The Ramsey Show - App - "Greedy Rich People": Shaq's Outrageous Generosity (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: Shaq's outrageous generosity, How you should fund your kids' 529, Overfunding your IRA, Trying to get your parents to pay off their debt. 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

Live 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. As we take your questions about your relationships, your mental health, your job, your career, your money, your life, we talk about it all right here on the Ramsey Show. Phone number is 888-825-5225. John, it is really popular right now to hate rich people

because they're evil and they're greedy, and we should hate all of them. Agreed. Anyone who is successful should be completely torn down. They should not be allowed to be successful because we want everyone to be at the same level because we are now a bunch of communists. And so greedy rich people, horrible evil rich people are everywhere. And we have decided that because the horrible evil greedy rich people are everywhere, that James, our producer, decided we're going to start exposing how horrible and greedy and evil they are on a pretty regular basis. So Carissa Collins is the owner of the popular Instagram account, The Collins Kids, which consists of her and her nine children. The social media influencer revealed on Tuesday that this guy with a $400 million net worth, he's kind of a short guy.

James? No. George Camel? No, the guy with the $400 million net worth. That would not be James, and that would not be George Camel. Oh, that's my bad. His name is Shaq. You may have heard of him.

Shaquille O'Neal. You may have heard of him, killed o'deal there we have heard of him yeah so he took the collins family out to dinner babe's chicken the next day took him the mercedes-benz dealer and bought them a 15 passenger van after buying the car they went out to dinner again at the rainforest cafe where he dropped another thousand bucks with the tip on the wait, just the tip to the waitress alone. And after dinner, he noticed Chris's husband's truck, which was the heat and air and the air conditioning was falling apart. It was a dumpy truck. So he took him down to the Ford dealership and bought him a new truck.

Who is Shaq? Is he like Elvis buying people cars? I get choked up on these things, man. This is amazing. Let's not blow Pat. That $1,000 for that waitress at the Rainforest Cafe changed her entire, I mean, that's huge. Yeah, don't drive past a 15-passenger Mercedes van, okay? That's just a little different than $1,000, too.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, and I saw this one. You add up all of this. He dropped less than, I don't know what that van cost but he dropped 150 000 probably and he made he has a 400 million dollar net worth so that is like you know it's a very very small percentage ratio of his world he's not broke from doing it i saw this when the guy was in there and he was trying to buy a wedding i mean engagement ring for his wife and check this happened to me in the same jewelry store shopping for something and the guy was kind in there, and he was trying to buy an engagement ring for his wife, and Shaq just happened to be in the same jewelry store shopping for something, and the guy was kind of getting nervous, and he was paying,

and Shaq walked over and just handed his card to the person at the counter and patted him on the back and said, congratulations, my man. Could you imagine being able to just do that for somebody? Just being in there to buy something for your wife or your sister, and all of a sudden be able to, I mean, come on, man. It was such an amazing thing bought a house for this young man who was paralyzed by a stray bullet yeah these evil rich people need to stop this that is ridiculous that's just ridiculous that your your evilness needs to stop that's right evilness that's a word, right? Evil in action.

Shack, you're destroying the reputation of the evil rich people. Come on, man. With that outrageous generosity. Come on, man. Wow. That's pretty cool. I did not know he had this knack for random generosity like this. That's very well played. But a thousand PlayStation 5sstation he's so subtle because he

fills up the whole room when he walks in it so it's no way but no way you can be shack and be invisible but can i tell you he does it i saw him i saw a clip of this with the guy at the at the zales and it was the most quiet it wasn't a big hey look what i'm doing he gently handed the guy and said this one's on me and it's in his big deep voice and he patted the guy on the back and he said congratulations brother and walked off and it was not a it was i've been blessed so i can be a blessing right it's that sense of i've been given so much and i'm just going to bless these families and and of course he's got these big you know things that he gives 500 kids clothes here but but it's just that kind of generosity man. I can get choked up thinking about it because it's so cool.

