The Ramsey Show - App - Get on the Same Page With Money & Improve Your Marriage (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. This is the Ramsey Show. It's a show about your work. It's a show Ramsey Show. It's a show about your work. It's a show about your money. It's a show about your relationships, your life, and you. We're going to talk about you right in front of you. Ken Coleman is with me as my co-host today here on the air, as we'll be particularly taking your calls about work, because that's what Ken takes every day on The Ken Coleman Show. His best-selling book, From Paycheck to Purpose, is out there to help you do just that. Welcome back, Ken.

Good to be back. Happy New Year. Your first time on the show this year. Yeah, yeah. Fun times. Always good to be back. And it's book launch week. I'm pumped.

Well, you should be. I haven't been excited about a book launch. No, I'm kidding. Well, Dave, everybody knows what you mean. I'm always excited about your book launches, Ken. Yeah, but it's your book launch. I haven't done a book launch in eight years. So it's time for me to be excited.

How does it feel? It comes out tomorrow. So midnight tonight, Amazon will start their masterful Santa Claus-like shipping that they do. And Ramsey Solutions shipping team will do the same. So those of you that have bought Baby Steps Millionaires, it is on the way, baby. And that means you've got just a few more hours to buy it and get all the pre-sale stuff included and get the book for $20 and the audio book and the e-book and the audio book of Legacy Journey and the e-book and so forth and so on.

And, man, it's fun. It should be. It should be. It's been a long time. Yeah, I've got a 16-hour day ahead of me tomorrow with media and back working like I i like i need to or something and uh it's good man it's good i'm enjoying it and so looking forward to being on the air and talking about this idea of hope because there's just been too many people out there stealing people hope it's true hope stealers man they're like dream killers well cousins of dream killers they're hope trailers the timing of this book is so fantastic because

here we come. Some people think we've been in a pandemic for two years, some for a year. We're not going to get into that. But the point is it changed everybody's view of the future. And here comes a book that's proven, decades of proof, that you can win with money. You can be a millionaire without inheriting it. There is a process, a clear path. And I think more and more people want to take control of their own lives. They realize the federal government is not going to make them rich, not going to take care of them.

I just think it's perfect timing for this. It's exciting to see really a whole new generation grab this information. I'm jacked about it. I mean, it's a lot of things I have said before but put together in a way I've never said I've done, put it together before. And you finish reading the book or your broke brother-in-law with a negative opinion about money finishes reading the book it makes the case so airtight that you can start from nothing in america and become a millionaire it's airtight it's airtight you can do it i i know you can do it because i've shown tens of thousands of people how to become millionaires we've got baby step millionaires everywhere that's one of the things that inspired me to do this.

I thought, you know what? This stuff's working. We ought to tell somebody. And it is working. It's very, very real. And I just can't stand these people. They're so, I mean, social media has just become a black hole of stupid. And it's just like everything you open up on there is just some ninny,

some negative, some lie, something. It's just like everything you open up on there is just some ninny, some negative, some lie, something. It's just hate filled everywhere. And it doesn't matter what you do. It's filled with hate. And so I'm just saying, you know what? No. Yeah. You can actually become a millionaire, and I can show you how.

Well, maybe you shouldn't be rich. Well, that's not a discussion of a moral construct. We can have that discussion otherwise. But it's can you get a million dollars legally within a reasonable period of time to provide the first step of stability to your family and your family tree, the first step in you being able to give outrageously. A million is not a billion but it's more than most people got and so it's something to aim at as your first big wealth

building milestone and we're going to show people it can be done yeah and it is great by the way the book cover is fantastic i gotta know inquiring minds want to know you got a lot of people going to get this book in the mail did you is that really early morning sunshine on the on your head there on your left shoulder did you put that in there did you get up early yeah is that really early morning sunshine on the on your head there on the on your left shoulder did you put that in there did you get up and chill like yeah is that of course i have of course i have a glow coming off of my head because when i first saw it dave i was quiet long enough to see if i could hear oh yeah yeah really there's a you can see the halo you got up early for that i think yeah it was it was sunrise on my farm there it is we went out to my farm at sunrise i've got a bunch of black fence out there too and we shot some

leaning up on the black fence you know the obligatory look that didn't just look like a oompa loompa leaning on a fence but um but yeah we we shot you know how you do a photo shoot it's like 500 pictures and you enjoy that process most of them sucked oh i hate it but but i was on the farm at sunrise which isn't a bad thing and that's that's that's that's how they got me out there that's that was the bribe and so i got to be on my farm and hang out and um you know that's one of the things i like is just having a big old piece of dirt like that that just holds the earth together and and i need to own a piece of it and that's it's one of my favorite happy places is being out on the farm so that was perfect for me but yeah i just need maybe own a piece of it, and one of my favorite happy places is being out on the farm.

