The Ramsey Show - App - How Should I Be Investing? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

from the Ramsey Network it's the Ramsey show where we talk about your life your money we help you build wealth do work that you love and and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. Your other host for the hour is Dr. John Deloney. We're going to get into it, going to get involved with questions about your life and your money. So you can call us. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll give you our best advice. All right, we've got some folks on the line. We've got Bridget from Indianapolis, Indiana. What's going on, Bridget? Hi, how are you guys? Great. Okay, so my question is, I inherited some gold from my grandpa. It's worth about $13,000, and I wasn't sure if I should cash in the gold and invest the money into retirement or just keep the gold and let that grow?

If you're keeping it for like a future investment, I would sell it today. If you're keeping it because your grandpa, it was like a cool sentimental thing. It's like a really nice, awesome thing that is going to be generational and you don't want to sell it, then I would hang on to it. Okay. Got it. Let's do this. Take gold away and pretend he left you a, I don't know. Watch. Yeah, a 1971 Les Paul Deluxe where he'd put P90s in it.

Not that I'm saying that's what I want, but I kind of want that. And could that go up in value? Yeah, it could. But it's a cool guitar and it's grandpa's guitar. So I might keep that. But if I don't play guitar and I don't really care, I might sell it, right? It's kind of like that. Okay. So if you're looking for a purely investment standpoint, selling it and investing it is definitely better. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Love the call. Thanks for the call. Yeah, I agree, John. That's very, very good. All right. Let's take another one. We got Jessica. She's in Columbus, Ohio. What's going on, Jessica?

Hey there, guys. How's it going? Great. How can we help today? All right. So just a quick little layout of where I'm at. I am divorced and I am after the divorce, moved in with my parents due to health issues and then the divorce and everything. So I am currently on disability, excuse me, and I have a lump sum of money in my account and I'm trying to decide. I am in baby step three, I believe, because I have no debt or anything like that. I have my emergency fund for six months and then I have this other money and I would like to do something to be growing it. I do have it all in a high yield savings account, but I would like to not be in step three forever, but also being on a fixed income with disability. Um, I live, you know, penny to penny. So I'm trying to figure out like,

what's the best thing to do with this extra money? Because I don't have retirement. I don't have like, I can't do a Roth IRA because it's not earned. So just trying to figure out how I can like, set myself up for the future with being on such a tight monthly budget, but while having this money that's just sitting there. Let me ask two quick questions and then Jade, you hop in the money. Jessica, how fresh is this divorce? About a little more than two years. Okay. So this is 24 months. What's the nature of your disability? Like I'm not able to work at all right now but it's kind of like it's like an 18 month thing like we'll revisit so it's not for sure if i'll be on the disability income like long term or

temporary what's the nature of the disability um do i have to open that can of worms? No, no, no, that's fine. I'd rather not. It does play into an ability to, like if you think you're never going to be able to work again and you're going to be living with your parents indefinitely for the rest of your life, that's going to be one trajectory. If you're in the middle of a- So I will say like, it's kind of like it'll take a miracle from God, but I hold hope for that.

Um, but I don't see a reason not living with my parents at this point. Cause I would just be alone anyways. We kind of enjoy being together. But, um, that also being said, like their finances are not the most super stable. So it makes me me like extra like I need to have mine as good as possible okay okay um I'm I want to ask another question I don't want to drill too deeply but it sounds like you and John understand something that maybe I don't understand the nature of your disability is it like a physicality or is it more of yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah, it's health. It's yeah, it's physical health. OK, my question and my slight pushback on that is going to be whenever people call on the show and they're lucid and they're energetic. I'm like, there's something you can do.

Maybe it's something where you're working from the phone lines. Maybe it's something where you're doing a lot different of a type of work than what you were doing before. So I just want you to keep your mind open for that. Yeah, yeah. lot different of a type of work than what you were doing before so I just want you to keep your mind open for that um yeah yeah and I have like I have tried things but there's like um yeah there's issues that have made it not and that's why I actually got my my disability ruled because there was like they even felt confident there really wasn't anything I could um stay consistent at this time and actually be like dependable for. Yeah. Okay. That is enough for me to actually like make significant funds off of. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about the baby steps. So baby step three, you mentioned that you already had six months of emergency funds. Yes. Yes. Okay.

