The Ramsey Show - App - How Much Should I Sacrifice To Save Money? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Merry Christmas. We're so glad you're with us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author,

host of the Ken Coleman podcast. He is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Nate is with us in Austin, Texas. Hi, Nate. How are you? What's up, guys? How are you guys doing today? Better than we Hi, Nate. How are you? What's up, guys?

How are you guys doing today? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? All right. So I am actually just turned 30 yesterday. Happy birthday. Thank you.

I am debt-free. I am on baby step four, five, and six, I guess. And my income is about $85,000 to $100,000 a year. So my question is, I'm trying to save up for a house, but I was thinking of going a different route. So I want to try to save up as much money as I can for the next two to three to four years, right? And I want to basically buy a piece of land and put a mobile home on it and just try to pay it off in one big chunk. Okay. I can save up pretty much 75% to 80% of my income.

You're single? I have a girlfriend. But my point is you're not married, and so you don't have to talk around living in a trailer no no no okay so yeah so uh my question is should i try and save up as much money as i can and try and just pay something off cash if you bought a piece of land and put a very very very very inexpensive trailer on it that would mean you'd be living rent free and you could you know very quickly then save up the money

to build a house and get rid of that trailer but whatever you pay for that trailer is going to be lost money so we're not talking about thirty thousand dollars and we're not talking about twenty thousand dollars we're talking about ten thousand dollars or less yeah which ain't much dude this is not a high standard of living here yeah correct yeah your girlfriend's not going to be impressed with your abode. Yeah, so we already kind of talked about it. She doesn't really care where she lives. Well, she's not living there.

You are. Yeah, but don't tell her this, but I'm probably going to marry her in 2024. Oh, oh okay now we got a different part of the equation yeah that's what i've been naming it in this whole conversation your secret you just you just us and 30 million people yeah it's just about 30 million of us that have to keep your secret now but anyway but the uh uh let me just tell you it's a whole different equation for you to live in a ten thousand dollar trailer for four years or your wife to live there for four years. And I know what she says, but, you know, it's just a different equation. You can count on it. Guys, we can sleep under a bridge.

It doesn't bother us. Not me. Ladies are, well, I know. That's true. And, you know, we get accustomed to the finer things we do, Ken. But, I mean, Motel 6 is roughing it. I'm just saying. know that's true and you know we we get accustomed to the finer things we do ken but uh i mean i'm motel six is roughing it i'm just saying but yeah she may change her mind halfway through this deal i agree with you my question is why are we why are we in a i'm not saying it's a hurry but why

is this the scenario why isn't it why not just save a little why not just rent an apartment and save a bunch of money if you're gonna get married i'd rent an and save a bunch of money? If you're going to get married, I'd rent an apartment and save a bunch of money. Me too. I don't get living out on the land. I might live out on the land if it was me by myself, just because I love the math part of it. I know. So, yeah. So, I'm actually hammering a duplex in Austin.

And I'm probably going to be there for the next two to three to four years because my rent is like insanely low. Well, yeah, just stay there with her then after you're married, and then you don't need the trailer, but just pay cash for the land and then save up and pay cash for the build. I'm okay with that. That's a no-brainer. I like that better. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

But we've had over the years, Nate, we've had a lot of people that are listeners that have done the I'm going to buy a piece of land and live. We'll build a barn with a bedroom in it, a barn dominium, and live in the barn while we build the house. I've had people do that. I've had people buy the $10,000 trailer, put it on there. They do that. But I always answer questions like what would I do if I were in your shoes? If I woke up and I was you knowing what I know now and what I know now is Sharon's not living in that trailer.

