The Ramsey Show - App - Finding Hope in the Middle of Our Doubts (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Eric is with us in Charleston, South Carolina, starting this hour off. Hey, Eric, how are you? Good, sir. How about yourself?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I just had a question. I'm currently on Baby Step 2, and me and my fiancée are trying to have a wedding next September, so a little over a year out. Good. Yeah, thanks. I'm in the military, and we sat down, we did a budget, and figured out that we can put about $1,400 a month towards the debt right now. But we're wondering, as far as cash flowing the wedding, given my job, I occasionally get supplemental like per diem checks and tax

extensions and whatnot. I'm wondering, would you go ahead and basically budget out the wedding into our existing budget, or would you just be putting all this surplus money towards the wedding and then basically adjust your wedding costs at that point? No, I'd budget the wedding. And the surplus money goes at the top of the budget as part of your income. As part of your income. So it effectively can go in there or be extra on the debt because you've reduced what's going to the debt

because you have some going towards the wedding. What are you thinking of spending on the wedding? We're trying to keep it as cheap as possible right now. It's looking at like $7,000. We're trying to cut that down as much as we can. Obviously, the debt, as of now, is our priority. We just don't know how much we should shift off of, because we figure we could probably get our credit cards taken care of by April of next year,

and then the car payment will probably get paid off just before the wedding. So we didn't want to put everything toward it. We're just trying to figure out how we can cash flow the wedding as to not basically put ourselves into more debt down the road. Well, I mean, there's two ways to do it. One is you knock the debt out, because that's what you're describing, and then the fact that you don't have any debt, you just lean 100% into the wedding. I mean, if you get the car gone in April and you get the credit cards gone before that,

you're going to be able to attack this thing, and you can fund the wedding over the summer, right? Well, no, I was saying the car wouldn't be paid off until about August of next year. Oh, the month before. Okay. Yes, sir. All right. Well, no, I would just back up then and say $700 divided by $12. That's the other way to do it, right?

You've got 12 months until next September, and so you've got $600 a month is what you need to be doing. And that will get you there. And that's the wedding. Because what do you make and what does she make? I make just about $53,000 after taxes a year. And then she's a dog groomer, so it's variable for her. So I would maybe put on an extra $10,000 a year potentially with her. Okay.

Why does she not work full-time? Well, she does the dog grooming full-time, and then she tries to pick up babysitting gigs and helping out her mom and her clients with their side business as well. $10,000 is not a full-time job. No, and she's just starting out. She's in the training aspect of it right now. Okay, all right.

Without her getting her certification, she's working under somebody, and that's just what she's at at this time. You have to have certification to do dog grooming? Yeah, I mean, you have to go to a school in order to get qualified, basically. They teach you all the different cuts and whatnot, but she found somebody when she moved here that said that she could just work under her and basically get the same training for free. Okay.

I can imagine you need training. I just didn't know you needed a certification of the training. I mean, you need to know how to cut the dog's hair. I've seen dogs that their hair was cut by somebody that didn't know what they were doing, so we don't want that. But that happened to one of my dogs once. I went, oh, that didn't work out well. Sorry about that, dude.

I've seen some pretty good home jobs. I used to do our schnauzer when we were broke. He didn't like it at all. But it was ugly. Anyway, okay, so, yeah, her income is not going to be $10,000 in the coming year, or she's going to be doing something else. Correct, yes, sir. Okay, so $10,000 is not accurate.

So the bottom line is, you know, she ought to make $20,000, $25,000, $30,000, something like that anyway. And so what I was trying to gauge out is the $7,000 wedding reasonable, and it's very reasonable, very reasonable. So I would just start budgeting $700 a month towards that, and then every dollar you can squeeze out of anything, anything you can do for side hustles to make money, her especially, we just throw that at the debt, throw that at the debt, throw that at the debt.

And you'll probably have this done before August as far as the debt goes. And then you may be able to, in the last 30 to 60 days, beef up your wedding budget a little bit and get on up to $10,000 or something, which is okay. I mean, that's all very, very reasonable in your situation. Which branch are you serving in? I'm in the Air Force. Thank you for your service. Thanks for your support. Hey, man branch are you serving in? I'm in the Air Force. Thank you for your service.

