The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Prep for Starting My Healing Arts Business? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: Managing an HSA, Starting your own business, How to get started working the plan. 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

Ken Coleman, Ramsey,, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey.

We're going to talk to you about your mental health, about your jobs, about your boundaries, about your relationships, and about your money. Yeah, we talk about everything here right in front of you. 888-825-5225. Carrie is in Chicago. Hi, Carrie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. is in Chicago. Hi, Carrie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Hi, Ken. Thanks so much for taking my call. We appreciate so much what you guys do. Well, thank you. How can we help? So hopefully this will be a quick question. Our family is in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6. Last year we started in HSA.

We've got about $5,100 in that right now. And just kind of wanting to get your thoughts on when you recommend investing your HSA and what you recommend investing it in. We use a company called Health Equity that allows us to put our HSAs into mutual funds. And we recommend to our team, and I personally put mine all in mutual funds because I don't use them. If you think you're going to use your HSA to pay medical bills or deductibles or whatever, or, you know, buy medical services, which you can certainly do, if you're actually going

to use it for that, um then you probably don't want to put it in mutual funds you probably want to put keep enough of it anyway and in simple money market type accounts that it's accessible because you don't want you don't want you don't want to put ten thousand dollars in there and then the stock market go down be worth eight thousand dollars about the time you have a medical event right right and we're a pretty healthy bunch we don't really we really haven't had to use it at all yeah well we've and also the thing about where you are in your baby steps you've got the income probably to cover whatever you need right yeah our max out of pocket per year would be about

seven thousand dollars um with our plan so i just would it make sense to leave at least that in there as liquid cash and then invest the rest that'd be fine company does give us two thousand dollars a year that'd be fine and then we we put in the max yeah that'd be fine okay and in effect that's what i have done i've got like a couple hundred thousand bucks in there because i i started doing it when uh bush first uh george w first came out with it. It was under his administration. That's how long it's been around. And I fully funded the HSA every single year since then, and I've never touched it. So anytime, we're a pretty healthy bunch too, knock on wood.

But anytime we've had a medical anything, I just wrote a check for it, and I left my investments alone. So I've always had it in good mutual funds, and it's always grown. And in a sense, it just another ira of sorts right right and so yeah and where the company's giving you an extra two grand that's awesome have at it yeah because that adds up pretty quickly it has i mean it's turned into like serious money i mean it's real yeah so um a couple hundred grand yeah there we go i'm gonna to have to tell Stacy we're not taking the kids to the doctor. Little note here. Yeah, just draw a hot bath. We're saving our money.

There's some Epsom salts. Go knock yourself out. Steve's in Oklahoma City. Steve, Epsom salts. How are you? How are you, Steve? Oh, not too bad. Good.

How can we help? All right, quick situation for you. Okay, so there's $250,000 sitting. It's my mother's money. She's on disability, living with a brother, has been for about a year, and my other brother has liquidated everything, and money is just sitting cash in the bank, and we're trying to figure out how to keep it from going to Medicaid

in case she was to need to go into a facility situation. You can't. Medicaid is for poor people. It's welfare. Okay. And she's not on welfare. She's got a quarter of a million dollars. So if you transfer this money in order to hide it and get welfare, that's called welfare fraud.

It's called Medicaid fraud. So your mom should not want to go into a welfare nursing home. Right, right. Okay. And you shouldn't want for her to. Well, no, we don't. We're just trying to figure out. And you said she's got dementia?

It's kind of a form of dementia, basically. Okay. All right. Well, what I would do is I would make sure the money's invested. I wouldn't just leave it in an account. I'd put it in some good mutual funds. And if you do that, it'll throw off a couple thousand dollars a month. And I would bring in some help to help your brother and help take care of her, get some in-home care.

