The Ramsey Show - App - Education Is a Better Investment Than Real Estate (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

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Starting point is 00:00:10 Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
Starting point is 00:00:28 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. Thanks for joining us. My co-host today, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, and my daughter, Rachel Cruz, is with me, answering your questions at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jenny starts us off in Georgia. Hi, Jenny. How are you? Hi, Dave. Great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. My bottom line question is this.
Starting point is 00:01:10 We have an outstanding principal of about $78,000 on what was originally a $650,000 mortgage, and we have a deferred balance, which is tax-free of $130,000. We're paying interest on... Okay, I'm sorry. You have a deferred balance. What are you talking about? Yes. During the bad times, you know, when people were walking away from their mortgages,
Starting point is 00:01:39 we worked a deal with our mortgage company. Rather than walking away from our mortgage and paying for it, they agreed to take $130,000 off of our then probably $500,000. You're breaking up. I'm going to put you on hold until we can get a good line where I can hear you. I'm sorry. All right. Chelsea's with us in Utah.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have a question. So I live in an apartment, and it's about $1,300 a month. And I'm wondering if I should stop my debt snowball and save up like $2,000 to get a different apartment, like the deposit
Starting point is 00:02:27 and the first month's rent. I found an apartment that was like $800 a month. So it'd be saving us like $500 a month. Should I do that or stay where I'm at? No, I mean, if I were you, Chelsea, I would definitely pause Baby Step 2 and go ahead and and save up for that uh first and last month's down payment or i'm sorry uh rent for the apartment because obviously you're going to be saving five hundred dollars a month and i consider this within your four walls so food shelter utilities transportation making sure that those are covered first and foremost and that would be part of that four walls so pausing baby step two to save up those those rents, yeah,
Starting point is 00:03:06 would definitely be the way I would go. Yeah, what's your household income? We are at like $48 a year right now. Yeah, you definitely need to do this. Yeah, because that rent's killing you, isn't it? It is, yeah. Yeah, that's why you were solutioning on that. So good, good for you.
Starting point is 00:03:24 Absolutely. Rachel's exactly right. Yes, go ahead and do that. Hey, great question. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Let's see if we can get Jenny back up. Hi, Jenny. Are you still there?
Starting point is 00:03:35 Hey, Dave. Yes, I'm here. Much clearer. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. Okay. So during the downtimes, the mortgage company said they were going to forgive $130,000 or what? No, they would give us the $130,000 interest-free.
Starting point is 00:03:53 And so that money, we are not paying any interest on the $130,000. We are paying $5.5 interest on the roughly $78,000 balance. However, once we pay the $78,000 off, of course, the $130,000 is due right away. Now, we have the money to pay it off. All of it? Yes. $200,000? Yes.
Starting point is 00:04:17 Do it. Even though my husband is 65 and we may be moving from here in a couple of years. When you move, there will be this magical thing that happens at the closing. They will give you all the money out of the house. Okay. I guess the reason we're gun shy is we had a lot we paid off just before the downturn, and we paid the lot off, $750,000. And then, of course, a year later, we sold it for $30,000. So this is why we're a little shy.