Thanks for your support. Hey, man, appreciate you calling in. And congratulations on the upcoming wedding. Very proud of you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brent says, Dave, I've been listening to you, and I just finished one of your books. I'm thankful to find someone that's got financial wisdom and explains it.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And let's see here. Patrick says, do you ever get a call where you want to gift them some money? I feel like when I'm listening sometimes, I want to give them money. And it could help them. It could just cause them to tread water. It could help them stay in where they are.

You know, the weirdest thing, Patrick, God blessed me with when I started this show 26 years ago, I didn't have any money to give them. We were still, you know, struggling ourselves. We're still trying to grow a business. And I guess if I had been wealthy when I started, I might have set some different things in place. But if I had given somebody money in the early days, Sharon would have killed me when I got home. It's like, you want a needy family, son? You're living with one.

So that would have been the conversation in the early days. So that kind of set the pattern. And I think there's probably a lot of wisdom. Yes, it comes up now because I've got money and, um, and we do a lot of, uh, a lot of giving through our family foundation and a lot of just random acts

of kindness and stuff too. But, uh, we made the decision to never do it on the show because I'm afraid it would change the show and it would turn it into, I want to call in and be pitiful. So Dave gives me money and instead of want to call in and be pitiful so Dave gives me money. And instead of, I may be pitiful, but Dave will help me get out of pitiful.

And so it's not the service on the air that God's called us to provide. It's not a game show. But, you know, we might have done it differently if we hadn't started out without any money. But it's been a blessing, I think, to do it the way we have. But, yeah, it does come up. I'm thinking, I'm talking to somebody and, you know, 5,000 bucks, it changed their whole dadgum world right now, just talking to them. And it really is a little bit tempting sometimes.

But, no, it's not going to be tempting enough to do it. Because I'm afraid it would change the whole tenor of this. And I might help that one person,'s there's 15 million of you listening if i screw that up by helping that one by changing the tone the tenor the feel the spirit of this thing and it turns into i got a gauge on the air whether somebody's telling the truth or not all that oh no i don't need to get into that that's dangerous ground thin ice but yeah admittedly to your point, it is tempting. Because most of these people that call in, it's really believable. You believe where they are.

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Go to Zander.com. One of my favorite people on the planet is on the line, Pastor Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv over in Oklahoma City. Probably the largest church in America today. He's the pastor of and great, wonderful, world-class communicator, obviously, and a great writer, New York Times best-selling author, and has a new book out. And every time I see he's got something coming out, I holler at him and go, Hey, dude, let me help you with this if I can.

What's up, Pastor Craig? Hey, Dave, you are the best, man. I'm glad to talk to you and always grateful for your friendship, man. Absolutely incredible. So good to have you. So, Hope in the Dark. Oh, this is one of my favorite subjects. This whole idea of hope. because we spend a lot of

our time around here trying to help people find hope and uh actually dave stone was up here you know dave doing our devotional this week and he said he said have you ever noticed that god is uh is always on time but not your time and you know what do you do when God doesn't show up when you want him to, was his question, you know, and that's kind of a hope thing, isn't it? It really is. It causes us in those situations to be doubtful, those of us that are people of faith and honest about it. We doubt, even though, I mean, you pastor the largest church in America.

You doubt, you know, Dave church in America, you doubt. You know, Dave Ramsey, 600 radio stations, sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I'm not a perfect with my 100 out of 100 with my faith score, right? Why do we do that? Is it okay to do that? You know, when I grew up, Dave, kind of in the circles, I was in. If you did doubt, people kind of looked down on you, and you felt this pressure pressure like maybe I'm not a real Christian or maybe I don't have real faith. And so we were kind of trained to almost deny our doubts.

