The Ramsey Show - App - Driving a Beater Can Be a Blessing (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

Take control of your money once and for all. The Dave Ramsey Show offers up straight talk on life and money. Millions listen in as callers from all walks of life learn how to get out of debt and start building for the future. Check out the fifth most downloaded podcast of 2018!   Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE   Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Some of you aren't working this week. You've got Fourth of July disease, and it's causing you to miss time at work, but that's okay. We'll definitely all celebrate together on Thursday, and we appreciate you being with us through the week here. And, hey, if you're out on the beach, out on the lake, or wherever you are, we're all happy for you right now. We're in here in the cool. We're not in the sun, and we're going to help you by answering your questions. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Now, here's something fun.

We have got a really exciting project in the works right now and what we're doing is we're collecting your stories about your student loans. Now we've gotten some amazing stories about how student loans have impacted your life and usually that means negatively right and now we're looking for stories of those who went to college completely debt-free. How did you do that? If you went to college, if you went to a four-year school, a two-year school, whatever you did, and you did it debt-free, we want to hear from you. We want to hear your story. We want to know what you did because a lot of people believe that can't be done.

That's part of the message right now as the political rhetoric starts heating up around this. Or if you had a lot of student loan debt and you paid it all off, you're one of those millennials that's done debt-free screams in here. And they're a very impressive group of young people that have just said,

okay, $110,000 won't do for me. I'm going to get that paid off. And they work their butts off and they do all kinds of things, and you've paid off your student loans. And you don't have to be a millennial, but if you had a lot of student loan debt and you're clear of it, or if you went to school debt-free, we're working on a huge student loan project right now.

It's time someone addressed this, and definitely nobody's in a better position than the Ramsey organization to do that. Email us your story either way debt-free college or paid off your student loan debt a bunch of it and email it to us at dave on air at dave ramsey.com put student loans in the subject line and we'll get right back to you dave on air one word no spaces no dashes dave on air at dave ramsey.com starting this hour off is kim in dallas hi kim welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how are you better than i deserve what's up well um my parents are in their uh late 60s and my mom is about to retire my dad is uh only getting Social Security right now. And my mom said that she's about to get her TSP, and she said her income will be only about $2,000 a month after she retires.

And my parents are kind of wanting the kids, there's four of us, to kind of help them in their retirement, and we don't really know what to do. Okay. Well, the first thing I do when I help anyone is I want to know how long the help is going to have to be there, how much the help is, and why. If you're asking for my money, you're also asking for my interference into your life. Okay. And so we're going to do a budget, Mom.

Right. And we're going to look at your Social Security income and Dad's Social Security income, and we're going to look at your TSP, how much is it, and what's it invested in, and why is it only creating $2,000 a month? Maybe we need to move it to a SmartVestor Pro, get it better invested. It'll create $3,000 a month. Okay. You get to take my advice if you take my money.

That's true. You don't get one without the other. Okay. Okay, so then when we lay all of that out, if there is still a need, and you look at it and you go, well, I mean, there's not a need if we sell your stupid $50,000 car. You know, I don't know if they've got a $50,000 car, but you see what I'm saying. When you look at it and you go, okay, I'm willing to participate here, but if I'm writing checks, you're going to be on an austere budget. I'm not writing checks for you to live the life of luxury because you didn't save money.

Okay. Is that fair fair that's very fair so you do not have a moral obligation to give your parents money but i i do have an emotional obligation to investigate should i and under what circumstances should i and um you know if you figure out it's a thousand dollars a month really really makes their life a good considerable amount better. They can actually stay in the current home and, uh, they, they have a little bit of wiggle room in their budget. And each of you want to chip in $250 a month perpetually till they die. Then we're going to do that, but we're going to be living on a budget. We're going to investigate your expenditures. We're going to investigate your investments and we're going to get all of it working very efficiently for you and then whatever all that won't cover then we'll talk about chipping

in but chipping in blindly no not a chance right okay that makes sense because you might be adding to a problem rather than being a blessing okay you could be buying a drunk a drink is what i'm saying that's true yeah okay we don't know do we dig into it so i'm always amazed at what i find when i dig into these things that people panic with knowing only a few of the numbers when we put all the numbers together all the panic starts to go away and i think that's where you are so hey it's cool that you guys are willing to do that, but it's going to involve some time. Actually, really good generosity takes more time than sloppy generosity. Sloppy generosity is I respond to somebody's guilt trip or society's guilt trip,

and I just throw money at something and walk away, and I don't think about the results of it. That's sloppy generosity. It's still generosity. You're still giving money to someone think about the results of it. That's sloppy generosity. It's still generosity. You're still giving money to someone that purportedly needs it. But real generosity involves due diligence and getting involved and being a blessing and a help to them, adding wisdom to the equation. And that's proper generosity, and that's the only way our Family Foundation does it. We don't give to people or organizations that don't abide by the things that we teach.

