The Ramsey Show - App - Helping Family With Money Should Be 100% Conditional (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where daddy is dumb, Tash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. Thank you for being with us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Tibby is with us in Honolulu starting off this hour.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Tibby. Hi, thanks for having me. Sure, how can I help? My question is, we are a military family, and we have made it through all of our baby steps, and right now we're just trying to save as much as possible for retirement in eight years. The only issue is that my mother-in-law has never saved anything towards her retirement. She's always just assumed she was going to collect Social Security, and that was it. But she's running into some medical problems now, and we're the only ones that can actually help financially. So I guess I'm just wondering,

how do we go about saving and making sure her needs are met while also not being completely derailed from maintaining our retirement goals and our financial goals what is the how much money does she need and why um she doesn't have any money saved for retirement like literally literally nothing, no savings account. She has never put into any kind of type of retirement. I got that. What does she need money for though? Uh, she's having some dental surgeries done right now.

Um, and then she also needs a car. And originally, uh, we were going to have enough money, enough cash saved to where we could purchase her a vehicle. And that's what we were going to do because she can't retire and also have a new vehicle. But then the medical issues came up. So now we're paying for the medical and also trying to save for a vehicle for her. So how much is the medical? It's going to be a total of about eight thousand dollars and how much is the car

uh we had ten thousand set aside for the car does she have a car now she does it's about 25 years old. Does it run? Yes, it does. Okay. And actually, my sister-in-law's husband does all the maintenance on it for free, but it's getting to the point where she has holes in the floor. How old is she? She just turned 61. Why does she not work?

She does work. She works at Ruger. She assembles all the Ruger weapons and stuff like that. So what does she make? I think it was, we were talking, it's really hard to get any information out of them as far as finances go because it's kind of a shame topic. Who's them? information out of them for as far as finances go because it's kind of a shame topic but who's

them who's them uh both my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law do they live together they're very guarded when it comes they live together they're five minutes apart okay all right okay so here here's what i've got i got ayear-old woman that makes money, probably decent money, and chooses. Actually, it's pretty low. So they're in a really small town in North Carolina. I think she's rented the same house for almost 40 years. You don't know what she makes. You just told me.

Yeah, well, so my husband has talked to her about it, and she said that she's making about $1,200 to $1,500 a month. Okay. I don't believe that. Okay. If she's working 40 hours for Ruger, that she makes $15,000 or $16,000 a year. I don't think that's probably true. But we don't know.

That's the bottom line. Yes. Okay. So here's the way that I approach helping someone. You can throw money at people that have problems, and they will still have money problems after you've thrown the money at them. Translation, you gave a drunk a drink. Well, kind of.

No, not kind of. We're paying her bill, but we're not. Now it's my turn to talk, okay? Not kind of. It is. That is what it is. When you give people money that are misbehaving, you are financing their misbehavior. And that is not helping them.

That's you not having the courage to force life change in someone that needs to address their life change. So, we're this my mother. Your husband needs to deal with this, not you. You're just the daughter-in-law, which makes you the bad guy. Your husband needs to deal with his mom. Mom, we are willing to help you, but we're going to get full disclosure on everything you make and where every dollar is going. And you're going to participate in us helping you because we're going to make sure that from this point forward, you are managing your money better. Because I am not throwing money at you just because you need it, just because you don't manage it.

I love you and I love you so much. I'm going to make you fix this area of your life. So you are a blessing to you in the process. If you need some help help we will help you and so i think you've probably already agreed to cover this dental cost i'm not buying you a car until we get a full breakdown on the budget and we see what the budget looks like and we're helping you with the budget well i don't want to talk to you about that. Then I'm not buying you a car. My giving you any more money after this dental is 100% conditional upon you doing better for you. I love you so much, I'm not going to participate in your misbehavior, your insanity.

I'm not going to do it. I'm not giving a drunk a drink. I will pay for the drunk to go to rehab. I will take them to a restaurant and buy them a meal, but I will not pay them money for them to go get drunk with. They have an alcohol problem. I'm not giving money to someone who's misbehaving with money so that they can continue to misbehave with money. No one got helped here. It's an illusion.