So technically you're on your baby step four. So it's about, that would be investing 15% of your income. So what are you receiving for would be investing 15% of your income. So what are you receiving for disability every month? What do you get? It's like $1,165. $1,165? Yes. A month?

I'm sorry, $1,165 a month, yes. Okay, I got to push back again. I got to push back again. I got to push back again. With the disability, you're telling me there's nothing that you would do that you could do even on the side to make more than $1,100 a month? I'm just pushing. No, not at this time. No, not at this time.

But maybe later on down the road. I mean, I'm hopeful for it, but I'm not there right now. How did they calculate such a low return? It's based off of how many years I worked paying into Social Security, to my understanding. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so you're on baby step four. What's the lump sum that you have that you're looking to invest? I have like $12,000.

I mean, I have more than that in my account, but if I subtract all the things, I can have my bucket for my high-yield savings. That's right. So like the bucket that has just like, here's a chunk of money is $12,000. So what I would say is keep the six months of expenses in the high-yield savings account and anything above and beyond that, if that's $12,000. For now, you could look into just investing it into a brokerage account and investing it into great mutual funds. We always say you split them over four types.

And if you wanted to work with a smart investor pro to get you started on that, you 100% could. And again, it's four different types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. And you kind of split it equally amongst those. If you're like, Jade, that's too crazy. Even if you just threw it in an index fund for now until you're ready to explore that kind of next step, I'm fine with that. And I don't know what your expenses are working from home. If there's anything left above that, yeah, I'm investing it because you don't really have, you know, your baby steps feel a little

bit different because your income is so low. Anything you have above, you know, living and whatever obligations you have with your parents, yeah, invested into that brokerage account. And that's really going to be what you're doing for now. If things change, give us a call back and we'll kind of recalibrate with you and see what that means moving forward. But listen, I hope that in 18 months when you guys revisit this, I hope that it's a better story for you. And it's it allows you kind of to get out there and get moving. That's tough, John. That's really tough. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. You know what know what John I have to be honest I've kind of become a

little bit of a nerd when it comes to budgeting like it's like a it's like a weird game that I like playing and I love every month redoing my every dollar budget there's like the button that you push and it takes last month's budget and puts it to this month's budget and then you go in there and you make the tweaks. And every once in a while, my husband gets to it before I do. And I'm like, dang it. Because I just like, I don't know. I like doing that.

I thought I was a nerd. And I'm pleased to announce you've far surpassed me. Congratulations. That's awesome. It's like, you know, like, okay, if you're a person who makes lists, and then you love the feeling of being able to check, put the check next to the list. You're like, Jade, I know nothing about this. Are you the kind of person who does a thing that was on the list and you write it on the list so you can mark it through? 100%. I want credit. It didn't happen if I didn't write it down. You should call my friends at BetterHelp.

Oh my goodness. But if you're like that, even if you're not like that, everybody needs a budget, John. I say all the time, budgets are like toothbrushes. Everyone needs one. Without it, things get ratchet. Let's be honest about that. So the best way to budget is the every dollar budget. It's the best way to make the most of your money. You create it, you stick to it, and that's the plan, right? Every dollar, it's simple. It makes it so simple to plan your spending. You can track your expenses in there, which is the daily habit, daily habit right it's like brushing your teeth the daily habit with every dollar is every day you go in there and you track your transactions it's like a little game it makes you feel like i did something i won today and uh you get to save for what matters most to you it's all in one easy

to use app it fits right into your lifestyle and honestly it fits right into your pocket because the app is on your phone or of course you could use the desktop model if that's what you like. But you can keep a pulse on your spending. You can make progress on your money goals. And you can do all of that with every dollar. Let me say, especially if you're married, if you're married, you need every dollar because that is it bridges the gap in communication. It's a nice way to say that. I like to say, I can't hide. No, you can't hide. All the things I buy automatically show up on my wife's phone. So here we are.