I've come to grow to really have a different belief system that instead of denying our doubts, God is big enough to handle them, that we can tell the truth and take our questions to him, take our hurts to him, and really find comfort. In fact, my family's been through kind of a really difficult journey with my daughter Mandy. Her health, when she turned 20, she got sick, and now two years, three months later, hasn't gotten better. And I've yelled at God, hurt with God. In fact, the story behind the book, Dave, was years ago I was writing for a woman in our office that had lost a child, and so I wrote her a long kind of letter to bring comfort to her

and gave it to her, and it sat on my computer for years. Years later, whenever Mandy got sick, I picked that back up and I read it, and the words that I'd written for someone else felt like someone else had written them for me and brought me such comfort. And so I asked my publishers, you know, can I, in the middle of this personal agony of suffering with my daughter, can I write this book and talk about how do we still embrace God in the middle of our doubts? And so that's how the book Hope in the Dark was born.

When it's dark and we're scared, what's the first step? Well, I think, you know, first we need to acknowledge, like, tell the truth, because sometimes we don't. I think that having the right people around matters so much as well. I know you've got a broad audience, and not everyone would have the same kind of spiritual beliefs, but what I believe is we should really put ourselves in a position to where we can experience God. Dave, I write about Habakkuk, who's an Old Testament minor prophet. His name is so powerful because his name means to wrestle and to embrace at the same time.

And so we can wrestle and say, I don't understand, I don't get it, why aren't you doing this, God? And yet, we don't run away from Him in our doubts or in our pain, but we continue to embrace Him. We can wrestle and embrace. And so, if you are in that place, I would say don't deny your doubts. Don't pretend like they're not there. I believe God would rather you yell at Him than to walk away from Him. He's a big enough God. He's a good God. Take that hurt, your pain, your questions to him, embrace who he is, even as you're wrestling. Yeah.

Well, at least when you're wrestling, there's contact, right? For sure. Yeah, and the opposite of love is not hate, it's ambivalence. And just to walk away, that's a problem. So you're, as a well-known believer, obviously, me too, we get asked these questions when there's a national tragedy, a shooting or something else that's, and, you know, where's God? And those things?

We get asked those questions. Great theological arguments or questions or inquiries that are perfectly reasonable by anybody that's sane, but even in your personal trials, in your midst of that, what's the answer? Where is God in the midst of pain? Yeah, you know, I think he's right in the middle of it. And so often, kind of in, Dave, in our Western Americanized version of Christianity, sometimes I think we don't think anything bad should ever happen to us. In other parts of the world, people know if you're a follower of Christ, you're actually

going to suffer, you're going to be persecuted. And sometimes here, I feel like we think God owes us. When you just look at even stories in the Bible, you see that great people suffered. John the Baptist, who did nothing but prepare the way for Jesus, is beheaded in prison. You know, Paul, who was faithful in every way, begs to have a thorn removed, and God says, no, my grace is going to be enough. And so I think we need to get over the lie that if we believe in God, then bad things are never going to happen.

You know, Jesus was perfect, and look what happened to him. He gave his life on the cross. And so as we mature in our faith, we start to realize we may enjoy God on the mountaintops in the good times, but we actually get to know Him and His character and His nature better in the valleys. Often the very difficult things that we want to avoid are the times when we experience Him the most. Tragedies, oh my gosh, yes, they're everywhere. But we live in a very broken and sin-filled world. People do things that are wrong. There's tragedies.

As a pastor, so many things are above my pay grade. I'm not going to try to get in and say, here's the reason. I think that would be insulting to some people's pain. And I would very likely get it wrong. What I do want to say is, even though I maybe can't give you a reason, I can give you hope. I can point you to the one who is good, who is real, who will comfort you, will be closer than maybe you've ever experienced them before

if you'll reach out to them in your pain. As you've heard me say, and a lot of our audience has too, I met God as an adult, and I always tell people, before, as we were building wealth, and then we lost everything, and I always say, we met him on the way up, got to know him on the way down. There's an intimacy to that walk, that pain walk, that's very, very real. Pastor Craig Groeschel, my guest this segment. The book is Hope in the Dark believing god is good when life is not it's good stuff good stuff you can pick it up on amazon um or anywhere great books are sold of

course craig grochelle books.com is his website you can get in there for your uh for your money conscious people there's a sale right now on amazon five dollars off if they type in five hope on the promo code so get out of debt pay cash for it there you go put it on your credit card five hope saves you five dollars pay cash only what's the code find. Like, number five. Oh, Five Hope. Five Hope. Okay. And that's the promo code. Take cash. Good.

