The Ramsey Show - App - How To Avoid Bankruptcy After Your Business Fails (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: How to figure out if you're weather a storm at your job or if you need new employment, How to avoid bankruptcy after your business fails, What you need to do to increase your income when you hit rock bottom, How to decide if you're going to take a promotion, How weird the current job market is. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET 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 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman is my co-host today. Host of The Ken Coleman Show and author of the number one best-selling book, From Paycheck to Purpose.

Our phone number is 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas, America. We're glad you're with us. Zach is with us in Huntsville. Hi, Zach. What's up? Not much. The blanket question is I'm trying to figure out if it's worth staying at a

lease-purchase trucking company as an employer or when I should decide to move on to something else. Details for why I took this job to begin with. A number of truckers suggested I do this because overall it does double my income in a normal market, even after all the payments and stuff like that. I'm allowed to walk away at any time so i'm not obligated to like pay a large balloon payment at the end of the lease or in order to get away from it or anything like a car lease i can walk away at any time if they fire me i don't owe anything on the truck etc etc okay so you're an over you're a truck driver and the deal with this employer is you lease your truck from them with no obligation to continue leasing it, and then they give you loads.

Yeah, pretty much. I lease it. As a condition of working here, I got to lease the truck. I don't have a – I'm trying to get through this one. To work here, I lease the truck yeah i got at the end of the lease i can pay for pay it off or i can save up money i can come in with my own truck as long as it meets their specifications and my own trailer paid off and i can still work for them that's the goal i was aiming for because in a normal market it does actually pay double what I normally make as a company driver.

And I had that for the first few paychecks, but the freight market is just tanking right now. It's hard to find anything that pays more than $250 a mile in the networks that we operate under. And from other truck drivers I hear, it's pretty well that way across the board. So I've not been able to make that, not by the fault of the company, but the market's just tanked. So when you lease the truck, you're paying a lease payment. Are you also responsible for insurance and maintenance and fuel? Insurance and stuff, yes. The fuel, they got two programs. They got an 80, 20 program where

I'm in charge of fuel and tolls. If I'm on that, or they got a 50, 50 program where they will pay for the fuel and the tolls. And then I just got the truck payment, trailer payment, and the, uh, uh, uh, insurance and just a couple other, uh, small charges that really, uh, which technically the last few, they don't go away even if I own my truck. Well, Zach, here's the deal. Twice in this phone call, you've mentioned in a normal market, then you explained what's actually happening with the market.

The market's changed, and I think you have to change. And the good news is it doesn't sound like there's a penalty for you to change. The hang-up I have is I've had this goal for a long time i'm and it changed on me so quickly i'm not sure what you had what you had what goal the goal to be an owner operator yeah to own the truck and be under my own authority so i have more leverage because like if i work at a company typically it's two to three weeks out, and then you get a day off for home time for every day that you're out. Yeah. Okay, well, is this a storm that you need to weather, and can you weather it,

or is this a function of the mountaintop is still the same, it's still the same goal, but I've got to climb the mountain a different way. Weather patterns come in, and I've got to change course. It's either A or B. What's the situation? I'm thinking that it's a storm that I might have to weather. Okay, what are you making after all your payments coming out of your pocket? What are you walking away with net right now?

Net, I've been making a thousand to fifteen hundred a week well you can make that drive you make more than that driving for somebody else that's a fact you can make that driving a local route for a larger company 50 grand a year yeah roughly and uh that is the reason i mentioned the normal market i have testimony from drivers that work for this exact same company before the market started going down they were netting three thousand a few of them were netting five thousand a week after everything was said and done right but it's changed so you have to sit back and say is this company this particular situation the only way for me to get to my ultimate goal? And the answer

is it's not the only way. So a question, how old are you? 29. And you're married, kids? Unfortunately, divorced and no kids. Okay. All right. So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes based on the information you've given me if I understand the situation? And I may not, okay? But I've worked with people driving truck for years doing what I do. And we're on SiriusXM, so a thousand years ago we started having a huge trucker following to this show. So I learned a little bit about the business just because I've been around the people doing it, doing the hard work that you're doing um so anyway what i would do is i would go to work for someone on a regular employment position right now and i'd work like a

