The Ramsey Show - App - High Gas Prices Are Affecting My Business (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Dr. John Delony & George Kamel discuss: How TikTok's algorithm is dangerous for kids, Dealing with high gas prices, Re-financing your house, Paying off debt to start a business. 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 from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Ramsey Show where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money and your life and your relationships and your work, your mental health, everything. Give us a shout. The lines are wide open, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined here by, I'm going to call you my good friend, George Campbell.

Thank you. Thank you for saying that. There's a lot of hesitation. I forgot. I was going to tell the truth, and then I forgot the Venmo you sent me, and I told you I'd do it. I paid John off to be nice to me today. And I'm grateful for it. Well, John, we're back by unpopular demand.

Exactly. Dozens called and said, we'd love you all to be on. And so they had us back, 888-825-5225. George, you've been running and gunning for a few months. Walk us through it. What have you been doing? It's been a little wild. We have been, we hustled on the Fine Print podcast, which was a lot of fun. And we've got a lot of video shoots and curriculums and things that we're getting off the ground here at Ramsey. And a lot of people don't know this, John, our high school curriculum and personal finance is in 48% of high schools in America. One out of two. That's amazing. Because a lot of people go, man, I wish I learned this stuff when I was in school, John,

I wouldn't have made these mistakes in my 20s and 30s and 40s. And so it's really cool to see the impact our team is having over in Ramsey Education. And they updated it with you in it. And we had a lot of fun. Yes, exactly. So if you're a high schooler, tune in. And I love, man, I don't want to be dismissive. I'm a Pythagorean theorem fan. Oh, no. But my middle school son is going through it, and I thought, you know what you really should be learning right now? As I was doing taxes. How to do taxes. As I was doing taxes.

Man, it'd be great if they had a class on what taxes were and why they work and how to do them. They're not complicated, especially if you have a great program to get through them. No. Man, the Pythagorean Theorem is wearing me out. I'm trying to watch my son drown. Well, they taught us how to play hot cross buns on a recorder, but they didn't teach us what deductions and withholdings were.

I'm just going to stop you right there. Hot cross buns in the recorder. That's the only song people can play. I can still play that song. It's three notes. Don't take away my musical prowess. We're not going to do that on the show today, but what we will do is help you with all of your questions around money,

boundaries, relationships, mental health. 888-825-5225. All right, let's stop rambling. People are going to get frustrated with us and shut us off. Let's go to Julie in the Big D, Dallas, Texas. What's up, Julie? Hi, I'm doing well. I wanted to ask you about refinancing a mortgage. Bring it on. What's up? So we currently have an FHA mortgage. We owe about $70,000. I just actually spoke to Churchill this morning to see if refinancing is a good idea.

And they're saying after closing costs, it'd be like $74,000. But at the rate we're paying it off, I just don't know if like building in those closing costs are a good idea for us or if it's worth it because we've been paying off about $20,000 to $25,000 a year so far on the mortgage.

That's awesome. Okay, so what's the rate now and what would it go to? And is it a 30 to a 15? We're on a 30 right now. If we go to the 15 year, it would be 3.375. Okay. And what's it 30 right now. If we go to the 15-year, it would be 3.375. Okay.

And what's it at right now? Right now it's at 3.625. Okay. Not a major jump there in interest rates. So, so far it's not super tantalizing to do the refi. But you're knocking off half of the mortgage, the life of the mortgage. But she's saying they're going to pay it off in two years anyways. That's my question.

Yeah, Julie, how long are you going to plan it on? Two, three years? Dating this mortgage. We're thinking probably three. We're having our first child later this year, too. Congrats. So I don't know how finances are going to change at that point as well. So there's a lot of external factors here.

Let me run this by you, too. We currently pay escrow because it's FHA, and there's also PMI that we can't get rid of. So that would help because we can save the insurance and taxes ourselves. How much other debt do you have? Save on the escrow. We have no debt. Zero. This is the only debt we have.

Well, I mean, we can't do the math on air, but I would run all these numbers. And, you know, obviously your payment's going up because of the 15-year, but is that still going to be within your 25% of your take-home pay? Yes. Like, you would actually drop it a little bit overall. Because you're losing some of the costs as well, moving to a conventional loan. Right. Wow.

