The Ramsey Show - App - How Can I Be Generous With My Friends Without Making It Weird? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

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Thank you very much. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show, where we hang out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Chrissy Wright, and joining me today is my good friend, host of the Fine Print Podcast, George Campbell. And we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. If you have a question about money, about the baby steps, about what you should do next, maybe making an important financial decision. We've had a lot of calls today about buying houses and things like that, newlyweds,

and how to get on the same page and combine your savings and so on. Give us a call. 888-825-5225. We would love to talk to you. Christy, I had an epiphany. Oh, let's have it. The last hour,

I realized as we're telling people what to do that it's really hard to hear. And then I realized if the advice is hard to hear, it's probably the right advice. Oh, you mean like emotionally hard, not like the volumes down? Yes. Emotionally hard.

I was like, George, do I need to help show you where the volume button is in your headphones? Oh, I know that part. But it's just such an epiphany. If the advice feels good and you go, yeah, that's, oh yeah, that feels really nice. Then it's probably not the right advice. And so a lot of the things we do on this show, we tell you things that you may not want to hear, but you kind of called because you kind of needed to hear that. Yeah, yeah.

And we're good at that. We're good at telling you the tough love truth, the kick in the pants, the truth that's going to get you to where you want to be, even though it's not fun to hear. That's a good point. No, no. But sometimes, here's the thing. It's not a theory to us. Not only have we lived it personally, and so we believe it very deeply, but we get a

front row seat to see other people live it out, and we go, oh my gosh, look, if you do it this way, it works every time. Yeah. And so a lot of people go, well, Christy, you don't understand my situation. I don't make enough money, or we live in a high cost of living area, or we've got a lot going on right now. We've got kids. And when you take out all the excuses and justifications at the end of the day this framework works for anyone yeah anyone and we're seeing people at all income levels

ages stages of life different family dynamics different uh industries that they work in and so on and um and yeah it can work for you even you And so if you have a question about how to do that, give us a call, 888-825-5225. George, I was given this article about a week ago, I guess, and this is in NBC News. And I thought it was really interesting because it is so in line with what I teach in my new book, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance. And I want to set this up by asking you a question because I think this will be a fun discussion for us. You know, one of the things I hear all the time is I just need more time. I just need more time. And the reality is we don't need more time. If you had more time, you just filled with more crap and you still end up tired. So it's not the answer, but we do have this, this belief that we just need more time. So there's a

new study that came out on the sweet spot of the right amount of free time. So I just want to ask you, what do you think the right amount of free time is? This will be fun. If I had to put a number on it without reading anything, I'm going to say per night. What are we talking? Just per day in life. Like no restraints. Okay.

Money's not an object. Money's not a problem. I'm going to go three hours. No, George. Is that outrageous? No, I just don't think you would really say. You really think only three hours people would want? If they didn't have to work, they didn't have to do anything.

I think beyond three hours, I'm going to form some terrible habits. There's going to be a lot of Netflix binging. George read ahead. George read ahead. I promise you. I'm just a millennial. That's how I know these things here's my breaking news that george is illustrating so beautifully apparently there's such a thing as

too much free time there's such a thing as too much free time leading to overall unhappiness and i think we have this idea that i just need more free time if i just had all the time in the world man that'd be the best i could do all the things i want to do wouldn't have to do these things so here's the the study this is from nb be the best. I could do all the things I want to do. I wouldn't have to do these things. So here's the study. This is from NBCNews.com. A new study finds that people may be just as unhappy with too much free time as they are with too little. Apparently, the sweet spot for extra free time is about three and a half hours. George, you were very close.

I almost nailed it. You really did. I'm very impressed with myself. You really did. And it says as the amount extends beyond that the benefits decline at around seven hours the extra free time and i'm quoting here the extra free time starts making people feel bad according to the study and it says this the more interesting thing is that having too much free time is also associated with lower levels of well-being and happiness.