You can actually provide nursing home services in his home with outside help, almost as cheap as you can hire a nurse as you can buy nursing home if not cheaper depending on how you structure it if he's willing to do all of that and willing to put up with nurses coming and going and and cares caregivers coming and going and you know it's it's a hassle but you know this money will support her and take care of her she'll be fine well that's what it's for. It just was I wasn't sure if there was an amount of time that outweighed it that they would take the money or not. Yeah, five years.

If you move it and if you move it and she does not go into nursing home for five years and she presents herself as a poor person who needs welfare to be put on medicaid and go into medicaid nursing home um they won't they look back on it as five years so after five years the money's released after after five years the money will no longer be if you move the money into you and your brother's name five years later already done five years later they won't look back and you can put your mother in a welfare nursing home oh okay all right i think that's immoral by the way i think that's immoral right yeah i i understand okay i'm just making sure you understand where i stand on it you do whatever you want to do but i i think that's wrong your mother has a quarter of a million dollars it's there for her care it's not for you and your brother it's for her she saved money her whole life and she it's there to take care of her uh and by the way if she is at

this level of care the average nursing home stay in america is 2.3 years and the average nursing home cost in america is 55 000 a year okay so that's a hundred thousand bucks 150 000 bucks of the 250 you guys will still have 100 left over for your inheritance on average that's what you're facing now if you can go buy a nursing home for 150 000 a year too and you can go buy a nursing home for whatever but um i i you know the reason we work the reason we save money is to care for ourselves, not to be on the government dole. And the quality of care is different. The experience is different for your mom. You know, your mom ought to be treated like a queen, not a welfare recipient.

She's got a quarter of a million dollars. And that's how I view it. So, again, you guys do whatever you want to do, and you called here. So that's the thing. So that nursing home thing is weird. It's like the nursing home is going to take our money. We don't say that when we go to a restaurant. They're going to take my money.

We say, no, I'm going to give you some money so I get food. When you go to a nursing home, you say, I'm going to give you money so I get care. They're not taking your money. They're not thieves. They don't have a gun. You know, it's not... But there's something in the American brain that feels like nursing homes being paid is unfair.

And they shouldn't be paid. It's weird. Just weird. This is The Ramsey Show. 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 Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a nonprofit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with healthcare 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. Well, I suspect by now your New Year's resolutions have run out. If you had resolutions, they're usually gone by about valentine's day because people trying to do it on your own with no plan and no proven process usually these things are just wishes they're not goals they're not resolutions they're just wishes well instead we want you to actually be able to pull this money thing off actually get it done

we want you to work the process and become a baby steps millionaire like the latest bestseller you can do this by joining a financial peace university class about 10 million folks have been through this class it works we not only show you how to get out of debt we show you how to become wealthy and many many people when they follow the plan do well everyone that follows the plan all the way through becomes wealthy a hundred percent of the time just a matter how long it takes and how much you get uh you know i can't tell if it's going to be 10 million or 1 million but you're going to end up wealthy and it's not it's not a magic pill and it's not a get

rich quick it's hard but we get you out of debt we get your teach you about insurance we teach you about investing it's the money class you about insurance. We teach you about investing. It's the money class you should have had back when you were in high school, but nobody hardly teaches it in high school until we start teaching it in high school. Financial Peace University, in person and online, it's the proven money plan. You can do a free trial at Ramsey Plus if you want to. Check it out. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash FPU for Financial Peace University. That's ramseSolutions.com slash FPU for Financial Peace University.

That's RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. This is the Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Lisa is with us in New York City. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, i've listened to you for years i've paid thousands of dollars in debt and i'm at a point where i have my six months emergency fund i'm

probably putting about 14 percent of my retirement and i just have my mortgage as my debt you're amazing well done yeah thanks to you for keeping me all those days on the road. I work in sales, so I listen to you pretty much every time I got in the car. Wow. But anyways, I'm planning to leave the corporate world. I feel like God is calling me into a different direction, healing arts. And as I prepare my exit plan from that career, I'm wondering what advice you have over the next few months. Should I be saving a certain amount more money? Should I cut back on what I'm putting in my 401k for a little bit?