And you're supposed to feel like you feel better because you helped her. You didn't help her. You paid for her insanity. And to make money your entire life and have nothing to show for it is a form of insanity. She's made good money throughout her life. She's making better money than she's letting you on now. Her take-home pay might be $1,500 because she's getting a bunch of rip-off crap taken out of her check, or she's got too much coming out of her check and she's getting a big refund

at the end of the year. But I just about promise you she's making $30,000 there. And $1,500 is $18,000. Something wrong. I could be wrong, but I just, you know, that happens to be an area of the country and a world I know a tiny bit about. So I could be wrong, but I'm going to know before I give her any money. And the sister-in-law is not involved.

Sister-in-law's got her own issues. This is your husband talking to his mother about how he can be a blessing to her by participating in her financial healing, by both giving her money and by demanding that she start behaving with money for her own good. If she won't do it, don't give her money. That's my rule. For years, I've been telling you to get Zander's ID Theft Protection Plan because it covers all types of ID theft. But if you've never been a victim, you have no idea the nightmare you could experience.

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Call them at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. It's just a smarter, more affordable way to protect yourself. That's zander.com or 800-356-4282. Have you ever listened to the show and you know the answer? Because you've listened to the show so much, you know the answer for the person that's calling? If you're passionate about the stuff we teach on this show, then we need your help as a Financial Peace University coordinator. You don't have to have all the answers. I've got them. They're on DVD.

The lessons are delivered through the Financial Peace membership. You don't have any trouble getting them. You can watch them online. But we need coordinators to coordinate the groups in our local sites, primarily in churches. And there's nine lessons that are taught with the local group, and there's a one-year membership to EveryDollarPlus and to Financial Peace University online, as well as you get the kit and everything when you sign up for Financial Peace University.

The coordinators simply lead the groups. You volunteer. And if you can put chairs in a circle turn on a dvd and love people you can be a coordinator it's really rewarding you get a front row seat watching people change their lives it's exciting stuff if you want to coordinate a group this summer we're going to discount financial peace university for the people in your group who will sign up. That's a pretty cool thing. So if you want to set up a discounted group for the summer session as a coordinator, text the word summer to 33789.

That's summer to 33789, or go to DaveRamsey.com, get in touch with one of our sales advisors in Financial Peace University, and they will help you get that same deal, either one. We'll help you any way we can, because we've got a lot of people wanting to take the class in the summer, and this is a way that you can coordinate a group at a discount. Pretty cool deal. Lauren's in Springfield, Illinois. Hey, Lauren, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay, so my husband and I have gotten in a bad situation. We have one house that we currently live in and a rental house. Both mortgages are behind, and we're trying to figure out if we should sell both of them sell one or the other or what's the best course of action why are they behind well the rental house got behind

because i had some bad tenants that i had to evict and you couldn't afford the bill without the rent exactly okay and then our current mortgage um i lost my job back in February. It was just both incidents happened at the same time. Ouch. You got a new job? Yes. So what's your household income going to be in the coming 12? So it should be about $110,000. And what is the payment on the home you're living in? $1,332,000.

That's very doable with your current household income. Would you agree? Yes. Is there any reason to with your current household income. Would you agree? Yes. Is there any reason to sell your current home? No. Okay. Sell the rental. Okay. We were just wondering, since we were starting in the baby steps,

would it be best to sell both and rent until we got out? Nope. I'd sell your personal residence only to avoid a foreclosure or bankruptcy or only if you couldn't afford it. It's very affordable with your income. got out? No. I sell your personal residence only to avoid a foreclosure or bankruptcy, or only if you couldn't afford it. It's very affordable with your income. That's a very reasonable mortgage. And let's get rid of the rental. What's the rental worth? Right now, about 92 is what the realtor told us. Good. And what do you owe on it? 82. So it'll probably be a wash after the fees. Exactly.

If you get out with your skin, you'll be intact. That's good. Good. Well, you got rid of a problem then. That's all it is. It's not a blessing. It's a problem. Okay.

Now get rid of it. How much other debt have you got? We've got about 97,000. On what? Between 60,000 in student loans, and then we've got a couple of cars and credit cards. What do you owe on your cars? On my husband's car, about $6,000. On mine, $13,000.