That would be inconsistent. Why would we do that? Oh, you're cold-hearted. No, I'm a good steward. I'm a good manager. Melanie is in Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Melanie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. This is exciting. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can i help um so my husband and i are finally getting our wills in order or starting to create a will and we both we have an adult child and two minor children so we didn't know if we should create a trust um for the minors and, you know, just give an inheritance to the adult, or if it's just better to, you know, create two different—I'm not really sure the best way to handle— What we did was we had a trust that was formed only upon both of our deaths,

which is the only time the minor children would be in jeopardy, right? If you died, your husband was there. He'd take care of the kids. Vice versa, right? But if both of us died, the portion that's going to take care of the needs of the minor children is going to go into a trust that's formed upon both deaths. Okay? Okay. And you don't form it until then.

It's an instruction of the will to form a family trust at that point. And you can put instructions on how that trust is to be managed for the good of the littles. And I have a primary obligation of the littles. It's not an even split. I'm first going to make sure the littles are taken care of. Then we'll deal with the adults if there's any money left. But if it takes everything you've got to take care of the babies, the adults are supposed to take care of themselves. That's the way it is.

We take care of the babies, the ones that are minors, in other words. But then beyond that, you figure out what it is. And then in that trust, you can dictate whatever you want it to say. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We've been voted one of the best places to work in Nashville 11 times. You want to know how we do it? Well, our team has been using LinkedIn jobs for years to find the best people from all over the country to come and help us change lives. Think about it. LinkedIn has more than 600 million active members.

I'm talking about people who come to LinkedIn to make connections, grow their careers, and discover new job opportunities. In fact, 90% of LinkedIn users are open to new opportunities, but not actively scanning job boards. This means LinkedIn Jobs gives you access to an entirely different demographic. Don't wait. One hire can change the direction of your company. Post a job today at LinkedIn.comcom slash ramsey and get 50 off your first job post that's linkedin.com slash ramsey terms and conditions apply Thank you for joining us, America. Paul's with us in Washington, D.C.

Hey, Paul. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So me and my wife are getting a little worried about our student loan payoff plan. So currently we're looking to get out that within the next year, two year and a half,

and we owe about $95,000. Basically, we're getting worried that if we pay it all off and, let's say, a Democratic hopeful like Elizabeth Warren gets elected in 2020, and we miss out on the student loan forgiveness bailout, it seems like we would have wasted a lot of money. But at the same time, we're thinking that this is another empty promise, and we should just continue paying off our debt.

So that's basically the question, is should we just revert to making the minimum payments and kind of hope that something like this happens, or should we just continue bailing ourselves out and then push on and babysit three, four, and five? Well, the way you do critical thinking on a flow chart is you look at percentage probabilities and the percentage probability of the next thing and the percentage probability of the next thing, which gets you down to what the percentage probability of the actual event is. So to start with, you'd have to get Elizabeth Warren elected. Percentage probability.

Okay? Okay. About as likely right now as nothing happening not a chance okay my opinion but uh people said that about trump too and he's the president so who knew you know uh it's anything's possible in today's climate who knew but she's a fringe player all the way way on the left and uh those of us out here in the fruited plain, not a chance. Okay? Okay. But, I mean, she could get elected.

It could happen. There could be enough extreme lefties to put her in there. It's possible. She's brilliant. I've gotten to do some things with her over the years, and I really think a lot of her as a person, by the way, just as an aside. I'm not just trashing her. But I don't agree with her very often, but she's very, very smart and very articulate. So she's going to be a fun person to be having the election cycle for

sure, because she's quick and she's tough. So it'll be fun. Anyway, aside from that, once she gets elected, she does not get to decide about student loan forgiveness as the president. You realize that? That would have to be what's known as an act of Congress. And, you know, around places like Tennessee, when we say something so difficult it's not going to happen, we go, well, that's like an act of Congress. You know what I'm saying? You ever heard that phrase used that way?