Take cash. Debt free. I'm debt free! I love it. Come on, Dave Ramsey. Financial peace. That's fun. Pastor Craig Groeschel, if you haven't seen him speak, you can always jump online and follow LifeChurch.TV over in Oklahoma City.

And if you look down on your iPhone or your Google or your Android and you see a little Bible symbol and they open it up and it's called YouVersion, that's a product that they created that they give away free all over the world. Millions and millions and millions and millions of people have gotten the Bible that way free because of this guy. He's an incredible guy. Craig, we're honored to call you a friend, brother, and pray for your daughter. I love you. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your help.

Our church and our people are better because of what you all do. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Be good. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Our high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM,

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To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Lee and Samantha are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave, we're good. Welcome Hey guys, how are you? Hey Dave, we're good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Memphis, Tennessee. So just come up the road

to do a debt-free screen. That's right. We're originally from Minnesota. Ah, okay. All right, cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And how much have you guys paid off? We paid off $55,000 in three years, but really $35,000 in 13 months after we fully started your plan. Okay, cool. And what was your range of income? We started off about $55,000, and we ended up about $68,000. Good. What do you guys do for a living?

I'm a graduate student working on my Ph.D. in cancer biology. And Sam? I'm a recruiting coordinator at an executive search firm. Great. Okay. Very cool. So what kind of debt was this? $55,000?

My student loans mainly, and then we decided to buy a car when we moved to Memphis and I didn't have a job. Ah, okay. Perfect timing. Okay, good. So you started three years ago, but you kicked it into overdrive 13 months ago. Tell me how all that works. What's your story? Yeah, so we had heard about you through our brother-in-law, Sean, who's here with us today, about three years ago.

And, you know, I kind of ignored him a little bit, and we both did. And then I started to listen to the podcast. He had turned us on to that. And then we, you know, sat down and we put did, and then I started to listen to the podcast. He had turned us on to that. And then we sat down and we put a budget together. We saw you in Memphis at Bellevue around that same time, and then we put a little bit towards the debt, and we kept building a little bit more and more, but it really wasn't until about 2017, January of that year, we bought the total money makeover book.

We read it together at night. I had her read some chapters. I read some chapters. And then she saw that a local church was offering FPU, Financial Peace University, and if we attended all nine weeks, we could get it for free. Wow. So after she said that and she wanted to do it, I was for sure like, let's go do this because, um, you know, I really needed both of us or we needed both get on the, on the same path. Wow. So that, that's really when we kicked it into gear and, you know, really just picked up extra jobs and started throwing everything in the debt we could.

Um, and the timeline kept moving, you know, sooner and sooner. So that's why we say, you know, it really takes all that effort to get on board and get fully bought into it, and it works. Okay. So just kind of dinking and dunking around the edges of it didn't work. But when you went through the class, right after reading the book, the Total Money Makeover book, it pretty much dunked you in it, and like you have to join the cult then, right? Exactly, yeah.

Dave-ish doesn't work. You've got to do the whole thing. You've got to be all in. Yeah. Yeah. It really doesn't work. I mean, it's kind of like worse than not doing anything, to halfway do it. It's just because it just aggravates you, you know?

So what do you think it was? to halfway do it. It's just because it just aggravates you. What do you think it was? I mean, it seems like that you guys were probably more passionate even before you went into the class. You were kind of like ready. It was like it kind of built up is the way it feels. And then, boom, when the class is, like turned it loose. Does that make any sense? What was it that did that?