Yeah, exactly. This is, I mean, it may be splitting hairs here because you're not gaining a ton on the interest rate side. So I would run kind of a break-even analysis and go, okay, are we going to make this up? Are we going to make the $4,000 gap with the closing costs up within that three years? And if it is the case, if it's, hey, we're going to make this up, we're going to ROI this thing in a year and a half, two years, then you can go ahead and do it.

And Julie, let me tell you this. I had the same, it's a very similar thing right before the turn of the year. And I sat down with Churchill and did a very similar thing. And here's what I loved about my time with them. They told me at the outset, we will not take your business if it's not a good move for you. So we will tell you, we don't think this is a good move. And so I would call your Churchill person back and say, and I ended up doing it. They said, we think this is a great move for you.

Here's why. They walked me through why it was a good move. But I love the fact that they said at the outset, we're not going to take your money just to take your money if it's going to end up hurting your family. We don't want your business if it's going to be at the detriment of your home. And so call them and ask them, is this ultimately a good decision for our family?

And then the follow-up question is, would you do this if you were in a similar situation? And I have found them to be uber trustworthy, and I've trusted my own family and our own situation with the refi in the exact same situation. So I think it's worth it. And I don't plan on having my mortgage for more than a couple more years. So I think it's definitely worth asking that hard.

And let them know, hey, we're going to pay this off at this point, two and a half, three years. So is this going to be worth it? If you're going to be in there for another 10 years, it would absolutely be worth it. But because you guys are on this timeline to pay it off, we generally just say, hey, just keep staying the course, put as much extra on as you can on there, because the interest rate is not going to make that much of a difference. Do you have a matrix, George, for somebody who is just trying to decide whether they're going to pay it off, not pay it off? I mean, if you look at your own budget and you go, hey, if we're going to pay this thing off in two years, generally it's not worth refinancing unless you're dropping a significant rate, which in this case, I mean, we're talking 0.3. If it was a full percentage point, we're going, okay, this is adding up. Even over the course of a year, we're going to save thousands and thousands of dollars.

And she's saving some because of those FHA loans. They've got a lot of fees baked into it, like she's talking about with that PMI. And so to have that off your back, saving you a few hundred bucks a month, well, that compounds pretty quickly over the course of a year or two. My default is I like any move that's going to drop off half of the life of the loan and my monthly payment's going to stay the same. It feels like a win. Yeah.

But again, I think in their picture, they're going to pay it off in two years. And I always, man, that new baby is always the, it's always a variable. It's hard to wrap your head around. Yeah. But they have the money for it either way. When's a big absolute no-no?

Just walk away from the refi table. I mean, if we're talking it's going to cost you $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, and it's going to take years and years and years to ROI that thing, I'm going no. Refying from a 30 to a 15 just to feel good about yourself and do the Ramsey plan, that doesn't always make sense. Okay, because it costs you too much to make the move. Because it costs you too much to ROI on that fast enough.

So there's no clear-cut thing. You've got to look at the numbers, do a break-even analysis on it, and go, can I recoup my investment in this, which is your closing costs, fast enough to make this worth it? Fantastic. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.'s 888-825-5225 It's the Ramsey Show

We'll be right back People all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs through Christian Health Care Ministries. Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, is a non-profit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses, and they have successfully shared each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. See if CHM is right for you by visiting chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Let's go out to Douglas in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hey, Douglas, what's going on? Hey, you all right? Yeah, I can hear you great. What's going on, man? Hey, man. I just finally got on the long go and had a question. I'm a company driver right now, a CDL driver. I'm wanting to make a switch to owner-operator someday.

And I was curious, should I pay off my consumer debt first, then buy truck cash, or pay off my consumer debt and my mortgage, and then buy truck cash? Well, either way, I want you to pay cash for the truck. Now let's talk about the consumer debt. What do you have in consumer debt? So I just sold my car. Like I said, I just found a guy

with some real... You're getting serious about it, man. Yes, I'm a huge car guy, and I put a lot of money in that car, but I sold it. Paid off my truck, too. Wow. I got some student loans, one credit card, and mortgage,

and that's about it. So what's your non-mortgage debt total? Last time I added it up, it's about $56,000. $86,000? $56,000. $56,000. Okay, what's your income? Right now I am making about $65,000, but I'm leaving this job next week to go to another job

that increased about $30,000 a year income. So you're going to go up to about $95,000? Yep. Douglas, way to go, man. That's a huge jump. That's going to help you pay off this debt. How much do you owe on your mortgage? $145,000.