So that was perfect for me. But, yeah, I just needed maybe a little piece of grass hanging out of my mouth, full hayseed, you know, full hillbilly on it. And you needed some – I'm sure it's too late to do this because the audio book is done, but some ambient noises, some crickets in the background, maybe a little brook, sound of a brook behind you. A cow. Yeah, the occasional off in the distance. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. No, it's great. Maybe not, but that's not everybody's picture of a millionaireok behind you a cow yeah the occasional off in the distance yeah that's it yeah no it's

maybe not maybe not but that's not everybody's picture of a millionaire right but it's just me hanging out and it's uh that's kind of you know like real world today that's how i dress every day that's it i don't have on the same shirt today thank god that would be weird wouldn't it but um it's a wonder because i don't really look at my clothes that closely. I should. It upsets the media people. But, yeah, so Baby Steps Millionaire, today's the last day to get it on presale. If you order it right now at RamseySolutions.com, you can get all the goodies that go with it, about $100 worth of stuff. If you wait until tomorrow, the price goes up and all the goodies disappear. And so all the extra add-ons and things you can enjoy with it.

And, hey, thanks to a couple of you posted on Amazon. I flipped over there to see what it was doing on sales, and apparently we had some kind of a quality control issue with the audio book, and one of the chapters laid over the other chapter, so I was talking to myself twice on one section, and you couldn't understand it. And so we figured it out. A couple people posted about it. Thanks for letting us know, and we fixed it it and it's all ready to go now.

And so the audio books rocking as well. But a lot of people with audio books nowadays. We're seeing those numbers across the board. Through the roof. Yeah. It's amazing because people are commuting because the spawn of podcasting and the popularity of podcasting is make audio books more popular. Yeah.

Makes a lot of sense. Well, and audio books are honestly, this is a podcast that we're doing right now and a radio show that we're doing right now. And so audio books are actually more thought out. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

It's actual text. Than the average podcast. Some of these podcasts I tune into, I'm like, you guys just kind of sat down and started talking, didn't you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what they do. Yeah.

No forethought at all. So no game plan at all. So do check us out folks we appreciate you being there and we appreciate the number of you that have already bought the book it's uh sold um about a hundred thousand copies already before we even started and so thank you it's a bestseller i'm sure as a result but you guys do that for us and we appreciate you and uh here's the thing if you want to believe or you know somebody that needs to believe that starting from nothing you can still actually build wealth in america today i make an airtight case you can't walk away from this evidence stories actual arithmetic the largest study of millionaires ever done in the back of the book.

Don't miss it. It's called Baby Steps Millionaires. It comes out tomorrow. And if you preorder today at RamseySolutions.com, you're going to get the best deal ever. This is the important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our

members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Health Care Ministries is a Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. We talk about your work, your money, your relationships, and you right here on the Ramsey Show. Dennis is in New York City. Hi, Dennis, how are you? Good. Hi, Dave and Ken. So my question is, I have a union pension, right, which will give me 50% of my base salary when I retire. Currently, I have $400,000 in my 401k. And I'm just wondering, so I'm running through the baby steps. Once I get my emergency fund, if I should just attack the mortgage instead of starting up the 401k again.

No, I'd start it up. Put 15% in there. That's something you can control. You're doing really well, though. I mean, goodness gracious, you're in great shape. How much do you owe on your mortgage? About $220,000. Okay.

What's your household income? This year is just under $200,000. Okay. What's your household income? This year is just under $200,000. Okay. So we put $30,000 or so into 401Ks and Roth IRAs and so forth, and then we attack the mortgage with the rest of it. You'll probably be done with the mortgage in under five years. How old are you? 38.