Like, it's very difficult and seldom happens. And so let's say percentage of her getting elected times percentage of them actually passing this while you're still alive. Pay off your student loans, dude. Don't wait on them to fix your life. You're going to be dead. All righty. Does that make any sense? Yeah, it does.

It does. We thought it over, and we were like, all right, we're just going to continue doing it because of chances of her being elected or somebody else. Well, and then getting it through Congress. Exactly right. If it gets through Congress. Yeah. And we were like, all right, we're just going to pile up a bunch of interest. Let's just knock it out.

And as Trump has discovered, being president doesn't mean you can get stuff through Congress. Exactly. That's right. He's just looking at Pelosi, and she's going not happening right i mean he's just completely he's stalled i mean the stuff he can get done is is just gone to nothing so it's a process the checks and balances in our governmental system pretty much grinds uh progress to a halt uh carly fiorini's doing some decent discussion of this, by the way, is that people spend more time in Washington, not you, but the politicians spend

more time in Washington trying to get re-elected than they do actually getting things done. Consequently, almost nothing actually gets done. So I really, I'm pretty cynical, can you tell? I would not wait on them. I would fix your own life. That's what I would do. Michael's in Los Angeles. Hey, Michael, how are you? Mike, I'm doing good, Dave. I would fix your own life. That's what I would do. Michael's in Los Angeles.

Hey, Michael, how are you? Michael, I'm doing good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a question for you. I got hired about 90 days for a car dealership to build a commercial truck site. They haven't had a commercial truck manager for about 20 years, so that side of the business has been dead.

I have a background in trucks. I've been selling trucks for about six years. so that side of the business has been dead. I have a background in trucks. I've been selling trucks for about six years. However, I'm really, really nervous. There's times I get really, really excited about this position because it will allow me to take control and build it. But at the same time, it's like I'm really, really scared that I'm going to fail. And I have the back door open just in case it fails if I can go back to another commercial truck dealership. And I just wanted to get some advice on what to do, how to build this thing, because, I mean, I'm literally in control of this thing, and I'm really, really nervous. I've been here 90 days.

There's times that I'm really excited. There's times where I'm just freaked out thinking it's going to fail. And I just want to know what advice you would give me to build this department. Interesting. I would make sure that your new employer and you adjust your expectations that this is going to be very hard, and it's going to take a while. They have zero presence in your market. None. For 20 freaking years, no one in fleet buying thinks of this dealership.

You're starting from ground zero. It's almost as if you started a new dealership. Yeah, yeah, and I'm aware of that. And the great thing about this dealership is it's been around for many, many years. It's very well known in the community. It's been a community. And I noticed that I'm starting to get traction because in the past two weeks, I've done more quotes than I've done in the past 90 days.

I've built an inventory. I've bodied up some trucks. And in this area, there's a lot of landscape contractors, construction contractors that are driving by and seeing my dumps and they're stopping by and inquiring about it, which is kind of giving me some hope. But at the same time, I'm really nervous. Well, it's going to take twice as long, and it's going to cost twice as much,

and you're not the exception. And those are the three rules of business. Okay. Just give yourself some patience. You're a sales guy. You've even sold yourself. Yeah, I did. I sold myself.

They were really impressed with me. Yeah. No, I mean, you talked yourself into it. And then you talked them into it. And I'm telling you to go lower expectations in your own brain and lower expectations with them. And let's under-promise considerably and then have the fun of over-delivering. Gotcha. And that's also going to alleviate your personal fear. If you under-promise to yourself, but if you're like, I'm going to give this 90 days. If it didn't move it, I'm going back to the other way, then you've wasted your time.

It's going to take you a year to build a book of business here, don't you think? I believe so, and they're aware of it. They just extended my guarantee another 90 days. And you've been there how long? I didn't even have to ask. I brought it up to them. They said, oh, don't worry about it. How long have you been there?

We're extending it. 90 days. And they told me that they're extending it another 90 days. They told me we're aware that this manitakes time. Okay. All right. Probably more than you were. Okay.