Starting point is 00:04:46 We know typically you say always paying mortgage off. How did you owe $750,000 on a lot worth $30,000? Well we did not owe it. We paid cash for it and then the market tanked. That's more than tanked. I've never heard of a lot going from 750 to 30. Well, it happened, Dave. It sure did. It was down the panhandle of Florida near Rosemary Beach area. Oh, Swamp Land in Florida. Rosemary Beach area. Now it's back.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Okay, and now it's back. Yeah, you're screwing around with a resort property, which will get you hammered. Your house is not the same thing. Your house is more predictable than that you don't think that's going to happen to your house and i don't think that's going to happen well she's saying that they may be moving soon so with everything that you're seeing though and i know but just everything you're seeing in the market with the pandemic the the economy everything that's going where where where do you see the real estate markets continuing to go because it stayed
Starting point is 00:05:41 pretty steady through this whole thing actually it spiked up yeah what we're seeing with our with our real estate elps is and they're about is the houses are selling faster and they're going up in value it's going more what would you i'm not sure exactly why but they are well i knew in nashville it was because it's always doing that but i didn't know it's nationwide i mean there's pockets where it's not depending on how shut down things are i mean new york's gonna lose a depending on how shut down things are i mean new york's gonna lose a ton of value they're losing a half million people are gonna move out of there because they've lost their dead gum minds uh on crime issues and on tax issues and
Starting point is 00:06:16 governmental issues and everything else and people are evacuating that island but um but other than that i mean if you don't have something like that going on, everywhere else in... Because her hesitation is because in 08, they feel like they got in a mess real estate-wise. So I think she said, because we're going to be moving soon, she's fearful of that. You owe the money either way. You still owe the money.
Starting point is 00:06:36 It doesn't change. Yes, yeah. But for confidence for you, Jenny, to know this is what the market's doing, and no matter what, you're going to owe that money. So go ahead and get that asset in. I would be done with it. But I don't think it equates to your lot story. It's not the same paragraph.
Starting point is 00:06:55 So, hey, good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brandon is with us in Colorado. Hi, Brandon. How are you? I'm doing Hi, Brandon. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. How are you? Good. How can we help?
Starting point is 00:07:10 Yeah, I had a question for you. Just started listening to you maybe three weeks ago and getting focused on this money management. And my wife and I recently got married in April, and we are expecting our first kid in January. Yay! And thank you, thank you. Great blessing. And so my question for you is, we have student loan debt. It's our only debt, and it's around $64,000.
Starting point is 00:07:39 And with the holding off on the student loan payment until October, we've been stockpiling cash. And so right now we have about $50,000 plus our $1,000 emergency fund. So my question is, should we pay that total off in October with a baby on the way or hold off and just keep paying the minimum payments until after we settle with the baby? What's the balance? It's $64,000. Okay. All right.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Well, Brandon, if I were you guys, I would just hold the cash, wait until baby comes, mom's okay, and then write a check, pay off the student loans when the baby comes. Yeah, you're going to be able to pay the whole thing off, and it's going to cost you a tiny little bit of interest to be in a good cash position with the baby on the way. Sure does relax things to have $50,000, $60,000 laying around when stuff like that's going on. So congratulations, sir. Well done. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Most people's money problems come from not paying attention.
Starting point is 00:08:58 That's why before I spend a dime of my money on something, I do the research and I make sure it's going to live up to what it claims. Recently, I got a great pair of sunglasses from a company called Shady Rays. When you're looking for sunglasses, it feels like your options are limited. Name brand sunglasses cost too much and the cheap knockoffs are ugly and they don't really protect your eyes. Discovering Shady Rays is a game changer. With Shady Rays, you can count on premium sunglasses that protect your eyes and get this they're affordable they give people the best overall value in sunglasses they also replace your shades with a brand new pair if you lose or break them from day one of your purchase plus they offer an exclusive for ramsey show listeners now, you can grab most polarized pairs for just $28 at ShadyRays.com with the promo code Dave
Starting point is 00:09:50 to get $20 off your first pair of Shady Rays. Thanks for joining us, America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, my co-host on the air today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brock is with us in Nebraska. Hey, Brock, how are you? Hi, Dave and Rachel. It's an honor to be speaking with you both. You too.