And thinking how cool it would be on the other end of this to be able to just do that. Well, the thing is with, you know, generous people make your eyes leak. Yeah. I mean, they just, we all love them. Nobody hates generous people. No. But, you know, you can't do that if you're broke. If you're broke. If you're broke and you're bitching about rich people on your iPhone that you have payments on,

you can't do that because you're broke. So, hello. Just a little heads up there. You know, bitching about rich people on your $800 iPhone. Thanks for pulling the wool back on America, James. just you just you're just showing people how rich people really are i'm this is an undercover show continue this level of expose it's just it's just emotionally distressing to you know to just let people see how people really are out there because generosity is all over the place man wow hey uh jayken is it jayken jayken is with us in modesto jayken jayken let's see if

i can get it on there there it is jayken how are you man what's up good how are you guys doing today great how can we help good um so about two and a half years ago, found you, uh, me and my wife were about a month away from being done with baby step two. Yay. And then, um, shortly after that, once three is done, I have a six year old, a four year old and a seven month old, all three girls. You are in it, my brother. You are in it. Yes, yes. But I was thinking about 529s and their future, and from what I understand is you can use a 529 for any family member.

So is it better to get them three individual 529s, or would a single 529 that I could just load up earn more money faster? No, it won't matter. Three with $1,000 in them each will grow at the same exact rate as one with $3,000. So it won't matter. I would open three so that you've got an individual accounting for each kid and you can tell what's going on. Sit down with your SmartVestor Pro.

They can help you get that open. But there's no change. Compound interest is compound interest. It works the same way because it's always dealing with the total amount of money you have. In other words, if you take three $1,000 deposits into exactly the same mutual fund with three different account numbers, or you put $3,000 in that exactly the same mutual fund with three different account numbers, or you put $3,000 in that mutual fund with one account number, it will grow at exactly the same rate. Exactly the same rate.

The fact that it's separated does not change the math at all on the total. Now, it does change the math on the thousand, obviously, because it's not 3,000, it's 1,000. But on the total, it doesn't change it at all. You'll be just fine. And it's better to be able to look at the kids and go, hey, come over to the screen. This is your 529. And we're starting to talk about your future and how we feel about education with you and where you are going to go to school. And that's a different individual instead of like, okay, family, let's have a meeting and talk about the group for the community 401k.

Susan, you go to Stanford. Dan, I'm sorry. This is the Ramsey Show. Most people know me as the guy who did stupid with a lot of zeros on the end. I made my first million dollars in my 20s the wrong way and then went bankrupt. That's when I set out to learn God's ways of managing money and developed the Ramsey Baby Steps. By following these steps, I became a millionaire again, and this time the right way. After three decades of guiding millions of others through the plan, the evidence is undeniable. If you follow

the Baby Steps, you will become a millionaire and get to live and give like no one else. My new book, Baby Steps Millionaires, is now available for purchase. When you order my new book, you'll learn how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can do it too. I'll walk you through how to invest, build wealth, and bust through the barriers preventing you from becoming a millionaire. Baby, step your way to becoming a millionaire. Get your copy today at RamseySolutions.com. That's Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 as we talk about your life and your money.

Okay, married folks, imagine never having another money argument. What would that be like? Considering it's the number one thing people divorce over money fights, money problems. It's the number one thing they fight about, money fights, money problems. The number one thing they fight about, money fights, money problems. When you get on the same page with money, it's like there's not a lot left to fight about. I mean, you've got to really work at it after that. So it changes your marriage. It changes your finances. It increases the probability of success in your marriage and in your money.

Hello. Sounds like a good plan. How do people learn how to do that? In Financial Peace University, we've been teaching people to do that for many decades. Almost 10 million people have been through this class. And many, many, many of them say it saved or enhanced or changed their marriage in a good way. So to join a Financial Peace University class, you can take a free trial at ramsaysolutions.com

slash FPU. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. Oh, by the way, we'll also teach you how to get out of debt and become wealthy, which is actually what the class is about. But in the process, it changes your marriage. ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU.