Yeah. That's a great point. Not cause she's a snob cause she's not. And not cause she wouldn't follow me anywhere cause she would. Cause you know that, you know, she'd do anything for me. That's right. Um, oh my God. But yeah, yeah. because you know that you know she'd do anything for me absolutely um oh my god but yeah yeah follow me anywhere as long as it's to the ritz of the four seasons but yeah

but the uh i'll follow you to the pool i'll follow you to the pool yeah i'll follow you to the resort just know better i'll follow you to the club the point is you just know better yeah well i mean we're old and we've done it. We've been there, done that on the sacrifice thing. But the point is if I were at 26 and married, that would be a different equation for me to do that by myself than I would ask my wife to do that. That's the truth. Now, some ladies are perfectly fine with that and some aren't,

and there's nothing wrong with either camp. It's not a bad, it's not a moral judgment camp uh it's not a bad it's not a moral judgment and it's not a snobbery thing or anything like that i'm not too good to do that so just keep your stupid little trolling to yourself on that but um that's not gonna do with that you just got to do thinking through what is realistic what is sustainable what am i gonna be able to do for a long enough period of time that it has the effect? Yeah, yeah. And it's going to take a minute.

That's right. Carla is in Lansing, Michigan. Carla, how are you? I'm good. Thank you, Dave and Ken, for taking my call. I really appreciate it. Sure. How can we help?

Well, my question is, I have an indexed annuity. Oh, no. And I have an income for life rider on it. I'm thinking that it might be a good idea for me to exercise that, but because I don't know a lot about this, I thought I would call and get some expert advice. How much money have you got in this thing? Its accumulation value is $103,000. How old are you?

I'm 75. You have other money. And I are you i'm 75 you have other money i'm debt free you have other money i have yeah i have 32 000 in a high yield savings this is all your money and i have a paid for home yeah and i have a paid for home yeah um i think the best route is going to be for you to cash the whole thing out and put it in a much better investment in a good mutual fund. I think. But without doing a detailed analysis on it, I'm not positive that's the case. I would not do what you're talking about. It's not the best use of your $100,000 for you to take the lifetime. I don't think.

So sit down with one of our smart investor pros click smart investor at ramsey solutions.com they can help you do a detailed analysis and show you what your options are and then you'll be able to make the decision they'll come at this not telling you what to do but with the heart of a teacher showing you how all the math works and then you can decide what's best i think it's going to come out best for you to cash it and put it in some mutual funds, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. This is the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas, America. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services for over 40 years. Neighborly has an exclusive network of trained local service providers,

backed by the Neighborly Done Right Promise. If it's not done right, Neighborly will make it right. It's a great company, you guys. Check them out. Visit Neighborly.com slash Ramsey right now and you can learn more. Today's question comes from Joyce in New Hampshire. I am far from a helicopter mom, but I'm desperate to find extra guidance for my son. He lives in Georgia. He's 25 and graduated.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. I'm sorry. You may protest too much. Is that how the phrase goes? Graduated from SCAD. That's Savannah College of Art and Design, for anybody wanting to know what she's talking about. In 2020, with a degree in digital and game design, he got a job in e-sports industry using his design degree. Loved his job.

But in October 2022, 20% of the company was laid off. The same has happened at several companies. Since then, he has applied to literally thousands of jobs. I'll come back to that in a second. Four digital design project management UX UI jobs. He has had interviews, and several times he's made it to the final rounds, only to lose to people who were hired because they had just a bit more experience than him. He's currently at a restaurant, exhausted, deflated, and just existing.

As his mom, it's been devastating to watch. I'm so proud of him for his strength, faith, and resiliency. However, I fear all of these will run out soon. Okay. A couple things to point out here in the question. I'm not sure he's applied to literally thousands of jobs that's a long it takes a long time if he's done that that's part of the problem uh this is the online submission only where folks you might as well be playing the lottery

go look up the odds on winning the lottery and you know what i'm talking about here this is you're getting filtered out by ai you are basically a nameless faceless person and you know what I'm talking about here. This is you're getting filtered out by AI. You are basically a nameless, faceless person, and you're playing the job odds. We don't use AI at Ramsey, but we'll have 15,000 applications this year, and we're not going to look at all of them. Yeah. I mean, we look at all of them, but like for half a second.