What do you suggest as I prepare that exit strategy, so to speak? Well, the main thing I want you to do is get the boat close enough to the dock that it's not a leap, it's a step, meaning that as you move into this other income, go ahead and have that income going. Can we do that? I think so, but I think it might come to the point where the company I'm working for is having major financial problems, so it might not be so much of a choice. They're having major financial problems now?

It's... I don't really want to get into all of it, but yes, there's some... It might be sooner than later. Okay, well, Lisa, I'm going to jump in really quick. We don't want this dream. I'm assuming this business you want to start, is this a dream job for you,

something you really want to do personally? Yeah, it is my calling. All right, so here's the deal. We don't rely on the calling. It's not just someone running away. Yeah, but listen, the current company being a financial problem isn't the impetus to start and try to make it full-time in this calling. Dave's right.

You need to start the calling, the side business. That's what it needs to be. We're going to test it. Start small. Grow slow. Grow that income. I am planning to do that. I'm going to be smart about it. I know, but being smart is if your current company is having financial problems, we need another day job as a backup. You understand what I'm saying? Okay. You don't want to put yourself in such good financial shape.

You could kill a dream faster than any other way to kill a dream by putting all the financial pressure on it to provide for you when it's something you're starting. That's a really big red flag. What do you do now? I work in sales. Okay, and what are you going to be doing? What's your dream, your business you want to start? It has a lot of components, but healing arts.

Healing arts. Break that down for us neither one of us how do you make money doing this teach me about it i will be teaching people how to use art for their therapy i'm also going to be selling some of my artwork okay um i've also heard of reiki and to date you've not done this yet in any yes i have yes oh you have okay and so how much money have you made to date i have been just kind of doing it on the side i'm not talking i'm going to do this tomorrow i'm saying as i prepare myself i'm not i'm going to be smart about it like trust me i've you know i've been trying i'm trying i misunderstood where you were so how much have you made doing how much do you make doing healing arts right now i make about 130 000 doing healing arts no no no no i'm asking about the healing

arts business i'm not making any money yet i'm telling you i'm trying to prepare myself for that okay so what should i be doing should be saving extra money you need to have a big pile of money but there's not a big enough pile of money for you to jump from something to nothing and so the way you prepare is you get the healing arts business going right now as a side hustle and gear it up as fast as you can and and if it can if you can get to making 60 or 70 000 and you can exist on that where you used to make 100 at the old job well then this night this dream doesn't turn into a nightmare on you but if you've got 200 000 saved up and you burn through it because you make zero for two years after quitting your full-time

corporate job or losing the full-time corporate job because the company collapsed and you didn't have a day job that's what ken's talking about so the way to prepare is not the size of the the the uh savings account the savings account it is the size of the income from the side hustle that's right that's what that's what i mean by pulling the boat alongside so it wasn't the way you thought we were going to answer the question. You wanted an answer of how much money you need to be prepared to move. I mean, I guess you could have $2 million and not burn through it unless you burn through a million a year. But, you know, these aren't options that are on your table.

So let's just say that the most important part of the equation is to get the side income approaching the current income. The closer it is to the current income, the less risk you would have, and obviously the less burn rate on a savings account you would have. Yeah, I think, Lisa, the first step for me is I'm beginning to look in the marketplace, New York City. You're a salesperson, a successful salesperson. I'd be looking at other companies that aren't struggling financially so that I could move into a more stable day job so that I'm not putting pressure on the dream job, the side hustle. That's what I'm getting at. I think that's the first one. Sure, save money.

Great. Keep saving. But when you're saying you're working for a company that's struggling financially, I'd be looking for a plan B for the day job. In case that happens. That's right. The income is more of a problem than the savings. That's correct. Than the savings. That's what we're trying to get to. So good luck with it.

I hope it works out for you. And thank you for listening. I think you've done a great job to get to the point you are, by the way. You've done a really, really good job. Very, very well done. I want to recommend a quick little book to her, Dave. Quick read by Austin Kleon. It's called Show Your Work.