crazy person live on nothing and pile up cash like crazy if the market turns you can come back to this model three years from now if you can make three times as much three years from now but today you're not making even what you can make for somebody else and there's and if you can jump out you can jump back in so jump out go get a job make it and go you know go do three weeks and and just pile up money man and towards buying a truck and then get you a good used truck and if it doesn't meet their specs well who gives a crap all you gotta do is get the stuff there and you go book your own loads get a broker and book your own loads and um so i know lots of guys that have saved up their first 20 25 000 bucks get their

tractor and they pull other people's trailers and then they finally get them a trailer, and then they move up from a $25,000, $30,000 tractor up into, you know, like an 80. Because as you know, you can spend a freaking half million dollars. There's no ROI on that at all, except thinking you're pretty at a stoplight. It's as dumb as driving a car that does that. So you don't want to do that. You want to do the truck that gets the job done and doesn't leave you broken on the side of the road and isn't eating fuel like a so yeah i'm i'm gonna save up money get my first truck that's what i'm

gonna do and what's the fastest way to do that right now it's working for somebody else that's right so jack what we're saying is we're not changing the dream we're changing the course to get to the dream yeah that's all. We're just going to change course. And if you can triple your income three years from now by coming back to this model and you're not quite got your money saved up to buy a truck, then do it. But the idea that you have to provide a truck that meets their specs later on, that sounds like maybe you need to have a wider net for the truck that you're driving than this one company who's going to dictate what you drive. I don't think I'm playing that game. You should decide what you're going to drive based on what makes good business sense and what you can pay cash for. This is The Ramsey Show. ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today uh it is christ time, and with the new year coming out, we've got the new Increase Your

Income Bundle. Ken? Yeah, this is fun, Dave. So what if you could get paid to do work that you're really good at and that you enjoy? And this bundle is going to include my new book, the number one bestseller from Paycheck to Purpose, our very popular Get Clear Career Assessment, and then the Get Hired digital course, including the resume templates and you get all of this for only $49.99 that's 50% off I didn't approve that Dave I didn't approve that steep of a discount that's ridiculous that's an unbelievable discount and speaking of increasing your income the Ramsey Christmas cash giveaway ends soon so make sure you folks go to ramsaysolutions.com slash giveaway and enter every day to

increase your chances to win the five thousand dollar grand prize dave is like the real life santa claus every year we give away a lot of money uh by the way no purchase necessary and you do have to be 18 or older to win that's ramsey solutions.com slash giveaway so head to ramsey solutions.com there's all kinds of goodies there oh all kinds of bargains jeff is with us jeff's in springfield missouri hi jeff how are you i'm doing all right thanks for taking my call dave sure what's up i i over the last five years i took a i lost my job and took a pay cut of about fifty thousand dollars um i since, in the last year, I brought my income back to where I was before this happened. But over the last five years, I've also had a failing business and I

built up quite a bit of credit card debt, $110,000. My wife and I, we make about $115,000 a year, but we have $110,000 in credit card debt between the business and ourselves, and we're strapped. Contemplating bankruptcy, looking at all of our options, we're doing what we can do with your every dollar plan on the budget, things like that. But we've, quite frankly, just started that. And I'm just looking for some advice i'm 52 years old what kind of business was it's been a rough it was a house flipping business you got any of them left just i'm in the middle of one right now but it's i mean it's out of all the houses we've done this has been the worst house and it's eating us alive you'll make a profit on it when you flip it

maybe a little i mean what do you owe on it i can we owe about 115 and it's probably worth 140 to 150 yeah when's it going when's it going on the market? Hopefully in the next week or so. Good. What do you owe on your home? I owe $300,000. It's worth $500,000. We built it about 18 years ago and have a lot of sweat equity in it.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Of the $115,000 income you told us, is that your wife, I'm assuming, or do you have an ex? They said he got a new good job. Okay. Right. No, I've got a – my job is really good, pays well. My wife works and does well also for this area.

So overall, flipping houses, you have lost, when all the smoke cleared, $110,000? Between that and then my job, my salary. I mean, we were living on credit cards for a while. Okay. All right. So the bottom line was, the overall business model of flipping houses,

you lost money on it. And mainly that's been the last two years since COVID. Okay. And this house has really been a disaster. Yeah. Okay. All right. So.

And how old did you say you were again? 52, you said. Yeah. Okay. 52. Yeah. The good news is you're not bankrupt. The bad news is you're scared and you're beat up.