Oh, wow. Yeah, you'll be great. You'll be in good shape. What you're going to want to do then when you get to baby step seven is you may actually crank back on the 401k at that point and start doing some side investing we call it bridge investing money you can get to before you're 59 and a half some mutual funds or some paid for real estate or something like that that you can get to because you're not going to touch your pension or your well i don't know how your

pension is set up but um it but you may be able to touch it because you may have had 20 years in or something. But, yeah, it wouldn't hurt to have some extra money that's non-retirement saved as well as we go along. Linda is in Charlotte. Hi, Linda. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Good afternoon. It's an honor to talk with you.

You too. What's up? I have questions. I'm going to be 68 this summer. My husband is 61. We're both going to retire the end of March. I have two mortgages. Thank you. Two mortgages. I have a house worth $580,000. I owe $199,000 on it. I have a home in Florida worth $480,000 and I owe $59,000 on it. My plan to be debt-free when we retire is to sell North Carolina and pay that small loan off in Florida. My question is, we have family in Ohio. Should we buy a small place in Ohio, a piece of real estate

that we can go back and forth with or should we take the profit from North Carolina and invest it? Okay. So you're going to have the Florida house is going to be your main place when you sell the Charlotte house, right?

Yes. How much you got in your investment accounts? when you sell the Charlotte house, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. How much you got in your investment accounts? My retirement, my husband and I, we have about $800,000. Way to go. Way to go. Thank you. You're millionaires. You did it.

Yes. Proud of you. Our net worth is 1.8 with our properties. Very good. I have a quick question, Dave. I don't know if it will inform your opinion here. Who is the family in Ohio? Who are the family members?

My granddaughter will be in her senior year. I'd like to go to her cross-country events. I have two sons in Ohio. My daughter lives here in North Carolina. Okay, but the Ohio property would be for the two sons to see them. Yes, my granddaughter. Okay, what would you spend on that? Under $300,000.

And pay cash, of course. Cash, yes. Yeah, get a little condo or something that'd be all right i did that i bought a condo in knoxville when my kids were in college there just to have a place to hang out we didn't use it enough really to justify it and you probably won't use this enough to justify it but your stuff is there and your clothes are there and you don't even have to pack a suitcase you can just throw some stuff in a backpack and go because you got enough stuff there to live on when you go in to see the grandkids and you don't have to worry about hotels or debit cards or anything else or availability

or dealing with you know vrbo or yeah all that kind of stuff you just move in and you've got the money i really wouldn't spend much more than that just get a little condo something you don't have any maintenance trouble with let someone else do the maintenance on it puts you know furnish it reasonably where you can enjoy it when you're there and then do stock it with personal items and with uh clothing so you don't have to haul that back and forth it took me a while with our second homes to learn to do that okay we always took a suitcase like we were going to somebody else's house, which is stupid.

I mean, you've got enough old clothes and stuff to put around there and just make sure you've got your own everything in there so you don't duplicate everything, so you don't have to do that. Phone chargers, all that kind of stuff. You just don't have to think about it. That way you're not quote packing to go on a trip. You're just switching houses. Right.

Okay, so my social security take home will be a little over 2 000 living in florida alone we could probably live on that 2 000 because we are very frugal and um i wouldn't my other question i wouldn't i would spend more than that well well how do i know how much i can take out of my investment? Oh, I don't think you're going to take too much out. It's not in your being. Okay. I mean, if you make $800,000, if you've got $800,000 and it makes 10%, that's $80,000. If you pull out $50,000 additional, you're not going to pull that much out.

I probably can't get you to do it. So another couple. I'm thinking around $2,000 a month. Yeah, another couple, $2,000 or $3,000 out of that, and that thing will run forever and ever and ever and ever, and don't worry about it. I mean, just, but, you know, don't take out $10,000 a month. If you do, you're going to start chewing into that principle.