$145,000. Well, if I'm in your shoes, I'm using this income to my benefit. I'm going to keep living how I've been living, keep living like you're broke, and get rid of this $56,000. Well, if I'm in your shoes, I'm using this income to my benefit. I'm going to keep living how I've been living, keep living like you're broke, and get rid of this $56,000 in debt and get your emergency fund in place, and then I'd be saving up to pay cash for that truck. Before paying off the mortgage. Yeah. I don't think that you have any reason to have to pay off the mortgage before starting this business.

That's not part of it. But I do want this consumer debt out of your life because number one, it's going to free up a whole bunch of money for you to pay cash for that truck. And it's going to put a lot less stress on you as you try to launch out on your own. How much is your own truck in your area? For a decent truck, about $40,000. About $40,000? Okay. So you've got a two, two-and-a-half, three-year journey here, right? Yeah, I'm looking at, I want it to be debt-free, not including the mortgage, about $30,000. I'm $27,000 now. Oh, you'll be debt-free way sooner than that.

I think you could probably own this truck by then, too. Free and clear if you get after it. Yeah. I love your heart, man. And man, congratulations on busting it and getting out of there. That's big. I love the heart of wanting to start out on your own. And when you do that with no payments, it changes everything. And I love that he said, I'm a car guy and I'm selling my

cars. That's a lot of sacrifice. That means I'm shifting my identity from depreciating assets to I guess I can't say that anymore because car values keep refusing to go down. Now cars are appreciating assets. They're appreciating assets. But I'm a car guy, too. They're still toys. I'm a free guy, and that's an identity that's worth shifting for.

Let's go out to Andrew in Huntsville, Alabama. What's up, brother Andrew? How we doing? Hi. I'm an engineering student. I'm a senior right now, and I'll graduate in May. And I've already got a job lined up for after school. It'll be a salary position making about $45,000,

well, a little more than $45,000. But I'm wondering, you know, I'm looking at probably getting married in five years or so and doing some other things. I'm wondering what probably getting married in five years or so and doing some other things. I'm wondering what can I do to try to springboard and build wealth quickly when I'm young besides just like an IRA and maybe getting another second job or something. Let me rephrase that. How do I get rich quick? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. What can I do to, not necessarily quick, but that would, I want to make sure that I do the things I need to do now to be where I want to be when I'm, you know, 40.

And I know that I can be prepared for retirement, and I've budgeted out, you know, taking six grand out every year for maxing out my IRA, but I would like to try to find something I can do to make a kind of alternate stream of income to be able to enjoy while I'm young, like through raising a family and things like that. Okay. So I was wondering if y'all had any advice on that. Well, I've heard you could draw art pictures on your computer and sell them for millions. He's talking about NFTs.

Don't listen to him, Andrew. Millions. Don't listen to him. And I heard also you could get imaginary zeros and ones pictures and sell them in imaginary places on the internet. That's true. And get rich. If you're selling them, it might be a good business. But, Andrew, here's what I hear you saying.

I want to live life on my terms, and I don't want to wait until retirement to do it. And I love that spirit, and I think you can get there. But I think you've got to have a bigger picture than just how do I invest like a crazy person and make some money quick. I want you to think bigger than that and go, how do I invest in myself? How do I set up my family for success? Do you have any debt right now? I have about $9,500 in student loan debt. And that's it? No car payments, no credit cards? No, no car payments. I just paid off my car a couple months ago. Awesome. So here's what I want you to do. If you walk through these baby

steps, if you graduate and you pay off this $9,500 really fast and you save up three to six months of expenses, which you're going to be able to do pretty quickly when you don't have any debt and you're making $45,000, $50,000, then I want you to start investing 15% of your income into retirement. So that will look like if you've got a 401k at work, I want you to invest into the match. Beyond that, you can invest into that Roth IRA and then back to the 401k if they have one at work. Once you hit that 15%, you might want to save up for a house, right? Right.

So that's got to be part of this equation. We can't just take every dime we can and throw it into investments. We have other pieces of our life that we have to pay attention to. And if you're talking about wanting to be married in five years, are you dating someone or is this just kind of aspirational? Hey, I'd like to be married in five years. I am dating someone. I've been dating for about 17 months now. And I mean, I wouldn't be dating him if I didn't think it was possible in five years or in a couple of years, however long. So you're feeling good about this relationship? I want to prepare for that. Yes, sir. Let me ask you this. What kind of engineer are you? I have a mechanical electrical engineering technology degree. And right now I'll be taking a job as a automotive design engineer with a company here locally.