Absolutely. And when we're scared and when we're beat up, we tend to make, we have more of a tendency to make bad decisions because we're kind of in a fog. You're in the forest, can't see the trees kind of thing. Been there myself. I know how it it's it's hard to think clear because everything's just overwhelming you this idea of just surviving does that sound familiar absolutely yeah okay so this is going to um hurt your feelings and hurt your wife's feelings even more.

But you can pay the credit card debt. You just got to sell your house. I understand that. And here's the bad news. I don't know the rule in Missouri, but in every state except Texas and Florida, you can't keep this much equity in bankruptcy. Because what happens is they have a homestead exemption when you file Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

There's a homestead exemption, which is the amount of your equity that you get to keep, and anything above that that's substantial, they're going to force the sale of the house to pay your creditors. So you might as well pay them. So are you behind on the credit cards? No, we are current. We've called them and got reduced monthly payments, and we've canceled all the credit cards.

So what I would do, having been through what you're going through, except with zeros on the end, and I was 28, I wasn't 52, but i still remember being so freaking scared i couldn't breathe what i would do if i were you is i would fight like a wild man to not have to sell my house let's let's pretend you pay a bunch of credit cards late over the next three years and it messes up your credit but you become debt free except the house i would do that and by the way 115 000 income 30 000 a year you can do for three years 40 000 a year for three

years you can do it on 115 000 income you got no life but you get to keep your house no life during that three years and you're probably going to be working extra doing something else well that's and you're going to be selling everything you can get your hands on including this junky butt house you're getting ready to get rid of jeff how much time ballpark are you spending per week on this house that it's almost gone yeah on on the house how many how many hours beyond your work are you spending on this flip house probably 25 hours a week all right so today's point i'm trying to give you some hope i agree with dave i i get rid of that house quickly as possible and now we're done with that and now that 25 hours i've been spending on that sinkhole,

I'm going to spend the 25 hours because you're a pretty handy guy. You could pick up some really nice paying work with your skills, true or false? Yes. The answer is true. I've been doing side hustles. I know. My point is – I've been doing side hustles.

Listen, you either do that or you sell your house. Yeah, and I'd keep the house, work the extra 25 hours. I'd hustle my way through this and pay $40,000 or $50,000 a year on this debt and be done with it in two, two and a half years. That's my plan. Okay. All right. That's how I'd get after that.

And so here's the thing. We just said there's two possible paths that's not bankrupt and by the way bankrupt won't work you're gonna lose your house in bankruptcy yeah they're gonna take it and pay your creditors because you don't you have so much equity unless I'm wrong I don't know again off the top of my head you could ask what home google you can do it as soon as you get off I I could do it live if I knew how to run Google. That's okay. Google what the homestead exemption for Missouri is,

but I'm betting you that it's probably $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, something like that, and you got $200,000. It's $15,000, and I would have to go Chapter 13. Yeah. Well, you're not Chapter 13. Chapter 13 is a payment plan, and you pay the creditors. I know. And so we'll just pay them.

You got this, Jeff. Even if you pay them late. Chapter 13 destroys your credit. Paying them late destroys your credit. Whoopie. Destroy your credit. Who gives a crap? We're talking about bankruptcy here.

We're talking about you keeping your house. We're talking about you turning the corner on this chapter, putting this chapter of your life that sucks in the rearview mirror. So me, the path I'm taking, I'm going to work like a maniac for the next three years. I'm going to get rid of this stupid house in the next 30 days, even if I break even on it so I can get my life back. And then I'm going to tear into these credit cards, working the debt snowball, smallest to largest. And you're not bankrupt.

You just got a sucky two and a half years coming up to put this crap in your rear view mirror. And you can do it. Hang on. We're going to sign you up for Financial Peace University. We're going to pay for it. And Jeff, been where you are, man. I know how it feels to be scared. I can hear it in your voice. You call me anytime. We'll help you. We'll encourage you. We'll yell at you. We'll cheer for you.