Okay. Those aren't out of line either. I think you can do this. You've got a really tough two and a half to three years ahead of you, but I think you can do this. I think you can pull it off to clean up that other debt, and you're not getting anything out of this rental but this rental is not going to do anything except cause you problems it's not going to bring you money the best case scenario you break even right so i'm dumping it today put it on the market i would hold your home if at all possible um you know do you like your home i assume you do yes we do yeah moving is so expensive on your personal residence that it's the last thing I do.

If there's nothing else we try that'll work, it's the last thing I do. I sell everything before I sell the house. Gotcha. Because it's just so expensive emotionally, financially. It disrupts your whole life. You know, it's a major upheaval in the family and it really does cost a lot of money to move and so it's not something i just i'll sell your car in about 90 seconds you know i don't think anything about that it's just a car you can get

another car pretty quick the the impact on the family is fairly low on that but moving every stick of furniture all your pictures your clothes i, I mean, it's a problem. So very, very low on the list of things to do. I would hold the house and see if we can't turn the other debt around, and I'd sell the rental today. I think you got this. I think you can do it. Melissa's with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Melissa.

How are you? Hi, I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my husband and I are on baby step number two. Like our largest debt is our car loan, which is we owe $14,100. We are putting our second motor in it.

We just bought it in October. And we found out through all of this because my husband was like, we need to dump this car. So we were going to try to just sell it. Well, apparently it suffered frame damage. So it's like worth nothing. So the bank has a lien on it. The only way we can get out, like we can't even, you know, like we sell it to a third party for five grand we still have to come up with nine thousand for them to release the lien so no benefit not drive it okay well that's what we were thinking um because we also have a five thousand dollar loan for the first motor we had to put into it so i mean do we just drive it until it dies well you drive it till you get out of debt.

Okay. And that's not that long. $14,000, how much other debt have you got? $5,000. $5,000 on the motor, so that's $19,000. $4,900 for the motor. We owe $500 on a credit card, and then I have a school loan for like $5,000. So what's your household income? Oh, I think my husband makes like $45,000.

Maybe last year it was like $48,000 or something because I made a couple thousand dollars last year. Maybe $48,000 total. We're in a good position because part of my husband's salary is our house. So, like, we don't have a house payment. We don't have gas, electric, nothing. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. So this is

more like making 60 or 70 yeah yeah so you should be you should be out of debt in what less than two years yeah that's what um when i was looking up all the numbers that looks to be about two years yeah so it's time to know exactly what you make and exactly where every dollar is going and exactly which debt we're going to attack first which is the smallest one and then we're going to exactly lay out a game plan and you and your husband are going to exactly look at that once a week no more i think exactly okay you got to manage this money like you were being paid to manage it right like it was your job and you were going to get fired.

Because right now you would fire you. Right, yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, if you were running financials for me and I asked you how much we made and you said, well, I think it's around, I'd fire you. Right. Not on the spot, but I would consider it on the spot. You see what I mean? Your job is to manage your life and i want you to take

this job a lot more seriously and so get online get the every dollar budget going you and your husband look at it tonight it's free you can download it for your iphone or for your laptop everydollar.com for your budget and you make your budget in about 10 minutes and you'll know exactly where every dollar is coming from and exactly where every dollar is going to. If you'll do that, you'll start making really good decisions because people don't make dumb decisions on purpose. They make dumb decisions as independent variables out here flying around without the knowledge of the rest of their life plugged into the decision.

When you put it all down in one place and have a holistic look on the money, you make much wiser choices, and you're going to end up with more money as a result. I think you're out of debt soon. I think you drive this car to your debt-free, and then you sell it for whatever you can get for it because it's a piece of crap, and then you put some cash with that, and you move up in car to a better car for cash. Good question. Hang on. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover,

which is going to show you exactly how to do this. Exactly is the key word here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. By the time I was 26, I had $4 million worth of real estate, and then I lost it all because I didn't do it the right way. That's why I feel so strongly that buying real estate is an incredible way to build wealth, but only when you're debt-free and do business with people who have your best interest at heart. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been showing people how to build wealth through real estate for over 25 years. Their whole program is engineered around having better information so you make smarter decisions for your family.

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Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Justin and Jennifer are with us. Welcome to the show, guys. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you guys live?

Denver. Denver. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way over here to do a debt-free scream. Yes. Yes. Love it. How much have you paid off?