Starting point is 00:10:33 What's up? Hey, so I'm 18 years old. I make about $30,000 a year. I save about 50% of my paycheck into a regular savings account, and then I have a little bit I'm investing, about $200 a month. And I'm interested in investing in real estate, so I'm not sure when is a good time to start that process. The other thing I want to add is I'm also interested in becoming a professional pilot, so I'm cash-flowing my pilot's licenses right now. And then I'm also working on a fallback career, which would be a volunteer firefighter getting my 1 and 2 license
Starting point is 00:11:16 and then also EMT training. So I'm kind of just trying to navigate this next season and how to get started in real estate. I love real estate, but I want you to finish your career goals first. The money you're spending on the pilot training or on the EMT training is going to give you more money back than real estate will give you. Okay. Real estate is a wonderful investment, but education is a better investment. Okay, awesome. And then my other question is, for buying a house, when would be a good time
Starting point is 00:11:52 to do that at my stage, or would you recommend renting? What's the time frame there? I mean, Brock, if I were you at 18 years old, I would rent just for a couple of years before you really, you know, put roots in the ground, if you will. Because you are still so young, there's so much opportunity for you to be moving, you know, life change. I mean, you're in a really crazy life change period of your life right now. Did you just graduate high school in May? Or this past year? Yeah. Yeah, so there's's gonna be a lot so if i were you for sure i would be renting
Starting point is 00:12:26 and i would yes do exactly what he said making sure all of your career stuff is taken care of and as you get that going and building investing in retirement uh then looking for a house and then beyond that looking into real estate as an investment but you're you're rocking it at 18, so I think you're going to be just fine. That's fabulous. All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225. William is in Colorado. Hi, William. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:12:55 Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Can't believe I'm actually talking to you. What is this? But my question is, I'm an active duty soldier out here in Colorado. And the question I have, we have a baby coming in October.
Starting point is 00:13:12 That's a big blessing. And we've saved, we did a baby find up to $10,000. The question I have, when a baby's at two, but moving into this new FY, October 1, and I know there's bills that pass. There's sometimes bills that don't get passed that may hurt funding to where we won't get paid. Thankfully, I haven't yet to experience that, but I don't believe I'm in previous to that happening. Would it be wise, even though we're in the baby steps, to keep that fund there, the baby fund, and add to it a little bit if in the event that they don't pass the bill
Starting point is 00:13:42 and some federal employees, government employees, don't get paid for a month or two months. So I have that ability. Would that be a wise decision? Because I know we're in baby step two we're cranking away. We're putting it on hold because of the pregnancy. But moving into October is it wise to have that and that's when it's still there? It's an event
Starting point is 00:14:00 to cover expenses and so. William, is there an active bill going on? No. No, you're fine. The percentage chance of that happening is so low, I'm not worried about it. It happens once or twice every 10 years. And it's just not that, you know, I'm not going to worry about that if I'm you.
Starting point is 00:14:19 You need to plow on through, and if you get furloughed, you just pick up some side gigs while you're furloughed for a little bit if there's a funding issue. But, you know, you're going to, I mean, there's no way we know anything for certain anywhere, but I personally, if I were in your shoes, would be comfortable enough as a federal employee with the steadiness of my paycheck to not worry about it, regardless of Congress losing their minds. I mean, you can't ever tell what the Island of Misfit Toys is going to do, but I really don't, you know, I really don't think that's going to happen.
Starting point is 00:14:51 So, and when it does, it's usually very short term and it's political more than financial or more than economic. So, yeah, it's worrying about something that has a low enough probability that it's actually going to occur that causes you to take action. And so it's out of balance. You need to have a higher chance that something's going to happen for you. Adjust your plan. For sure. I mean, that general concern is out there.
Starting point is 00:15:19 But if there was some situation that a specific bill with his specific yeah employment and all of that really was going through active and there was a chance you know then that's kind of a different story that's different than a vague well that's what i'm saying yeah this more general concern not stopping the plan for that ben is with us ben is in kentucky hi ben welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how's it going better Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so my situation is basically I've got, my debt is I've got a mortgage and I've got an HVAC system that I just put in the house. And the deal with the HVAC system is it's a 0% APR, meaning that I don't pay any interest on it right now. And so I was wondering, first off, if you think I should just go ahead, because I know I've read a lot of your stuff, and you talk about the snowball effect and paying off the small stuff first.