Yeah. And so if that's all you did to apply for a job here, and you count that as i've applied for thousands the you you've wasted your time 100 and i hate to say that but that's the reality you waste your time if all you're doing is monster.com linkedin and you're just dumping yeah you're downloading zip recruiter you're downloading thousands of applications simultaneously and all you're doing is just spraying and praying. That's exactly right. Second thing that's jumping out to me in this question is he's gotten to final rounds a

few times, only to be hired by someone who had a little more experience than him. There's two things as his mom, if you want to give him some wisdom and encouragement in this, we want to point out here. Number one, he's made it to some final rounds, so get back up on the horse. Welcome to the real world. This is competition where people are applying for these jobs, and you've got to win, and you're not going to win every time. This is what sports has taught me, that I could give my absolute best, and it's not good enough, and that's just the reality. It sucks, but it's the reality. Second thing is, it might be that he's applying

for jobs that require more experience than he has. We see this a lot with young people. My goodness, I've coached thousands of people in their 30s and 40s who make this mistake. So what we want to do here is we want to make sure that we're applying for something that I know he has the experience for, and now he's got to win the interview process. And other than that, there's not much advice I can give here. I would add one thing. Go for it. Okay. We have a Go for it. Okay.

We have a digital art student. Right. Right? Am I missing something? No. Okay. So I'm going to work on interview skills. 100%.

I'm going to work on my grooming, my dress, my smile, my engaging eye contact yeah a firm handshake a uh the ability to connect with the other human sometimes people in the creative community in the technology community haven't worked on those skills that's right sometimes sometimes they have but sometimes they haven't uh and they could be excellent programmers yeah excellent digital uh artists or whatever he's doing in the gaming world here um and have crummy people skills yeah that's possible possible but there's and he's dejected oh and deflated and he's coming in with his lip stuck out and his tail dragging behind him that's right so you gotta get your tail up and be wagging that's right wagging the tail wagging there are seasons where you have to do things like this.

But I think there's three words that gets him where he needs to be. Relationships, relationships, relationships. Proximity principle. A hundred percent. Wrote an entire book on that. Number one bestseller. And it's how I started in my early 30s and broke into the broadcasting industry. Took me nine years to get to this personality role, something I dreamed of.

So I'm not an overnight success. Very few people are. But it is about relationships, folks. Listen, that's where you get in the interview process, and you pretty much just have to do a decent job. Well, your friend will get you the interview. That's right. But they've already heard good things about you. Or your friend's dad will get you out of the stack Or your friend's dad will get you out of the stack.

Your friend's mom will get you out of the stack. And then you get the interview. So I was talking to a young man this week who just graduated with his MBA, and he was top of his class. He won the award, number one guy in the class academically. And he goes, now that I got my MBA. And he said, he's changing jobs. And he said, what's your advice?

And I said, I don't tell anybody. Just tell everybody that you want a new job and you got an MBA. That you're an awesome guy and you got an MBA. Not now that I got my MBA. Because I got to tell you, nobody gives a crap. Nobody gives a crap. You know what MBA stands for? You're the number one guy.

But nobody cares. I'm a real encourager. Well, no. It's really true. I mean, it's just, oh, my gosh. But the good news is that guy was sharp, and he already has two job interviews set up. And I said, how did you get those?

He goes, one of the guys was in the MBA program with me, works at the company, got me in, got me in the job. That's the deal. I said, see, the relationship got you the interview. You'll go hold your head up, look the guy in the eye, firm handshake. You'll get the job, and the MBA will just be a little window dressing to the whole thing. It is not the key to the door, baby. It is not.

You're the key to the door. MBA stands for means barely anything. I came up with that the other day.'m not i'm not crapping on mba students that's mean no it's not it just means that that's what i that's what it means barely anything you nailed it as his mom i would tell him to get the proximity principle um i tell you what can we look this up james and send them one we can find out who that was because i don't know we just I don't know. We'll just mail him. If he's a caller, I'll just give it to him right now. But, yeah, send him a proximity principle and have him go to kencolman.com

and look at the interview technique. Yeah. We have a free guide there, how to win the interview. How to win the interview. And it includes grooming. Yeah, it does, actually. It does. It does.