Now, this is really interesting because the entire premise of my book, and I obviously read this after I published my book, but the entire premise of my book is redefining life balance. My favorite thing that people say is, this is not just another time management book. And you're right. The goal was to reclaim this word, redefine it and shine light in a space that is very saturated and say something new in the conversation. So I define life balance in my book as this. Life balance is not doing everything for an equal amount of time.

It's about doing the right things at the right time. And when you do the right things at the right time, you actually feel that sense of balance that you've been looking for all along. And I go on to define balance as having peace in your life, even if it's a little crazy, being confident in your choices, being happy and proud of how you spend your time. So there are four things that get in the way of us doing the right things at the right time. This is in my chapter on redefining balance. This is chapter one. And I want to read this because there's four reasons. Number one, we're doing too many things.

That's the most obvious. Number two, I think is less obvious. Number two, we're doing too many things. That's the most obvious. Number two, I think is less obvious. Number two, we're not doing enough things. Now, someone might experience this if they're an empty nester or they are newly retired. They've maybe lost a sense of their identity with their work and retirement or changing jobs or something. Or we all felt this last year in the pandemic. At first, we loved all this free time.

And then after a few weeks, we were bored and feeling out of balance. And so the way that I say this in my book, Take Back Your Time, is if you don't have people to connect with and responsibilities to show up for and outlets to share your gifts with or projects to plug into, you're going to feel bored and out of balance. So these are the first two of the four causes of being out of balance. Number one, you're doing too many things. Number two, you're not doing enough things. And then I go on to say, number three, you're doing too many things. Number two, you're not doing enough things. And then I go on to say, number three, you're doing the wrong things. And number four, you're not doing the right things. But I think it's so interesting because there's another quote from this article in NBC.

It says, of course, simply having a lot of free time isn't necessarily harmful, especially if people are happy with the amount of time they have and how it's spent. They're saying the same things. Spending your time on what matters to you. Then it's not so much about the hours. It's about you're spending your life on what happens to you. 21,000 people took this survey, y'all. And I just thought that was so fascinating.

There may be a lot of you listening going, too much free time, there's no such thing. But I think it's just a good reminder that the solution is not necessarily more time. The solution is not necessarily, oh, we've got to, you know, quit my job and go meditate for a year. No, like it's just doing the right things at the right time. And when you do the right things at the right time, and guess what? You get to decide what's right for you.

So if what's right for you is training for the Olympics or staying home with your kids or pursuing a hobby or working like crazy to build your business or taking time off, you get to decide what's right for you. But when you do the right things at the right time, you feel that sense of balance you've been looking for. And it turns out balance really is just being proud of how you spend your time, being happy with how you spend your life. So all this research basically supports your now bestselling book, Take Back Your Time. I felt so validated. And I must say, Christy, I felt so validated. You were reading from page 17 and you were already dropping mics that early. Most people are just writing the intro. You're like, no, we're

going hard. Page 17, let's go. I just thought that was so fascinating. I did. I read this and I was like, oh, I feel so validated. Three and a half hours. All right. That's how much free time I'm going to have tonight. And you are a very good guesser. Thank you. If I have to phone a friend on a trivia show, I'm calling you because you know things, George.

You know things. It was surprising to me, not to you. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, I heard a sad and touching story recently. Zander Insurance has set up a scholarship for children whose parents died without life insurance. Last year, they gave away over $165,000 to help kids avoid debt and go to college to pursue their dreams. It's touching, but also sad since it's a situation that occurs all over the country and can be avoided in so many cases. This is the reason why I talk about Zander and term life insurance every day.

It's not expensive or complicated, and it's gotten even easier with many companies no longer requiring medical exams. Zander shops and compares all the top term life plans and stays with you the whole time to make sure your family is taken care of. That's why I've used and recommended them for over 20 years. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. So I don't have to keep talking about these sad stories. I'm Christy Wright, and joining me today is my good friend George Camel. He is the host of the Fine Print Podcast, which comes out every two weeks on different topics to shine a light on the things that are holding you back with your money. The fine print, the stuff you probably don't know about.

