The Ramsey Show - App - How To Get Away From Using Credit Cards (Hour 3)

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Moving from credit cards to cash, Pulling from a Roth IRA to pay off student loans, Knowing what baby step you're on. 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 Moving and Storage Studio, 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 actually love, and create real, amazing relationships. This is a show about your life and your money.

Christina Ellis Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Joe's in Lansing, Michigan to start off this hour. Hey, Joe, what's up? Hey, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you. You too.

How can we help? So I'm a little nervous to say this to Dave Ramsey himself, but I typically use credit cards for all my day-to-day transactions. What? I know. I know. I'm actually wanting to switch over to cash, but every time I do switch to spending with cash, it seems like I actually spend more, even if I do stay within my budget.

For example, if I'm like at the grocery store and I have say $50 left in my budget towards the end of the month, if I'm using cash and it's sitting there in my envelope, I'll go and grab a couple steaks, maybe a case of beer or something. Whereas if I'm using a credit card, already knowing that I've racked up 400 bucks on this month's statement, it really keeps me away from spending that little extra money and making that statement hurt that much more when it comes in the mail. So my question is basically, how can I kind of get over that mental hurdle and switch to using cash so I don't have to do business with people like Visa and MasterCard. Okay well the principle of this whole thing the old grandma's old envelope system and if you have a grocery envelope and you have

the money for your grocery budget in the envelope you can't spend that money on anything except groceries, and you can't spend, you know, it's all, and when it's empty, you quit buying. And so your problem is you're ending up with money left over, which means you might be overfunding the envelope. Okay. You might be over, you might be overfunding the category. But the overall idea behind the thing is, and is that we figured out years ago at ramsey that personal finance is 80 behavior and so when we can do things that create friction that create mental and emotional recognition of spending then it tends to lower and control spending within a category so for instance a more sophisticated version of that is on a website, if you have to click too many times and do too many hoops to make the purchase,

people will bail on the cart. Yeah, I've done that plenty of times. Jump out because there's too much friction. The opposite end of that is Amazon Prime. You click buy now and it's on your porch in an hour or two, you know, and so that's the ultimate in low friction situation. But what the research tells us and research done by mit is that when people spend cash it activates the pain centers

of their brain when you spend plastic it does not and so you've heard you say that yeah but it's not it's not working with you for some reason i don't know what's wrong with your brain but right right so i don't care i don't care what i would tell you to do if you want to is uh switch to a debit card not a credit card and that's coming out of your checking account and that way there's no chance that you accidentally overspend a category and end up in debt and then if you want to do that that's fine uh years ago i did that for instance with the gas pump when i started teaching this you still had to go inside the store to pay for your gas that i mean this 35 years ago right and uh not and then they put those things at the pump where you don't even have to walk inside and you stick your card in there and you know what's interesting is the up evil on high gas prices when you had to walk in the store and pay

cash the political uh firestorm was much higher because people noticed what they were paying but when you don't even have to walk inside and you just put your little card in there and the only aggravation is you see a large number but that's the only thing then the political firestorm associated with high gas prices isn't as high uh because they're really stringing the president up the first time it went to five dollars and we all paid cash now it's just kind of like yeah well it's one of those things and so um but that's what's going on so i would use your debit card christina you got a suggestion yeah i'm curious you said that you'll walk into the grocery store sometimes with fifty dollars and then go get some steaks and a case of beer. That sounds like more than $50.

Have you had the experience? Yeah. What kind of cheap steak are you eating? Have you had the experience when you get to check out and it's more than the $50? Or what's kind of been your parameters with that? I more meant one or the other, not both at the same time. Yeah, that put me over $50. I'm like, that's kind of expensive.

My default setting is very frugal. i'm well under my means as is i maybe i'm just you know getting too nitpicky about it but yeah um no i think i think you know what what i'm asked is you don't get um uh you you very seldom were overspending before you met us. Right. And so all we're doing is giving you some guidelines and some mechanical processes. Yeah, what baby step are you in right now? I guess technically I'm in six, but I'm doing more than the 15% in my retirement. That's awesome. Yeah.

Very good. It doesn't feel like I'm in six yet. I still feel like I'm a young'un. You know what? You need to buy more stuff. You. Very good. It doesn't feel like I'm in fiction. I still feel like I'm a youngin'. You know what? You need to buy more stuff. You're too cheap. You need to enjoy some of your money. Really?

