting point is 01:41:22 Sure. So I've got, I kind of came late to the baby steps. I don't think I've been terribly irresponsible with money, but, you know, I was running out at the end of each month and thinking I make too much money to be broke, as you say. And so I've kind of started doing your program. We've gotten on a budget. Have you really?

Starting point is 01:41:42 So you've every dollar's written down before the month and your wife and you agree on it? Yes. Wow. How'd that feel? Well, it felt better for me than for her, I think. But, you know, knowing that there's money left over at the end of each month has been great for my peace of mind. I know that. So we've stopped using credit cards.

Starting point is 01:42:02 We never carried credit card balances, but, you know, everything came in, went right to them, right? So where I'm at right now is I've got a lot. A lot of retirement savings, and, you know, my only debt is probably car loan and home loan. And I'm trying to get on the path. Is it really okay to stop saving for retirement completely? Yeah, for a short period of time and knock that car out. Absolutely. That's what we teach people, and it works.

Starting point is 01:42:27 You're not talking about doing it long, five or six months, and you're clear. You don't have a car payment anymore, no more credit card debt. We now have a plan. Me and my wife are in agreement. Sounds like her vote needs to count a little bit more in this budgeting, like you kind of crammed it down her throat a little bit. But, yeah, other than that, it sounds like you kind of got it going.

Starting point is 01:42:43 It takes a little while to get a momentum moving off of this, though. Our scripture today, John 8 and 12, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of the world. Jordan Peterson said, it is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world, a handyman's dream, if there ever was one, is to fix yourself. So most of you are aware that we record this show or do this show live on the glass here at Ramsey

Starting point is 01:43:25 from 1 to 4 Central Time Monday through Friday on the lobby in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. And then various platforms pick up what I'm saying. saying right now hours from now by the time you hear that it will be old news but moments ago Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at in Utah at Utah Valley University and I don't know a lot of the details at this point other than apparently it was a long long distance shot and not super long a couple hundred yards but it wasn't up close and personal and um um um um But in the days and weeks to come, I'm sure all the sordid issues of mental illness that are associated with a shooter will come out and all those kinds of things. It just takes my breath.

Starting point is 01:44:22 I mean, I know Charlie, I knew Charlie, and I had spoken at some of his events. And he's brilliant and a firebrand, for sure, a lightning rod. and brilliant in debate, 31 years old, two little girls. I mean, and they're like four years old and under, and same as my little grandkids, same age as them. And many, many, many of the people that we speak with in leadership events and pastors across the country. a lot of us run in the same circle. And we've been, you know, again, I've been at his events with pastor, friends of mine, and leadership, friends of mine that teach and so forth in that.

Starting point is 01:45:14 And so I had many, many, many conversations with him. And this is just sickening. I can't breathe. I mean, it's just, I can't think anything except about a little wife that's 30 years old and a couple of little kids because somebody has decided that their political views are more important than anything else and decide to put a bullet in somebody. And it's just simultaneously angry and sad and rage inside my chest right now. And I'm just, I feel just sick.

Starting point is 01:45:56 I think I'm going to throw up. But, yeah, certainly we will be praying for his family. and we will also be in touch with all of them and like everybody else in America will be trying to help them out and do anything for them that we can to try to just deal with the results of some animal that is some mentally deranged moron that's out of control and this is just the result of people

Starting point is 01:46:32 have lost the ability to have a good argument without losing their minds. You can't argue your political point. You can't argue a point of view. You can't say that someone's right or someone's wrong without somebody losing their dad-gum mind in this culture right now. And it's just, it's plain dangerous. And it's not going to end well if we don't get some of these folks under control. Yeah. I'm just going to get home and hug my daughter. Yeah. Amen. My daughter I got a little girl home. Yep. And, yeah, that's all I'm going to say.

Starting point is 01:47:10 Yeah, you just, you can't have enough security to offset this level of crazy. Yeah. It's impossible. I mean, we're careful with our appearances, places, and, you know, do what we can to have reasonable wisdom about the exposure you take when you step into public and have an opinion. But, and obviously he's a lot, was a lot more controversial than us where we stir up enough controversy and let people hate us, but nothing like he had. It was the stuff he got was over the top. And, but it just, he's sitting there in the middle of a bunch of college students having a discussion.

Starting point is 01:47:51 Well, it goes back to it. Willing to engage today's societal events and, you know, cultural arguments. It just goes back to your saying earlier, though, man. it's it's there's disagreements and there's vehement disagreements and there's anger and there's frustration then when you go home there's a dad of two little girls and if you can't make that separation man you need to go get some help because it's a it's a i don't know i i i got too much experience showing up to that and having to call that wife and i'm i i don't have it you've done enough you've done enough trauma cases yeah i need to get home and hug my wife and hug my

Starting point is 01:48:30 daughter and be really grateful that I've got that that privilege today you know it is interesting you're talking about that um you know you go back to the number of um relationships families and otherwise that were fractured by the argument over nuanced arguments about COVID and they still don't speak to each other still don't see their grandkids because one of them wanted a mask and one of them didn't and and so they made they made little things the major things and uh or i can't speak to them because they voted for trump or they didn't vote for trump 30% of the calls into my show are adult kids who were cut off by their parents or parents calling in saying our adult kids have cut us off just divided

Starting point is 01:49:18 for whatever reason for whatever yeah it's like cancel culture and inside homes yeah inside families yeah and inside neighborhoods and inside whatever so Yeah. You can't, you know, you can't seem to separate the level of importance between the father of two little kids and your little pissant argument that you've got. Or even a big argument, but it's, it's not. It's not a pissant in comparison to him being there for his kids. That's right. That's right. You know, and weighing against that, there's not an argument you've got that weighs against that. Zero.

Starting point is 01:49:52 No one. No one. Yeah. I don't care about, you know, you can talk about whatever flag you want to fly. I don't care. but you can't you know that that's just it's just ridiculous because uh none of your little argument at the end of that trigger is actually um valid at that point it's um you've invalidated the whole thing yeah but i want it's a really really sad thing i want to not talk about that guy i want to talk about go home and hug your kids and go home and and um say a prayer for the kirk family yeah i don't care who you are don't care what you believe i don't care what you vote for Say a prayer for a family that just lost her dad and lost her husband.

Starting point is 01:50:32 And if you've got nonsense in your family, make the phone call today. It's too short, man. It's too short. Yeah. It's too short. Make amends. Make the phone call, man. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:50:42 I don't disagree. I don't disagree at all. There's some lessons you can take from this. It's just here for a vapor. But, yeah, that was a violence has struck out again. You know, there it is. And sometimes it's little children in a school. and sometimes it's other things.

Starting point is 01:51:00 But in every case, it's somebody that's trying to take power into their own hands. And this is, it's really at a really critical time. It's scary. It's heartbreaking. This nation needs prayer. And we surely do. Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, we'll pledge to you guys that will be in touch with them.

Starting point is 01:51:21 And obviously, anything that we can do, there's nothing we can do. But anything we can do, we will. And the thing we all can do is to try to be just a tiny bit better as a result of our hearts being broken and just back up about three steps and reconsider how, how, how to manifest some of these opinions without being said, dead gun violent about it. It's pretty simple. Civil, civil discourse. Wow. What an idea. And, you know, let's just label somebody and then vilify them.

Starting point is 01:51:56 And that's just awful. Just awful. Well, we don't have that kind of thing on this show very often because we don't cover current events, but Charlie was a friend of mine, so it pretty much sucks. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace.

Starting point is 01:52:20 And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.

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