Whatever it takes to keep you moving, man. This is The Ramsey Show. Are you sick of planned obsolescence? You know, when companies make products crappy, so you have to buy more of their crappy products? Well, me too. And it's why I love companies like Grip6. Grip6 is all about quality products meant to last forever. That's why their comfortable, bulk-free belts, slimline wallets, and lightweight wool socks

all come with a lifetime warranty and simple returns and exchanges so check them out at grip6.com today and get up to 20 off with the promo code ramsey Merry Christmas, America. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Jordan is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Jordan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. I owe $11,000 on a car that doesn't run, and I can't afford to fix it,

and I really don't know what to do. Ouch. Why can't you afford to fix it? I just don't have the money. All right, follow-up question. Why don't you have any money? Well, I am working. It's just a car that I got back in high school, and my parents were getting me the car, but I'm having to pay for it.

How much would it cost to fix? $10,000. Who said? We've got lots of estimates around my area, and it's been to multiple body shops. Oh, so you got in a wreck and didn't have insurance no um basically they've told me the make and model of my car is is not working anymore like they put a bad piston in it and you don't go to a body shop

that would be a mechanic not a body show you all kinds of mechanics and people okay so uh what do you get what do you make a year um monthly about 1500 to 1800 what do you do i'm an interior designer and a chef at a fine dining restaurant. No, you're a sous chef. Yes, a sous chef, yes. Chefs don't make $1,800. Okay. At fine dining, anyway. So what are you, 23?

22. I'm sorry? 22. 22. Okay. Good guess, Dave. Like you've done this before. 22. 22. Okay. Good guess, Dave. Like you've done this before. Mm-hmm.

Okay. And you have a roommate? Or you live at home? I live at home. So you don't have overhead. And you bring in... No, I don't. You bring in $1,800 a month.

Where does that money go? I've been paying off my car with it, saving it. I have about $4,500 saved up. I just recently signed up for Financial Peace University, and I'm on Baby Step 2. Good for you but i still owe eleven thousand i got yeah and that's is that your only debt is your car um i have one thousand dollars in medical bills okay good good okay and you're working a lot. Yes. And not making any money. No.

The life of a chef, a sous chef. Okay. Yeah, and an assistant. Yeah, yeah. Are you putting in more than 40 hours? I'm not sure because... how are you getting to work i think um i'm borrowing my mom's car right now because her my stepdad work at the same job okay all right well it sounds like you've got a wonderful support system you've got a place to live while you fight your way through this and you've just got a a

horrible car situation you're being very smart you're taking a class on how to handle money very smart uh you've saved up forty five hundred dollars very smart uh so the weak spot in your story me looking in from the outside is your income. You don't make any money. Yeah. So is your dream to be a fine dining chef? No. I went to school for interior design, and when I got out of school, I instantly went into a design company where I am now the designer's assistant. And that's your day job?

Yes. And what do you make at that? $15 an hour. It's the same amount, but that is under the table because I'm just her assistant. Like, she works by herself. Okay. So two different areas of your life we've got to work on. Your long-term play is you need a path for interior design that's not $15 part-time under the table.

I just did get my degree in interior design. Okay, great. So you're completely underpaid and underemployed there. And in addition to that, your other job is an underpaid job as well, just by the nature of what it is. And so what we've got to do is we've got to get your day job cooking better, much better interior design day job, and a much better night job, and sous chef's not it.

Because you need $3,000, $4,000 a month coming in, and you can solve this problem real quick. Yeah. But you're starving to death. Yeah. So let's work on the two sides of your career. Go get a much better part-time job than sous chef. Sous chef's not your dream anyway.

It's hard freaking work. It's hot back there. Yeah. I mean, that's some of the hardest, thankless jobs. The chef gets all the credit, and you do all the work. Most sous chefs are chef wannabes, and it's their dream to be a big-time chef. You don't even want to do that. you're you say and so with that in mind that job sucks completely i know but you need to you need to go do something where you make some money kiddo

that's right now raise your sights in the interior design side of things you've got a degree you've got some experience you're very creative as a sous chef all that creativity is what you love but dave's right you've got to say i if i've got to go. You're very creative as a sous chef. All that creativity is what you love. But Dave's right. You've got to say, if I've got to go work for a construction company and stage rooms, I'm going to do that for a season. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. That's good money doing that. That's right.