I feel like I don't have any to enjoy still. I know. I'm thinking, well, you had some left over and didn't want to buy a steak. I mean, so I want you to enjoy some of your money a little bit at the grocery store. That's okay. You don't have to be on beans and rice at this stage. And so here's the thing. a steak i mean so i want you to enjoy some of your money a little bit at the grocery store that's okay you don't have to be on beans and rice at this stage and so here's the thing a lot of people most people that we deal with are spenders in our culture but occasionally we run into a frugal person like you and we all have to learn all three we have to develop all three money muscles the

generosity muscle the saving investing muscle and the generosity muscle, the saving investing muscle, and the spending muscle. And the spending muscle means wise spending but doing something. We have to enjoy money. We have to save and invest it, and we have to be generous. And frugal people tend to leave that one off, and spenders tend to not do either one of the other ones because they just spend it all on themselves. But that's what we run into.

Right. I don't think that he expected such an affirming response after calling it about credit cards well there is that but yeah yeah i would chop up the credit card for sure and get a debit card that's not a question um and you know we're we're anti-credit card here there's just so many things that can go wrong with the use of a credit card and the the debit card will do everything the credit card will do has the same fraud protections i travel all over the world my debit cards i don't have any issues with them that are any of you don't have with your credit card all of us get the fraud alert you know sometimes and you know and all this

and did you buy three dollars worth of gas in can? Nope, I didn't. So something wrong there. We all get those things, right? But, you know, so I carry debit cards. That's all I carry. Our company has debit cards, hundreds of them, with our team that travels and everything else. And they use cash as well. We don't have a company credit card at Ramsey. None of us do. And I certainly don't have a company credit card at Ramsey. None of us do. And I certainly don't have any at home.

Although, Christina, full disclosure, after 30 years of doing this, I'm still trying to get Sharon to call it a debit card. What does she call it? She still says, hand me the credit card. After 35 years of me telling people not to use a credit card. My own wife is a traitor. No, I'm kidding. Now, she actually knows what it is,

but she just forgets. She's like, give me the credit card. And I'm like, no, don't say that out loud. Somebody will hear you. You're sharing freaking Ramsey. You'll start a rumor. There'll be a whole Reddit thread over you. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys.

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needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. Christina Ellis, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. J.W. is with us in Atlanta. Hi, J.W., how are you? Hey, how are y'all? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? So, I just started listening to you about a month ago um i never really known about you or anything

and i'm trying to figure out how much of a stupid butt millennial i am and what baby step that i'm on which way i should be focusing my gazelle intensity i'm kind of lost at the moment and i don't really know which way I should be focusing my gazelle intensity. I'm kind of lost at the moment, and I don't really know which way to go. Well, tell us about your situation right now. How much debt do you have? The only debt that I have is my house. I've never owned a credit card, and I've never bought anything that I couldn't pay for. Well, that sounds like a good start.

Well, you may know a stupid butt millennial, but you're not one of them. Okay, so we've already got that ahead. All right. But I am curious. Why do you think you're making stupid butt decisions? Well, I mean, some of what you guys say is, you know, I've always just kind of done it off of common sense or what I believe was common sense.

I'm not the smartest guy in the world, so I'm trying to figure out. Well, the only difference is I sell it. I know that you guys normally promote paying off all your debt before you start putting money into your 401k or not counting your house college funds yeah not counting your house your debt free except your house you said right yes sir okay that's great and i bought my house about five years ago um i owe about another five years and it'll be paid off how old are you you? 32. Way to go, dude. You're killing it. Yeah, that's excellent.

So you would be in Baby Steps 4 through 6 right now, which it sounds like you're investing right now. How much are you investing into retirement? I put 30% of my paycheck into my IRA. Okay. Well, we typically recommend 15% of your income, and then Baby Step 5 is paying for your kids' college. Do you have kids?

Yes, ma'am. Okay, so we'd want you saving in a 529 plan and then paying off your house early, which it sounds like you're already really motivated in doing that. You could just increase that a bit, take some of that 30%, take 15% of that and throw that towards your house. But you're doing awesome okay yeah the only fine tune we might do is turn down your retirement a little bit

down to 15 make sure you're doing something for your kids if you're not already and dumping all it around the house so the house might be done in like three years well that'd be great because it stresses me out big time and then if it was done in like three years instead of five years because you're only putting 15% in retirement instead of 30, you follow me? If that happened, then you would be at what we call baby step seven. And when you're there, that's the last baby step. That's just build wealth and give.

And you max out all retirement and you pile up cash and you're outrageously generous. And you've lived like no one else and now you're ready to live and give like no one else. Man, I will say, J.W., you surprised me. When you said stupid decisions, I was ready for something juicy. We were thinking you might be the caller of the week. But no, no, you're just a smart guy. I mean, you're way ahead of the curve. Yeah, the stuff we teach is common sense.