All right. That's good. Because I think you're probably in a plum situation because they want this business bad enough that they've gone out and they brought in a superstar to run the thing for them. That tells us they're committed, right? And a guy who's got experience, a guy who knows what he's doing, that's you. But you have the, you know, the entrepreneur is the only person that can go from sheer terror to sheer exhilaration and back every 24 hours, right? That's what I feel every day.

Yeah. That makes you an entrepreneur. You're starting a new business within a business there. That's what I told my wife, and I said, you know, I hear Dave Ramsey telling people, you know, business owners and stuff like that, that you can go from sheer terror from night to day, and that's what I'm going through. Yeah, that's okay. That's a part of the process, and that will calm down as your income gets steady and as the book of business gets steady. But right now, you just started the thing on the back of a, you know,

we'll just use a metaphor, on the back of the pickup, right? You let down the tailgate and started a new business right there on the back. Right. And you know what? It may give you a lot of empathy for some of the guys that are starting something that are trying to buy trucks from you. Right. Yeah.

It may help you with your customers. But, yeah, you're going to do great. You're going to be fine. It is normal. You would be weird if you were playing in the traffic and you weren't scared. And, dude, you're playing in the traffic. I mean, you walk right out in the middle of the interstate and there's cars going by. If you weren't scared, that would make you strange.

And so you should be scared. Not terrified, not debilitated, not paralyzed. But you should be going uh not terrified not debilitated not paralyzed but you should be going whoa this is danger i've got to do some things to get rid of the danger i got to work like a maniac i got to make some sales i got to get some inventory on the lot to attract customers we got to get the word out in the construction community the subs all have to know me you need to be visiting you know job sites handing out cards driving a truck over there letting them look at your truck, all that kind of stuff. All the stuff you know how to do already to get the business in there, man.

But it's about leaving the cave, killing something, and dragging it home, and you're just the man to do it. You're going to be fine. You're going to do good. Way to go, Michael. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. You know, I get asked all the time, at what age should I buy life insurance? Let me be clear. If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance. I don't care if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever.

Your age is less important than your financial situation. If you have debt and a lack of savings, it makes no sense to risk your family's financial well-being based on the cost of a term life policy. Term life rates are just plain cheap, even if you're not in perfect health. And the best way to compare those rates is through Zander Insurance. Zander only sells the plans I recommend and shops among the top companies to find the best rates and the right

coverage for you. Call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. You got no excuse to put this off, folks. Bad things happen to people all the time, regardless of age. And it's your responsibility to deal with this. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Beth is with us in North Dakota. Hi, Beth. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. It's a pleasure to talk to you. You too. What's up? I am in needing some advice, of course. So I have a $2,000 loan out on my car and I just brought it into the shop and it needs $2,500 worth of repairs. And I have enough money to cover the repairs and then tackle my loan with a vengeance. And I'm just kind of wondering if I should not repair it or if I should get another car. What is the car worth if it were fixed?

Oh, probably less than $1,000. You do not spend $2,500 on a $1,000 car. Okie dokie. But then I have to take out another loan to get another vehicle. No, no. You said you have how much saved? I have $1,100 saved. Okay.

And you have a $2,000 loan on the car, right? Correct. Okay. And the car will sell for $1,000 probably even with repairs needed. Probably. I mean, it's got some body work done. Okay. Let's pretend that it sells for $900.

And you put your $1,100 with it, and your loan is paid off. Now you're debt-free. Okay? But you don't have a car. So let's keep talking. And I don't have a car. I know. I know.

I'm with you. Just keep talking. Okay. So what do you make? I make about $2,800 a month. Okay. All right. Do you have family around? Yes. Okay. Do you have family around?

Yes. Okay. Are you single? No. I mean, I have a boyfriend, but not married. Well, that's single. If you're not married, you're single. Then I am single.

I'm not talking about your social status. I'm talking about your legal arrangement. Okay. And you live on your own? Correct. Okay. All right. And you make $2,800, and you don't have a car.

How are we going to get you a car? How much other debt do you have? I have about $11,000 in credit cards, and that's it. Okay. And that's not including my car loan, but... Okay. So let's pretend that you sold your car and you took out a $2,000 loan to go buy another car. This time, though, it would be a $2,000 car, not a $1,000 car. Right.