I tell guys iron your stinking clothes or steam them some guys are a job just slip in them yeah and then you come in for work and take a bath oh my god yeah it's amazing it's true yeah i'm not saying this kid stinks i'm not saying that yeah but he could by the way since the lady led the question with i'm not a helicopter mom this will blow your mind dave that's like when you're dating a girl and she says I'm not crazy. Right. It means she's crazy. You shouldn't lead with that.

It means you're a helicopter mom. 100% of the time it means she's crazy. We're seeing more and more Gen Z parents show up to job interviews with their kid. No. It's absolutely the truth. What is this? This is from HR data. No, actually physically showing up at the interview.

Showing up with the kid. That, let me, that's 100% means I'm not hiring that kid. No. Mommy walks in, you're done. Yeah. We're not even going to have a conversation. That happens at Ramsey. I'm going to tell him, don't even conduct the interview.

You know what? The wussification of America. Mommy comes on the interview. Yeah. We should have a bat phone for dave if somebody ever does that and we call him and he interrupts whatever he's doing he walks into there and tells the parent what he really thinks about that that would be brilliant on television but this is happening this is real that's that's that's that's just you gotta let these kids go

i mean you have to let them live i can't breathe that's something i knew you weren't gonna like that but that is absolutely real that is a growing trend where parents just cannot allow their kid to face you know we're picking on this lady but she's she's just oh yeah i don't think she's a helicopter mom but don't lead with it if you're not that's that's a hint there too but but seriously she's worried about him he hasn't been able to get a job and so she's asking a solid question it's tough it's tough i appreciate getting the deal with it. It's tough when you get kicked out of an answer. I appreciate getting the deal with it because it is hard out there and learning to. But I think the most important thing I've ever learned about getting a job was from you.

And that's the proximity principle. Yeah. I think that is more effective. Oh, it is. Than any. There's no resume technique. There's no guaranteed thing that makes you stand out. No.

That's a bunch of crap. And it's certainly not a degree. You've got to get in the interview. You've got to win the interview. But the first thing is you've got to actually get the interview. And that's the proximity principle. You've got to know somebody inside there that will open the door for you. That's a big deal. Huge. It is who you know.

This is the Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. This is The Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas, America. Bill is in Indianapolis. Hi, Bill. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking the call. Sure. What's up? I wanted to find out how bad of an idea it would be to gift my 18-year-old son my childhood home.

Okay, so you own it free and clear. Me and my brother. Your brother wants to give it to him as well yes my brother uh he yes he's he's willing to give him his half um yeah i'm willing to what's the property worth uh roughly right now probably a hundred okay it needs tell me about your son um great kid i mean couldn't ask for any better kid through school and stuff like that he has no ambition that he didn't want to go to college um and i wasn't going to push him. I used to send him to drink beer for two or four years. I go with that.

What's he do? He got him a job working at the same factory where my wife works at. Making what kind of money? He's 1850, 1875, something like that right now. What's he going to do with his life? Well, he doesn't know yet. So you led the question, how bad of an idea is it? And I'm not trying to read too much into that,

but me thinking that makes you think it's a bad idea. Why do you think it's a bad idea? Yeah, what's going on? Well, I mean, just handing an 18-year-old kid a house, you know, the financial responsibilities. It needs, it hasn't had anything done to it since the 80s. It is stuck in the 60s from when it was built. Wood pandering, acoustic tile ceilings. I mean, honestly, to make it a really good flippable house, I mean, it needs to be gutted.

But he could sell it today for $100,000. I think it would bring $100,000 right now, just the way it said needing to be flipped. So really the thing is this 18-year-old kid is making $18 at the factory, and we don't know what he's going to do with his life. You're handing him $100,000. Yeah, basically, yes. Yeah, you are. Because he could sell it right after you hand it to him.

Yeah, he could. He could. That's the term. I don't think he would i don't think he would do my thing was was uh you know if it was it was gifted to me and my brother by my mom you know she claimed it to us 10 years ago um so we have we have you weren't 18 well no no but you know if if we sold it it would all it would all you know, capital gains, every bit of it. If I give it to him, if it's his, or if he holds it for two years, then he could sell it as his primary residence, and that capital gains would be gone.