So in January 2012, we bought a financial piece, and we've paid off $263,000 since then. Wow. So 2012 to 2018, six years. Just under six years. $212,000, six years. Okay. And your range of income during that time? So we pulled out the tax return to take a look at it.

We were at $110,000 in 2012. Mm-hmm. We were at $110,000 in 2012. And we had started or kind of peaked out at $309,000 back in 2008 when we graduated from college. There was some work that we tried to do. We prepared for daycare money for our son by paying off her hospital bill and her car. Very cool. So what do you guys do for a living? I'm in human resources. I'm in corporate finance and real estate.

Good for you. And you guys are making $300,000 a year. Last year was a big year. God blessed us in an amazing way. Wonderful. Yeah. A lot of work to do. Cool.

Good for you. So $212,000, what kind of debt was this? Of that, it was all student loan debt and a mortgage. Okay. Oh, you paid off your house. Yes. In Denver, no less. Yes.

Whoa. Looking at weird mortgage. Okay. Oh, you paid off your house. Yes. In Denver, no less. Yes. Whoa, looking at weird people. Yeah. Way to go, you guys. Thank you. How old are you two? I'm 34. And I'm 35. And you have a paid-for house?

Yes. It's worth how much? Now, the neighbor's house just sold for $450, so it's probably in the $425, $430. I love it. Very good. Very cool. How does it feel to be 30-something years old with a paid four house? Very blessed.

God's amazing. Yeah, and a part of the deal in 2012 is we're turned on to you. My brother and sister-in-law had done a financial peace class. And at that point, I'd saved real estate commissions for eight years was, it was so painful looking at $70 of interest each month. I said, things can go pretty sideways on a rental property and we're still making out ahead. So we, uh, we were thinking long-term and invested a good portion of that money into a property that it was a dump. I mean, it needed, uh, paint, carpet, sewer line, roof, countertops, I mean, everything. But it's been such an amazing blessing to take those resources and then apply it towards our debts on top of everything else that we were doing with our budgeting and building a plan and working it.

Okay, so the house you invested in that was a dump, what happened with it? It's a rental property. Oh, we still have it. You still have it. You got it turned around, got it in good condition, and it's paid for property oh we still have it you still have it you got it turned around got it in good condition and it's paid for too yes wow in addition to your house wow love it man you guys are killing it congratulations god is so good very cool yes he is very cool so uh what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is. I mean, you've done it. I think just following your program was what was key for us.

Just making a budget, sitting together, being on the same page, making a plan, and sticking to the budget, which is the hardest part, is really the key and just being disciplined.

Yeah, it's been such a blessing to us that starting in 2012, we've been leading financial peace classes. Oh, thank you. First at the office that I was at and then every year since we've been doing it at our church. Okay, cool. So you've seen a lot of people turn things around. Yes.

And they got you right there as an example in your 30s with paid-for houses. Yeah, rentals and the one you live in. Wow, way to go, you guys. So what's the rental worth? The rental, when we bought it, we bought it for $101,000, put $25,000 into it. It was worth maybe $150,000, $155,000 at the time. Now it's probably worth $300,000. Oh, wow. Very nice.

Very nice. And have you started putting money in your 401Ks and stuff yet? Oh, yes. Absolutely. So how much is in there? I have about $115,000 in mine. And we have about $75,000 in mine. I've got about 75 in mine. Okay.

You guys are about to hit your millionaire status. It happened. Yeah. Yeah. Way to go, you guys. Thank you. Well done. Wow.

Yes, this plan worked. Yes, it does. I like it. You guys are impressive. You're rock stars, man. I'm so proud of y'all. Did you have people cheering you on or saying you were crazy? Mostly crazy.

Okay. Yeah. And now you have that how do you like me now moment, huh? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah, you're too sweet to do that. I love it. Very cool.

Well, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you, number one bestseller. And that'll help you complete your story into everyday millionaire status. You're there basically. And we're happy for you. Congratulations. Very proud of you. Very, very, very well done. All right. It's Justin and Jennifer from Denver.

$212,000 paid off. Rental, house, home, everything in six years. 110,000 up to 300. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We are debt-free! This is how it happens.