You're still $2,000 in debt, but you've gotten rid of the junk. Mm-hmm. Junker, okay? Well, that's probably a break-even, except for we used up your $1,100. Right. I still probably do that. I mean, we're not going into debt

maybe a little bit further here. I don't like it. That's one way to do it. Have you got any way you could get a car to drive from your parents or anything for 30 days while you just worked your butt off and came up with a little bit of money? Yes, actually, there's a... Yes, i have plenty of people wanting me you know to use their vehicles and things like that but i'm just kind of fiercely independent and just want it done

well you're fiercely broke too yes exactly which is a good time not to be fiercely independent okay so i i had a guy loan me a car when i was broke and i'm about as fiercely independent as anybody you'll ever meet you might guess that right um and it really kind of was hard on me because the car was worse than any car i've ever owned in my life it was a 1978 cadillac with 478 000 miles on it and literally that's not an exaggeration the predominant color on the thing was bondo and the vinyl roof was torn loose so when you drove it it filled up there looked like a parachute on top of a bondo buggy this car was worth this car was worth about 400 dollars but he loaned it to me for a month and i drove that thing in deep humiliation

for a month. Cops were following me around, wondering to know why I was in that neighborhood with that car. I mean, it was unbelievably embarrassing. I hated to drive it to the church parking lot, so I parked it a block away and walked in. It was horrible. I drove that car for 10 years one month. That's how it felt. One month. The thing is, I do traveling with my job, and I do have a beater car that I could drive around to get myself back and forth to work.

Oh, I'm sorry. You have another car? What's that? You have another car? No. My dad has one that I could borrow, but it's like a $700 car. Well, you're driving a $1,000 car. What the crap does it matter?

See, here's the point. This does not need to be a way of life with you anymore. It needs to be a step to where this is over. Sell your car and pay it off. Borrow your dad's beater and save $2,000 in the next two months because you live on beans and rice, rice and beans, and you work three extra jobs. And you can save $1,000 a month. I want you to take six jobs.

I don't want you to have a life at all. Your boyfriend is not going to see you because you are going to be working. And then you will own a car that is twice as good as the car that you own two months from today, and you'll be debt-free except your credit card's on your way. That's what I did. I drove that Bondo buggy, and I saved $1,000, and I bought a $1,000 car. Four months later, I bought a $4,000 car, and I drove that $4,000 car almost a year. And then, you know, I've never looked back.

If you drive like no one else later, you can drive like no one else. But you have to break this cycle. You cannot go back to doing things the way everybody else does them because it sucks. It's gotten you where you are. Sell your car. Drive your dad's beater for two months and save $2,000 during that two months. You can do it. I want you on a tight budget with the EveryDollar budgeting app.

Download it. It's free. And I want you to do no life during the two months. You're not allowed to do anything because all you're doing is saving up money so you can give your dad his precious beater back and you can get your pride back. That's what you're doing. It's exactly what I did. I'm not asking you to do anything I didn't do. I drove a car worse than the one your dad is loaning you i promise you and it was a blessing and and the guy that gave it

that loaned it to me for a short period of time was a was a good friend he's passed away since and i will always think fondly of him for blessing me with that piece of crap because it changed my life i was driving a jaguar a Jaguar and had to sell it two days before it got repoed. And then I end up driving this Bondo buggy. But I had said during that time, I'm never borrowing money again. And you know what I drive now? Anything I want. And some people don't like that.

And I don't really care. That's where you're headed, kiddo. You can do this. You call me back if you need some help because you've got a tough two months ahead of you. But this is what you should do. Kara is with us in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Kara. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I was calling to get some advice. My husband and I are going to be having a life change starting in January. I'm going back to go to CRNA school in January. So I'm currently working at an RN.

Sorry, you're going to what kind of school? CRNA, nurse anesthesia. Oh, good. Good for you. Wow. Yes. So I'm working as an RN right now. But in the program, it's really discouraged not to work, and it's pretty impossible.

