The Ramsey Show - App - Graham Stephan on Real Estate, Investing & Living Below Your Means (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: How to invest in real estate and not be house poor, Setting up a will, Real estate, investing, & living on less than you make, with real estate investor & YouTube business personality, Graham Stephan, Getting a spouse on board with the baby steps.   Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6   Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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. We help people build wealth, do work that they actually love, and create real amazing relationships. George Campbell Ramsey Personality, host of the Entree Leadership Podcast, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-8255225 taylor is going to start off this hour in albuquerque new mexico hey taylor what's up hello how are you doing better than i deserve how can i help um so i

am debt free but i'm afraid to invest i like knowing that I have an X amount of dollars of money in my account and that are only change if I spend it. But I would like to purchase or even possibly build a home and start a snowball investment with a rental property. But the house I own right now wouldn't be a good rental and I'm just not sure where to start to not be house broke. Okay, so you own a house now. Do you owe money on the house that you live in? No. Good.

What's it worth? About $130,000. Good for you. And what do you make a year? Gross or net? Either. Net $43,000. Okay.

How'd you get a $130,000 house paid off? I got it gifted and a divorce. Oh, well, there's that. Okay. Good deal. So what are you looking to buy? You said you've got some money in the bank, but you're scared to put it into real estate? Yeah. So I don't know how real estate works really, and I never bought a house. All the houses that I've had has been just I sign on the line, and now I have a house because that's what my ex-husband did. So I just don't know where to start, how to get into rentals. Okay. How old are you?

31. What do you do for a living? I'm an office manager at an oil and gas company. Okay. How old are you? 31. What do you do for a living? I'm an office manager at an oil and gas company. Okay. Good for you. Well, buying a rental house not knowing anything about real estate is dangerous. That's why you're hesitant. So you need to, you know, do some, you need to engage in, uh, some kind of a process to learn about being a landlord and learn about what all is entailed with that. Um, because you don't want to, you don't want to learn. This is not a learn on the job thing. Okay. You want to know

what you're getting into. So you might get in touch with some real estate people. You might get in touch, uh, with some training on how to properly uh put the right kind of tenant in the property how to interact with the tenant so that you get paid um because i don't want them to perceive the tenant to perceive that you're someone they can take advantage of because you don't know what's going on right because that that perception would lead to rent not being paid we're're not going to do that, okay? Yeah, I've done that before. So, you know, you need to come at this from a position of strength,

and the knowledge will give you the confidence and the strength to do that. At that point, then, I'm going to start saving up and paying cash for a rental. Again, how much cash do you have? About $45,000. Okay. So you're not ready today anyway so we would tell you to pay cash for any properties but certainly for for investment properties and so you might kind of start poking around going okay what can I buy for a hundred or you know whatever in the Albuquerque area

and what the click what kind of tenant does that mean I'm going to be dealing with? And is this what I want to do then? And so while you're saving from $40,000 up to $100,000 above your emergency fund, you need to keep an emergency fund, I would engage in learning to give you the confidence to do this. Now, Dave, we talk about trying to find a deal. You don't want to pay market or above in an investment property. Are there certain parameters you'd say, hey, if you can buy it for $100 and rent it out for $1,000,

is there a certain percentage that makes sense? Well, I mean, that is kind of an old rule of thumb that you can probably rent it per month for 1%. But you can't always. It doesn't always work that way. So you need to investigate what that property will rent for. And then, you know, I'm always looking to buy considerably under the quote appraised value, unquote. And so, you know, what all is that going to mean in her situation? So it's going to take her some time to build up her her money to do this with and during that time she's got um really going to have to in a sense go to real estate school do some homework

and informally informally go to real estate school and learn about landlording learn about property and you know investing uh it's not super, but it's not something you want to walk into with having done no, uh, prep, none whatsoever. Michael's with us in Dallas. Hey, Michael, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hello, Dave. Hey, what's up? Um, I'm first time caller. My wife actually called you in 2009 doing a debt-free scream on our behalf.