I think for me, just hearing my brother-in-law talk about how he was getting out of debt and how if you would just start early enough, you could, you know, start your life a lot quicker and be in a good spot. So I did not like to hear your name all the time. Yeah, sure. But I finally decided to do it, and I don't regret doing any of it. Okay. We don't.

Okay. All right. So it was kind of like it was almost starting to be a flying around your head, like, get off of me, get off of me. And then you're finally like, okay, let's game on and let's get this done. It's almost a disgust type of a thing. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

That's logical. Very cool. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? So I say the key to getting out of debt is to sticking to the budget. We use the EveryDollar app. That really helped. I mean, by setting the budget every single month in the beginning of the month and sticking to it, you know, we could keep accountability of each other

on what we're spending that month. That really helped, and that was the key. Because I would do the budget, but I'd do it at the end of the month when we were doing Davish, and it just didn't work because I'd just say, oh, we need to quit spending money at bars and restaurants, or we need to quit spending money in general, but then we just wouldn't. So really the key is the budget, but I don't know. What do you say the key was? I guess just setting goals because I want to travel a lot.

So with the debt, I knew that we couldn't really just keep going without getting rid of the debt. So I think just setting goals on what I really wanted to do. Yeah, you've got to have a reason to do this. I want this out of the way so that I can do my thing. In your case, travel. Yeah, that's good. Very good. Very cool.

Well, congratulations, you guys. Did you have people cheering you on or people saying you're crazy? Last 13 months. I would say half and half. Sometimes it felt like more people were saying that we were crazy than pushing us along, but everyone now thinks it's pretty awesome. Oh yeah, now that you did that. Now you're a genius. So who was your biggest cheerleader? Our brother-in-law. Yeah, he really was. He was really there for us. I mean, every month I'd get a text from him at the end of the month saying, how much did you pay off this month?

And I'd say, you know, this amount. And then, you know, the next month he'd be, okay, how much did you get this month? And I'd always be telling her, okay, we've got to do more, otherwise he's going to be on us saying, why did we pay off less? But it really worked. I mean, we did pay off more and more and more until it was all gone. Yeah, good accountability and encouragement simultaneously. Yeah. Very cool. Well, we've got encouragement simultaneously. Yeah. Very cool.

Well, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you. That's the next chapter in your story, to be millionaires and outrageously generous as you go along. Will you ever go back in debt?

Absolutely not. No. Never? Nope. All right. Love it. All right. Lee and Samantha,

Memphis, Tennessee. $35,000 paid off in the last 13 months. $55,000 overall, making $55,000 to $68,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Love it! Love it, love it, love it! Very well done. Very well done. Very well done. Open phones this hour as we talk about your life and your money. Well, Smart Money is coming up in the fall. It's here. Man, the Smart Money events are going to be all over the place in the fall.

Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill, me, we're going to be doing them all over the place. And we're just about a month away from kicking off the fall season. Charlotte, North Carolina, Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill, me, we're going to be doing them all over the place. And we're just about a month away from kicking off the fall season. Charlotte, North Carolina, Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill will be there September the 20th. And less than a month. And October the 2nd, Chris Hogan and I will be in San Francisco. And there are a few seats left to that. But it is rapidly heading towards a sellout. And we'd love to have you.

Minneapolis is sold out October the 29th. Complete sellout there. Thank you. San Antonio, Texas heading towards a sellout. And it's all the way out there in November the 15th. Chris Hogan and I. Chris and Anthony will be in Colorado Springs January the 17th. And Chris and I will be in San Antonio, Texas on January the 22nd, all with smart money events.

Do not miss this. Now, the Minneapolis room sold out, but we have a satellite location a few miles away, kind of an overflow room, so to speak, in the area there while we're there. Plus, I will be speaking at Eagle Brook Church that weekend, and that's all October the 29th weekend for those of you in the Minneapolis area. So check it out. San Antonio, Texas, November the 15th. Don't miss these.

Why do I have two on San Antonio, Texas? That's not right. But anyway, the San Antonio, Texas, November the 15th is correct. And we'll, you know, but jump in, check out the cities that I've mentioned here. You can get all the dates, all the details at DaveRamsey.com or call 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223. Why would you come to a Smart Money event? What we're going to do is we're going to go over the baby steps. You know the baby steps, right? Why would you come?