So, but somehow I don't think that's on her list. Yeah, I don't hear any caution flags. Classic millionaire. Classic millionaire. The everyday millionaires, we called them with Chris Hogan's book. But they're people that, I don't know that she necessarily followed the baby steps, so I really can't call her a baby steps millionaire, but everyday millionaires, these people started with nothing, inherited nothing,

and saved and got their house paid off, and she's got a million eight at worth. They're everywhere, Ken. Yeah. They're everywhere. They're all over America, and they defy you people with a political agenda. You hope stealers that say that America is dead and the ability to build wealth in America and have a good life and take control of your own life and those kinds of things. They defy your stupid words.

People, her very life defies that. Yeah. And so it's beautiful. One encouragement, Linda. You have lived well. You and your husband are men and women of character. You've been smart. You are frugal. I like taking Dave's advice here. Not take $10,000 a month, but take more than the $2,000 a month and enjoy that time with the grandkids and your kids.

You've earned this. It doesn't have to be that tight. Start doing some outrageous generosity, too. Yeah, live some. You need to carry an extra $1,000 in your pocket at all times just in case you see something that needs to happen in the world and you can make it happen. Random acts of kindness and those kinds of things. And you're in a position to do that.

You live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. Now, I don't suggest people impulse a $100,000 gift. No. But a $1,000 gift when you've got a million aid is a good impulse. You know, Rachel has really resonated with our audience with something she says over and over again. And she's talking about giving people permission to spend. That's what we talk about with the budget.

And I think, Linda, if you guys put a really good budget together, use our every dollar budget and put a retirement budget together and go, wait a second, I have permission to spend. That's got some room in it for a nice restaurant. Yes. You know, it's got some room in it for whatever. And $2,000 in Florida doesn't have that. So you need to loosen up the old purse strings there a little bit and have a little enjoyment. Enjoying money without overdoing it is a sign of maturity. And it's not age maturity.

It's emotional maturity. But a lot of people like her or they've been through what we've been through, Sharon has that tendency when you go broke to not ever spend again. You're just going to hold on tightly and just be super frugal. And that'll get you to a certain point, but you're also supposed to enjoy money. Now, some of you that overspend out there, you spend like you're in Congress, you don't have any issue with this enjoying money thing. You enjoy other people's money called debt.

You enjoy everything. We're not talking to you. We're talking to the frugal who need to be more generous and enjoy their money you need to and you need to do all of those things at the same time and it's very possible to do it all this is the ramsey show We'll be right back. Thank you for joining us, America, right here in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Eric and Alyssa are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing great.

Welcome. Where do you guys live? We are from Gilbert, Arizona. Oh, fun, fun. The Phoenix area? Yes, just outside of Phoenix. Wonderful. Good to have you guys.

All the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? Dave, we paid off $116,000. All right. How long did that take? A little over eight years. Wow. All right. And your range of income during that time? $57,000 to about $130,000. Nice jump. What do y'all do for a living? I stay home and take care of these three kiddos over here. And I was in ministry for a long time, but I started my own business at the beginning of 2021. Wow. Good timing.

Yes. What do you do? What kind of a business? I run a communications business, so I do a lot of freelance writing, editing, digital strategy, those sorts of things. That's a good move for somebody from the pastorate, from the ministry. Very nice. Yeah. What was your position in the ministry?

Good use of words? I was a youth minister. Oh, okay. Good. Very good. Well, congratulations was your position? Good use of words? I was a youth minister. Oh, okay. Good. Very good. Well, congratulations, you guys. All right. So the vast majority of this time, you made 57.

In there. 57 to about 75. Yeah. But then the jump came when you, the big jump came when you started the business. Yes, definitely. Correct. Very cool. So what kind of debt was the $116,000?

Dave, we paid off our house looking at weird people i love it what's this house worth uh about 500 000 you know market's a little volatile but you know it's about 500 000 or so very nice very nice very cool so what was what church were you youth pastor in uh? At St. Patrick's Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay. Very good. Good. Very cool, man.

What made you guys decide to take this journey eight years ago? Well, it started a little before that even. We were both working in youth ministry back in 2008, and I was making a whopping $35,000, and he was making less than $30,000. And I had started dating this guy and I knew he had no debt and he had a savings account, which like blew my mind because we worked in ministry. So I walked into a coworker, Trish's office, and she had the total money makeover on her bookshelf. And I was going on a flight. I was like, hey, can I borrow that book? She's like, sure. I've

never read it. I was like, great. So I grabbed it. And I didn't even know how much debt I personally had at this time. Come to find out, I had $27,000 worth of debt. And I tore through the book. And as soon as I was done with the book, I was like, I need to get rid of this debt. So over the next two years, we finally got engaged and then married. But over those two years, I was able to turn through that $27,000 of debt. And then we got married and joined our life together debt-free, and we went on an all-inclusive trip to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. And I had kept telling him, we need to budget, we need to budget, we need to budget.