Cool. My question is regarding legacy and making a will. My wife and I currently don't have wills. And the reason is that we're in some disagreement on what to do. And our disagreement is related to our children. Our children are both adults, out of school. They're 29 and 33. And both of them, their lives are a hot mess.

We both agree not to leave them our money. I want to leave our mind to the church. She wants to leave it to sporadically, um, different family members because she's made, um, have really close to her nieces and nephews and their children. So we just need some guidance. Neither one is wrong. Neither is wrong.

We consider making wills, but I don't want to go. We don't really want to go separate from each other, and that's the difficulty that we're having. No, you shouldn't, because you're going to probably leave everything to her. She's probably going to leave everything to you, and the only thing that comes up with all this other stuff is the second to die. Yes, that's the easy part. I just don't want whoever dies last wins. That's one way to do it.

Game of Thrones, baby. Here we go. I mean, could you split the difference? Could a portion go to the church and a portion go to family? That is a possibility. Actually, we recently watched The Legacy Journey, and after the one segment on making a will on leaving a legacy, we probably had the biggest fight that we've had in a few years.

Wow. And it was related to this issue. Well, I'm glad we could help. Yeah, I think George is on to something. I think some compromise is in order. There's no moral issue with either of the things. There's no ethical issue with either of the

things. And I think both of them are actually valid. And if I were in your situation, I'd probably want to do a little of both and split it down the middle or, you know, it doesn't even have to be down the middle, but some of each is a really, really good move. That's a real good plan. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you listening. george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today and uh one of his good friends and my new friends graham step, has dropped by. Big time real estate YouTube guy. Everybody knows who he is. Netflix famous. Oh yeah. 4 million subscribers on YouTube. That's pretty impressive. It is. And it's incredible to be here because I really feel like I got a lot of my start

watching you. And you were the one that really forged a path in YouTube before I even started. So seeing you do it first gave me almost the permission that, wow, maybe I could do it too. Yeah, and then the weird thing is I actually didn't forge anything. It was just YouTube versions of this show. It was just YouTube watching in while we do this show. That's all I did. And our YouTube team clipping that stuff up and running it around. But Graham got his real estate license at 18 years old. He sold over $130 million of residential real estate.

He owns a bunch of real estate. I won't say how much. I happen to know because of some stuff we taped earlier today, but has done very, very, very well in the real estate world and is well-known. Okay, so I got my real estate license when I turned 18 too, three weeks after I turned 18 years old. My parents were in the business though. Yours weren't. What inspired you to get into the business? The truth is that I didn't have good grades in high school because I just wanted to work. And when I didn't get into college, I thought I have to do something for myself. I want to get into doing something where I could

be my own boss. And I thought, well, I could just go into real estate. I get my real estate license. And so as I was getting my license, I'd go to open houses, talking to other agents. And in the process, I just fell in love with it as a career. So once I got licensed, I began working at Coldwell Banker. And just instantly, I was obsessed with it. It's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to work. And so for those first really four to five years, I would work seven days, 10 to 12 hours a day, but it never felt like work. And that's what I loved about it is that I could see incredible properties, meet people that I would never ordinarily come into contact with, make great clients, friends, connections. It just, the opportunity was limitless so when i got my license

at 18 um i had like a suit that didn't fit real well and one suit the other suit was like a disco suit and these were my dress-up clothes to go show houses in and i had like a tom selleck mustache you remember magnum pi you don't please bring it back dave bring it back right and because i thought it made me look older right because i knew i was just a pup and uh i still had trouble getting people to take me seriously because i was so stinking young did you did you run into that oddly no but i think a lot of people gave me a chance because I was so young. So starting at 18, and I look young now, even I'm 32. And you know, I still get like early 20s, or I could, I'm sure I could pass. But I think in that sense, they saw that I was really dedicated to helping them and I would do

anything. And that was my advantage, I think early on is that I would take the deals no one else wanted to take. And I saw that as my opportunity that there's all this business out there that isn't worth anyone else's time. But when I'm 18, like earning a few hundred dollars, a big deal for me. And so I would take on that business and I would work 24 seven. So if they call me at two o'clock in the morning,

I'll get back to them. I'll pick up the phone. I would pick up the phone if I'm sleeping at night. It didn't matter. I'd respond to emails at midnight. So I would do anything. And I think because of that, people felt comfortable and they knew that I also wasn't sophisticated enough to like ever screw anybody over. So they knew I could never take advantage of them. I couldn't lie to them. I couldn't do anything besides just do my best. And that's what I did.