Because it's a pep rally. That's why. I mean, why do you go to a concert if you know all the songs? You know that you can sing the words. You know the words. Why do you go to a concert? It's a pep rally. It's fun.

It's part of the tribe. It's a tribal meeting, isn't it? And I promise you, you're going to laugh, you're going to cry. And bring somebody that you've been trying to talk into doing this stuff. It'll be the biggest gift you could have possibly given them. And we'll show them step by step and make them believe that they can build wealth. And that they can get out of debt so that they can build wealth. Can you believe this real estate market?

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and team members here at my office win the bidding war without having to bust their budget. Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Darren is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Darren. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hello, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you. You too, sir. What's up? Well, first, we want to thank you for giving us the guidance and the blessings to help take control of our money and really learning to be intentional about our finances. So my wife and I are excited to be moving into Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6 and wanted to kind of pick your brain and ask for some guidance as we head into this new part of our life. Cool. What in particular? Well, I just celebrated my 50th birthday.

My wife, her 46th. And so we've been grinding the last 19 months to get through the first baby steps. We kind of wandered off course for about a decade, and we paid off about $74,000. Good. And we've socked away about $36,000 plus another $9,000 because we're concerned our home is going to need a new heating and cooling here down the road pretty quick. So we feel like we're prepared. So our question is we've got two kids. They're a junior and freshman in high school.

Currently, we've got some 529 plans set up. So we know that's pretty urgent. We've got a nice income. She's a public teacher. I'm with a nonprofit, so looking to max out our Ross and my simple IRA, and then balancing with the home. Just looking for your guidance on what we want to obviously get to that 50%. What is your household income?

Well, we're at about 182. Excellent. Very good. Okay, cool. Well, I would set up Baby Step 4 at 15% of your income for right now because the thing that's bearing down on you is two college tuitions. They're coming at you pretty fast. How much is currently in those 529s?

Well, we've got a combined 76,000. Okay. Well, what I'd do is lay out my budget and say, what do I need to send these two kids to school? You know, a couple hundred grand probably, give or take. And, you know, in the next so many years. And then I'm going to just finish that off because it's right there in front of you. You're not going to really make that with investment returns.

It's going to be money you just stick aside. And so I'm not going to pay extra on the house until that's done because it's right in front of you. Correct. Yeah, so baby step six is on hold. Do we knock college out is what I would do. And I would limit your retirement savings to 15%. But I would put 15% in. And then I'd throw any excess I can at college until I hit my college budget.

And you need to do some college shopping and say, this is what we're going to spend on school. And we've got this many months to get there. And you just back into it. And just like you've been doing, you hustle and grind, and you build that account. Only this time, we're building savings rather than paying debt, but it's still a math thing out of your budget, out of your lifestyle. But you've got 76. If you say we need 100, I've got 124 I need.

You know, I've got 20 months to do that. That's $5,000 a month, right? I mean, you know, you just back it out like that, right? And whatever it is, whatever the number is that you need, minus $76,000, then we've got to look at how we're going to cash flow into that in the periods of time that you're going to need. And once that's done, then I'm going to lean over and knock the house out. Once the house is knocked out, of course, the mortgage is knocked out, that is, then we'll swing back by in Baby Step 7 and maximize all retirement at that point.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. A question in regards to our 15%. My wife is required to put in 9.9% as a public school teacher. Does she have any control over what? In listening to you, I think. Does she have control over that? She really does not.

And so, you know, that's a set plan. She does not. So am I correct that we should avoid or not look at that 9% and look at 15 separate? I always discount it. In other words, I don't give it a full credit towards the 15. But in this case, I probably would just count it towards your 15, and let's get this college tuition done. You're going to blow past these steps so quickly now with your big income.