Starting point is 00:16:14 So I was wondering, even though it's a 0% APR, if you recommend paying that off first before going more in on the mortgage, because right now I'm just basically attacking the mortgage and just paying month to month with the 0% APR, just the minimum that I have to on the HVAC. And Ben, you don't have any other debt, correct? No, I have the mortgage and just the debt for the HVAC. No credit cards, no car loans, anything like that.
Starting point is 00:16:43 Well, then, yeah, I would stay current with the mortgage, but I wouldn't pay extra on it, and I would get this thing paid off. Because even though the zero interest is there, mathematically I understand your thought process, but it's the emotional side of still owing that, right? Like there's still money to be owed. And so getting that out of your life completely, building up that emergency fund,
Starting point is 00:17:02 and then walking through the baby steps is what I would do. We try to just rationalize so much of our money, mistakes or decisions based on math. And at the end of the day, it is so much more than math. It is so much more than math. And that's what you have to take into account. But yeah, mathematically, I understand what you're saying. But there's an emotional, spiritual side to money that when you don't owe anyone anything, things start to change. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:27 You just need to be free. When you play games with – you're not going to get wealthy with borrowed money on a vacuum. It's just – I got 0% on my vacuum. A heating and air. Well, I mean HVAC or your heating and air system. It's just, you know, said no millionaire ever. The zero percent on my HVAC caused me to become wealthy. It just doesn't come up. Being and staying debt free and not having cash flow and not having stuff around my neck when weird crap happens is by far superior to that.
Starting point is 00:18:02 So, yeah, write a check, pay that off as soon as you possibly can, and don't pay extra on your mortgage until you have that done and have a fully funded emergency fund. That's simple. Don't do it. Speaking of becoming millionaires, SmartVestor Pros are the people that we recommend for you to do investing with, and they'll help you. The only time you should even think about an early withdrawal when things are going crazy out there is to avoid a bankruptcy or a foreclosure. And the bigger your emergency fund, the less you've even got to think about taking out your retirement. So you get into your retirement and you leave it alone and you keep
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Starting point is 00:21:27 We're taking your calls about life and about money at 888-825-5225. Julie's in Texas. Hi, Julie. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are y'all doing? Better than we deserve.
Starting point is 00:21:40 How can we help? Well, I just started listening a couple weeks ago, so I'm excited to start working on a plan to get out of debt. I'm not happy at a current job that I'm at. I do have a product that I am in the works of starting to get manufactured would be the next step um but i can't afford to just focus on that until we get rid of some of our high car payments and things like that so kind of my question or just some advice is do i look for another job not knowing that that's really what i want to be doing um just to pass the time till I can get my business started or do I just tough it out and just any advice on that would be greatly appreciated.
Starting point is 00:22:33 So what's wrong with the environment where you are? I'm underpaid and overqualified I guess. Okay.'m just it's not it's not toxic there's no integrity issue nobody's being nasty to you or anything like that no no nothing like that okay just kind of very unhappy but you would be less unhappy if you knew you didn't have to stay yes so let's develop your business plan to where you know you don't have to stay. Okay. In other words, you can make it 18 months if you know you've got an exit, if you've got an off-ramp.
Starting point is 00:23:15 Yes. This is a cruddy, bumpy road, but there's an exit up ahead. Okay. And would it be crazy? Because I haven't had to pour too much into getting the product to where it's at right now. So my next step is finding an investor. So would it be kind of silly to still focus on that when we have the debt that we need to pay off? That's kind of one of the things that's holding me back from that just since I started listening to you. What do you need an investor for? Oh, gosh, just to get the product manufactured. What's it going to cost? The mold. Well, I have a potential manufacturer that I'm supposed to meet with here
Starting point is 00:24:03 in a couple weeks, and so I'm going to get all that cost of the molds because the molds can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $70,000. That just depends on the research that I've done. So I'm going to have to have an investment. What is your household income? It's about $110,000 right now. Who will be the customer of this product um it can be everybody it's not a it's a it's a i guess it can be a you're going to sell it online or through stores online direct to customer from you. Mm-hmm. And there's trade shows and stuff that I can go do as well.