So how old were you when you bought your first piece of investment property? 21. 21, you bought your first rental house and you paid cash for it. Cash, yeah. That means you were making some money as an agent. Yes. Yeah. I really did my best to save as much money as I could. And in the beginning, I saved because I didn't know when my next commission was going to be. And so sometimes I would go a few months without earning a dollar, but I was working like 12 hours a day.

And other months I'd make a lot. And so because I didn't know, I just figured, well, my default should just be saving as much as possible. And I just continued doing that and just focusing on work, but saving. And then when I got to a point, this was 2011, the market had really, I felt bottomed. And I started noticing some of my clients beginning to buy, like the smartest guys that I knew began buying real estate. And I had this money saved up and I thought, well, if they're all doing this too, maybe there's something to it. And so I started spending my time alongside helping clients is, well, now I'm going to look for myself and let me see all these properties and figure out an area that I could buy in. And that's what led to that. Your YouTube viewers know you as being frugal. Jack, your co-host says you're cheap.

I mean, is all you do is like work and pile up money? I mean, what do you, do you have a life? I love my work. And that's, I would say 90% of the time, I just want to work. I don't, like sometimes Saturdays, it's hard for me because the market's closed. I love just being involved, like making videos. I love it so much that like that for me is fun. So I don't really feel like I need much

other than just being able to work. As far as expenses go, I mean, it's a lot is discretionary. All-you-can-eat sushi, I would say, is my big treat. It's like $30 all-you-can-eat sushi in Las Vegas. Notoriously, you don't spend money on coffee. You prefer to make it at home. You'll use old coffee and put it in the fridge.

I bought you some iced coffee this morning because I knew you were struggling, and so that was my donation to you. Thank you. But the reason we struck up this friendship was because we reacted to one of your TikTok videos where you were talking about how the best financial move you ever made was living on less than you make. And that has been one of our principles since Dave started 30 years ago. Where does that come from? Why are you not out there living the flashiest of lifestyles, just dropping money left and right?

I always just, I think I naturally enjoyed just saving money. It was a weird sort of obsession of mine where I felt like, you know, that was something I had direct control over how much money I was to save. And I took it almost like a challenge to see like, how could I cut back? And how could I optimize my spending to get the best bang for the buck? And a lot of that was it was strategic. It's, you know, I would go out for dinner or I could make the dinner at home. And my experience was just as good if I have a friend over or, you know, if I'm going out, I'll get an appetizer instead of an entree because it's just as filling, but it's, you know, half the price.

So I just find all these little ways to save. And I just became a habit, but I enjoyed it. I think part of that was like figuring out, like you asked me earlier what the most frugal thing that I would do and it was using grocery bags as trash bags. Instead of spending money on trash bags. Didn't want to do it because I have the grocery bags. I don't want to waste them. I'm not going to throw them away and they work just as well.

And now you're a minimalist. Now it's trendy. And now it's trendy. Yeah, but now we gave it, now we gave it, our friends gave it a name. That's it. So good stuff. Graham Stephan is our guest this segment. He has one of the top YouTube shows on real estate and finance, over almost 4 million

folks subscribing. Be sure and check him out there on YouTube. And we'll be on a coming episode someday out there that we worked on today, this morning before we got on the air here. So rich people are all selfish and greedy, and they only look out for themselves. You ever heard that one? All the time. All the time. I personally believe that, and not all the time, but just in a broad sense that people are off.