Yeah, that's true. You don't have capital gains on it, though. I mean, unless you got – did you get it as an inheritance, or did she give it to you prior to death? She just – just private. Mom's still living, but she just deeded it. She deeded it to you. Yeah, well, you are right then.

You've analyzed that properly then. I wouldn't do it if I were you. I'm trusting you. I would. You would? Yeah, I'd give it to him. Really? Yeah, but I'm going to put some terms on it.

Here's my terms. Okay. I want to hear this. Okay. I want him to have a plan. Yes. For his life. Right. and for the renovation of the property right that's his sign that he and and the third thing is he promises never to borrow any money uh um yep i i agree with that i want i want to see a plan for renovation i want to see a plan for your. I want to see a plan for your life. And you sign a letter that says, I promise Dad and Uncle and Granny I'm never going to borrow money.

I'm going to use this as a way to become wealthy. I'm going to live here. I'm going to renovate it. I'm going to sell it for $300,000 or $400,000 in three or four years after I fix it up and pay no capital gains on it. Meantime, I'm going to have a career, and I'm going to go do something and be somebody. I don't want him 38 years old still working there. I want him to go do something with his life. Don't you?

Yeah, I do too, but, you know, today's 18-year-old boys just don't have that drive anymore. Yes, they do. A lot of them don't. Some do. It's not about this generation. It's about the person and the environment. My question is, do you think your son, be really honest,

do you think your son will honor that agreement that Dave laid out? I like that agreement. Do you think your son will honor it? Yes, I do. Okay. I'd like to see him have some more hardship. I don't disagree with Dave's conditions. I love Dave's deal.

But I'd like to see an 18-year-old have to work hard, save for something. Giving him that is a big leap forward. Might let him live there for a year rent-free with the promise of giving it to him if he does a couple of these things. I want him to do something hard. Let's put a little skin in the game. Yeah. But I'm'm like that none of this is anything except i just don't want i want this to be a blessing and not a curse it's a curse if he says since i don't have rent i don't have to

work much and i don't have to work hard that's what i can sit here in the old wood paneling and drink beer all weekend and that's worse than having sent him to school to drink beer for three years so yeah that's what you don't want to do. So if you get something where we put him up on a track and he has an obligation that he's going to fulfill for his own good, then that's good. But maybe let him sit there a year. And at the end of that year, we will deed it to you. If you are doing these three things, you're promising not to borrow money. You have a game plan to do the renovation.

Then you've already begun some of the light work on the renovation while you're there. And I want to see some movement in your career. I want you to get up off your little butt and get in gear. And if you're going to do all that, we're going to give you a free house, buddy. If you're not, then you're going to go be somewhere else. I like that. Might go for a year on it and try. I want to use it as leverage to get him moving.

That's where I'm at. Yeah. I want gumption. Yeah. There's an old word we don't use a lot, but I think I want to see gumption out of the kid, and I think the dad is worried about that. Yeah, well, he's just worried. The downside is it's a miniature version of a trust fund, baby. Not quite.

I agree. That's why I wouldn't give it to him yet. Yeah, I think put some stipulation on it. maybe do a delayed handoff that kind of thing that i like the idea of where it could take him mathematically if he plays through and what you're saying bill's very true he holds it two years he sells it he's gonna have all that money tax-free it's a tax-free up to 250 000 gain and it'll probably be a full gain uh for a single if he's married by then you know it would be uh 500 000 that he can make on that house and have no taxes so yeah fix it up live there until he's 25 he's married and he makes some serious bank and by then

his career is taken off because he's got a whole game plan he's got he's got up and got moving and yeah i like that that kind of thing if he's just gonna sit on his butt and work as little as he can work i'm gonna work i'm gonna get there late leave early and not do much while i'm there and uh look i'm working for the weekend i'm huey news right huey lewis in the news that's right you know and it's just uh now if that's you then i'm not supporting that activity because it's not a blessing that's not going to give him the life he wants because i love him that yeah that kind of thing that's what i'm looking for bill but it's a great discussion and what a generosity move on your brother's part wow on your part but on your brother's part for sure yeah that's very kind to him i mean that's 50 000 bucks he's handing his

nephew that's i was sitting there thinking well you and your brother could fix that sucker up and flip it and then give the young man some investment. I get it, but I'll pay taxes if I got a bunch of profit. Yeah, that's true. You could go there. It's interesting. It's a great- Mama's house, Mama's still alive.