Phil's in Minneapolis. Hey hey phil what's up hey dave and john uh yeah i'm calling from minnesota got a bit of a weird question that i've never heard answered before i am a realtor so i work on commission my wife and i are in baby step four five and six she works for the school district and we front-loaded our iras uh roth iras in november and we just did our taxes and turns out we made over the threshold so we can no longer put in the six thousand dollars total we made over two hundred thousand household income yep just barely but yes we did and so now we got to pull money out of the IRA, and now they're down about 10% from when we put them in, so obviously that's going to be money lost.

They're trying to figure out how to get them back into an investment because everybody, from what I'm hearing, is saying that you've got to pull them back out and put them in a money market. You don't have to put them in a money market. That's not required, but you have to pull them out. You have to liquidate these because they're traditional iras right no they're rough they're roths they're roth iras yeah and for my tax pro he says you you can't do that and then my my investment advisor is actually an elp and she said yeah that that sounds right yeah you have to

pull it you have to pull it out but you but you can do, and your SmartVestor Pro should be able to help you with this part, what you can do is do what's called a backdoor Roth. And if you hadn't filed your taxes, I'm sorry? She said that wasn't an option because what we did is we have, so I have a company that pays basically, I have an S-Corp, and so I get my salary out of there. So my business taxes are already done. That's already filed.

Our personal is not done yet. She said we weren't able to do a backdoor Roth, and I'm not quite sure why. She leans towards doing a SEP, but I can't do a SEP for 2021 now that it's 2022. Yeah, you got to pull the money out. That's settled. What you do with it is not settled um i think there's a bunch of different conversations going on and maybe they're getting confused here uh i don't hear any reason you can't do a backdoor roth a backdoor roth is a personal move it's not a business move if you haven't filed your taxes for 2021 you can still do a backdoor Roth here's how

it works unless they can give you a good reason that you can't do it and I don't know what that would be do you have a huge amount of money in a traditional already no less than 100 okay then you you should be able to do this so hit your smart investor pro again and tell them Dave said he thinks you can so really look into it it. Because here's what I think. There may be a detail of your situation I don't have yet, or I may be missing something in this conversation. But I don't think I am. If you can do a backdoor Roth after you pull this money out, which you have to pull it out, here's what you would do. Before you file your taxes, you would open an after tax traditional not a pretext okay and immediately

30 seconds later roll it into a roth okay so i can just roll it from traditional to a roth yeah from an after tax traditional not a before tax okay Okay. It's an unusual traditional. Okay. But it's an after tax traditional, and you roll it then into a Roth instantaneously. And you could do it all with the same mutual fund that you're in, and you could do it with the money that's left that you have to pull out. You don't even have to go all the way to $6,000, but if you want to add a little to it, you can do that um i know you can still do them i just did one the other day well good so i mean i know it's i know in general it's possible but i but now is there a way to roll the current money that you've got over into that i

don't think so i think you just got to pull it out now i'm sitting here with some cash in my hand from this ira that i overfunded and now I'm going to do a backdoor Roth instead. And you probably are just going to do backdoor Roths as long as they exist for the rest of your life because you're probably going to make over $200 from now on. Thank God. That's wonderful. I'm proud for you. Peyton is in Portland, Maine.

Hi, Peyton. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, John. How are you guys? Great, man. What's up? So I have a little bit of a relationship question about my parents. I'm 20. I just finished school. I work full time.

I'm on baby step two right now, so I'm paying off my student loans and my car. I'm almost done paying off my car right now. I had an account statement on my counter, and my parents saw it, and they seemed almost disappointed that I'm paying off my car right now. I had an account statement on my counter and my parents saw it and they seemed, they seemed almost disappointed that I'm paying off the debt. They really, they're really worried about my credit score, but you know, I don't know how to explain to them like the plan I'm doing with you guys.

I've tried to before, but it just doesn't seem to register. And they were really, it seems like they were really disappointed. I just didn't know how to go about that. And it kind of took me back. I know in my heart, I'm doing the right thing, but I want to be able to honor them with doing this

because they think I'm being irresponsible. I'm just not sure how to go about dealing with that situation with them. How old are you now, did you say? 20. 20? 20. Do you live at home? I do, yes.