They often make money in proportion to the amount of value they provide. So I've always seen it in terms of how many people I could reach is how much value I'm providing. And a lot of what I talk about is really just living below your means, investing consistently, and thinking of different ways to improve yourself financially. And that's just also what I'm personally obsessed with so i just talk about things that i am personally doing and find enjoyment in and try to add an entertaining spin to things that's one of our core values here is marketplace service if you help enough people you don't have to worry about money and i don't see any evil in that inherently you seem like a

nice guy to me thank you so there you go you go. You got my vote. Pass the test. Thank you. But you really are helping a lot of young people, especially who are wanting to build wealth and they're not wanting to do a job they hate and wait 35 years to have money. Now, part of that leads to a lot of people being broke, right? How do you kind of guard against that when you're giving advice? Oh, gosh. I feel like there's a way to do it safely and smartly that's not like hypey. I'm personally not the one to like risk at all. I'm actually fairly risk adverse and I really prefer to take a safer approach where I just don't like losing money. You and Dave have that in common, that's for sure.

Yeah, so for me, losing money is so much more painful than making, so I try to steer away from losing. And if we can improve in one way, it's making sure you keep what you have. Thanks for dropping by, my friend. Thank you, I really appreciate that. I'm honored to have you with us. It's an honor to be here. Graham Steffen, ladies and gentlemen, be sure and check him out on his YouTube channel.

You will be visiting him with about 4 million of his closest friends. This is The ramsey shop George Campbell Ramsey personality my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Bridget is with us. Hi Bridget, how are you? Hi Dave, how are you? Welcome. Where do you live? I'm living in Kailua, Hawaii, but originally from New York. Oh wow. Well welcome to Nashville. Bit of a haul from Hawaii to get here, but we're glad you're with us. How much debt did you pay off? $162,253.19. Excellent. How long did that take? 20 months and six days.

Whoa. You were hauling. What was your average income or what was your range of income during that time? $76,000 to $90,000. Okay. I know. It doesn't add up. So you must have sold something.

Well, I did sell a white bmw convertible for how much for thirteen thousand dollars um and then i also put every covid stipend and every tax refund that i received between 2020 and 2021 towards all my debt as well and then i also i'm active duty military and so my housing is taken care of for the most part. That was huge. And you didn't have money in savings or anything that you threw at it? When I started, I had about $40,000-ish saved, so that kind of got me started. So you threw that at it as well?

Yeah, like everything I had. Now, between all of that, the math is starting to work again. Okay, good. Very good. Okay, so you really went radical. I like everything now between all of that the math is starting to work again okay good very impressive okay so you really went radical I mean you cleaned out your savings you took all your uh all your COVID money coming at you you're living uh for the on the with the military on base no housing costs you're doing everything to squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze every drop out of this and went after it so what happened 20 months ago that put you on this path?

Well, I had heard about you first in 2012. My mom had bought me the old FPU kit that you guys used to have. And I just carried it around with me and kept it in my closet. I did baby step one, I did baby step three, just kind of skipped two and ignored it. And then I was a general surgery resident and wound up leaving general surgery. And I was a general surgery resident, um, and wound up leaving general surgery. And I was always planning on just having a bigger shovel my whole life. And I was kind of like, I don't know if that bigger shovel is ever going to happen. And I can't wait for that anymore. Um, so I just took that FPU kit down off the shelf and I went through it in about nine days instead of nine weeks. And yeah, I would, uh, read And, yeah, I would read the money makeover book to my mom out loud as we went through it. But, yeah, I just, I got to that point.