There you go. And then we need that. It's transparency at its finest. So download every dollar for free. You can do that in the App Store or on Google Play today. I love it. I love it when it rhymes at the end. All right.

Let's go to Trent, who's in San Diego, California. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it. You bet. How can we help today? So just a little background here. We've had about $138,000 in debt we've paid. Hey, Trent, do me a favor. Talk directly into your phone, brother. All right, can you hear me? Perfect, yes. All right, so we paid about $52,000 of debt off

in the last, basically since February. We're looking to try and speed that up a little bit, so the question today is, we have a car that we're upside down on. It's about $14,000 upside down. We owe about 37 on it. We have two other loans, a student loan for about 20,000 and a loan that we took out to put down for a down payment on a house about 25,000. We have three kids under three. So the car situation has been kind of hard for us. We have one car that's paid off. Um, and one that doesn't really

suit our needs. It was more, um, something I wanted. And so now we're trying to figure out, do we sell that car? Do we keep it? Um, you know, kind of how of how do we proceed? Because we do want to ultimately, we have three boys that are under three, and we want to have a try again, you know, for potentially a girl. So we're needing like a van or something with a second row of seats. Got you. Okay. Yeah, maybe a Suburban or something like that. Well, we'll get what you can afford.

Okay, so here's the thing. I just want to clarify myself. So you said you do have one car that's paid off. What type of vehicle is that? That's a 4Runner. A 4Runner. A Toyota 4Runner. Okay.

And then you've got this other vehicle that you're upside down on $14,000. What kind of vehicle is that? It's a Tesla Model 3. Ooh. I'm going to see. Trent gets what Trent wants, doesn't he? Well, you know, I've had a lot of cars. That's kind of a problem.

And so now I'm letting my wife be the voice of reason here. And she's fine with me having it. But, you know, it's just at this time it doesn't fit three car seats very well. That's the least of its issues. That's the least of its issues. The biggest issue is how it's causing you to be deeply in debt. So, again, for clarification for me, you said you had $138,000, but then you said the debt you've paid off. So what is your current debt?

Current debt is $84,000. Okay, $84,000. I have about $30,000 in the bank right now that we're, I just, you know, obviously that we owe that $14,000. Do we pay that off and then, you know, buy a different vehicle for me to drive, or do we pay off the smallest debt first and kind of go from there? No, I think in this case, I would clear that vehicle out because that's going to, when I think about the debt snowball, the first thing that I'm thinking about is, where can I find money to save to throw at this debt snowball?

And so in this case, we are looking at the cars first to say, is there money saved here? Of course there is because there's a car payment involved. And since you have cash, this is ideal for you because you could really take the $14,000 and get right side up on this loan and just clear that car out. You net zero on that. And then you've got $16,000 left in savings. And so let's think about what a reasonable amount of that would be to go towards a car that works for your family. And you can decide what that is. I mean, you've got this 4Runner over here. I don't know how old it is, how many seats it has.

But for right now, I want you purchasing something for your family as it is, not necessarily for what you think your family will be in the future. Either way, if you get something with a third row of seats, you're going to be fine. But there's nothing that says you have to go out and buy a 2020 vehicle right no and they're her yeah my wife's car is a 2024 and it fits the car seats but you can't put it and it has a third row but you can't put a car seat in that third row so that's kind of where we're like she would upgrade i would take her car um or not upgrade but change her vehicle but i i go away for work from

multiple days at a time. So it does make it a little bit more challenging knowing that I want to make sure she has. When you say she would upgrade, what does that mean? Because we're talking about selling this Tesla and downgrading to something in cash. I was thinking she would maybe change vehicles down the line and I would take her vehicle if we saved up enough to pay cash for a vehicle that, you know, was bigger, that could fit more, that could tow. Got it. But that's assuming you have a fourth kid down the road. She's not pregnant, is she?

Not yet. No, but, you know, it's definitely something that we're, within the next year, we're looking to do once we have all this. How much do you make a year, Trent? $230,000. Okay. This is going to sound crazy, but you're broke. Okay.