So yeah, it's interesting. She'd rather have her grandbaby in there. Well, that's true. But you know what? You've nailed it. I'm worried about him getting adult camp. You know, he's working at the factory where Mama works, and then he's got this free place and party hardy and all that garbage,

and it's not real world. And I think that's what we need more of. I mean, you and I don't know anybody that would have done something like that at 18, other than the two people sitting here. But, yeah, we're the only guys that know anybody like that. But, yeah, I would have messed that deal up. I'm afraid I would have as well. I promise you I would have messed that up.

This is The Ramsey Show. Our Scripture of the Day, Isaiah 29-24. Those who are confused will gain understanding and those who grumble will accept instruction jordan peterson says in order to be able to think you have to risk being offensive well jordan you got it down man yes you got that one dialed in buddy proud of you yeah you scored yes so fun stuff yeah i uh went to uh our friends at daily wire um here here in nashville uh that have jordan and um ben shapiro and others on their team and uh of course jordan has spoken for us

and i've been on ben's show i've known ben a long time and uh sharon and i went to their christmas party the other night oh i didn't know this and uh they were kind enough to invite us and uh so we went down hung out with them and got to talk to ben a little bit i hadn't talked to him since all this stuff has gone down in israel and uh man it's pretty rowdy around their place the um imagine the death threats that he is getting right now uh uh with the anti-semitism that has risen is just nuts um he um he he's just pretty nonchalant about having 24 hour a day security in his home it's just the only security i've got is the second amendment laying by my bed but but not as many people i mean people are mad at me and hate me but nothing like those guys

those guys man they get crap wow it's amazing but they were having a nice christmas party it was nice i'm doing that's fun ben and ben is a really really genuinely nice guy great great folks all right i'll name drop a little max is in toronto canada hey max what's up okay hey max how are you hey you doing well sir great to speak with you again you don't remember but two years ago we spoke my parents were going through a messy divorce and you helped me get in touch with a pastor who really blessed my life so i wanted to thank you with that first very cool very cool how can we help today sir yeah reason for the call today is I wanted to thank you for that first. Very cool. Very cool. How can we help today, sir? Yeah, the reason for the call today

is I wanted to, I guess I'll just give you the question and the background information. I'm wondering if I should quit my job to pursue a full-time career as an entrepreneur in the social media space. Okay. What kind of space? Yeah, so kind of my idea right now

would be to do predominantly on YouTube as well as longer-form podcast content. What's your content? What are you offering on social media and YouTube? What is the career area you're in? What are you helping people with? Yeah, so it would be self-improvement. Your phone's breaking up.

Try one more time. It would be for self-improvement for young men, kind of in fitness. You broke up again. I think you said fitness. Did you say fitness? Yeah. Okay. All right, so what do you do now, and what do you make in that job?

I think we're having all kinds of problems with Max on the connection there. Max, you there? Can you hear me? No, we can't hear you at all. I'm going to put you on hold and see if they can get you fixed up. We'll come back to you. Cadren is up

and in Seattle. Hi, Cadren. How are you? Hi, I'm well. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? So my husband and I are recently married in our 40s. We each own our own home. He has sold his.

We are now living in my smaller home. He has a stepdaughter who we have about 50% of the time. And so we need to buy a house that is closer to her school district. And we also just need a little bit more space. So my question is, we have a couple of options. Option one is for us to keep this current home we're in, keep it as a rental, and buy a house up near this other school district.