Okay. I'm going to give you a gift. Well, I was going to give you a gift, and it's going to be a little bit complicated because you live at home. But I want you to keep this near and dear to your heart, okay? They don't get a vote. You're out of college. You got a job.

You're making a living. Now, they do get a vote because right now you live in their house, and so if they tell you to be home at 9 o'clock and to fold your socks a certain way, you live in their house, and they can do that. But when it comes to how i'm taking care of my money my dad has opinions which is fine well and good but me and my wife make decisions financially for my household and you're making your own money you're making your own job you're paying off your own debts and they can tell you hey we think you should do this and really care about this loan and what

thank you so much for your wisdom i'm really grateful for that i have a relative that tells me how i should vote and they're wrong so they don't get a vote okay and what you what you if man if you can learn this at 20 that people who love you and care about you are going to give you bad advice and they still love you and care about you and you're gonna be able to move on with your day i mean if you could i didn't figure that out till i was like 35 so if you can figure that at 20 the rest of your life is going to be good because this is going to continue to happen that way okay yeah yeah and so here's the thing um you know mom and dad i don't want to disappoint you

guys and i know that you don't understand what i'm doing here uh and i love you and i respect you uh but i've actually do have a system and I actually am working a plan from some reading and some studying that I've been doing on how to handle money, and it's working for me. So I know you don't understand, but it's okay. I'm going to be okay, and I'll be happy to talk to you about it, but you need to separate the part where you need their – you emotionally need their approval to be an adult. That's what John's saying.

And a great gift, man. Sometimes when I'm trying to explain a hard concept, you know, if I'm talking to somebody and I just don't have the words to explain it, I'll hand them a book or a podcast. This guy does it better than me. This brilliant doctor, she writes this better than me she this this brilliant doctor she writes this better than i can explain it right now and so maybe if you say hey if you don't fully understand i get it here's a copy of total money makeover read this this guy there's a better job explaining steps millionaires yeah that's right just do a better job of explaining

it to me yeah that's not a bad thing to do either and go this is what i'm doing and if this helps you it might be interesting to you it might not You may just want to stand back and not agree. And that's okay, too. You can do whatever you want to do. I'm going to be going forward with this thing. And it's a smile and a gentle word. No fights. There's no acid in the air. No passive aggressive in the question or the statement. Just be there. This is the Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Sherman and Christina are with us.

Welcome, guys. How are you? Thank you for having us. We're great. We're great. We're excited to be here. We're honored to have you. Where do you live? Gainesville, Florida. Oh, very cool. Well, good to have you. Thanks for joining us. All the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. Yes, all the way to Nashville. Cool. How much did you pay off? $203,000 in 27 months. Way to go. Wow. And your range of income during that time? Started right around $100,000 and up to about $215,000.

Wow, nice job. Sherman, did you go back to work? That's a pretty big jump, man. Had to get to work. That's right. What do you guys do for a living? We own a gym in Gainesville, Florida, Dynasty CrossFit.

Then we also own a marketing firm, Lassen Framework. Now we own a marketing firm, too. So what drove this income to double in two years? I mean, two and a half years. Yeah, the marketing firm sort of took off. The gym was our main thing for years, and then we started the marketing firm. So both of them just sort of continued to rise as we get more focused on paying off the debt. Funny how that works.

Funny how that works, yeah. I need some money. I wonder where I can find some. That's good. Very good. Way to go, you guys. What kind of debt was the 203? Mostly student loans, his student loans.

Mainly student loans. I guess they were my student loans. Apparently. Apparently. That's the word out here. I thought they were ours. I thought they were ours. They. Apparently. Apparently. That's the word out here. I thought they were ours. I thought they were ours. They are ours.

They are ours. So mainly student loans. We paid off a car. We cash flowed a few things. But mainly the bulk of it was student loans from undergrad graduate school. Yeah. What's your degree in? I got an undergrad degree in psychology.

Then I went to a master's program in biomedical science. But not really utilizing those now so i don't know jim if you want to stretch it probably probably inform some of the decisions maybe where you realize it or not way to go guys yes good job very fun so what started this journey uh 27 months ago this ramsey idea yeah so we've known about Ramsey for the entire time we've been married. When we first got married, we took FPU, and that sort of gave us the foundations to not go into more debt, but we weren't ready to be serious about it for a couple years ago.