So you can check that out wherever you listen to podcasts. And we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. And we're going to go to Sacramento, California with Mia. Hey, Mia, how are you? Hi, Chrissy. So glad to connect with you. Girl, you need to check your DMs on Instagram. Oh, Mia sent you a message.

Mia, listen, I literally, I get so overwhelmed by DMs. George, do you answer all your DMs? I try to. But here's the thing, Christy, you're way more popular. Like I get like one DM a week. You get like thousands a day. So Mia, give her some grace. Mia, I feel like that we should contact Instagram to make it less clunky of the approval process.

I got so many problems with Instagram's DMs. Anyway, I'm here for you, Mia. What's up? How can I help? Okay. So pandemic, I was boredom and working at home, I created Body Butter because my son has eczema. Okay.

And so I've created this Body Butter and I'm like, it's a side thing now. And friends, family is buying it, 20 bucks a jar, and they start telling their friends. So now it's kind of snowballing into this thing, and I want to know how to make it a thing. And it's taken off, and I'm kind of scared to kind of just launch myself because I don't think I can fulfill that many orders. So how do I connect with something or something that mass produces this? How do I market this um i'm yeah

that's what i need and i would like to george go to school but if we get to that we get to that okay well i'll keep it somewhat short so you can get to the question with with george if you want to but here's here's the thing mia i think you just need to identify what specifically you need done so are you just saying the actual production of the body butter, like you have a recipe and you need this to be duplicated at a mass quantity? Yes. Okay. So there's the best way to go about it. And this sounds so scrappy, but the best way to go about it is just start doing some research. If there are other people producing body butter in your area or lotions or

creams or anything like that to find out who they use, I'll tell you a great solution here in a minute that I'm going to get to. But just getting scrappy, doing research, asking around, and so on is a very good first step. Because then once you have, let's say, five, ten contacts of people that do this type of work, then you can get quotes and get samples and make sure it's going to be true to your quality, true to the scent, true to the packaging, all the things that you want to do. So it starts by truly just asking around. But if you'll stay on the line, I would love to give you a membership to my coaching group called the Business Boutique Academy. It's not open right now, but we'll give you a spot. We just opened a few weeks ago, so you'll be kicking off the next six months with us. And the reason I say that is not only do I talk about scaling in my training lessons, Mia, inside the academy,

but also that community is so powerful for getting specific vendors and resources. And so you can post in our private Facebook group, hey, I want to produce this body butter to mass scale. And there's tons of women that produce creams, body butters, lotions that can immediately respond and say, hey, here's the types of people I use. Here's a contact. Call this person. Ask for this quote. So it will just, they'll come alongside you and make that super easy.

But yeah, what question do you have for George about school? Because I feel like that'd be, the Academy is going to be a great place for you to scale this and we'll come alongside you and help you do that. Thank you so much. And virtual hugs. Okay, George, I want to go to cybersecurity school. Starts December 6th. It costs $12,000.

I'm debt-free. I talked to you and Yondeloni about a month ago. I was scared to pull up the trip and pay my last debt. So I did. Yay. Awesome. Congratulations. So I, and I have my,

I have six months of emergency fund. This is my method. I have $12,000 and six of it could be, my bills are $2,200 per month. So if I use 6,000 to put towards the 12 and do monthly payments for six months because the bootcamp is for six months. Is that okay or should I, what should I do? What's the deal with these monthly payments?

Is there interest on this? Is this a program through the school? No, there is no interest on it. It's directly to the school. They'll let me do a payment plan. The payment plan would be $1,000 down and $2,000 per month for six months, but I can't afford that. So what I was going to do was put six down and then $1,000 per month. I can afford that.