You have an incredible salary. Yes. And you owe $84,000, And you shuffle around depreciating assets. And so you make a quarter of a million dollars and you have dreams of an $80,000 suburban for your four kids. And dude, I love that dream. It's cool. But I don't think you're grasping the reality

that your family right now isn't safe because you owe $84,000. And so until you've at least zeroed out, and then you can begin to make some forward progress with your quarter of a million dollar salary. See what I'm saying? Like in your head, you make this money, and this money keeps coming in and keeps coming in,

but you wouldn't be calling us if it wasn't also flying out the back door somewhere. No, I agree. And that's why I'm here. I definitely, like I said, I see the need to sell the vehicle and I'd bicycle to work if it made sense. But, you know, it's just one of those things that right now we have that cash and that's where I'm looking to decide what makes sense to buy. Do I still find something that I can fit car seats that I can drive around my kids in or do I buy something that's... How often do you drive them around? Actually quite a lot.

I mean, I'll get into my wife's vehicle and drive them, but I's, you know, I'll take them hiking my days off because I'm fortunate that my schedule allows that, you know, when I'm at work, I'm at work and when I'm home, I get multiple days home in a row with them. That's good. That's cool. So what you do next is going to determine how quickly you want to get out of debt and how quickly you want to get right side up on this situation. You might decide, hey, I'm going to buy a beater, like a complete $8,000 beater. I'm going to drive that. I'm going to put my wife in the 4Runner because it's a little bit better. And that gets you closer to paying off this student loan you have. Then you turn around, you pay off that personal loan you had. And then in

the end, you're debt free. And trust me, you'll be able to upgrade car quickly with a $230,000 income and no debt. Hey, you're listening to The Ramsey Show. If you want to give us a call, an unfiltered call about your life and your money, we will take it. The number is 888-825-5225. By the way, my name is Jade.

Next to me is Dr. John Deloney, and we're your hosts today. So we are the ones who will give our advice. If you wanted George Campbell's advice or Rachel Cruz's advice, you should have called on a different day because sometimes they host or Ken Coleman or Dave Ramsey. So there you have it. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Andy in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Andy? Hey, guys. Oh, I'm so excited you guys took my phone call today. So I am doing the baby steps with my wife. We just started like a month ago, and I've been super gung-ho about it, and my wife's annoyed with me already.

I have – I'm just going to roll through the debts. So we have $10,600 on a car loan. We've got $7,700 on a credit card. And we have $4,600 in student loan debt that we have left to pay off. I have in a savings account $12,000 in cash. Okay. I want to take the $12,000 and pay off the car because that will free up a bunch of cash for us to just hammer out the rest of the little debt. Yeah. And my wife does not want me to spend that money.

She's scared, right? What plan number is this? what's that what what what i'm trying to think the right way to say is what what plan are you a guy that's always got like an idea oh yeah absolutely and so she's been with you on a bunch of different of your ideas yes and so this is just so for you maybe the light bulb has finally come on and you see a path to freedom and you're gung-ho and she sees this as just another one of you know one of andy's one of andy's things and she is unwilling to give up the most stable thing in her life, which is 12 grand in a checking account. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't blame her. And so how do you create sturdiness and stability in this relationship with her? That's a great question. Andy's like, I wasn't ready for that. I thought you were going to tell me how to pay these debts off. Here's what I'm going to tell you. And I'm going to pass it over to Jade, but here's what I would tell you.

Exactly as I just rolled it out to you, she needs to hear you say that. And this is the word that every man I know hates to say out loud, but this is the only path towards healing this type of disconnection. And that's you being vulnerable. And that looks like you taking her out for dinner or taking her out for breakfast or in your guy's case, because y'all are broke, going out for a walk and you stopping at a park bench and sitting down and looking across the bench and saying, I've taken you on a bunch of wild goose chases, trying to hack my way to safety and security. And I'm sorry, because I've given you an unstable partner in this adventure called life. I really want to do my part to help us be safe and be free. And I'm not ever going to wild goose chase you again. But here's the path forward and here's