Was that the first option you received? Well, no, not necessarily. But I've worked there or I've worked kind of training up through here since my senior high school. And they have trained me on several different things to step into this design. I'll be stepping into pretty much the senior design engineer position. position and then within three years have another evaluation where um they would evaluate my kind of contribution and i would be able to have a um sharing of the profits of certain jobs like a percentage-based sharing so it would be a significant pay increase i want you to be eyes wide open you've you have a relationship with company, and you've been with them since you were young. And when that happens, especially when we're young, we have an affinity for them.

But sometimes that affinity, sometimes that familiarity can cost us tens and twenties and thirties of thousands of dollars. And for a – I just have too many students I've worked with and know who have left college with engineering degrees that are making 85 first job. And then two years in, they're at 120. And then they're at equity stake when they make partners. So I know that you know this group, and I know it's local, and you're going to be able to hang out in the old places and talk to the old high school buddies. But I want you to be highly intentional about your trajectory. One of the things we say here often is your greatest wealth building tool, your greatest, fastest way to get ahead is to make a great salary. Not to come up with some get rich quick scheme. And I was kidding about NFTs and I was kidding about Bitcoins and buying imaginary things in imaginary universes.

I want you to be really intentional about your salary, okay? And what your value is, what you're worth. And of course, you never go to a place that's going to kill you, that you hate to make more money. But man, I also say you don't stay at a place that makes you feel comfortable, especially when you're young and you're supposed to be grinding it out in these years for half of your market value, for a third of your market value, right? So be super intentional about that salary.

If they're going to give you a track, make sure you got it in writing that this is the plan because I've heard too many, yeah, in a couple of years, we're really going to reimagine this or reevaluate this. And a couple of years goes by real fast and there's not a lot of reimagination. Stay the course, man. You can do this and I want you to have a paid for house and then you can get into real estate investments and create that passive income. You're so young. You got your whole life ahead of you. Be patient. Stay the course. 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney.

Joined here by my good friend, as promised, George Campbell. We're taking your calls on money, life, relationships, work, all of it. 888-825-5225. All right, George, this is a conversation for you, and you can help out me, the old man. I will help you. Even though we're basically the same age. Not true. TikTok faces an investigation into its impact on young people's mental health.

Coalition of state attorneys from California, Florida. Look at California and Florida get on the same team. Look at this. Maybe something good is happening. The world's coming together. Kentucky? California and Florida and Kentucky, same page. I'm calling this a win already. And more is investigating TikTok for its potential effect on young people's mental and physical health.

Group of AGs is looking to see the way TikTok designs, operates, and markets its platform has a negative effect on children, teens, and young adults' health, according to a press release by the AG of Massachusetts. So a couple of things that I find troubling about TikTok. And again, me ranting about social media is no big news, but this is more personal for me. I have a middle schooler, and he came home and was talking about, what does this TikTok think? Because, of course, he lives in the 14th century because he lives in our house, and all of his classmates are on TikTok. Does he just have an abacus he plays with at home that's what i'm picturing at the deloney house he has a

stick and a small stone and that's pretty much his toys and he uh he i said what are some things your friends tell you about and so he gave us the name of somebody on tiktok a tiktok star and so my wife and i pull it up and it was again i my entire show is is about relationships and sexuality intimacy i am far from an old-fashioned prude right what i saw on that was a very young kid super provocative super um it was just highly it was it was it reminded me of my time working with sexually abused kids it was highly sexually charged up it was really young kids doing these dances on her and it wasn't just it's a fun hilarious tiktok dances which i've seen i've been a part of those this is something totally different and my initial thought was i don't want my kids exposed to this and i don't want my kids longing to become the topic of conversation and i started to ask myself

what is the trajectory here for this product for tiktok and i realized that it's different so you know remember saturday morning cartoons? We had those back in the dinosaur era. That's the only thing we have in common, age-wise. We both had cartoons. You know, they had these shiny cereals and cool toys and things like that. They had, you know, whiz-bang and lots of shiny moments so that kids would want to buy those. But the whole object of those commercials was to get your kids to tell your parents, that's what I want. They still had to loop back to the parents. And this feels new because what this is doing is going

directly after the kids. It's bypassing any sort of wise or mature filter going directly into the hearts and minds of kids. And that feels different. And I'm happy to see states coming together states that on the surface don't like each other are coming together to say hey um they right here how tiktok keeps people watching and engaging is somewhat mysterious they have had to pay millions of dollars in fines um tiktok has already for how they're going after children under the age of 13. Man, as somebody who doesn't consume TikTok regularly, help me out with the redeeming value of this platform. I can help you, John. So to TikTok's defense, I am a big consumer of TikTok. Those words have never been uttered in the history of the English language, by the way.