And they'll let you do that. Yeah, and they'll let me do that. Interesting. Or I could finance it for 24 months interest free. No, no. Okay, so you've got $12,000 and that's your emergency fund, and you're saying, hey, I could finance it for 24 months interest free. No, no. Okay. So you've got $12,000 and that's your emergency fund. And you're saying, Hey, I can go down to three months. You take half of that to pay for this program. Yes. And you're wanting, is this something you're

wanting to do full time cybersecurity? Yes. I want to go to cybersecurity. I've been a social worker for 24 years, so I'm ready to move, change careers. And so... Is this the best option for cybersecurity training? Is this super legit? Is this in your area? Is it online? Have you researched all the options for that? Yes, it's online six months, three days a week after work from 6.30 to 9.30. Yeah. So, I mean, I've researched that part. I've also researched other boot camps. And this is supposed to be, like, the number one that everyone is going to. Okay.

And what's driving the urgency of, hey, I've got to get in on this December 6th training? Is there one six months from now? It is, but right now I work from home, and I'm pretty sure in 2022, they're going to start making us go hybrid, and that's going to make me lose my opportunity, because what I do is I travel. So right now, I'm not traveling because of COVID, so I'm like, seize the moment. Oh, so right now, you can do it all remotely, do this whole program. And if you do it later on, you may have to be in person, partially. Well, I'm going to have to be back at work in person.

Okay. And I'm not going to be able to, yeah. Well, I don't love the idea of you depleting the emergency fund and doing this thing on payments. I would want to be reading the fine print on what this program is with the down payment and then making payments on this thing. Because it kind of feels like debt at that point if you've got monthly payments to make. But I understand you're cash flowing the program as you're going through it. So look into that. But also, if you can get this side hustle really rolling the next two months as the holidays roll in, maybe you can make a few extra grand and be able to cash flow a bigger portion of this. Well, I was going to jump in and ask that. If you could do your side business

full-time, Mia, would you want to? Oh, God, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, because you asked that question first, I wouldn't immediately go to that, but because you asked that first, I would give that a chance if I were you. You really don't have the funds to do this program right now, unless like George said, you get it from your side business. But I would just challenge you. There's a possibility that if you were to put this on hold and say, I'm going to give six months. Let me walk with you for six months in my coaching group called The Academy. Six months. There are women making seven figures in this coaching group. There are women making $100,000 in their first year in this coaching group. You can do this if you just get a little help and support. Now, if you don't want to, I'm not going to try to point you towards a business if you don't want to.

But if you want to, the opportunity is there and we can help you do that before you go pay $12,000 for a different career option. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I'm just changing the cybersecurity because it's a good income and I want to make money. If I could make body butter for a living, that wouldn't even be worse. So you're not really passionate about cybersecurity, but you see it as an opportunity. You want to make more money. Yes.

Listen, let me tell you something. I'm putting pause on this cybersecurity training. There's no cap when you're in business for yourself, Mia. And I know that feels like a pipe dream right now because you just made some cream and thought it was cute and then people liked it. But women are absolutely building massively successful businesses. And you can define your version of success. We can grow this to whatever you want it to be. But I think you need to give it a chance. I think that the combination of the fact that you want to change careers, you want to make more money, you don't have the money for cybersecurity, and your business and in your words, is taking off, let's let this thing take off.

Let's let it take off and see what it can do and scale it and get some better operations and production around it. And you might be doing this thing full-time in a year and you didn't even ever see that coming. Saved yourself 12 grand and you're doing what you love full-time. Imagine that. That'd be pretty cool. Stay on the line. Austin will get you hooked up with a membership to the Business Boutique Academy, which is my coaching group. And let's see what we can do. That'll be so fun. Look at that, Christy.

She didn't even need to DM you. She just talked to you for eight minutes. Way better. So fun. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. so so Well, I don't want you to let your valuable time pass you by. Your time is like your money. Once it's gone, it's gone.