I just never want to go back to that again, you know. And that gazelle intensity that you always talk about, I just feel like that's the most important thing to paying off debt. And that's what I had, just that feeling inside me that I absolutely have to inside me that you were completely yeah the numbers the numbers tell us you were wide open instant transformation did it hurt getting rid of the bmw convertible i assume that was like your dream car well yeah i mean actually it was one of those things that taught me like nothing in this world is going to bring you that like thing you're looking for. Um, actually it was another one of those things that taught me that lesson, but, um, yeah, I love the BMW, but at the same time, this was more important to me. And, um, I was, I had actually called, um, I had put my name down

online for, uh, ELP financial coach. And I was actually reading the Bible, um, about Josiah and how the first thing he did was clear out the temple. And he told the priest, like, you have to make sure the money is going to where the work needs to be done. And so I'm sitting there reading about this and being like, I need to do something with my money. And then the guy called me, I just put my name online and I told him, I need help. You know, I need a financial coach. He's like, you don't need a financial coach. You graduated from medical school. You need to trust yourself. You need to trust Dave Ramsey and you need to sell your, or he told me to pay off the BMW. That's what he did. So I paid off

the BMW first. I had a $10,000 loan on that. And then a couple of weeks later, I was like, you know what? I need to sell it now. So I sold it for more than I paid off. Josiah coming in the clutch. That's awesome. It's powerful. Did you say you're in the military now? Yeah. So I had done HPSP. It's called the Health Profession Scholarship for med school. And so they paid for med school.

So all my loans are not actually medical student loans. They're undergrad, grad, and post-bac. But yeah, I started that in 2013. I was commissioned into the military, and they paid for med school, and now I'm active duty. Oh, very cool. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your support. So how long do you have to be in for the med school to be wiped?

So I have, for med school alone, it's four years. But then with residency and kind of my circuitous route um till 2028 right now so yeah but someone that's listening that wants to go to med school without any debt med school debt can go if they serve four years yes that they can um yeah i would advise them to listen to you on whether paying back time is equivalent to being in debt that's something that but you know I felt like I wanted to be an officer um you know and a physician so it's kind of like I have two careers that's cool yeah that's very cool good for you thank you well done well done so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is I think it's that gazelle intensity and getting to that point where

you never want to go back to that again, like you always say. And that like gut wrenching, just I can't live like this anymore. I think without that, you just kind of miss that why that you need to get it done. How does it feel? Does it feel like a weight off your shoulders? You just seem like you're just, you could levitate. Yeah. I mean, I, I had

no plan about how I was going to deal with, you know, my whole life. I graduated college in 2007 and, um, had started out 30,000 and then went to graduate school and it got bigger and then did a post-bac and it got bigger. And I just, I didn't know where I was going to start and I had no clarity. Um, so so yeah and even paying off the debt it was every day I would wake up and be like I heard somebody the other day say they wanted to make more payments to get it done and that's how I was I just wanted to get it done so badly um and I would count down the days I had a timeline and when it's going to get paid off um so yeah now that it's done I mean I want to look forward to the next school obviously but

I'm so happy that it's over so you said you to look forward to the next school obviously but I'm so happy that it's over so you said you read the totem money makeover out loud to your mom uh so she's here supporting you she is yeah and so talk talk about having a cheerleader like that in your corner it's amazing um she really paved the way for me in my life um she was one who started the Dave Ramsey principals um and I kind kind of watched her live them out. That's why I caught on to one and three. And so, yeah, just having her example in my life and then being able to do it together now

and encourage each other. And we also coordinate the virtual classes online. Oh, thank you. Yeah, and we do that together. She's my co-coordinator. Co-coordinator for Financial Peace University. Yes. Wow, very cool

good for y'all good mom and daughter time right there yes well spent great tag team yeah great tag team well congratulations we're proud of you thank you thank you good work and thank you for your service again very very very well done good stuff good stuff all right we've got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that was the next chapter in your story how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth how you can too and a copy are also going to give you a one-year membership to financial peace university since you're coordinating maybe you'll find somebody give that to yes and they can go through and you'll get to watch george and dr john deloney and rachel cruz and me in the new videos that came out recently for that class it's uh upgraded considerably so

very well done and a total money makeover book for you to give away as well so thank you thank you thank you thanks for everything very well done and a long trip from hawaii to get here to do your debt-free scream all right it is bridget from hawaii 162 000 paid off in 20 months that's the whole thing together baby i mean she did it all sold the beamer wow making 76 to 90 and collected every dollar she could every nickel out of the corner of the couch count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three one. We're debt free! Yeah! Woo! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Wow!