the book and here's the way we're going to navigate this. And I'd love for you to join me here. I'm scared about how I've led this family and I'm scared about what comes next if we keep owing all this money. Will you me and then at that point maybe she might say hey what did you do with andy my husband and she may say i still don't feel comfortable with it but at least she sees you recognizing what she now has been experiencing can you do that yeah absolutely okay and then when the time is right after you've've done what Dr. John just said, then you let her listen to this call. And she hears us say, yeah, you take the $12,000 and you take $10,000 and you pay off the car and you keep the $1,000 aside and you throw the other $1,000 at the student loan and you knock it out using your income, and you roll through this really quickly and you're going to have more peace than you've ever had before. Because not only are you going to have this debt gone, but you freed up all these monthly payments and now you can save more money than you've ever had saved. Six months of expenses. And it just sits in a high yield savings account, just sitting there making you feel all

warm and cozy on the inside. Right. And then you move on to baby step four where you're investing 15 percent of your income and so that's how this works um you really came for john's answer not mine i think you knew the answer to mine so but here's the big question will you do this oh absolutely yeah yeah you know your wife better than jade and i do what is she going to say if you sit down and say that to her? Honestly, she'll probably cry. Yeah. Our life's crazy.

Yeah. I want you to start thinking in terms of stability. Or a better way to say this is, let's start solving for peace. Let's don't solve for the get rich. Let's don't solve for the scam. Let's don't solve for the, oh yeah, then we can. Let's solve for peace. You want to be countercultural and bananas in today's world?

I'm going to solve for peace in my house. And there's going to be some tension. Because once you get that car paid off and your checking account, your savings account has $1,000 in it, you're going to sleep a little bit shallower, and Jade and I are both going to tell you good because you should be nervous and scared. That's going to encourage you to go get some more money, not buy stupid stuff, cut your grocery bill to the bare bones, and you're going to encourage you to go get some more money, not buy stupid stuff, cut your grocery bill to the bare bones, and you're going to look up in six months,

and you're all going to owe nobody anything, and you're going to start to exhale for the first time, and you didn't even know how shallow your breathing was. Is that fair? Yeah. I want that for your home, brother. That's totally fair. Thank you very much

hang on the line here's what we're going to do I'm going to give you a peace offering that you can slide across the table all cool like okay I'm going to give you a copy of building a non-anxious life and I want y'all to use that as a road map in your house oh man that'd be awesome thank you well hold on I'm not done I'm also going to give you

every dollar the best budgeting app on planet earth I also going to give you every dollar, the best budgeting app on planet Earth. I'm going to give you a year subscription. I'm going to upgrade it for you. Jade's going to pay for it. I'm not going to, but Jade will. And it's going to be a way to connect to your bank so that you can look her in the eye and say,

I'm not going to make a bunch of crazy purchases anymore. When I buy something, it's going to be because we budgeted for it and we planned it and both of us are going to get notified when this happens. And look at her and say, I'm all in. I'm asking you, will you be all in? Okay?

Okay. Cool? That's awesome. Here's what those things are going to cost you. You got to call us back when you're debt free in about six months. Fair? Deal. Absolutely.

Done. All right, cool. Stay on the line brother oh what a call thank you for that call you know john i think that i think that what he's facing is what a lot of couples face which is that feeling of you've you finally found something that you think is going to be the breakthrough moment and it with with plan, it is a watershed moment, right? But you have this wake of all the other things you've done and tried and got bought in for, buy in from your spouse that didn't go so well. And so they're seeing a trail of like failed mishaps. And you're like, no, this is the one, this is the one. Like, I think a lot of people needed to hear like,

how do I navigate that conversation? Because this is the sure thing, right? It's like, I think a lot of people needed to hear, like, how do I navigate that conversation? Because this is the sure thing, right? It's like, I don't know. That's just such a- This plan works 100% of the time. It works 100% of the time. And Avon or Tupperware or essential oil, like whatever, all the other, like, hey, here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to do this. Quickstar. Yeah. And so they just don't have that kind of track record. But you have to undo the damage of all that before you can slide this over and say, hey, here's the real one. And this type of healing will take time

because I'm confident that his wife is going to say, the moment we pay this car off, I'm going to walk through and you're going to be sitting on your laptop looking at cars. I know that's what's going to happen because you talked me into a truck one time, you talked me into the new Tesla another time. And so I think it's a matter of saying, okay, here's how I'm going to change. I'm going to change the way I'm living inside this marriage when you join me. And yeah, that's a control alt delete. It's a big one. But then now the onus is

on him to really show a different person going forward and I have different habits we're accountable for our habits so I'm excited for them I can't wait for them to call in and see how it goes with them this is the Ramsey show our scripture and quote of the day therefore my dear brothers and sisters stand firm let nothing move you always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain that's first Corinthians 15, 58. Then we got Sandra Day O'Connor who said this, do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.