He's like, why budget? I take care of my money just fine. So, Dave, I'm maybe ashamed and excited to say that i actually read total money makeover on my honeymoon sitting poolside in costa rica with a pina colada in my hand there's so much wrong with this picture the looks we got from people oh they're probably like this poor couple has no money oh they're too broke to be here reading that dave book they must not have any money i love it And that begins everything. That begins everything.

We got home. We did our first budget a couple days after our honeymoon. It took us about six hours to do our first budget. But we nailed through it. And our big goal at the time was to put as much down as possible on a house. We wanted to do at least 20%. But we thought if we could get to 40% or 50%, we'd be in good shape. We ended up doing about 40%.

Down on our house about a year and a half later we used one of your elps named ed serchik in the phoenix area who's fantastic and um and that just started the the ball rolling and um we um we we did a 15 year fixed rate mortgage and then um as excited as it was we were doing everything right we did have some storms come into our life. Yeah. In 2013, we had one child and then we found out we were newly expecting our second and we were thrilled and over the moon. Again, we're doing everything right. No debt, no nothing. And about 15 weeks into the pregnancy, we realized something was very wrong with me

and something was also very wrong with our baby. And so at 18 weeks, I delivered our son, Gabriel Joseph, and I nearly died as well during it. So here we are grieving the loss of a child. And then two months later, we lose Eric's aunt, who passed away very unexpectedly. And like three days after he comes back from the funeral, we find out he no longer has a job. So he is out.

We're grieving a loss, losing family members. We have no income. And then Eric just starts to grind. He is going to our church every day to pray for an hour in the morning. Then he's going to the library to do freelance work, to look for jobs. At one point, flower shops, they pay for delivery drivers. He went to a local flower shop, and he knew he could get paid $5 per delivery. And if he did six an hour, that's $30 an hour.

So he delivered flowers for Valentine's Day for three days, and that paid for our groceries that month. And then we sold gold jewelry that like nothing sentimental like kitchen stuff around you know we just sold anything and then as he's at the library every day i got the mail one day and i have a letter and it says all of our insurance claims for the delivery and loss of our son were denied so we43,000 in medical bills that we are on the hook for now. We have no job. It was horrible. But the good news was a couple months later, I ended up getting a job that was actually higher paying than the previous one, which is excellent. And when these medical bills came in, you have a book that you recommend called The Go-Getter. And I'd read that book.

I can tell. And so that book, they talk all about how it's a fable and this guy goes and he just grinds and he runs into all these obstacles, but he just keeps going because he's just trying to achieve this thing. And so I had read that too. And so I got on the phone with every single medical provider. We had tons of bills. And if it was $10 or $10,000, Dave, we called them all up and I negotiated every single one. And every single one of them was able to give us some kind of a, sometimes it was 10%, sometimes it was 40%, but we knocked off all that medical debt. And thankfully we had some savings, emergency fund, things like that, that we knew we could tap into if we needed to. And we

were able to pay those medical bills off without, and actually we don't even consider it part of our debt because we never even actually had to use our emergency fund and never even had to take unemployment. And so much of that is a testament to this program. Well, real quick, because I want people to hear this. This massive storm happens after the commitment to do a 15-year mortgage, to pay it off, never have debt, serious budgeting. I just have to believe, what would you say to people,

the power of the budget and the power of the discipline before the storm helped you not panic in the storm. Is that true? Having a plan in front of us that we knew we could execute and the fact that we'd already been doing it together for several years gave us the confidence to know that we can make it through that storm. It was a true cornerstone of our marriage. Faith finances our relationship.

That's what our family's built on. Yeah. You guys are amazing. And, you know, there's just a whole many different ways you can react to a crisis. And this guy's a buffalo, man. He runs right straight in the storm. Yeah, I was thinking, instead of getting scared, you got busy. Yeah, absolutely.