In fact, you can get more of anything in life except your time. You can get more money. You can't get more time. And if you try to do everything all the time, you're going to feel exhausted, out of balance, and you're probably going to fall off the wagon on your goals. We see this happening every single year. We start out the year with good intentions. We've got the goals. We want to make changes. We want to get debt free. We want to lose weight. We want to have more time for the things that matter most to us. And we set goals around those things. And then by March, we have

lost sight of those goals at best, and probably feeling guilty and beating ourselves up for not staying on track, you know, more often. And so that all of this around goals and the guilt we have and the frustration we have is exactly why I created my 2022 goal planner. This is the tool to help you stick with your goals. And that doesn't mean I'm going to be making you feel bad in July if you're not doing what you set out to do in January, but I do help you reassess. So in May, I say, hey, the seasons are changing. Look back at those goals from January. Do they still make sense? Do you need to change some parts of them? Did you already achieve some of them? Do you need to add new ones, reset, move the timeline? This is a very practical goal setting tool to help you focus on the areas

of your life that are most important to you from your spirit, mind, body, relationships, resources, managing your time, managing your money, balancing it all, all of those things. And I give you the tools and templates to help you put what you're learning into practice in addition to putting your goals on calendar. So this is a very, very intentional tool. It's not just a calendar. You can buy calendars anywhere. This is a goal setting tool to where your goals get translated to your calendar, which is the system you manage your time by.

You can get your copy of my 2022 Goal Planner at ramseysolutions.com today and go ahead and get it if you want it or if you want it as a gift or you want to buy a few as a gift. Go ahead and get them because they always sell out every single year. Last year, they sold out at the beginning of December and people were emailing me late December, early January asking if we would order more. And because it's dated and because we obviously have a delay in what we can produce in print, we don't reorder them. We do the best guess that we can on the quantity at the beginning of the year. We don't reorder. So if you want one, go ahead and get it.

They will sell out. No, we will not order more, but we got some right now. So go ahead and get them if you want one for you or someone as a gift. That's RamseySolutions.com, the 2022 Goal Planner by me, Christy Wright. All right, we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. George Campbell and I are here for you. And we're going to go to Victoria, British Columbia with Josh. Hey, Josh, how are you?

I'm doing good. How are you doing today? Good. What's going on? Can you hear me all right? Yeah, you sound great. What's up? Awesome. So I'm 21 and I make just over $100,000 right now and sort of on track to be doubling that within a few years.

And at my age, I find that my girlfriend, brothers, friends and such, they're not necessarily at the same place as me with their finances. And whenever we go out and do things, I find that sometimes I get anxious about maybe where they're at financially or is what I'm asking them to go do things that can inflate their lifestyle. Because I know what it took for me to get where I am. And I don't necessarily want to be the influence that's making them spend more money than they can. And for me, I'm more than happy to pay for them and be able to take them on trips when I want to go do things with them. Because for me, spending time with them is more important than thinking about the thousand dollars or a couple hundred dollars that it takes to take them out and do that. I just don't want, I want to make sure that I'm not, I don't want to be putting them down anyway by making them feel like they don't have the money to do that. And I also don't want, I don't necessarily want to inflate their lifestyle to a point

where then they're, if for some reason I don't pay for a trip, then they're going into debt because they have never learned to save for that. I wonder if you have any tips on how to navigate that. Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to commend you on a couple things. Number one, you're making a killer income at a very young age, so way to go. Second of all, I love just how considerate you are, Josh. The fact that you're asking this question shows what just a good guy you are.

You're looking out for your friends from a financial standpoint, but also from just their feelings and how they feel about things, which is really, really cool. Um, that's, that's really, really impressive.

A couple of things I would say, and George, you hop in here, but here's just off the top of my head. Um, number one, um, I would definitely make you paying for them the exception,

not the rule, because if it becomes a pattern, then you start to feel pressure too. And then there's this weird dynamic where they expect it. Then that's going to put a real weird dynamic on your friendship that you don't want. So I would say default to everybody pays for their own thing. And when you ask them to do something, you can say it front like, hey, guys, I was thinking about this. What do y'all think?