Oh, man. Absolutely fabulous. Very proud of you guys. Very, very proud of you. Well done. Darius is on Twitter. Dave, I've read that investing in index funds is better than mutual funds. Your thoughts?

Well, you've been getting your investment advice from Internet blogs, which is a bad idea to start with. The thing you want to learn in the process of this, looking at it and thinking about it, is basically an index fund is any fund that mirrors a particular market. The most common index fund, as an example, which is what your articles are referring to, is an S&P 500. There's a company called Standard & Poor, S&P, that's a rating service that catalogs and tracks the largest 500 companies,

500 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. It's called the Big Board. Okay. There's the Russell Index that tracks more aggressive growth stocks, and that's typically on the over-the-counter or the Chicago trade is where you'll find those. And then there are other indexes that would track like overseas or foreign stocks, that kind of a thing. But the typical that you've heard of are an S&P 500. Another index that you hear is the Dow Jones.

It's another company that does ratings. Industrial average. But that's an average of just a handful of stocks. And so the marketplace, the investor marketplace, pretty well observes the Standard & Poor 500 as the bellwether, the measure, the plumb line of what the stock market, the New York Stock Exchange, is doing. And so what does the stock market do?

Well, we hear on the news the Dow Jones Industrial Average did so-and-so, but actually the most accurate measure is the S&P, the Standard & Poor's 500, because it's 500 companies that we're measuring the average of and what it did that day. Okay? And it's a weighted average and a whole process they used to measure it. That's an index. So an index mutual fund would buy stocks, a bunch of them, sometimes, in some cases, as many as all 500 companies, to approximate or within just an eyelash of giving you the exact return that the S&P 500 does.

So basically, whatever the stock market does, good or bad, overall, the average of the stock market is what you get when you invest in an S&P 500 or in an index fund. Fairly simple. And most of those are no loads, meaning no commissions. So they're fairly simple. There's not a lot of thought to it. You don't need to look at the historical data unless you just want to know what the history of the stock market is. Not a lot to do.

Most ETFs, exchange-traded funds, are index funds. Most of them are S&P 500 funds. When people talk about buy an ETF, buy an ETF, buy an ETF, don't buy mutual funds. Well, the thing is, can you do better than average? And the answer is yes, you can. Over the last 40 years, the mutual funds that I've invested in, ones like I have invested in, have outperformed the S&P considerably. And the last 30 years and the last 20 years and the last 10 years, we've outperformed. So you can pick mutual funds that beat the S&P, and that's why I buy mutual funds instead of ETFs or no-load S&P funds.

But it's kind of a lazy man's investing game. If you want to do passive investing, you can do that. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry, a Better Business Bureau-accredited organization CHM members share

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. We're talking about index funds going into the break versus mutual funds. Just give you a little bit more on that because there's a lot of barking out there that, you know, you don't need an investment advisor. You can just pick a mutual fund. And most mutual funds don't outperform the S&P 500, which actually is a true statement. Most don't.

But that doesn't mean all don't. Most people don't win the Super Bowl. But someone does. And so which team do you want to pick, you know? So here's the thing. Over the last 40 years, large cap funds that are in existence today that we own that are around 40 years old there's 84 of them 34 in the growth category that have outperformed the s&p 500 and um actually i'm sorry out of the 84 30 of them outperformed the S&P 500.

In the last 30 years, there's 179 total. 51 of them outperformed the S&P 500. In the last 20 years, there's 446 funds available in that population growth. We did the research on this. How many outperformed out of 446 the S&P 500? 199. And in the last 10 years, there's 957, basically 1,000 of them, and somewhere around a fourth of them, 247, outperformed the S&P 500. In my current mix, in my personal 401k, my return over the last 40 years, had I been in it exactly like that,

I've not been in it the whole time like that, but if I bought those exact funds over the last 40 years, they would have returned 13.04% as a group. And I've got one growth, one growth in income, one aggressive growth, and one international. So I've made 13.04% during a 40-year average. The S&P during that same period of time averaged 11.81%. So while 1.23%, 1.25% over 40 years might not seem like a lot, if an investor puts $10,000 in 40 years ago and never puts anything else in, this amount grows to $480,000 extra during that 40 years because of one and a quarter percent so returns do matter and so had you done oh i'm just going to invest in s&p because i read an article

i would have made a half a million dollars more for every ten thousand dollars that i had invested 40 years ago than you made. That's what outperforming the market means to you. Over the last 30 years, my mix has averaged 11.3%. The S&P has averaged 10.89. Over the last 20 years, my mix has averaged 8.53, and the S&P has averaged 7.12. Of course, this includes the drop in 2008 in those numbers.