Why? Because we want to get out of this financial hole. The good news is you're off and running on the baby steps. So glad you're doing that. But we're going to make the move right now to get stable in the now. And you're not in any way forfeiting your dream of interior design so that's the key you can always get back to that but right now we've got to get more money coming in that's going to change everything for you yeah i want you to go pick up three jobs a new interior design job that's

a thousand times better than the one you got and two part-time jobs that pay big money and i want you to work all the time and get you three four five thousand dollars a month coming in and all of a sudden this car issue will evaporate and um uh by the way i'm not buying that you owe eleven thousand dollars on a car that needs ten thousand dollars worth of repairs i don't either i i'm just an old redneck that turns wrenches and so don't believe it i just don't believe it and uh so i i think i think there's something else to do here you may want to junk the car and get what you can get for it with a little bit of work but you probably get get $3,000 or $4,000 for anything that's running.

And then just talk to the bank about you paying the difference and then work your way through that and go get you a junker car, a $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000 car to pay cash for, then start working your debts off. But you've got to work twice as much as you're working at much better jobs. That's the solution to your situation and i need to hear more of a roar in your voice you you sound really really really uh like you're 16 i want you to go ah get after it kiddo you got some skills. And all this stuff keeps happening to you.

And I want you to rise up and go happen to this stuff. You've got some stuff. You can go do this. I agree. You know what? Here's a practical example of that that Dave's giving you here. Listen, get your dad or your uncle or friends that know some good old boy that's been working on cars for longer than you've been alive times three

and have him look at it. Let's really dive into this thing. That's taking some action. Yeah. You've got to happen to these things. You've kind of accepted one job, accepted another. You need to go get some stuff, and that's going to put you in this situation. You need income is what you need.

Bad, and you need a better solution on the car than $10,000 to fix it. Get it limping. Get it sold. Get out from under it move on the next thing get your three thousand dollar car to drive this is the ramsey show សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life your money your job a lot of job questions today blinds.com is our question of the day. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free. Free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Jeff in Michigan.

I work at my dream engineering job, and I'm an expert in my field. I enjoy being on the manufacturing side of things because I'm closer to the product, which gives me a deeper grasp into the industry. This company loves to promote from within, so within the next couple of years, it is more than likely they will send me to corporate to learn from them. This scares me. Most of that staff doesn't even know what our products look like. They're more about data analytics. Is it a bad move to decline a great promotion? I make $80,000 with potential to make $100,000, but the new job would put me in the

$120,000 range. Well, Jeff, I think that you need to just walk forward and listen. You're not having to decide right now. This question is honestly too early. You're overthinking it. I think he's an engineer. Of course he's overthinking it. I should have seen that, Dave. And this is a case where you've probably heard some things, you may have seen some things, but it's still okay to, if within a couple of years, they send you up the line and they begin to talk to you ask good questions what are those things that you are concerned about can we gain knowledge to verify or clarify you know that okay what I thought was true not a good fit for me or you know what I got some clarity on it and what I was thinking was not true. So this is keep walking forward. B, C rather, you reconfigure the way they do things because almost everyone listening thought,

oh, it's a good idea for corporate to have a freaking clue about the real product and the real manufacturing floor. That's exactly right. And so maybe we reconfigure where the engineers at corporate don't stay in the ivory tower so they don't go much. And maybe you're the guy that opens that door and says, hey, guess what I learned when I was down here? We think you people are bozos. Don't say it that way.

That's right. But you could learn something by getting on the floor. And so if I take the job, one of the ways I'm going to take the job is I want to be on the floor at least a day a week, at least three days a month, because I don't want to lose touch with the product. That concerns me, and I think I'll be a better engineer at corporate if I can maintain my connection with being on the floor. That's right.

Which, by the way, I think every bit of that's right. I completely agree with that supposition from a business transaction standpoint. And so what you're saying is I don't want to be siloed i don't want to be stuck in the ivory tower and lose touch with the real job we're trying to do yeah and that's brilliant and i think you could bring that to the discussion but it's too early to worry about it nobody even offers you the job yeah the old phrase is cross that bridge when we get to it and i think that dave is making a great uh suggestion here on being a part of the solution. Here's what I would say very quick on fear, because I want to apply this to everybody right now who's got kind of a fear-based decision that they're walking through. You just have to

ask the question, is fear protecting me? If I get too close to the edge of a cliff and I look over and I get scared, now fear's going, hey, dude, be careful. Yeah, get out of the interstate. A truck's coming. Right, but fear could be holding me back. And so let's just own the fear specifically. Write it out. Sit down with it. Is there evidence to prove that the fear is protecting me,