You didn't really have time to be scared. Well, he got scared, so he got busy. Right, right, right. There wasn't much time to focus on fear after you started doing everything you were doing. You know, I was driving home. Exactly. I was driving home on my last time doing one of those flower deliveries at Valentine's Day. And here I was.

I was working a great job that I loved. And tears were filling up my eyes for two reasons. One, I was sad because I was doing this. And I was like, I just don't want to do this. This isn't what a man should be doing. And at the same time, tears of joy because I knew I was doing it for my wife and at the time, my oldest son. That's exactly what a man should be doing. Way to go, dude. All right, get the kiddos in.

What are their names and ages? We have Kellen, who is nine, Nolan is six, and Clara Joy is four. All right. Nolan is six. And Clara Joy is four. All right. I love it. All right, Eric and Alyssa and the team. Phoenix, Arizona. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you and a copy of Total Money Makeover for you. You're going to be Baby Steps Millionaires before you know it.

House and everything are paid off. They're weird people. $116,000 paid off in eight years. What a story. Making $57,000 to $130,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

This is how it's done, baby. The house is paid for. How weird does it feel to be that young and not have a payment in the world? Oh, love it. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Well, it is book launch week for the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. It officially hits the street tomorrow, and you can get it this Thursday night. George Camel, Rachel Cruz, and I will be doing a live event called Building Wealth in 2022. Now we're not going to be able to see you in person because there were only 1,600 tickets

and they sold in about a half a second. And live events these days are really popular. But guess what? We are going to live stream this event completely free. Live on Thursday night, this thursday january the 13th and you can watch it free over 100 000 people have already signed up to watch the live stream in addition to the 1600 in the room going to be a big deal building wealth doesn't that sound kind of fun building wealth in 2022 yeah it does sound. We're going to walk you through exactly how to do it for real and the things to watch for,

the signs to watch for when you're about to get messed up, you're about to get screwed over, you're about to step in a trap of your own making. We can show you that as well. RamseySolutions.com slash wealth to register. You do have to register, but it is free. Building Wealth in 2022. ramsay solutions.com slash wealth don't miss out ken coleman ramsay personality is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money benjamin is in knoxville hey benjamin welcome to the ramsay show hi dave

hi ken thanks for having me sure Sure, man. What's up? Well, my wife and I are actually getting real close to hitting that millionaire mark. And, well, our first question, which it kind of sounds like I need to be on the live stream Thursday, is what do we do with the extra money now that we've paid everything off. And then the other one more is I sort of like my job, but I don't have a lot of control over it. And I was wanting to kind of figure out how to get a direction to go into business for myself and do that with a good plan to get more control and fulfillment. So. All right. So let's take the idea creation question on here. So how do we come up with ideas for somebody like you who wants to work for himself? The first thing is the context that you have to begin to look for business possibilities within these two questions.

What problem do I want to solve or what desire do I want to fulfill? So businesses, Benjamin, at the end of the day, they either solve a problem through a product or a service, or they fulfill a desire. So a simple example is solving a problem, fixing networking or technology issues, okay, or selling shoes or making women feel beautiful with makeup. If a woman wants to start a business in hair or makeup, whatever. So one is solving a problem. The other is meeting a desire or fulfilling a desire. So we start with that premise. And so you need to ask yourself, who are the people I most want to help? When you allow yourself just to think, and you have to take yourself to a place where I don't

have to work for anybody else. And if I was paying myself, what problems would I want to solve or what desires would I want to fulfill? And you begin to attach that to people. And so you have history in your life. You have experience and environment in your adult life. And begin to think of those types of people and problems or desires. And then when you get there, you go, okay, what are the solutions to those problems or solutions to those desires that I connect with? This is about the ideation part. And then, Benjamin, once you begin to see that, you go, okay, what would business look like? Then you have to do more research. So those are just the idea phase. And I'm quickly walking you through