And you can read it in 10 minutes, but it's really important for entrepreneurs and entrepreneur want-to-bes that are trying to get something going. And it'll really encourage you just to kind of get your stuff out there. People focus on business plans too much and things like this in the early stages as opposed to just showing their work, getting their work out there. Letting the marketplace tell you how this is working. Around here, the way I teach our team is have a conversation with the marketplace. The marketplace will say, you're doing really good, and that looks like green president's faces. Or the marketplace will say, you suck, and it will be like,

we ain't buying nothing you put out there. Sell like crickets. And I've had both, by the way. Sometimes the marketplace says to me and to our company, you suck, you're doing a bad job, we're not going to give you any money. And other times they say, wow, you changed our lives, and we're not only going to give you money, we're going to tell everybody else to come and get this service or this teaching or this content or whatever it is. And that's how 10 million people went through Financial Peace University.

But the ideas that we've tried around here where the marketplace looked back at us and said, you suck. Now, here's the problem. When you become desperate and you start launching products out of desperation or services out of desperation because you need money, that puts a strain on it and the marketplace can smell that you smell different you have a stink on you when you're broke and so that's why i tell folks all the time try to start your business as a side hustle pull the boat up next to the dock and then step in don't take a leap of faith that's only in the movies this is the ramsey show Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us, America. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Andy and Julie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Doing great. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Wyoming, Minnesota. Ah, welcome to Nashville. Now, where is Wyoming, Minnesota? 30 minutes north of St. Paul. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. All right, fun.

Yeah, we've been to Eagle Brook Church up there a bunch of times. Yep, real close. Beautiful area. Yeah, very nice. That church has been very good to us over the years. Good folks. Well, fun. Very fun. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid? $178,000. All right, good for you. And how long did that take? 26 months. Whoa. and your range of income during that time we started off at 110,000 and finished at 150 okay did you sell something big no we no we did have um we had a chunk of change that you threw at it okay so you had some savings how much savings did you have to throw at it um about 30,000 yeah okay i think it's 140 is still30,000. Yeah. Okay. I think it's $240,000. It's still $70,000. You're still on beans and rice.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty tight. Wow. Cool. What kind of debt was this? Two vehicles, and then we paid off our house. Woo!

Look at it, weird people! Love it! What's this house worth? About $420,000. Wow. And it's all yours. That's right. Way to go, you guys! I can't wait to mow the grass now this year when it's mine. Now and it's all yours that's right way to go you guys i can't wait to mow the grass

now this year when it's mine now that it's mine i own it that's so cool way to go you guys thank you way to go and you did this really fast yeah i mean the intensity here in these numbers that's what i was trying to go trying to run the numbers in my head there. Oh, my gosh. So tell me the story. What happened 26 months ago set you on fire? Just a lot of YouTube watching, Dave. Yeah. Yeah, we just thought this is something we should do. And we just wanted to make sure our future is secure.

You just stumbled into us on YouTube? Yeah. I had heard of you through our church, actually. I had heard of your name. But I just kind of figured that I had things figured out, and I never really looked into you, and I stumbled across you on YouTube. And he came home one night from work, and I said, oh, you've got to check this guy out.

You're going to love him. And I did. Yeah, we were hooked. Like Saturday nights, we just would watch you and oh my gosh yeah so you just you knew that uh value system was similar and you're like okay this guy this guy's gonna get us out of debt we're gonna we're gonna go on and be wealthy that's right yeah i love it my husband's old school and good old boy just like you so yeah okay yeah all right brothers from a different mother. All right. Yeah.

I knew I had a cousin in Minneapolis. That's right. Don't worry about it. I will say he has a better head of hair, Dave. Well, that's a low bar. Way to go, you guys. I'm so proud of you. How does it feel to be completely free?