It's god's and grandma's ways of handling money it lines up with what the scriptures teach about money and what grandma or these days great grandma because some grandmas today ain't getting common sense but great grandma uh for sure used to be called common sense to live on less than you make always have some money set aside for an emergency always being you know planning for the future called retirement and kids college always be avoiding debt If you can't pay for something, that means you don't need to buy it. It keeps you out of debt. It's a, you know, it's a different mentality than 90 something percent of the public has today. And so Christina and I got a big job.

Right. But the thing is, is it's not complicated. I think part of the reason that he thought he wasn't winning with money is because he's like, this is simple. Like, I've been following these principles and it's common sense and it's simple. I must be doing something wrong. But it really is simple. Well, it's not easy. There is this thing out there and it's been there for the whole 30 years I've been on the air, I've noticed it, is that people, there's, and I actually have fallen prey to it in the past, not in a long, long time, but there's this thing that if it's not complicated, it must not be good when it comes to money.

Like if it's real simple, it must be wrong. Because, I mean, it has to be complicated if it's money. It has to be hard to understand if it's money. If it's not sophisticated, you know, it must be wrong. And the truth is the stuff we teach and the stuff that works the best is very easy to understand but hard to do because you have to control the idiot in your mirror. And the guy in my mirror is my problem. If I can get that guy to behave, he can be skinny and rich.

But he's got issues. And, you know, that's a problem. I like donuts. You know, it's a problem. It's a problem. And so, you know, we all have this. And, you know, Rachel likes Amazon Prime. Click, click, click, click, click.

And stuff keeps showing up on her porch. You know, it's like, turn that thing off. And so we all do this stuff, right? And if we can control our behaviors, personal finance is 80% behavior, that's why it feels like it's it should be harder it should be more complicated but it but when you actually face the demons it is hard because it's the demons that are the problem it's not the math the math's easy right and uh but yeah jw we always say around here that uh common sense is so rare if you get

it it's like having a superpower. All right, Noah is with us in Chicago. Hey, Noah, what's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Just have a quick question. My wife and I, we have some student loans. We have a Roth IRA with an amount that could just about pay off all of the student loans. Would you recommend that we cash that out and just pay off the student loans and be done with it?

Nope. Okay. Nope. How much is in your student loans? About $30,000. And what's your household income? Six figures. Well, what's six figures?

$900,000 or $105,000? $120,000. Okay, good. Good for you. How old are you guys? We are 25. Good for you. Okay.

I would stop adding to your Roth IRA because you've been aggressively investing while not paying off your student loan. Okay. And if you stop adding to your IRA and stop adding to anything except attacking these student loans, they become your singular mathematical focus. Do nothing but attack those things with a freaking vengeance. Like, ah! Right? Yeah. Okay.

And you're going to have those things paid off in about 18 months if you do that. Okay. $2,500 a month, you're done in a year. Well, and that feeling that you feel right now, that desire to quickly get it all paid off, that's a good feeling. Just use that to turn it into gazelle intensity, to use that motivation to do the work day in, day out, to knock out baby step two and pay off those loans. But the fact that you feel that kind of gross feeling where you're like i want these out of my life like lean into that and use that as motivation yeah that's that's exactly right you know when you have a uh you know bottle whatever feelings you've got negative or positive and point them at these loans and that's you know it's like

anything where you're feeling real positive but anything where you're pissed off or scared you know aim it at that and just and then get it get it get after it stop all the stupid no going out to eat no uh no vacations we're cleaning this mess up these aren't pets they're loans get rid of them well y'all make good money so you can knock this out pretty quick. And the sacrifices, the not going out to eat, the not going on vacation, it's just for a season. And once these are gone, you're 25 years old. You're going to have such freedom after that and time to really invest. I was cracking up.

We've got these glass boards that are like three feet by two feet that we have outside the studio. When people do their debt-free screams in the studio here or in the lobby, they sign, you know, how much debt they paid, their name, the date, that kind of stuff. And every time they get full, we move the glass boards, and they're all over the building from all the years of the debt-free screams. So our good people get to walk around. I walked past one of them that we just put up the other day,

and, you know, he paid off $93,000 in student loans, and the note was, suck it, Sally Mae. I was cracking up. So that's it. Give old Sally Mae the old eviction notice. Put the old woman in the street. She ain't paying her rent. She needs to go.

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Christina Ellis Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Dead Free stage. Peter and Angelica are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Great, hi. Hey, Dave. Welcome, welcome. Good to have you.

How much debt have you paid off? It was $147,375.68, I think. There you go. Good enough. And how long did this take? 22 months. 22 months? Yes.

Okay. And your range of income during that time? About $160,000. Okay. What do you all do for a living? I'm a home care nurse. And I'm a paralegal, so I have my clinical business as well. Excellent.