So once we get past those numbers, it's going to change dramatically because there's an unusual dip in the marketplace and the historical data of the marketplace there. I own one particular mutual fund that since its inception in 1973, and I've owned it almost that long, has averaged 13.43%. During the 44 years I've been invested in that, had I been in it since it began, I'm not quite, but had I been in it since it began, out of 44 years, it's had seven years it lost money. The oldest fund out there is ICA, Investment Company of America.

I actually own some of it. Its annual return since it started in 1934 is 12.07%. Dave Ramsey says you can get 12%. Dave Ramsey's lost his mind. I trust Dave Ramsey for getting out of debt, but he doesn't know anything about investing because you can't get 12%. If you just bought that one fund, you would have. And out of the 83 years that it's been open, 15 of them are down years and the rest are up

that's a pretty stable fund like very stable like safer than your house fund so there's two funds that i own right there, one at 13.43 since 1973, and one averaging 12.07 since 1934. So I know you don't think you can get 12%, and I know some of you that are CFPs know where you can get this, and others of you that are CFPs are just certified financial Pharisees, because you have decided that it is absurd to expect these kinds of rates of return that the historical market data shows you is actually there. So what if you put money in the mutual fund and I'm wrong?

Well, I'm going with you for one thing, because I've got millions and millions and millions of dollars in these funds, so I'm going to lose a lot thing because I've got millions and millions and millions of dollars in these funds. So I'm going to lose a lot more than you. So shut up. But let's just say that I'm wrong. That the fund that averaged 12% since 1934 or 13.43% since 1973, that they don't do that well. Let's say they do half as good. Now, based on their history, that would be a bizarre freaking assumption.

Mathematically, you'd have to be smoking crack to get these things to do that. But let's just say they did half, because we're so far off in dreamland. Where is it you're going to get 7% on your money again? Half? 6% on your money? Have you been to the bank? Have you looked at CDs? They're one.

One and a quarter. Where is it you're gonna get seven so if i'm half wrong you're still gonna get wealthy the point is is for you to start investing and quit getting paralysis of the analysis. And stop this stupidity of worrying and fretting about being ripped off on fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees. You know, the ASPPA, the Actuary Consultants, Administrators, and other retirement plan professionals, it's actually an organization, did a detailed research of retirement success that models the findings that we found as we studied millionaires.

You know what the primary driver of becoming wealthy at retirement is? According to this study, the primary driver, 74% of the reason that people have wealth at retirement, is what's called savings rate. You want me to define that for you? It means you saved money. You put money into the account. The primary contributor, the primary reason that you become wealthy is you actually freaking save

money. It's not your rate of return, which I just went over some great rates of return, and it's not that you saved on expenses, and it's not that your golfing buddy gave you a stock tip or your fishing buddy gave you a stock tip, the primary driver, 74% of the reason, if you want to be successful, 74% of the time you'll be successful, that's a very high rate. It is based on you actually saving money. The rate at which you save money is the primary driver. It's not the rate of return. It's not a financial advisor or not a financial advisor.

It's not you read an Internet article. It's not your broke brother-in-law's opinion. You actually saved money. The rate at which you save money causes you to become wealthy. Duh! It's kind of common sense, isn't it? You can't get 12%, Dave. I know.

I just told you a fund where they've done that since 1934 and another one that did better than that since 1973. But I know you can't. And the S&P during that same period times 11.8. So, come on, folk. You can do what you want to do. But it's time to get your rate of saving, your rate of investing up, because that's the primary driver by which you become wealthy.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word. For years, I refused to endorse any company that claimed to get people out of timeshares. I told my listeners it's a horrible product and that, unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of options. Then a few years ago, I sat down with Brandon Reed, the owner of Timeshare Exit Team. Brandon walked me through the Timeshare industry, and I learned that you can't sell them and you can't even give them away.

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