Yeah, it's a really tough curriculum. So most people don't work. It's a really tough curriculum. How are you going to pay for it? Yes. So that's what I was calling about. So my husband and I have saved up. We're $8,000 away from having enough for tuition and fees. But we also have about $ six thousand dollars in debt currently um twenty four thousand of that is in student loans and then about twelve thousand is on cars um and so i was calling to get your advice on if we should go ahead and pay off the cars no um

you should pay for your education or you should pay for your education you should put your debts and you should put your debt snowball in your total money makeover on hold and you cash flow your education and barely pay all your payments and you tread water till you get that school done because your income's going to go up your income's going to go up fourfold when you do this right you'll be able to do anything you want to do in 20 minutes as soon as you pass your boards on this right i mean you're gonna make bank girl you know what this is i mean you know what they make right investment i'm sorry yeah yeah they make good money yeah it's very good very good return at least double maybe triple what you're making now right yeah and you're going to see you're making money right back

pay cash and focus on paying cash. Pay cash for your college. And once you've got that goal accomplished, then whenever that is, you want to start the next goal, which is start your debt snowball or start your total money makeover baby steps at that point. But just put everything on freeze. Pay minimum payments. Sell everything in sight. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Get yourself through that school, girl.

That's a great curriculum. You're going to make some serious bank. I love it. Good upgrade. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. John is in Virginia Beach. Hey, John, welcome to the show.

Dave, how you doing? Better than I deserve, man. What's up? deserve, man. What's up? Hey, man. So one of your previous podcasts, you were talking to someone about investing. So me and my wife are on baby step number two. And temporarily stopped contributing. Good.

But I still want my TSP to accrue interest. I switched it from the G fund to the L fund. And I heard they said something about the L fund, and then you recommended something like the CSRI fund. I was wondering what your thoughts were on that. Well, the L fund, the design of it is to manage the mix for you. Okay. And I don't agree with their design. That's why I don't recommend it because i don't

think it's going to maximize what you want basically the tsp the only thing that's completely performing in the whole thing is the c fund c fund and it's killing it it's been wonderful basically the c fund is a common stock fund it's based on the s&p 500 index and it has done about what the s&p has done and it's outperformed everything else in there by far. Nothing's even close. And so anytime you water down anything from the sea with that, you know, like with the ale, they mix in other stuff, obviously. It's a mixture, and based on your life age and how far you have to retirement,

that kind of thing, they change your mix for you is what they're doing okay and that's what i don't recommend now i still do not put a hundred percent in the c because i i just like diversification more than that and so my recommendation has been 80 c 10 s which is your small company funds very volatile volatile, very wild, but it's performed pretty well. It's just all over the map. It's just a roller coaster ride, right? And then the I plan, which is international and has underperformed. But you want some company stocks that are not just American because there's some wonderful companies around the world that make a lot of money,

and you get to tap into those. But the I is the worst of the three. And by the way, when I tell people to do growth, growth in income, aggressive growth in the international, the international is the same thing, that category in a traditional 401K, and it's the worst performing of those four. But you still keep it in the mix because the diversification pays off over time so anyway i do 80 c 10 and 10 on the s and i and that's all i do i would not do the l because i don't want them controlling your investments i want you to control your investments and i want

you to think through it so good question thanks for calling in today's question comes from maria in connecticut she says my husband and i are in our late 30s we've had multiple non-profit jobs at each one we've contributed to 403b or 401k accounts even after we left those jobs we simply allowed the accounts to stay open and as they were working there but should we be doing something different are we supposed to consolidate them into one somehow? I would get with a SmartVestor Pro and roll them all to IRAs. They have to be separate accounts because they're separate accounts now, but they can be invested the same way to where your statement looks like you have basically one account. And you can outperform what you've got in those options, and you can manage it a lot closer. I always, that's a big word, always recommend you take your 401k, your 403b with you when you leave

by rolling it to a direct transfer IRA. There's no taxes in doing that. You get control. You've got better options in the open market for mutual funds than you do inside a company plan. You have more control. And did I mention you have more control? Ashley is with us in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Ashley.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave, for taking my call. I appreciate it. Certainly. How can I help? So I'm thinking way far ahead. I have a 16-month-old, and I'm trying to start figuring out how to introduce money to him because he is getting into the toddler years, and I don't know when to introduce it. It's my first baby, so I just wanted to see what you recommend.