It's amazing. We can do whatever we want now. Yeah, really. Paycheck comes, we get to keep it. How long have you all been married? Since 2010. Okay. Yeah, really. Paycheck comes, we get to keep it. How long have you all been married? Since 2010. Okay, so 12 years. Yep.

Have you ever been debt-free in your adult life? I haven't. I was, except a mortgage. Yeah. So, yeah. But then we got married and kind of just, we weren't out of control or anything. We just, when I found you, I just realized that we were still in step two because we had two vehicle loans and we kind of felt good about having that you know savings account and so i can relate to the callers that call in and you tell them well you got money to

just you know pay it off and there's just a silence. Like, well, that's everything that I have in the bank right now. Gold? Yeah. Oh, it just got real? Yeah. Yeah. So we just watched you a lot, and one day he came home from work, or another day, and I said, you know, let's do this plan.

Let's do this plan. We have enough to just pay off the vehicles and kind of go down to that, you know, small emergency fund. Yeah, there wasn't much left. Yeah. Then it was go't much left. Yeah. Then it was go time. Yeah, yeah. What did that look like?

Because, I mean, these numbers are extraordinary. And when Dave asked you a minute ago, you pretty much were rice and beans. Andy, you were like, like you hit a nerve there. Like how intense was it? I want people to get a picture. How much did you sacrifice? You know, it wasn't really that hard because we're kind of frugal to begin with. And, you know, just not eating out lunch a lot at work.

And, you know, we don't do a lot of things that are extraordinary and extravagant. So it was kind of easy for us. Seeing the picture when she made a picture of the squares for the house being paid off, that was really big for me, just watching that happen. And, you know, seeing it at the bottom and once you got to the middle and, you know, you just got closer every day and it was just, it was really fun to watch it. And sometimes she'd call me and say, I filled in 10 more squares. And I'm like, what? But that was our goal was to, you know, take all the extra money at it and hit it, you know?

So nothing was hard about it. You just told us this was easy. It wasn't bad. Okay. So you're just really disciplined. I've been frugal my whole life. So, I mean, I was like the weird teenager that worked and saved money to go to college. I went to college debt-free. Look at you.

Dave, the bass in Minnesota don't care if I have a $1,000 boat. I found that out. Nice. I should have put our boat in there because, yeah, we've got like a thousand dollar boat for the last eight years or whatever. And we still have it and we're happy with it. Yeah. No plans to replace that anytime soon. Well, you can if you want.

That's right. You've got the money. With cash. Yeah. Way to go, you guys. So proud of you. So proud of you. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

What was the thing that, because you were already smart. You already had common sense. You already went to school debt-free. You are already frugal. But something clicked. What was the difference that made you go, all right, game on? For me, it was just seeing the show and hearing people do it. You know, and seeing the results that they had and how happy they were when they were here.

That was a big thing for me. Yeah. Yeah, and for me, it was because I thought that I was doing pretty good. It was just looking at the baby steps and realizing that we were doing like a bunch of things at the same time because we were. We were even paying extra toward the house in the beginning, and we were doing a little bit of retirement,

but we were just doing a little bit of everything. And, you know, like when he came home and I said, let's just do the baby steps because it's just so much more it's just a clear path it's simple anyone can do it and it just makes sense and all these people have done it so how much do you guys have in your investments uh north of 100 right now but we're going to be ramping that up yeah you'll be able to yeah up. Yeah, you'll be able to. Yeah. For sure. So you'll be Baby Steps Millionaires in no time. Yeah. Way to go, you guys.

Way to go. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Very, very well done. Good stuff. All right, we've got a copy of that book for you, Baby Steps Millionaires, to finish this journey. That's the next step, next chapter in your story, for sure.

Also, a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody. Somebody's been wondering what happened to these people. They've been smiling a lot. They want to know what happened to them. This is very cool, you guys. Very well done. All right, it's Andy and Julie, Minneapolis, Minnesota. $178,000 paid off.