Wow. Love it. Good stuff. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Ronnie in Shreveport, Louisiana. Louisiana. Yeah. Thank you for taking my call.

I have about four different collections that are rather huge, large, and I have a problem that my children don't really care too much about them. So I didn't know how the best way maybe if I wanted to get rid of them. I don't need the money, but I have a coin collection. Okay. I have a depression glass collection. I have an extensive record collection, vinyl. Okay.

And I have a collectible card game collection. Okay. What's a depression glass man yeah i want to know that too i think i think james childs drinks from a cup like that a lot what is that it's the uh colored glass from the 20s and 30s they were made the first mass-produced type glass is like that green color green pink amber cobalt blue amber you know all kind of there's alien glass which is same as depression glass made during the depression era basically made during the 20s and the 30s what's your what's your card collections you into baseball cards no it's not baseball cards

it's uh you've heard of the game magic the gathering oh ronnie it's not just a game you collect wait a minute i didn't i don't think I realized that you could collect lots of... It's like Pokemon. Sort of, except it's the very first game to come out like that. And I have an extensive collection of all the early stuff, which is worth a lot. When you say worth a lot, what do you mean? I have one card that's worth $100,000. Whoa.

So you need to like consign this like you need to go on do you watch that show on netflix golden auctions uh i never really looked at that listen i would get online today why don't your kids watch i don't know what magic the gathering is it sounds intense but why don't your kids want all of that? It came out in 1993. It's a collectible card game. I have not only just the cards. You collect the cards and you play a game with them. And so I have all the early first printing of stuff. And I have the first about six couple of expansions.

It's just still out now. They're still producing cards. Very popular around the world. So why haven't you sold them? Well, I haven't sold them because I don't really need the money to sell them. I just want to know maybe how do you get rid of something like that. At first I thought, well, I can just go sell them at a card shop. But now a card shop can't even buy what I have because I've got unopened boxes that are worth $10,000. Have you gotten them rated, like, professionally? No, they're

not graded, but I know how to grade them and everything because I've been doing this for a while. I'd start walking down that path if you know you've got all this. The card I have that's worth a lot is part of a whole set. Yeah. And the set is worth $300,000. That's what I'm saying. With the $300,000 car. But you keep telling us how much it's worth. Who's telling you how much it's worth? He's got to.

That's just me going online looking at what they're selling it for. And I probably shouldn't get that much for it. But who's selling it? Different car shops around the country like Troll & Toad and Alphabeta Unlimited. But, I mean, that means they're buying it, right? They're buying it and they're selling it, yes. So I would start there. Okay.

Or look into these auctions. Look into all sorts of things that you could do. You see, I have a lot of unopened boxes. Yeah, we understand that. We understand that. What we're saying is take the next step to selling them, which is you vetting out different companies, whether they're just people selling them, you know,

and they're just offering you top dollar, or you put it on an auction block and see what you can get for it. Like, really look into this, because there's a lot of money to be made there. I don't know. I'll be honest. I don't know a whole lot about the Depression Glass. I don't know.

Your record collection could be worth a lot. It could be garbage. We really don't know. But until you get it out there. It's probably worth, I got about 8,000 albums. Right, but until you get it out there and somebody says, I will give you this for it, we really don't know.