Here's the thing. A lot of people assume TikTok is a bunch of salacious dance challenges, but what's extra dangerous is how good the algorithm is at learning what you like. Okay. And so it doesn't ask you. There's no survey that says, hey, George, are you interested in personal finance and food hacks? It didn't ask me that. It just learned over time the kind of content I was engaging in. So I don't see dance challenges. see is a lot of content creators trying to build their followings, trying to sell an online course,

whatever. A lot of the Bitcoin bros that are out there trying to teach you on whatever the next coin you should invest in. So I do see a lot of value in short form content creation. It's where things are going. It's where we've been heading. We have a shorter attention span than ever. And even the cartoons these days, if you watch them them there's a new scene change every three or four seconds right because it's just bright garbage and you need to keep your attention by switching scenes cutting cameras we are losing our attention span so that to me is one of the most dangerous parts it's not the salacious dance challenges it's the fact that i can't focus anymore i can't even sit through a two-hour movie yeah because i gotta only where's my phone i can't drive to the grocery store without trying to text and drive and get emails and make phone calls.

And so to me, the danger is in what short-form content could be doing to our attention spans, to our focus. And we can't pay attention to conversations anymore. That's a neurological consequence, right? It's changing how our brain is wired together. So you said you were going to defend TikTok, and I feel like you just joined my team. I love the content that I see on TikTok. I find it more valuable than some things I see on YouTube. I just watched one yesterday and it was a girl explaining what's going on with Ukraine and NATO and she did it in a really funny kind of almost like she was gossiping to a friend about it.

And she explained it in 60 seconds so concisely and perfectly and entertained me along the way. So I think there is value in the style of content. There's value in a platform like TikTok, which, like it or not, has done this really well of serving you up content that it thinks you will like and then keeping you engaged. So on that side, I mean, that's just smart marketing. That's how the content machine works. It's why we love watching YouTube video after youtube video and now it's now it's tiktok and so it sounds like the meta lesson then is no pun intended is parents have to continue to remain parents because asking a 10 year old or a 14 year old to look at cooking videos over salacious videos or extra violent content or whatever, you're asking too much of a small kid, right?

Yes. I'm a grown man. It's very different for me versus a 13-year-old, especially if you have kids out there. I can't imagine what it's like being a parent and trying to make sure that you're aware of what your kid is engaging in, what apps that they're downloading. And part of all the drama with TikTok is that there's no need for parents' permission. Kids can just download this app, make their account, and have free reign over all the content on there. Yeah. And, man, I trust you. You're smart and you're wise, and you do your due diligence.

If somebody said, hey, I've been getting a lot of updates on what's going on overseas via TikTok, I would just shake my head in sadness. You know what I mean? Yeah. So also be careful about what you're getting to. Well, this is their news platform now. Yeah. They're not checking CNN and Fox News anymore. Teens are just going on TikTok.

That's great either. And they're just learning from people their age about what's going on. And so take everything with a grain of salt. TikTok is not gospel. It is not the dictionary. So do your due diligence. But it's a fun, entertaining platform. I use it to learn things and to be entertained.

But if you've got a kid out there, you've got to be really careful about how this is affecting your teen with comparison culture. Both content-wise and neurologically, right? Yeah, because it used to be, I want to be a YouTuber, John. That's the new goal of every high schooler. Now it's, I want to be a TikTok influencer, and I want to make content. What's my content going to be? How am I going to hook people in? And they get obsessed with this, with all the likes, all the engagement, all the comments,

and all the critics and every negative comment that comes through. That affects you mentally. That sticks with you. Especially kids, right? Dave and I just read mean tweets yesterday. It doesn't affect us like it would a teenager. You know, we have thicker skin than I did at 14 years old. Well, you remember a few things people said to you when you were 14, right? There's a comment that still sticks with me. When I was 14, I uploaded a YouTube video, and they said it was a me covering Umbrella by Rihanna on acoustic guitar.