House and everything! Did it in 26 months, making $110,000 to, threw a little savings at it, and got after it. Count it down! Let's hear a debt-free scream! Three, two, one, we're debt-free! Yeah! Man, oh man, oh man. That's the second debt-free scream that we've had on today, and both of them said the same thing about different subjects.

It was almost like there was a little bit of an epiphany. Our first one, the lady said, you know, she went from $50,000 to $100,000 income. I said, how'd you do that? She said, I just wanted more money. I went and got it. It's like they just look up and go, this is possible. When someone looks up and they're getting a new job in your world, they're going to deal with boundary issues in Deloney's world.

They're going to get out of debt over here, build wealth, become millionaires in our world. Wherever we are in Ramsey, when people look up and they think it's possible we call that hope yes and hope is a big deal hope fuels everything because if you think you can or you think you can't you're right henry ford said that's right and that's the truth well you've talked about this a lot at our money events you know you you demonstrate it with a clap but what you're really illustrating is they just decide right now and when he came home that day she looked at him they've been watching youtube and she went let's just do this yeah there wasn't any like which means it can be done it can be done so they were already like once i realize it can be done then you go why wouldn't i you just decided why wouldn't i there you go change as dave says why wouldn't i why wouldn't i? There you go. Change, as Dave says. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I go double my income? Why wouldn't I pay off my house? Why wouldn't I? Once I believe I can, that's hope. Why wouldn't I? Hope is powerful. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes,

it is the tree of life. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Our scripture of the day is Isaiah 43.2. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. Billy Graham said, Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others

are often stiffened. Billy Graham. You've got to love him. Pretty cool. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Marquis is with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hey, Marquis, how are you? I am doing well. I am more

than honored to be speaking to you guys. It's like a dream. Thank you guys for everything. You too, sir. How can we help? Thank you. So I am from kind of a rougher area. My mom raised three of us by herself, so I've never really.

So she's listened to you before, but she never had the means to really fully commit and neither have I. So I've listened to you for a while, but now I finally got my, uh, job out of school. So I'm going to, I did an internship over this past summer and it led to a role, which gave me a real salary, which I'm doing that on top of being a single dad and dual master. So basically what I'm asking you is where do I begin? Because I've been listening to you for a while and I never called because I never had the means or the knowledge to call you. And now I'm just ready to commit and hopefully even teach this stuff someday. Wow. Well, I'm honored.

What do you do for a living now? So I am a service operations supervisor for a health plan. So we do insurance and stuff like that, like claims, customer service. What do you make? 65. Good for you. Good. And you just finished a four-year degree and you're working on a master's?

Dual master's. So I'm the first at my school to ever attempt to do it. So they created the program because I requested it. It's executive MBA and healthcare administration master's. So I'll do both. How are you paying for it? Student loans at the moment. Never had the funds to pay for that. How far into the dual masters are you?

About a semester, a little bit over a semester, because I took a summer course as well. Okay. Well, there's a lot going on here in this conversation. Congratulations. I'm proud of you. you've made incredible progress you've broken through uh a lot of ceilings a lot of barriers to get to where you are i'm proud of you and i think you're going to go to incredible places um the only question is what's the best vehicle the best method for you to get to those wonderful places and what i'm always looking for is the uh the

quickest right way uh to get you to your goal you know and that's what we're always looking for in these situations and so in ken's case where you're working with education the question is do you need a dual masters is that the quickest right way to get to your goal and um you know it may or may not be uh but right now it sounds like that for the first time in your life and for that matter in a couple of generations you're actually making a living yes and that's like that's like a new experience the way you described it. Absolutely. So that's why I'm just saying I don't even know how I'm going to pay for the financial piece,

but I'm all on board and I'm just ready. Well, you know, the first thing that occurs to me, and I'm just going to say it out loud, and you're a grown person, You get to make your decisions. But I wish you would rest a little bit before you dove into debt to go get this dual degree and just enjoy making $65,000 or $75,000 a year for a little while. And then figure out where you are. Do you have student loan debt from your undergrad? Yeah, I have about a total of like $40,000. That's all it was because I didn't go to a bigger school i also had some scholarships for uh good so let me tell you what we have discovered as we work with the student loan industry and with people that get student loan debt and i've run into this