So that's the next step. And let me tell you this, Ronnie, and this is hard to hear, okay? I've sat with a few older folks with things in their home that they in their head had numbers attached to and that was they were they were literally drowning in stuff and i um and i was trying to help them go through their things one person was able to just say the piece is not worth this this and i'm calling it imaginary because you don't have a check in your hand right so until you're holding money it's not real money

but they finally were saying i want peace in my home and i left one other elderly person's house it was heartbreaking there i mean literally unable to move because of how much the potential this stuff was worth. And I knew it wasn't worth what they were saying was in their mind, but I just couldn't have that. They wouldn't hear it. And so I think you have to ask yourself, if you don't need the money and you like having these collections, I can hear your voice as you're describing this stuff to me and Jade. You like having things that in your mind are worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

Then just keep them. Your kids will figure out what to do with them when you're gone if you want to sell them and that's actually the man actually the magic cards is what they're probably interested in the most great cool but you know when i'm not now my uh i mean i have a financial advisor that's saying maybe i ought to sell some of this stuff just to get the money and invest it and stuff like that from i don't think you want to sell it. I think he wants to increase his portfolio percentage take. Do you want to sell it? I don't want to sell it right now, no. Okay, then don't sell it.

Yes. Then don't sell it. Because I can tell right now you don't want to sell it, and the reason I know that is you have this imaginary I mean this imagine um this incredible thing I'm realistic to know that whatever like a hundred thousand dollar card I could probably get 50 for it okay but I'm saying you got the internet if you want to sell this you can sell half yeah you're going to get like half of anything that you have as a collection now okay the glass I know dealers that might can you know buy the glass but here's what I'm saying you don't want to sell them and so that's fine you don't need saying. You don't want to sell them, and so that's fine.

You don't need the money. You don't want to sell them. That's cool. And, again, I know you don't want to sell them because you haven't sold them yet. That's true. So when you want to sell them, you've got the internet. You can pick up the internet, and you can figure out who to sell the stuff to if you need the money or if you just want to start offloading these things

because you want to give your kids cash instead of these things. But if these things still bring you joy, keep these things. Yeah. I mean, I felt like we were just chasing our tail on that call because the kid just kept going back to the fact that he has it. I'm like, I'm glad that you have it. And listen, if you have Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic, I'll buy that off you because that's hard to find.

You know what I'm saying? So anyway, yeah, I'm with John. Jay, you're officially on friendship probation for being a Steely Dan fan. What? Jay, James Childs, you too. What? Hold on.

I'm still bitter about- If you're trying to tell me there's something wrong with Donald Fagan, I don't- I'm just still bitter about the heavy metal win over Metallica that one time.

It's just because he's not a real musician, Jay. Don't worry about it. Oh my God. I know, right? I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to let this roll off. I'm going to act like

you never said that, John. Ronnie's in the records, Jay. Now I'll split them up. We'll take care of the records for like you never said that, John. Ronnie's in the records. Jay and I will split them up. We'll take care of the records for you. Yeah, that's right. We'll take care of that. Oh my goodness. That's a good call.

Thank you for the call, Ronnie. It is hard to part with things that you've, I don't know, like there's a reason that people collect things. And a lot of times it doesn't start with financial gain. It starts with a feeling it gives them or like it's nostalgic. It makes them think of a time. I don't know. So it's hard to part with that but i think it's important here's two important call outs number one if somebody's leaning on you to start selling it whether it's

your financial advisor or your kids they want to they want a piece of the action right um if you have realized or if you're broke and you people around you're like hey you got to sell some of this stuff to pay your bills, then there's going to come that moment. Yeah. But also there's going to come a moment when you collect whatever it is you collect and you're 65, you're 75, and you realize, oh, I can't take this with me. Right? And so then you got to ask yourself, what am I going to do with this? Am I going to be charitable with it? Am I going to sell it and give the cash to my kids or give the cash to a local organization

or whatever. But at some point, man, this is going to sound awful. At some point, you're no longer here. That's right. None of us get out of this thing alive and none of us can take our magic cards with us, right? Or in James, his quasi folk music with him or whatever Steely Dan does. Well, I'm going to act like you're not saying the things that you're saying right now about Steely Dan. Actually, I don't know enough about Steely Dan. I want the nations to take to the comments right now and settle this for us once and for all. One of the greatest bands, duos of all time, Walter Becker. America, this is the first time I've said this on the show, but that's not great advice you just heard.

America will decide. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.