And if they say like, I don't have the money right now, whatever. Cool. You can back off. Or if they do, then they're grownups and you can't be responsible for their financial choices because you invited them to a party and they made a bad decision to attend. You're not managing their bank accounts. So let's start with a clear boundary there. But when you do pay for something, I would throw in one piece of advice here. When you do pay for something, I would try to pay for it as discreetly as possible. And again, this is the exception, not the rule. So let's say, for example, you guys are all out to dinner and you just want to pay for the dinner and drinks and stuff.

You might go to the restroom, grab the server and say, hey, here's my card. Let me cover this. And when the server comes back, they're like, what happened? I just wanted to get it. This was fun. And don't make a thing of it. If you make a thing of it, then it becomes this thing like you're the guy that pays for the things. And then it tilts the room of like you're the guy that is paying for everything.

And yeah, extra bottles of wine on Joshosh it doesn't have to be like that like i would just i would handle it super discreetly when you do it which is a really cool move that you are a generous guy and willing to do that um but i think that's just going to protect the friendship so that they don't feel in debt to you if it's the exception not the rule and when you do it you do it discreetly that's that's what came to mind for me george what would you add? No, that's spot on. And on top of that, I would just say having that line of communication where you're saying, hey, what is the budget? What can you guys afford? I'm happy to match that so that we can make this happen. I think that's awesome. But there's also a lot of things you can do that don't cost a lot of money. So don't always make

it a thing where, hey, we're taking big, lavish trips, big, lavish dinners. Make it just a chill thing where we all split some pizzas and that they pay their fair share because i think that gives them dignity too and i think that's what you're worried about you don't want to take away their dignity and be showy and they all of a sudden go wow this guy he's really something and he wants us to know it and i think that's where christy's heart is as far as the kind of the discreetly doing this stuff my brother's that way he super generous, and he's always the guy that sneaks over and gets the server, pays for it, and we're all like, whoa, dude, what the heck? He's like, I just, you know, just makes it easy.

Yay, makes it easy. Don't have to split the bill. And he's just a super sweet, generous guy, and I feel like that's your heart, Josh. What I don't want it to come across as is pride, where it's just look at me, and I feel your heart behind that. You don't want it to be that way.

So find things that are cheap that don't cost a lot of money and do that stuff too. Yeah, I think if you have a good mix of that, if you have a good mix of cheap stuff that everybody contributes to, maybe some nicer things that everybody contributes to

and then every now and then you get the tab on something or even if, let's say, it was a concert or something and you knew everybody was free or everybody wanted to go and you're like, hey guys, I was able to get tickets, let's go. And then it's not this weird thing of them watching you pay for it and it was a concert or something and you knew everybody was free or everybody wanted to go. And you're like, hey, guys, I was able to get tickets.

Let's go. And then it's not this weird thing of them watching you pay for it and it's a big show. I think just the more under the radar that you can keep that transaction that will maintain some of their dignity. But you still get to do what you want to do, which is be generous. And you still get to be with your friends and share with them. And they get to participate in some of that stuff. But, man, Josh, you're an awesome guy. You're a really awesome guy.

Thanks for calling. Thanks for thinking of your friends and thinking of how that would affect them. And yeah, I think that if you do it that way, it will come across in the right way. But just know that if you got in the habit of just paying for things all the time, it does tilt the room. And that's not what you want. So I love George's advice of just do some stuff that they can afford. Hey, what's the budget? When me, when, when me and all my friends, we're, we're grown women, but when we get together to go on a girl's trip, we'll say like, where do we want to stay? What's the budget? Because regardless of your income level, you should have a budget and you should have a plan for your money. And so it's a great way to open up the conversation where they get to speak into it. And you guys

can plan that event or that outing together. I saw recently, this guy had a spreadsheet and him and his friends, they have very different incomes. Some are broke. Some make hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they have a spreadsheet, and it shows what your budget is for these trips, who can make what, and there's no judgment. There's none of this, like, well, you make this, and we're going on a bougie trip. They just go, all right, I'm broke. I'm not going on that trip. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. And they have fun with it. So I thought that was a cool idea. Yeah. Transparency and communication. That's good. Great call. Thanks for calling, Josh.