all over the place um the the vast majority of people who make big student loan mistakes are first-generation college students, meaning their mom and dad did not go to college. And that doesn't mean they're evil, but mom and dad, there was no one around to say, hey, don't go that far in debt to do that. It's not worth it. Because I went to college. I was the first generation went to college i did but student loans weren't around much when i was there so when my kids got ready to go to school you know

they could go to a super expensive school and we didn't we could have paid for it or they went to a state school in our case and we could have paid for it but we could guide them because they hadn't we had been there before so and sometimes what happens in a situation like you described is you start thinking that all education is worth whatever it costs. And it's worth whatever amount of debt you go into for. And I disagree. It's not. All education is not smart. That's an odd statement.

But all education is not smart. So, Marquis, I'm going to recommend that you put your master's program on hold a little bit. And you take at least a few semesters off. And you may not do that because you may be plugged into this. But I think you're looking for something in this dual master's that is not there. You think so? Yeah. So, Marquis, we can hear it in your voice.

You don't want to live financially the way that you had to grow up, and you've done a great job, and you've been very successful getting to this point. You're making good money, and if you follow financial peace and the baby steps, here's the deal. I agree with Dave. In fact, I would go a little stronger. I would press pause on the master's degree until we get out of debt.

And until you can pay cash for it. Until you can pay cash for it. So that might be two or three years. It might be your company will pay your tuition. That's exactly right. But Mark, here's the deal. Here's what I want you to hear. Because we'll walk you through the financial stuff, but here's the deal.

Those master's degrees will still be there when you get out of debt. They will still be there when you get out of debt. They will still be there. The opportunities that might be attached to those master's degrees will still be there. But I think where you're in now, if you're doing a great job and you see what the ladder might look like in your company, I think you could get a couple of promotions, make more money without those master's degrees, and get out of debt faster, walk through the baby steps, and really get financially sound, and then ask the question, do the master's degrees get me? Is it the only way to get me where I want to go? If the answer is no, then you don't have to ever go back.

But the point is you're not saying no now. You're going pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. Yeah. So, yeah, hold on. We're going to sign you up and put you into ramsey plus for free for a year i'm going to pay for it i want you to go to financial peace university i want you to go through the classes i want you to get on the every dollar app i want you to consume every piece of content in there and we'll show you how to handle money young man we'll get you we'll we'll be we'll be

part of the story of you changing your whole family tree because that's what you're all about. You're all about changing your family tree, and that's not disrespecting or dishonoring your mom. She was a tough warrior princess. She fought and raised kids and scraped and worked her tail end off and got you to where you are. So we want to honor her, and we want to say,

you're going to take it past there. You're going to go to another level, and we want to say, you're going to take it past there. You're going to go to another level, and we'll show you how. But again, hang on, and we'll have the team pick up and get you signed up. So folks, here's what I want you to hear loud and clear. Those masters that he's taking are good fields of study. They may or may not ROI, depending on what he's paying for them. We didn't ask that that but he doesn't have the money to go that's right and what i want to break among all of you out there whether you're

first generation college students or whether you're not whether your mom and dad went to school or whether they didn't whether they went to whether you're the seventh generation to go to school we have to break this thing that says all education is worth whatever you pay for it. That is absolutely asinine. This is how we have people paying $225,000 to get a master's degree in social work so they get a $38,000 job working for the state as a social worker because they got a master's in sociology. That's just asinine, okay?

That's stupid. And we've got to quit being stupid about education. Now, he's not in that situation, but this is the kind of thing that people do when they believe that all education is good, all education is worth whatever you pay for it, and so people spend $200,000 getting a degree in left-handed puppetry, and it's useless. Don't do that. He's not on that bubble, but he's getting close. That puts us out of The Ramsey Show and the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? It's your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.