It's just a matter of rolling on through this. Because we're not setting up what you're going to save for retirement for 10 years. We're setting up what you're going to save for retirement for four years or five years is all. What do you owe on your home? We owe $131,000 on our home. It's valued at about $265,000. Okay.

So I was guessing, and I hit about right. Okay. Here's what's running through my head. Let's say you needed $150,000 more for college, and you need $150,000 more to pay off your house. That's $300,000. While you're putting in 15%, including her 9.1, if we count it, you're going to be through $300,000 in, what, three years, right? Absolutely. Yeah, so the house is done, the college is done, and then the 9.1 is irrelevant because we're going to just load up on retirement and savings and build wealth at that point.

You're at baby step seven. So when we set your 15% and your baby step four, we're not setting it for 20 years. We're setting it for 36 to 48 months. Fantastic. I appreciate the advice, sir. You see how I am? That's why I'm kind of, you know, doing this from a different direction. But good question, man. Thanks for calling.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Tony's in Pensacola. Hi, Tony. How are you? Hey, Mr. Anzi. I'm doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Hey, my question is about how much wealth we should have tied up in our house. My wife and I are looking at buying a piece of some acreage out in the country and building a home. But we're trying to decide exactly how much money we should put towards it as a percentage of our wealth versus non-retirement. The wealthier you get, the less percentage is going to be your home. Okay. I've got a friend that's worth about

$600 million, and his house is $15 million. But that's a tiny percentage of his net worth. You see what I'm saying? Right. And that's an absurd example, but it illustrates what I'm saying. And if you have a net worth of $ what i'm saying right and that's an absurd example but it illustrates what i'm saying and if you have a if you have a net worth of 500 000 you might have 80 of your net worth

tied up in your house right so uh what's the acreage worth and what would the house be worth if it wasn't on acreage that we're talking about doing well that's um the acreage I'm expecting to be anywhere from $80,000 to $200,000. We're still trying to find it. And then right now our current house is worth $250,000. And then we've got a vacation rental in Gatlinburg that we're actually thinking about maybe selling. So maybe $400,000 for the house, so total of about $600,000. That you'd spend on the house itself to build it? No, probably about $400,000, $400,000 to $500,000 for the house itself,

and then I guess $150,000 for land. Okay, all right. So you have $600,000, $700,000 tied up there. And how much is in your other accounts and so forth? We've got about $80,000 in our retirement accounts between 401Ks, Roth IRAs. We've got $675,000 in non-retirement investment accounts, mutual funds. Okay. And then we've got about $140,000 in cash. Okay.

So you're going to approximate 50% of your net worth in a paid-for property at $600,000 or so. That's what we're thinking. Out of a $1.2 million, $1.3 million net worth. That's not unreasonable. Okay. We're just thinking, we're also just kind of trying to think long-term. I mean, because I'm 39, she's 33, so we didn't want to steal too much from our family. The thing is, this house is going to be sitting, this is a 20-year house.

I mean, it's not a five-year house. Correct. We're looking at this as our retirement place. We just, you know. Well, maybe. It's at least 20 years. It's going to go a long time because it's got a lot of your dreams right now wrapped up in the piece of ground and all that kind of stuff.

So this one's going to last. My point being that it's going to sit there it's going to go up in value but not nearly as fast as you're going to be adding to the other parts of your wealth given that you have no house payments at all no debt of any kind and so when i when you call me back and uh i don't know four years after five years after this is all done, you know, you're going to have $5 million net worth, and a million-two of it's going to be in the property. Right. That's where you're headed.

And, you know, that's five to ten years from now, something like that. I didn't ask your income yet, but that's kind of the feel of the vibe, the rhythm of the numbers you're giving me. That's how I'm feeling them, the colors I'm seeing in these numbers. And so, but that's, you know, it's not mystical. It's just a matter of that's how the compound interest will work because you're going to continue to load the mutual funds and the retirement accounts and that kind of stuff and end up with substantial dollars.

Yeah, I think you're fine there. I wouldn't want you to be at $5 million and have half of it tied up in your house, though. That would start to bother me. So, good question. Thanks for calling in. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Hey, guys.

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