Starting point is 00:24:47 It also fits into the sports industry. Okay. And have you had any luck so far, Julie? Have you made any prototypes and sold anything? Like, is there any traction on the product as of now? I do have. I just received the CAD files, and they did go up on the cost on the prototype. That was originally supposed to be around $1,200, and they went go up on the cost on the prototype that was originally supposed to be
Starting point is 00:25:05 around $1,200 and they went up to $3,000 and so I'm just hesitant to spend that right now. But you haven't sold any of the products? No ma'am. Yeah. It's not even manufactured yet. Yeah. Okay if you had a prototype and had pictures and put it up for sale, how quickly could you deliver it from zero? In other words, ready, set, go, how quickly could you get it made and put it out the door? I guess that would just depend on how quick I can get the mold. And then just depending on the manufacturer that I dealt with, that's one of the questions that I have written down to ask them,
Starting point is 00:25:46 what their turnaround time would be. I don't think you need an investor. I think you need to keep scratching and clawing and learn more about molds and learn more about prototypes so you don't get stuck again. And you're not working through some invention company that's helping you with this, are you? No. Good. Don't.
Starting point is 00:26:10 So, no, you just need to keep dealing with the manufacturers, dealing with the mold people. Because, you know, when you say $10,000 to $70,000, that just tells me you don't know. You just pulled that out of the air. And so, you know, $10,000 and $3,000 I can deal with. $70,000 I can't deal with with your income. And so that's what I would do and just keep scratching around. Here's the thing. If you can find an outlet, find a local store that would place an order with you for $20,000 worth,
Starting point is 00:26:42 and they would give you a 50% deposit for that order, you could use the $10,000 to go get them made. Deliver them, and you never needed an investor. And so, you know, by law in most states, as long as you deliver the product that was ordered within six weeks, you are not in violation of any laws. Now, customers are going to get antsy because they're used to getting something on their front porch the next day. But if you say ahead of time, there's a six-weeks delivery time on this.
Starting point is 00:27:12 And I ordered a custom item for my home a while back, and they told me ahead of time, it's seven weeks, and we want a deposit. And sure enough, I gave them a deposit, and it was seven weeks and i got the thing but what happened was was they took the deposit and went and bought the material to make the thing because it's a one at a time item that i was ordering and so you know i knew what they were doing i was financing my own deal is what i was doing by giving them the deposit as the customer yeah so the customer can finance your cash flow and you don, and if you'll just get a little creative about it and keep learning it, I think you can avoid taking on an investor. It may take you a little bit longer to get this thing out the door. That's fine.
Starting point is 00:27:55 But I would just stay put where you are and say, okay, I've got a goal of within three years, I am going to have this product in the marketplace, and I'm going to be making a living off of this product. And that's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes. And at the same time, working on that debt. And you mentioned high car payments. We didn't get the total for all of that. But even if you have to sell a car, Julie, do whatever you have to do to get that down. So that you can live your dream. Yes.
Starting point is 00:28:18 So the payments are holding up. Do you want a business with this new product, or do you want a car? Get rid of the car. Stupid car. You can get in a car when you want a car? Get rid of the car. Stupid car. You can get in a car when you get some money. And, you know, that kind of stuff. And that's the kind of stuff that your mother and I did. I mean, we did without because we believed in the dream that is now Ramsey Solutions.
Starting point is 00:28:37 And we poured our life into it. And so, you know, that's the whole process. And you just keep at it that way. Lauren is with us lauren is in massachusetts hi lauren welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how are you good how can rachel and i help so i am living at home right now i just finished college back in december and i'm planning on moving to either dc or la within about a year and right now i just want to stockpile as much money as I can.