or is the fear lying to me and holding me back? It's a great little process to walk through no matter what you're afraid of. So good question. So here's the thing. Dr. Deloney teaches this, that when you sense fear about something trepidation worry right about something anxiety about something facts are your friend that's correct facts what is the real fact the fact is nobody's offered you a job yeah that's fact. The fact is you've only heard one side of this equation. Ken said go investigate, find out what it's really like,

not what the rumor mill says because corporate rumor mills are the most inaccurate thing out there. So what are the facts? The fact is an A-team winner is coming at me. Move! The fact is stove's hot.'t touch it what are the facts not the feelings and we've spent way too much time in the last two decades in america talking about our feelings we ought to deal with some facts and then let your feelings decide from there how you

feel about the facts but let's let's start with facts because that changes everything that leads me to something i want to talk to you about you've got your finger on the pulse of this whole freaking job market that is the weirdest job market i have ever seen in 50 years oh yeah i've been working 50 years uh start cutting grass when i was 12 i'm 62 okay so but i mean i've been in the workplace 40 years right and and i've owned a business a lot of that time of one kind or another and i've never seen a job market this is the weirdest dadgum job market on the one hand we've got these immoral corporate doobers laying people off just to run their profits up or because they're scared of what

might happen next year and anticipation of that they do 10 000 people put them on the street right there's that there's people leaving their jobs to go take higher pay or work from home only to find out that they're the first ones laid off or that they've entered into a toxic culture of some kind or another that's a dadgum that mess and so for a 10 000 or 20 or 30 or 40 000 more a year that they you know they went and took a job and now they regret it so there's the great resignation followed by the great regret you got those people you got the other people being laid off and at the same time we've still got a labor shortage yes it's the most convoluted, screwed up thing I've ever seen.

Well, you got a fact that you saw the pandemic create 4 million new jobs. Okay. And then when the pandemic was over, 4 million people that had left or maybe were laid off or retired during that time didn't come back. So that's created disparity. Plus, you've got 7 million men that are between the age of 25 and 55 who are able to work and are choosing not to work. They are living off of someone, whether that be government benefits and or friends and family. And one piece of research that we were talking about the other day said they spend 2,000 hours a year on a screen.

Which means they're getting dope. Like Call of Duty, and they don't know what duty is. That's right. They're medicating themselves with the dopamine from screens and entertainment in all of its various forms. And instead of getting out there and getting the contribution and the dopamine that comes from, hey, I did something that mattered today. So we have a work ethic crisis.

We have a shortage of labor. We have a values crisis with corporate america dumping people on the street uh we have people jumping ship from the you know out of the frying pan into the fire that's they leave what they thought was a bad job to get a much better pay but at a horrible place who treats them like crap so i can work from home part-time and get paid for full-time because everybody that works from home does not work eight hours. Let me just tell you, okay? You sit on your butt. We know what you're doing.

Or you're working two of these full-time jobs, which is straight up unethical. That's professional polygamy, Dave. I coined that term the other day. Professional polygamy. Working two full-time jobs and calling it work from home. Yeah. You're cheating on both of them. Professional polygamy. you got quiet quitting i decided to come up with my own term but it's a real thing you're lying to both companies it's uh

it's career infidelity that's it oh my god i know i know okay no but so here's what's interesting and in and i want to give an economic and a money play on this all of that that we just in the middle of that a person that will work hard and has character, in the middle of all that discombobulation, there's opportunity big time. Oh, sure. Of course there is. Well, but see, now here's what's interesting. But you've got to be careful not to just take the paycheck opportunity.

It's not just a paycheck. I'm saying you can go find a great company at above average pay. Oh, yeah. And move up. And have a great career opportunity without without working for some bunch of doobers that's right and um and but people don't make the decision exclusively on the pay change no no you've got to look at the quality of the leadership team the situation yeah so it's the right role because the data is telling us if you're working from home

or if you're the last one hired, you're going to be the first ones laid off. That's absolutely true. That is data-based. So you are vulnerable if you took a job doing that for more. So you left a regular job in the office, 40 hours, and you make $35,000 a year more than you used to make, but you're working from home. Your head's the first one on the block.

And here's another factor. Remote workers may be the first to go as they ship jobs overseas. They could pay you from home. They could pay somebody from another country from home. That's a new piece of trend coming your way. Professional polygamy. Yeah. Say that three times, you're a Baptist preacher.

Oh, my gosh. I'll take an offering. Watch out. There we go. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.