Thanks for your question. Thanks for looking out for your friends. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Deuteronomy 33 12 says let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him for he shields him all day long and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders Brian Tracy said, The glue that holds all relationships together is trust, and trust is based on integrity. That is the truth. All right, find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping,

and with the new promo codes they run every month, you'll save even more. Use promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Jenny in Texas. I have a very specialized business that I've been doing as a side gig for about three years. I already have my clients, but I want to start doing this full time, so I will need to double or triple my client base. Is it worth hiring an outside source to be able to get this off the ground so I can quit my day job that I hate.

This is interesting, George. When we get questions like this, granted it's on a piece of paper, it's for blinds.com, but I just have so many follow-up questions. I'm curious what the very specialized business is, but I'll tell you my gut answer is no. You can build this business up on the side on your own.

Now for a season, it might feel like that you are working two full-time jobs because you are, but the idea is that it's just a season. And once that side business is built up so much that it can support you, then you can take the step, not leap, step to working on that business full-time. And here's the interesting thing that I want to remind you all. Anyone listening right now that is working on a side business and you would like to do that business full-time, just like I was talking to Mia with the body butter. She was talking about wanting to build up the side business, and you would like to do that business full-time, just like I was talking to Mia with the body butter. She was talking about wanting to build up the side business, possibly doing it

full-time. The side business does not have to make the equivalent of what you're making in your full-time job now. It just needs to make the amount of money that you can live on. So if you make $60,000 right now in your full-time job job and you can build up your side business in Jenny's question here in blinds.com from Texas, Mia's example, anybody's example, you build it up, let's say to $30,000 and you can make some cuts in your budget and temporarily live on less, then you could take that step to working on your business full-time now. And then of course, once you dedicate full-time time to it, then you're hopefully only going to increase that income. But I don't think you need an outside source, Jenny. I mean, you could hire a salesperson on commission if you want to. I just don't think

you need it. And I think that's more headache than it's worth when you are a solopreneur right now trying to relay your dream to another person. That's the hardest thing, George, in business. The very hardest hire is your first hire. And so if you're hiring someone and it's still a side business for you and you're only able to dedicate so many hours to it, man, that just feels like that's going to be a lot of training because now you're leading another person. That takes time

too. That's time you could just be spending on getting the clients yourself. And you've got to pay them. So that's taking out the profits from the business that you're trying to grow right now to get this thing full time. So it doesn't seem like a great idea. I lean towards no, Jenny. I lean towards no on the hiring someone, an outside source, as you said. I'm assuming that's what you're talking about there. Build it up yourself on the side. And it's going to be a little crazy for a little bit. But again, it just needs to be the amount of money that you can live on.

And then you can make that step. Not a leap, a step. All right, let's go to Paul in Riverside, California. Hey, Paul, how are you? Hi, Christy. Hi, George. Hey, what's going on? So right now I'm in escrow on the house. Purchase price is $585.

I sold my house, so I have to be out of here tomorrow. They're moving out. And we're going to get this other house next week. So we're going to stay at my mother-in-law's for a week. But it turns out this house is a little bit more than what we were hoping to pay. So they quoted us around $2,600 a month for our 30-year mortgage, and it came back that there's some special taxes on the house and some other stuff.

The new payment is $2,900 a month. What's your take-home pay? Between $80,000 and $90,000. $80,000 and $90,000. $80,000 and $90,000 a year? Yeah. Is what you take home. And that quote you said is based on a 30-year mortgage. Yeah, a 30-year mortgage.

Well, you said you're in escrow right now. Well, that's a take home, actually. Sorry about that. What did you say? The $80,000 and $90 and 90, that's my gross income. So your take-home is a lot less than that then? Yeah. We're probably talking 60 take-home?

So you're talking about five grand a month is what ends up in your bank account? I think about $6,500 a month. $5,500 a month in this5,500 a month, and this mortgage payment on a 30-year is, I mean, it's taking up 50% of your income on a 30-year mortgage. You guys are going to be drowning in this thing. This is a no, Paul. What can you do instead? How do you get out of this thing?