Starting point is 00:29:06 So I was just wondering if I should still be looking into saving for retirement or if the best move for me, because both of those cities are pretty expensive, if I should just try to save as much money as possible only for that move. If they're so expensive that you're not going to be able to afford to live there and have to subsidize it with savings, you're not ready to move there. Do you have a job, Lauren, like currently, like the industry you're looking at? I do, yeah. I'm working full-time during the week, and I waitress on the weekends, and I wouldn't move there unless I had a job lined up there as well. That you could live on?
Starting point is 00:29:39 Just so I was, yes, absolutely. Okay, so why does how expensive the city matter then? You can live on your income when you move there. You don't need savings to cover the difference. Okay. Right? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I was just worried about moving somewhere with such a high cost of living, but that does make sense.
Starting point is 00:29:57 Well, that's a good thing to worry about, but let's have it addressed by I have to make enough to live there. I mean, you don't need to live in downtown Manhattan if you make $30,000 a year. You can't afford to live on the island. You can't afford to live in Silicon Valley if you make $30,000 a year. And so you can't move to an area that you can't afford to live in unless you have an income that allows you to do so. So once you do that, then that lines out the rest of your financial plan and you can decide which of the baby steps, where you are on the baby steps, and if you want to pause one or not for some other reason. This is the Dave Ramsey Show,
Starting point is 00:31:02 Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Andrew is in D.C. Hey, Andrew, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Yes, hi, Dave. I had a question for you about investment real estate. So my wife and I, we bought a new house in November of 2019. So just about eight months ago, we had really strong equity in that previous home. And so we decided
Starting point is 00:31:33 to keep on to it and to rent it out. So since we didn't sell it, we could only put about $160,000 down on our new house. If we had sold the old house, we would have profited around 385,000 off of that sale. So therefore, we had to do a 30-year mortgage on the new house simply for cash flow. Now, the old house is going to be paid off in about four or five years, and our plan was to take that rental income and apply it to our new house to pay down the house faster. Additionally, I guess what I should say is we reworked our budget, and we've got about an extra $2,000 per month we can put down against our new home, our current home, to pay it down. But I was wondering if we should start saving that extra $2,000 per month now and buy another rental property maybe next year, because I know that real estate is such a good investment. So I wanted to get your perspective on that, please.
Starting point is 00:32:37 Well, as we have studied people who have a net worth of $1 to $5 million, the data tells us that one of the two things that caused them to be able to achieve that mathematically was their 401K and Roth IRA and steadily investing. The second was that their personal residence is paid for. And so that proves out what we have said for decades around here, that the shortest distance between where you sit today and becoming wealthy is to avoid debt because it lowers risk and increases cash flow. Nothing in your story parallels that idea okay so in other in other words you're probably not going to do what we would suggest uh certainly
Starting point is 00:33:39 we would suggest no third property absolutely not and if i woke up in your shoes I'd sell the rental and pay off my house as fast as I could, and then I'd save up and buy some rentals. I think you got in a hurry. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we had worked with our previous real estate who was an ELP, and she had suggested we keep on to the old property because it would be a good investment. Yeah, most real estate people believe that, whether they're ELPs or not, but that doesn't mean they're not wrong. So, I mean, you can do
Starting point is 00:34:15 whatever you want to do. I don't care. Just because one of our ELPs gave you the wrong advice doesn't mean that our advice is going to change. But the logic for my advice is real simple, that the peace and the lowered risk and the increased cash flow that having your home paid off does is it allows you to move on to other investments with cash rather than, hey, I got a little debt over here, got a little debt over here, got a little more debt over on the third property now, and I got $2,000 a month, and you're just bifurcating all your efforts
Starting point is 00:34:48 you're spreading them out all over the place mathematically and so that nothing tends to pile up because there's no laser focus this is what the borrower is slave to the lender means it's back to what we were talking about i think even the first segment of the show of it's not always the math thing right like that there you know that is a math thing but that's what i'm saying though yeah the math makes sense but when you look at it to be able to just say hey you just kind of a paid for house even though you're like well wow there's a lot of equity here we could keep it make some good rental like right like the math of all of what he's saying though it you understand it because with the risk his math doesn't is leaving out risk right that's what i'm saying without when you plug in risk yeah the the benefits of leverage go away and so this idea that there's good debt
Starting point is 00:35:30 is just absurd and i you know you know truthfully i've what we have we've we've lived our lives for 30 years and rachel winston live their lives that way and you know all the ramsey kids and is we avoid debt and that enables us to have all of our income to build up for other investments and other dreams and other things we can do where we're not supporting some stinking bank and uh the the great lie of america is that banks have told us for generations that the way to have your best life is do business with us the way to have your best life is to get your credit card out the way to have your best life is take out a home equity loan to go on that cruise oops there's a covid you know and then you got a problem and so it's, you know, there's always that oops.