And they said, you killed it, dot, dot, dot, and not in a good way. And it stuck with me because it was funny, it was creative. Did it hurt? But there's something about these strangers that are critics on the internet and we take it personally and go this is a reflection of my character and who i am and so you've got to be really careful not just about what you're posting what you're engaging in but what other people are saying that you don't even know so man i just loop back to two big things number one if you're wondering can i have a job can i have a life if i don't engage in this? I don't, and I seem to be doing okay.

And the second thing is, please be highly diligent with your kids. Just handing your kid a device or a box, a digital babysitter, and saying, go get them and make good choices, is just a recipe for disaster. The data on children's mental health and their engagement with social media continues to just be jaw-dropping. I think it's going to be one of the biggest issues for that generation that we've got to grapple with. And parents are the start of it.

They've got to have these conversations. 888-825-5225. We'll be right back. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined here by Ramsey personality George Camel, and we're taking your calls on life and money. Let's go to Nathaniel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. What's up, Nathaniel? Yes, I am. My question is, I have a small business where I do delivery of dogs and drive people around. And right now with the gas prices, I am being killed. Yesterday, my wife and I just put our first budget together. And I'm just wondering,

how do I budget for expenses for my business? Well, I mean, in a sense, you're budgeting the same way you would for your personal finances. So I would look at all of your expenses for your business and make sure that you're charging enough that you're able to cover all of those costs and still pay yourself. So is that the case right now? Right now, I'm doing okay. But like with my dog delivery, people are starting to turn down my services because I had to raise my prices. So Nathaniel, how honest can I be with you right now? Yeah.

Can I be pretty honest with you? Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Whenever I get scared, whenever I get angry, I don't make good choices. I don't make good decisions and I don't treat people around me. Okay. I filled up my truck yesterday and it was

a, like my eyes bulged out. It was a lot. And I have a little secret gas station that I use here in Nashville. I call it a secret. It's not, but they just happen to have gas prices that are way cheaper than everybody. And it was, it was hard. And so I was sad for a minute and I was frustrated for a minute. And any choice I make to be angry and raged out after that is a choice for me to be miserable. And I can hear it in your voice that you're pissed off and you're angry. And that usually leads me and most people to not make great choices. And so you run a business and this hurts and this is scary and the gas prices went up. So have a moment where you're angry about it. Have a moment where you're frustrated and you are doing a good thing and you're helping people out and suddenly you're having to make hard choices

about whether you can do this thing anymore. And then let's quickly as possible move to, okay, here's the new reality. I'm going to own the reality. And then what comes next? What's the pivot? And it might be for a season, I'm not delivering dogs anymore because I'm losing business because I can't afford to do this job anymore. And it's the same if you sold jet airplanes and all of a sudden steel got expensive. Or you were a construction engineer and wood got expensive or you you know were a construction engineer and steel got i mean and

wood got expensive right and so what you're asking us is to say like is there a secret hack here and there's really not your your material costs for your business just went way up and so things got expensive and you had to adjust your prices and now people are saying i can't afford those prices that's the state of the world right now, literally the state of the globe. So give us an idea. I know you've thought about some ideas. What's a pivot you can make? I have thought about getting some small jobs around my area.

Like, I love butchering. So I'm thinking about talking to some butchers in my area. I love that. What about going to... You seem to be good with pets. Can you walk dogs instead of drive them around? I'm just making stuff up, man. I don't know what you're doing.

I'm out in the country. Not very many people have... That's not a thing that people do out in the country. What does this small business make right now? I'm making approximately $2,400 a month. Okay. And is that all of your income? Yes.

And is that all profit? No. This worries me. This doesn't feel – I mean, you're living at the poverty level at this point. Yeah. What's your goal for this business? Well, I've been doing it for eight years, and I'm actually going to be going to the mission field in several years, so I'm not looking for anything long-term right now.

But you can go get a job for five years that's a full-time position until you leave for the mission field. But making $28,000 after running a business for eight years, and that's not even your profit, that's a bad business. It's not working out. You're not running a sustainable business, my man. Even aside from gas prices. Yeah. I can hear that hurt in your voice because, man, you've put a lot of your heart and mind and soul in it. And I bet you're really – are you good at this?