I'm not sure. I was thinking we'd stay with my mother-in-law, but she has a two-bedroom apartment, and there's me and my wife and my two kids. But even at $2,600, this thing was way out of your budget without the special taxes. Even at $2,600? Yeah, we're looking for 25% of take-home pay on a 15-year fixed rate. So this is way, way, way out. I think you guys are not ready to get a house right now.

I mean, it sounds like unless you can stay at the mother-in-law's for a while until you find something that you can afford. Do you guys have any other debt? I got about $2,500 in credit cards. I can pay that off. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any savings?

Yeah. Well, I made money on my house that I just sold. Yes. Okay. How much did you make on that? About $170. Okay. So where is that money going?

Was that going as a down payment on this new one? So about $130 was going to the down payment. And the other $40? We're just going to go on two savings. Okay, for like your fully funded emergency fund. Yeah. Paul, I think we've got to slow down here and wait until this thing makes sense for our budget and for our life because I can feel the anxiety already of what this is going to do to you guys.

And so I think you need to back out of this thing, take a pause, rent, stay with family, do what you need to do until, number one, you get all this debt cleaned up, all the consumer debt, we have a fully funded emergency fund, and then whatever money is left over, that's going to become our down payment. We're going to keep building that up. And I want you to do a 15-year fixed rate with a payment that's no more than a quarter of your take-home pay. And I want you to have a good, solid down payment of 10% to 20% or more.

That's what's going to give you guys some peace. Well, it sounds like you're going to have that with the money you just made on this house, with the savings and being able to pay off the debt, like you said. I think this starts with a conversation with your mother-in-law and just seeing what does this time frame look like and do you guys rent for a little while because you don't want to rush a home purchase?

It's not this house. We know that. You can't afford this house, which is fine. Okay. But so that you don't rush and make a desperate decision, which desperate decisions are almost always bad decisions, I would suggest you guys staying with the in-laws, maybe short term, very short term, finding something to rent until you can find the right house that you can afford under the parameters that George just gave you. 15-year fixed rate. So whatever your payment is, is going to be less than 25% of your take-home

pay after you've put that down payment you just said, and you keep your fully funded emergency fund with your $2,500 of debt paid off. So you've got the ability to do that. We just still don't want to rush into a home purchase just because you can, and it's definitely not this house. Yeah, and Paul, I don't want to crush your dreams here, so what I want you to do is keep dreaming, but work towards that dream. And you can jump on to our mortgage calculator at RamseySolutions.com and start to play around with the numbers and see, hey, what would it take for us to do this the right way so that it's a blessing and not a curse so that we're not house poor, so that we're not pouring all of our income into this house that is probably going to have more repairs and more problems and more taxes and all of these things are going to crunch your budget even further. Because remember, we have other goals. We need to save for college, save for retirement, pay off the house early, do all kinds of things so that we can retire with dignity. So do it the right way. Don't put

yourself in this position. Yeah, Paul, I think that and I know you said the mother-in-law's place is small, but I would just encourage you to start working now today on finding somewhere to rent. Somewhere that you can afford with your kids, with your family in the interim until you find the right house. And I think you will, and you'll be happier with where you end up because you didn't rush it and you certainly didn't get yourself into a situation with the house that you can't afford that is just going to absolutely eat up everything they have where you can't make any decisions. You have no margin. So, yeah, have a conversation with the in-laws. Find a place to rent, and then when you're ready, you will find the right house,

and you'll be really glad you waited. When people rush, George, it almost always messes things up. Don't rush. Dave Ramsey says this all the time. It's the tortoise and the hare. We want to be the tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race every single time. All right.

I want to thank producer James Childs, associate producer Kelly Daniel, and Austin Selby, who is on the phones today. My co-host George Camel and You America for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Did you know you can listen to The Ramsey Show on your smart speaker? Just tell Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri to play The Ramsey Show podcast. Check out all Ramsey Network shows on your smart speaker today.