That is awesome. My face hurts from smiling. That just never gets old. Wow, that's cool. That's cool. Well, there is something magical about having a parent support you when you're an adult in doing something hard like this, because getting out of debt is not easy. It's hard.

We never said it was easy. We just said it was worth it. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host. We warned you guys, if you want tickets to attend any of our fall events, you need to get them now. These events have been selling out. Building Wealth San Antonio, November 15th, sold out. There's about 20 tickets left to the second Phoenix night on September the 12th.

It is almost sold out. If you want to go to Phoenix, you need to buy your ticket today. Dadgummit, I told you. We sold out the first night. We opened up a second night. Get it done. And we've got a few tickets left to the Minneapolis event November the 10th, and then Building Wealth for the Fall is completely sold out when that all

happens. So we're really, really close on that. We, of course, have the October 22nd Smart Conference. There's tickets available for that. The VIP and the Platinum are already gone on that, and that's in Dallas. And so you get your shot here, folks. October, September in Phoenix. November is Sacramento, Minneapolis, San Antonio.

Only they're all sold out except a few in Minneapolis, and just a few in that Phoenix September 12th tickets. So good times. Don't say we didn't tell you. What happens is someone always messages me the day after we were in Phoenix and says, When are you coming to Phoenix? And we go, Oh, my gosh. You weren't listening.

How in the world? Yeah, but that happens. It does happen every time. It's some fun events. We love being on the road again. We missed you. I missed it. Can you help me?

I've been telling you for three months. These tickets were not on sale for 10 minutes. They love being on the road again. We missed you. I missed it. Can you help me? I've been telling you for three months. These tickets were not on sale for 10 minutes. They've been on sale for months. So you need to get your tickets if you want. If you don't want to come, it's okay. But if you want to come, it's going to be George and Dr. John Deloney and Ken Coleman and Rachel Cruz and I on Building Wealth. It's a good plan. You want to be there.

You don't want to miss this. It's good plan. You want to be there. You don't want to miss this. It's good times. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Brian is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Brian, what's up? Hey, Dave. It's a real honor to speak to you. I really appreciate you guys taking my call today.

I just want to say real quick, I love the Graham Stephan Show also, so I'm looking forward to seeing you guys on there. And just a quick, just a quick Graham shout out. Everybody that's watching right now needs to baby step on that like button. There you go. He's always talking about hitting that like button. So anyways, my question is, I want to have some, want some advice on talking to my wife about doing the baby steps. We are so close to being done with all of the debt other than the house. And I just feel like if we got really intense, we could like in 12 months, we could probably knock it all out. condense 20 years of marriage down into a couple of sentences, but I'll just tell you when, when we met and she moved in with me, but you know, when we got married, um, I was horrible with money. I mean, my electric was about to be turned off. She put her whole paycheck on the electric bill so we could have electricity. And it's just been a

learning experience from there. She's great with money. She's great with, you know, paying the bills and figuring out how to get it done. And I just, I've kind of talked to her about debt snowball and some of the other things that you teach. And I get met with a little bit of resistance, like, Hey, I got this. I know what I'm doing. I don't need, I don't need anybody to tell me what to do. And I, you know, kind of almost like I don't need your help. I I'm, I'm very much a take charge kind of guy. And I feel like when I talked to her about this stuff, I feel like she thinks I want to take over and that's, that's not the case. I, you know, I have no, no doubt that, you know, 22 years. Interesting. Is this a control thing? Is she handling the

finances right now? Yeah, she does the finances. I mean, you know, she shows me stuff, but she does the finances primarily. Well, we need both of you in this thing together, and you need to have a say, because this is weak. I know, I know. And so part of this is that some of the hardest people to get onto the baby steps are those who don't feel like they're struggling with money. feel like well i don't need that's for people who are broke but what you guys need to do is paint a picture together of what the next 22 years of marriage look like and that hopefully means no mortgage payment we're retiring when we want to because we've got a pile of money in the bank and we don't know anyone anything so right what if we uh i mean i I don't know. I think you just sit down and say, you know, I deserve, based on my behavior in the past, for you to not listen to me about money.