So you flunked. Yeah. Okay. I wouldn't say we flunked. We definitely had. You got a C. I think we had a mind to not I guess yeah

we just didn't want to accrue more debt so we were more aware of you know not you know working side hustles working multiple jobs especially even during pregnancies we were very much aware like this is something we owe

and we need to pay it back. We just didn't know how God would multiply our income in such a way that from what we were making to what we're making now until about two years ago when we heard a word from the Lord and we're like, you know, our obedience, he, he has to take care of it.

So this is where we're at. We're only making a hundred grand. It seems like an enormous mountain and we're just gonna have to chip away at it and at some point you start chipping away at it and all of a sudden the income took off yeah the income he's faithful he his provision is amazing and it's through that that um all these opportunities started becoming about and we were able to chip even further amen and amen love it way to go you guys cool very cool so all right so you you get re-energized yes years later after fpu 27 months ago and you say all right game on what was the conversation do you remember that i mean you said

you got a word from the lord right so there was a a moment in time that something just kind of was a wake-up call there's a milestone there where it turned right yeah definitely so it's funny because we were actually up here visiting our good friends the coleots up here um in nashville and i thought i had seen y'all out here before yes we've been here numerous times we've been to the old place people you're hard to forget yeah i mean ladies tell me that so thank you yeah listen i'm not standing by you in the photos all i'm saying that's all i'm saying um so we were up here and up here on vacation and those student loan people they called me and that just was it while you're in a lobby no while we were up here on vacation in nashville and that just put that i don't know

why that just turned the knife turned And I was like, no more. Yeah. I love it, dude. I love it. All right, so you go and sit down with Christine and say, so for the next couple of years, we're not going to buy anything. Yeah. We're going to have to duct tape the kids to the floor because they might have to go, too.

We're going to get after this. Were you all in? Yeah, I was 100%. I've always been all in. Yeah, she was all in. I would say that's one of the big – I'm the spender, but I'm also all in to not have debt. She is the spender.

But she was definitely all in. She was like, if you want to do it, let's do it. And I was just like, all right, I guess I really have to do it. And I started hoping she would say, ah, maybe. She was like, all right, let's do it. Because I feel like if you're called by God to do something, at that point it's a conviction, and it's just through our obedience that he's going to um

yeah that's the same trip you're walking around out here in the lobby yeah yeah that'll get on you too yeah absolutely and we did that intentionally i remember saying well we have to go and it kept us um it's a drive for us there's the picture all right i'm not i wasn't losing my mind all right i'm in the picture yes it kept us motivated it's something that that um once god calls us to do something i mean it's easy for us we don't have there is no no like the consequences there is no reward to disobedience put me in coach so put me in this is what we have to do and then now we get to watch him um provide and make a way so. So it was easier for me because it's like, all right, God, hands off. You work your miracles and whatever you need us to do, we're in.

Well, I mean, you doubled your income during this time. So he was obviously showing off. He did. He showed up and showed out in a big way. Florida's been different throughout this, but you've got to say that 24 months ago, running a gym, all of a sudden the world, your heart's got to start beating a little bit faster, right?

Absolutely. You were exposed, right? It did, but we always had peace. We had a word. Like, that's it. That's all we needed. So our faith was strong enough, and our children are amazing.

Like, they're gung-ho about anything, too. And when we all sat down as a family we came up with the budget there was no going back there i mean we were all in and we knew that god was we knew it would be hard but i knew that um it would be rewarding as well so we focus more on serving others and doing what we could for other people and we also taught an fpu class during that time just to stay focused oh thank, thank you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I would say you have to have a budget. You have to stick to the budget. And for me, one of the biggest things is your spouse. If you're married, your

spouse needs to be on board with you because that made it even easier for me. Like Christina stays at home, doesn't work outside of the home. She homeschools all three kids. So it could have been easy for her to say, you know, I'm not going to be on board with this. I've got to take care of these kids. But she was like, if you want to do it, I'm totally on board. So having a budget and then having a spouse that fully supported me, that made it that much better. And I think for me it was easier because, um not easy but it was a lot easier to understand this is not our money we have to pay it back i'm not mad at the student loan people we he signed

the paperwork i mean we owe them so it's you know it is a commitment and back to it's your money no no no it's not it's not he signed the it's not that it's something we we wanted to and in marriage that was one thing he he always you know was, hey, I have this mountain of debt from school. And I'm like, it's ours. It really is. And that honestly was the point I was trying to get to. Yeah, you're very healthy. We're poking fun at it.