It sounds like you're good at this. Yeah. Or let me even ask, it sounds like you care about the people whose dogs you're driving around and delivering things. It sounds like you care about this. Is that right? Yeah, I do. Yeah.

So I'm just going to give you my secret hack when things get spun out on me like this. I have a note card, and I wish it was more sophisticated. Maybe one day I'll make an app. I'll a note card, and I wish it was more sophisticated. Maybe one day I'll make an app. I'll get with George and we'll make an app. But I literally write down what can I control on this and what can I cannot.

And what you can control is how you treat people, your work ethic, your ideas, your desire to help others, all those things. You can control all that. Control number one,

you can't control gas prices. Not in the middle of a global chaos like we have right now. Number two, I can't control that my minimum price has to be X or I actually lose money doing my job. And you can't control number three, that people will not pay that price. So I've got to do something else. What can I control? Number four, doing something different. And it might be a season. Yeah, you go work fast food because you're going to make more money or you go work at Starbucks because you're going to make more money. Or you go work at Starbucks.

You're going to make more money. Or you go become a farmhand out there in the country in Harrisburg. Whatever it looks like. But take the season, mourn it, grieve it. It's heartbreaking. I don't want to make light of it. But I want you to let some of that rage leave you. Otherwise, you're going to end up making a tough decision or a not well thought out decision.

You're going to take out a loan. You're going to get mad at somebody. You're going to end up just setting yourself on fire instead of solving the problem at hand, which is I got to make some money. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. And my hope is, man, I hope gas prices return. I don't see it on the horizon. It looks like we got a mess on our hands. I'm not a profit, of course, when it comes to gas prices, but I would think more than a month, more than two months, more than three months, man, you're already running a business that really has no margin at all. It's not making any money. Nathaniel, I want to do you another favor here. I'm going to have Kelly pick up, and we're going to send you a copy of our friend Ken Coleman's book, From Paycheck to Purpose. And I think that will give you some

ideas on how to get clear about what you're really wanting to do. It feels like right now, you've been spinning your wheels trying to get this business off the ground. You're heading into the mission field years from now, potentially, but there's a lot of life you've got to live in between that. And I want you to do something that you love and also get paid really well to do it. You're worth that. So hang on, Kelly will pick up and we will get you a copy of From Paycheck to Purpose. Thanks for the call. Let's slide in one more call here. Curtis in, you know what, we're not going to make it, are we? No, we're going to make it? Yeah, let's go. All right, Curtis in Wichita. Let's do this real quick. Let's go there. Curtis, we're up against the clock, so get to your question quick, brother. Hey, I was just wondering, I've just started

listening to you all, and I want to get my wife involved in this, but we have a lot of squabbles about money, and I was wondering what the best way to approach coming up with, hey, we got to get out of debt. Here's something I found. Will you sit down and do this with me? Most of the time I've seen this conversation, when it doesn't go well, is people make the conversation about money. They make the conversation about tactics. They make a conversation about you did this and I did this and I have to do this. And so you got to sell that. And those are all peripheral issues to a core issue, which is, honey, I'm scared to death. I can't breathe. I can't sleep. I don't believe we've got enough gas in the tank to get us

over the next year or the next two years and this is scaring me to death and I don't have a picture of what this looks like but I just found this Total Money Makeover book I just found this podcast of this guy this crazy guy Dave in his squadron of goons who are telling us to live different lives

I'm terrified and I'm being vulnerable I'm telling you this and I'm being vulnerable here. I'm telling you this. And I've got a plan for us. Would you join me in this? Can we have a picture of what it would look like if we both did this together and then we're free on the other end of this? That's a much different conversation than,

we owe too much money. You're going to have to sell that car and I'm going to keep the motorcycle. But I'm probably going to say, you hear what I'm saying? Very different conversations. Go at the heart piece, and you go first. Have you done that part yet? No, not really.

We've lived a normal life for the last 12 years. We've been married and filed bankruptcy twice. Are you a guy that's always got a plan? An idea? No, I always think I do, but really I don't. That's right. And she's probably heard a lot of your schemes and a lot of your plans and a lot of your, oh, this is going to work, honeys, and she's not having it. This is when you be vulnerable and tell her, honey, I'm scared,

and this time I'm going to do something different. Thank you so much for that call, Curtis. Hey, that's the first hour in the books. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. 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.