I assume the home that you're in has a mortgage and your new home will have a mortgage. Correct. Okay. I would not do that then. Okay. Yeah. You're becoming a landlord by default, not by plan. If you were living over in that other property and had a mortgage, you wouldn't look up and go, I'm going to go buy a rental over there in that other neighborhood with a debt.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is by default. It's not by plan. You're going to end up planning. You need to use every bit of equity you have and put it on that other house to have as little debt over there as you can have and get that other house paid off. When your personal residence is paid off, save up and buy a rental with cash later on if you can when you can but until then right now what you all need to get a paid for home to live in okay that make any sense that's the direction we always take people

yeah and that makes perfect sense i'm just wondering our 10-year plan is that in 10 years we would move back to this area where we currently live, because this is ultimately where we would want to be after my stepdaughter graduated from high school. So even if that was our plan, would you still give that same advice? Yes, and I'll give you another reason now then. Okay, on top of that, I own a home that we lived in for 13 years. I raised our children in, and then we built a home about the time they all left. That home has been sold.

We're in a third home since then. But we've kept the other property as a rental. It was all paid for all along. It is an emotion. And I know this. I've known this for, I grew up in the real estate business. I've been warned about this since I was 18 years old. This is returning to a property you

used to live in after tenants have lived in it is emotionally rough they didn't do what they did it's they didn't take care of your old your old baby you know and moving back into it is really hard because it shrinks after you leave it's like it's like when you go back to your elementary school like what they do with those rooms they were huge when i was a kid and they're tiny how did we even get in the door in these little bitty rooms and and you know we i went back to one of the houses we lived in we first got married and the people were kind enough to let us go in i found the shower i used to i don't know how i got in the thing it was so small yeah it just shrunk considerably and i i couldn't have gotten any bigger that's not possible but no it's emotional you will have 10 years worth of renters that you will have to rehab and clean out,

and you'd be better off just to buy a different house. And that plan might not take place also. You might not be moving back there. You've got a lot of fresh change in your life right now, and to anticipate what's going to happen 10 years from now in light of all this fresh change is very difficult. I would just make my life simple, clean, sell it. let's go take care of this teenager get her in the right school raise her when she's gone then we'll reevaluate where we want to live we might come back there we might not and you're not tied to it in any way by decisions you made a decade before i just dump

that money over into the other house get that other house paid for build you a big old pile of cash so you got options from 10 years that are completely unlimited put yourself in that position it is so weird you ever done that going back to a house you used to live in yeah i went back to my boyhood home um about 10 years ago we went back where my dad had started in pastor church for a long time we moved away when i was 12 went back so excited to show my family. And it looked like a dollhouse. And my vision was, I remember playing in this room and I thought it was massive. And I looked at it and it was like a cubby. So yeah, for my boyhood home, it blew my mind how small it was. Yeah. The house I grew up in was an incredible home. And it was 1,004 square feet.

Yeah. That's about what mine was. My dad said it was just a little bit over thousand and four square feet yeah that's about what mine was my dad said it was just a little bit over a thousand square feet hardwood floors bath and a half yeah three bedrooms bath and a half and um my my parents bought it in 1963 yeah um and uh for twelve thousand five hundred seventy five dollars and uh uh the we, I thought, I didn't know living rooms all had furniture because ours didn't have furniture. When we made enough money several years later to buy living room furniture, and prior to that, that room sat empty for five years. Wow. Or more. I mean, I was a little kid when we got living room furniture.

But I was a little kid, and we played in that living room. It was like our own little gym. Yeah, of course. Because it was empty and uh but they they you know finally got living room furniture and put in there and oh my gosh did your mom put plastic on it no they that was one of their things they wanted they said if you're you should live in the living room i agree it should not be a museum of that philosophy it should not be a museum they love the idea that when great rooms came out, they did away with the formal living room, and it was just one big family room. Yeah, big great rooms.

I remember when great rooms came in in the 70s. Wow. Yeah, so that whole thing. But yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting set of emotions. I like what you said. The advice is so great because you said options. That is the operating word. Give yourself options. Big old pile of money and options. And simplicity will add to your pile of money.

It's good stuff. 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.