But very good. Very well said. That's very well done. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. That and outrageous generosity. So you're on track to be able to do all of that. What are the kiddos' names and ages?

We have Judah here. He's 8. We have Ariana. She's 10. We have Caden. He's 13. All right. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Good-looking family. Well done, you guys. We're proud of y'all. Thank you. Good work. You're amazing people. Well done.

$203,000 paid off in 27 months, making $100,000 to $215,000. Sherman, Christina, Caden, Ariana, and Judah, count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Here we go in three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! Yeah! So cool. That's how it's done, man.

That's how it's done. 27 months later. Game on. That is a different kind of game on. When you just decide something, that's when you draw the line to sin. I'm done, family. You will never call me again. I'm done with you. I'm done. line in the sand. I'm done. I'm with my family. You will never call me again. I'm done with you.

I'm done. You're bothering me. I'm out. The borrower is slave to the lender, and I don't like it anymore. I'm out. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We're talking about your relationships, your mental health, anxiety.

We're talking about jobs and careers. We're talking about money, marriage, kids, life. It shows up right here on the Ramsey show. Andrew's with us. Andrew's in St. Petersburg, Florida. Hi, Andrew. What's up? Hi, Dave.

How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, thanks for taking my call. I've been looking forward to doing this for a while now. I have a large question, but I'm hoping you can help me out. I work right now in insurance. I make pretty good money. I'm worried you're going to ask me how much. I don't know exactly because I haven't looked at my last years, but I know it's well above 120. It's probably about 150 for the year. I love the company I work for. I love the people I work with. It's been a blessing and I've been here for about four years now.

However, I did start a business renting electric bikes here in St. Pete, Florida, and it's obviously something I'm a little bit more passionate about, something I love to do, and I'm just really nervous. Right now it's kind of part-time, will. Um, I run it with my cousin, so we kind of balance out the workload. And then my brother is like our full-time employee. So it's sort of passive income with me working it on the weekends. Um, and I got, I'm just trying to figure out kind of how, or if I should transition, I never want to give up my book of business with what I do now in insurance because I've worked really hard for it and now it's at a really good point

where I could go to more of a part-time place and start focusing more on just renewing my book and not so much on new sales. But it's still scary to make the know from going to being sales sales you know new business every month and renewing to kind of shifting my focus onto this business um what'd you make on the business what's that how much you make on the business last year oh well it's new it's all right we haven't you haven't made any money yet no no i mean i mean honestly no you don't need to quit doing anything do you make money

yeah that's true um it's definitely not as much as yeah i'm making now you're not making any money so it's definitely not as much yeah i i wouldn't have any problem with you taking a pay cut if it's something you really wanted to do and you enjoyed your life, but right now you're making zero. Yeah, so you've got to get the business profitable, and I want to see it putting $100,000 in your pocket. Right, yeah, because it's not. I mean, it does make maybe a few thousand a month, but definitely not.

In your pocket. In your pocket. In your pocket. After everybody's paid, after the brother's paid, after you split with your cousin, after you buy new bikes to replace the ones that the drunks tore up, and all the stuff you have to do in that business. Right, right. Now, once you get it to 100, here's the second thing you need to do before you make the jump but don't even talk to don't talk about quitting your other thing until you get this up

to 100 you're kind of coasting around in this conversation and i need you to for your sake i want you to be very very precise because if you don't you're going to make a mistake. So when you get to 100, I see two problems with this business, okay, that threatens the future of it. One is competition. As soon as Bird put a scooter on the street, three other people did. And if you were all in on Bird scooters, you'd be screwed right now because competition would have run you out of business. And electric bikes are another version of Bird scooters you'd be screwed right now because the competition would have run you out of business and electric bikes are another version of bird scooters okay the second thing is this is a very