Good for you, Mom. Well done. Well, what we did at the Ramsey House was we just tied teaching money to teaching life. You're going to teach this one responsibility. You're going to teach him to do his homework, brush his teeth, comb his hair, wear a belt, all those kinds of things, right? I mean, we're going to teach the little guy how to be a person. That's your job as a parent is to give him life skills. Money is one of those life skills. But the fun thing is it ties to character qualities that you're trying to build inside your child.

Integrity, work ethic, the ability to delay pleasure these are character qualities of people who succeed at anything so it's a great teaching area to work in so i just make sure you don't get overzealous and and keep it calm and age appropriate by that i mean the smaller they are there's just lots and lots of grace. So let me give you an example. He's 16, so he's walking and chattering maybe just a little bit, right? Yeah. 16 months, okay? Okay, so have you had him pick up any of his own toys yet?

We're working on it. Okay, that's generally what happens with that age, right? It's a toddler. Oh, yeah. So at our house, when they were that age, if they put one toy in the box while we sang clean up, clean up, clean up, put your toys away, or whatever that little song was, right? And we put the rest of the toys in the box, and they put one or two toys in, we called that a huge touchdown.

That's a success when you're 16 months, agreed? Oh, yeah. And lots of praise, and look at you, You're the best room cleaner in the world. You just cleaned up all these toys. I'm so proud of you. Meanwhile, you did 90% of it. Agreed? Yeah.

Oh, yes. So fast forward a year from now, that's probably still about where you're going to be, only maybe you're picking up a little more percentage, but you're still in there helping, and you're still praising and praising and praising you might a year from now give them a dollar and wad it up and put it in a clear jar so it takes up more room in the clear jar right that's why we wadded it up because they're very visual when they're small right that's the kind of stuff we did and so it was like all i was trying to do is real early i'm not sending them to the salt mines at three years old okay but real early i'm trying to teach work ethic and i'm beginning to teach the emotional connection between work and money

i meet 54 year olds who don't have that emotional connection they're still trying to figure out how they don't have to work you have to work that's a life skill that moms and dads should teach their kids how to work and how to work hard when this country was at its greatest people grew up on the farm and they had to work and had to work hard and then when they went to any other career they knew how to work and they knew how to work hard and most of us including me do not have an agrarian background and we've lost a little something in that process. But I still taught my kids to work.

I still taught them to work hard. I was still taught to work. I still taught them to work hard, even though I grew up in a subdivision. Okay? So you can do that. And, again, we're not trying to send them to the salt mines when they're three years old, but by the time they're 16, I want to see them breaking a sweat. Because they're useless otherwise.

If all they know how to do is play game boy on the tv or whatever it is nintendo and eat doritos you're a child abuser you didn't give your kid any life skills yeah they need to be doing something because there ain't no jobs out there well there's a few jobs for gamers but not many it's not a career field okay so they need to have something they need to know how to work that's the thing and then once they learn to work then as they get a little bit older let's say we're up to five or six years old now. This takes a while. We're not going to be too harsh.

This is a lot of grace with the babies, okay? Mainly 99% encouragement. But by the time they're six or so, we're probably going to break this down. We did at our house into three envelopes. You work, you get paid for specific chores. You put a chore chart on the refrigerator, and you got a dollar for five different chores that week. At the end of the week, you got your $5 if you did them all. But you weren't on allowance at our house.

Allowance is welfare. We don't do allowance. You're on commission. Work, get paid. Don't work, don't get paid. By the way, everybody who has a job is on commission. Try not going to work for four weeks. See if they pay you. Nobody gets paid, but they don't go to work. Don't get paid. By the way, everybody who has a job is on commission. Try not going to work for four weeks. See if they pay you.

Mm-hmm. Nobody gets paid, but they don't go to work. So you do your work. You get paid. Now, once you get the $5 in your hand, then we spread it out into three envelopes. A giving envelope, because we want to teach generosity. Ooh, there's a great character quality you want your kids to have. Oh, and then we want to put some in the saving envelope so they can save up and buy their first car.

And then we want to put some in their spending envelope so you can teach them how to do wise and controlled and mature spending, not frivolous, impulsive, crazy spending. If you can teach your kid how to save, give, work, and spend wisely, you have been a rock star parent. I'll send you the book called Smart Money, Smart Kids. It teaches parents how to do just that. Rachel Cruz and I wrote it.

It was the number one bestseller. My gift to you. Thanks for calling in, Mom. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.