Starting point is 00:36:27 And so, again, you do whatever you want to do. Obviously, you're not doing like you're not on the edge of bankruptcy or something, but you're not taking what I know to be the shortest path between where you are and wealth. It feels like it's the shortest path because you own this stuff, but you don't really own any of it because you're in debt on it. And so we highly recommend you go a more conservative, slower approach, and you will end up at the end of the story with more money. But it's very frustrating and it's countercultural. And, you know, a lot of people don't believe it, but most people are broke so i don't really care what they think about well and the risk aspect you know even you saying you know spreading it out here that property this bar that you just slowly start to build this house of cards
Starting point is 00:37:13 and then yeah pandemic hits i mean who knows life happens and suddenly if your income stops and that renter who was in that property now can't pay their rent well you're out that cash flow that was helping you cash flow your regular mortgage, and it all just starts to crumble down really quickly. And so that risk is a key part to this story. And when you have no debt, there is no risk. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Michael is with us in Mississippi.
Starting point is 00:37:40 Hey, Michael, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. How can we help? Thanks for having me, Dave. So my question is this. I finished my master's degree in sports management in May. With that degree, I had a chance to do a business foundations graduate certificate. And so I took business classes as electives with the degree, and now I'm only about two to three semesters away from finishing my master's in business administration
Starting point is 00:38:11 degree. Would it be feasible to finish that degree, and would it help me in the future to go ahead and have that master's degree. Well, it won't hurt you. I'm not sure why you're collecting degrees. What are you collecting them for? Well, eventually I want to own my own business. I've always had kind of a business mindset, and so I want to own my own business, and I have a business idea, and I wanted to see if that would that
Starting point is 00:38:47 business administration degree would help me oh it will help you it won't hurt you but it's not worth two semesters to invest in it the difference you got enough solid business classes core business classes in your master's in sports management to run a business okay the way, I don't have a master's and I run a $250 million a year company. Right. Okay. And I'm not a genius, but my education didn't stop when I walked out of the university of Tennessee 40 years ago, either. I've read a bazillion books on business and leadership since then and on marketing and on any other subject you can think of just about. And so, you know, you're a lifetime learner if you're going to be in business. Otherwise, you'll be out of business because you'll be irrelevant fast.
Starting point is 00:39:35 And so, yeah, you've got to keep studying. But no, I wouldn't. I personally wouldn't invest in that because you don't have a real reason for it. It's just a vague acquisition of knowledge and degrees that you're after, and I think you can do that, you know, if you wanted to as a side job later or whatever but i wouldn't i wouldn't personally fool with it again it's not because i'm against education i'm not but education needs to take you somewhere and this is more like it's just over there two more semesters and why not feels convenient or something yeah i think i'll pass on that. Not going to be my plan. So that puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.
Starting point is 00:40:09 Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 16 million people listen to The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.

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