a framework that will allow you to begin to not just generate ideas, but then test the idea. So then you look at, okay, what are viable business models that other people have done? We want to see, is there a track record here? And then you want to look at talent. What you do best, because as an entrepreneur, at some point when you launch this thing, you're the chief everything officer, as Dave has said so many times at our Entrez leadership events. And so initially, you're going to be doing a lot of things yourself. So you want to mitigate you doing as much of, excuse me, as little as possible things that you're awful at. So as the entrepreneur, even as the chief everything officer, you're going to think about who am I going to have to pay to

help me launch this to do things that quite frankly, I suck at because I only want to focus on things that I'm decent at, average at, or better as I launch this. So that's just a quick little framework for you as you come up with ideas and then begin to vet the ideas. You had something already pop into your mind, hadn't you? For sure. Well, yes and no. So the problem is I'm in sales right now so i'm good at increasing top line i've been in engineering and i'm good at making things run better and the problem is every business

does that so i don't really know what business to attach to what problems do you get excited about solving you personally in a business framework um It's probably making the deals and bringing in top line. Yeah, the art of the deal. Yeah, that's good. Okay, so marketing. So what product or service could you personally get extra excited about selling? See, you're already a good sales guy. I mean, you love the art of the deal. You love closing the deal, bringing a solution to somebody, but now you personalize this. What would you get absolutely rabid excited about selling? If you don't know.

Well, I really like cars and motorcycles and stuff, so. Oh, there you go. I need something to attach with that. All right. Now we're getting some clues here. And we're an engineer. Yeah. So maybe you open a custom shop.

Could work. Yeah, that could work. Because there's probably a few guys around Knoxville who can turn a wrench and help you with that. And you could do some design work and bring in the business both, close the deal, and each one of those deals are higher-end ticket items. Custom shop for motorcycles or for auto you know uh you know whether it's frame up custom or reduce or whatever i mean there's a whole different world

there that's um money wise that is um per per unit of sale would be ridiculous potentially but um but you know you'd be using your engineering hat to uh work on the some of the design uh maybe even some of the implementation, but certainly on the sale. I just made that up. I have no idea. I don't know what else you do with cars off the top of my head. Yeah, but that's actually the exercise, Dave, right there. You take an idea and you go, okay, what are real lines of revenue?

Not fantasy land, like real businesses. So the next step is he's going to go meet somebody who's in that business and go, hey, is there a mutual connection where he could get a phone call or a cup of coffee and go, hey, talk to me about the business. Give me the highs, give me the lows. What's the margin? Is it a high margin? How volatile is it? Because some of that stuff can be volatile, but it can also be very high margin.

Very cool. Good stuff, man. Thanks, Benjamin. Congratulations on everyday millionaire status. Trevor's with us in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to theville, Kentucky. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my wife and I are in Baby Step 3B, and we're saving up 20% towards our down payment for our house. Good. So my question is more out of curiosity. Why is the 0% down home mortgage a bad idea?

Well, there are only two. There is the VA loan, which is a more expensive loan, is why it's a bad idea. The interest rate is slightly higher, and the funding fees and so forth on the front end are higher. And so it's just not a good loan. The second one is a first-time home buyer loan of some kind that has nothing down and most of those have restrictions on them on resale or recouping upon resale or something else and so the vast majority of the time you're giving up something for the fact that you're not putting a down payment in uh and thirdly i would just add that um that there's something

about you doing a deal where you're putting a down payment that you're just making a wiser choice. You don't feel as it's just easy to spend other people's money, easier to spend other people's money called borrowing than it is to spend your own kind of juxtapose it. Trevor, all the way over to say, what if you saved up $200,000 and you're going to pay cash. You make a different purchase when you spend $200,000 out of your savings account because of the way your brain works, because there's pain involved in that. That hurts. It's like, ah, I just cleaned out $200,000. Yeah, so you get real careful about your purchase, real wise about your purchase versus nothing down, doesn't cost

me a thing, I'm just signing, and you get almost flippant and you almost impulse all the way over on the other side of the spectrum into it when you're spending other people's money. And the down payment, or the large down payment, is in between those two things. It at least makes you concentrate because you've got skin in the game. Yeah, and you're getting ahead financially. Let's not forget that. The whole idea is we're trying to get

out of debt. And when you take on a mortgage on a 15-year, you still have a game plan to knock it out and be debt-free, house and everything very soon. Anyway, that's what you do. This is the Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register.

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