But, and I'm sorry for that, but I have been learning about this stuff, and it has been 22 freaking years. And so we, um, you know, what, what I'm reading and what I'm learning about it, don't say Dave Ramsey said, whatever you do, don't say that. Okay. Um, turn my name into a cuss word in your house. But, um, but just say, um, you know, the, the stuff I'm reading, the data says that couples that work together on their money, you're obviously, honey, you're more administratively minded than I am. And you actually executing a plan that we've both agreed to would be the best plan.

But me not having any say or input into this is not good for our communication, and we're limiting our potential. I don't want to come in here because I think you're bad at this. I want to come in here so that we're working together. Right. Because you don't think she's bad at it. No, not at all. I mean, she's gotten us where we are.

I mean, you know, I can attribute it, you know. I mean, I've done a lot of hard work, but she's done all the stuff behind the scenes, you know, with the financial aspect of it. So I don't think you're bad at this, but the data says among millionaires that our probability of winning in money and an increased quality of relationship is much better if we work together. And that does not mean that you've been doing it poorly. It just means that we're both going to talk about this, and then you're going to go execute what we've both agreed to, and that's what we need to talk about doing. She recently changed jobs.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. You're fine. She recently changed jobs back to a place that she was working at before, so she's making more money. And I kind of got her to agree to, you know, hey, let's sit down and look at what her income is and what her bills are and all that stuff. So I kind of got her to agree to that.

She goes, let me get, you know, in the job and do that, and, you know, we'll take a look at it and all that stuff. I'm just, you know. Well, once you've laid out a budget and both of you are agreeing to it and both of you can speak into it, then that opens up the possibility for other conversations. Because here's the deal. Jesus said your treasure is where your heart is.

And when you can agree on where your money is going before it leaves, and then she writes the checks out or she does the bill pay or whatever it is, when you are in agreement about where your money's going, what you're saying is we've agreed on our value system. We've agreed on our fears. We've agreed on our dreams. We've agreed on the floor plan of the house we're going to build. You don't think the bedroom's going to be over there,

and I think it's going to be over here. We're in agreement on what the house of our life looks like. And that agreement, that's why so many people that go through Financial Peace University come back and say it saved our marriage. It's not a marriage class. But we force you to work together because it's practical and it forces a level of communication on life's most important things where the money flows to is not it's not the money that's important but where it flows to says what's important you know

you can read through your larry burkett used to call it the checkbook test read through somebody's checkbook you can tell what's important to them you know and it's like uh fan duel fan duel fan duel fan duel okay you're a, you have a sports betting problem. Okay. Or it says, whatever. It says, Target, Target, Target, Target, Target. Okay, you've got a problem with the big red target over there. It's eating your lunch.

I mean, where you put money, where you spend your money, where you spend your time is a statement of who you are as a person. Your value is in your heart. Yeah. So Brian, I'm going to gift you Financial Peace University. My hope is that she's at least willing to watch those videos with you. I hope it creates some shared common language and gives you guys a vision for where you want to go, because right now it feels like we're just maintaining, but we're not going anywhere. And I want you guys to head in the same direction. And so hang on the line. Austin's going to pick up and we're going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University. And you can go through those nine video lessons with her. And I hope that gets her on the plan. And if she's math minded, do some math and show her how much money you're throwing away at interest.

Show her what those payments could be if they stayed in your bank account and what you could do with that as a couple. Yeah, that's the second stage after the first stage of first thing is we're first going to agree that we're going to agree that's a hard place to get to and if you start there then you get to have a whole lot of other discussions around it it's good stuff hey man thanks for calling in good question that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books our thanks to james andrew zach ben and austin in the booth. The booth dudes. They make it happen. This is The Ramsey Show.

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