technology driven app driven social type movement product and if it suddenly goes if it's no longer it's it's it works right now because it's cool it's cool it's it's in vogue it's the cool thing to do in five years it's not going to be the cool thing to do anymore so in addition to having a plan on how you're going to survive the competition, you need a plan on how you're going to add other types of product lines that do not falter as quickly when they're not cool anymore. When you have a fad product, when the fad's over, your business is over if you don't have another product. And so in addition to electric bicycles, you know i mean if you think about look back five years five years ago no bird scooters no electric bicycles that just showed

up boy i mean this is it and so uh something else is going to show up the go-aheads is fast and it's just it's not going to be cool that That's what I mean by cool. You're on a fad product line, something in a high rate of change industry. You've got to have a plan for where you're going next, not I'm going to do this for 20 years with electric bicycles, because 20 years from now, you won't be doing electric bicycles. I promise you. And this is a strange call, Andrew, because 99% of the time someone calls, it's I'm a nurse and i cannot do

this anymore i'm a teacher and i cannot i'm a police officer and i can't the way you talked about your insurance company you like it you love these people and so here's the thing there is this weird pressure going along around people who are 25 and younger if you're working for a company that somehow you're failing that if you're not quitting your job to go do your quote-unquote own thing, that you're somehow less than, I call bull crap on that. If you love your job and you're making $150,000 and you're good at it and you're building it, there is nothing wrong with staying there and crushing it and hustling it there with your company, man. So the third option is stay in the job permanently.

Do the things I'm talking about with the business and get the business so profitable that you just staff it and run it, and you're an absentee investor. That's what I like. You're not an operator. Hire some high school kids to run it for you. Well, he's got the brother in there starting it, right, and first full-time employee.

So we can put some other employees in there as the profitability goes, and let's run that up. But you still are going to have to look at how you're going to double and triple the revenues. You're still going to have to look at how you can diversify your product lines because you're in a very, I don't know the other proper word to use other than fad. You're in a very in vogue product in a high rate of change industry and you're going to get your head taken off with that because you're going to just wake up one more it's going to be over and and and you're sitting there with a whole bunch of bikes 75 electric electronic bikes yeah i mean it's just that's going to be a problem and it's not going to be happening tomorrow it's not

going to happen next year but five years from now i mean you know you may be using holograms to book the deal you know i mean i don't know so uh all right rose is in tampa hi rose how are you thank you for taking my call dave and dr john sure what's up can you hear me okay yes so my question is i have i currently have two rental properties and one of them will be sold this summer, so I'll be out of question. But I have a townhome that is empty right now. Tenants just moved out. And I'm wondering if I should sell it or keep it long-term. What's it worth?

About $270,000. Is it paid for? I have $45,000, which I'm going to be paying off at the end of this month. So let's pile up $250,000. Let's pretend you don't own the townhome. And I just put $250,000 cash stacked up in the middle of your dining room table. What type of investment are you going to do with that? Are you going to buy rental property? Are you going to invest in mutual funds?

What are you going to do with that $250,000? Everything else I have is in the market and so for me real estate was this is just not having a hundred percent of everything in the market do you want to buy with your 250 000 in the middle of the table do you want to buy a piece of real estate i'm unsure that's what i'm Okay. There's not a wrong answer. Yes is the right answer and no is the right answer because it's what you want to do. Real estate is not a bad investment. It's not the perfect time to sell if you should be holding.

I'm not selling mine. I got a bunch of it and I'm keeping it. And I'm just smiling that it's worth a lot more and that the rents are going up on all of it. I'm just smiling. But if you are sick and tired of real estate, there's no law that says you have to own real estate. So you can sell it. But if you would buy more real estate with that money,

then you would keep this. If you would sell it, if you would not buy more real estate with it, then you would sell this. That's how I help analyze it. Helped me walk through the emotions in my situations. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country.

To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.