Excellent. And where do you guys live? About a half hour outside of Boston. Hudson. Hudson, Massachusetts. Okay. Welcome to Nashville. That's a bit of a trip.

Yes. All right. Welcome to Nashville. That's a bit of a trip. Yes. All right. Good to have you. So what started this whole process to get you guys out of debt 22 months ago? Well, what started it was about six years ago. We took FPU after we'd been married for about a year, and I brought a lot of student loans, credit card loans into our marriage. Angelica brought a tiny bit, but not too much.

Mostly it was me. We took FPU, Connect Church in Massachusetts, and that started it. It took us about a year to pay that off, and then we spent a couple years saving up for a down payment.

And then 22 months ago is when we kind of pulled the trigger with paying the mortgage off quickly. This is your house? Yes. You paid off your house that wasn't much of a mortgage no it wasn't well we we put a good down payment down you know we we followed the baby steps we did 3b for for a while you know we saved up our emergency fund in 3b and then uh got our retirements going and everything with our

mortgage. And we bought small. We bought a condo. We kept conservative. We said we want to be able to have some margins, so we want to pay off the house quickly. Good for you guys. Wow. That's right.

So looked up 22 months ago and said, oh, let's just go ahead and knock this out. Let's do it. Yeah. Yes. Keep on the plan. Just stay on the plan. Just stay on the plan. Exactly.

Wow. It all starts with Financial Peace university when you first get married yeah about a year into it after we kind of were just looking around without a plan how to how to get rid of my loans i just love how much joy is completely radiating off you all like you can just feel it before before you guys came on the stage it's like you could just feel happiness and that's what it feels like when you pay off your house when you're completely debt free it's a whole it's a whole different world so what did this journey look like for y'all oh boy do you want him i don't know it was hard at first but we keep always a mindset with now we have the eyes on a price and the final price and we keep praying and be focused and we know the Heisenheim Prize and the final prize. And we keep praying and be focused.

And we know the budget is important, but we think mindset and pray and be diligent. As a Christian, we believe that we have to be a good steward and manage God's money well. So it's not ours. It's just temporary. And in 2020, when we started paying off the house, Ethan was born, our son. And it was a really tough time. It was in March 2020. He was born.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah. All the isolation. It was kind of crazy because Peter is a nurse. It was really frightening for me to see. It was really, really hard. But we trust the plan and say, okay, we saved some money. We had $20,000 after he was born, and we put it down right away.

Then we accelerated the remaining amount. Way to go, you guys. Way to go. That's awesome. Powerful. You don't have a payment in the world. What's this house worth today, or this condo? A little over $300,000.

How much in your retirement accounts? Combining, close to $100,000. So we're playing, so we are quarter million. Yeah? We get it there. You're a little over a half a million net worth now. Yes. Right at it.

Yeah, a little over, yeah. Way to go, y'all. Way to go. How old are you? I'm 36. 30, 38. Yeah. So 45, you guys are going to be millionaires.

That's where you'll be. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man.

Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man.

Hey, man. Speak it. That's so fun. That is so fun. Who were your biggest cheerleaders in the process? I got to say my coworker, Tabitha. She became a Dave convert in the middle of our baby step two process, two and three. And my parents and our FPU leaders back at Connect Church.

Who else? Each other. Yeah. My mom as well. I'm from Brazil. So she was very excited to see this achievement. I'm here almost 10 years. And I came from less than nothing.

I just had my education from Brazil. And here I met Peter with so much debt. And I heard people say, why are you going to get married? And he's and I met Peter with so much debt, and I heard people say, why are you going to get married? He's so, you know, so much debt. Are you crazy? But he was worth every penny, you know, such a man, you know, like God man. You say he's good looking. I don't know.

I think I married up. He's just, you know, a perfect husband that, you know, followed Jesus Christ. And that was most important for me than paying off, you know, the debt per se. Amen. Well, you can get out of debt if you have a plan. Yes. And, yeah, we tell folks all the time, we would never tell someone not to get married because of debt. We would tell you not to get married if you're not in agreement about it.

And you're both in agreement about it. We're going to do this. You jumped into Financial Peace University university knock out his student loans and then here we go not go ahead and just finish it up and yes 22 months ago decide oh we're going to do the mortgage and now we're 100 out and you're in your mid-30s y'all are in a great place i'm so proud of you thank you thank you so your mom's jumping up and down huh she will when she sees it yeah she's very excited for how i accomplished well if i switch the currency in brazil i'm millionaire out there i'm multimillionaire in brazil that's great it feels great that'll work too so i like it so for

all the newlyweds who are just starting out and maybe one spouse is coming into the marriage with a lot of debt and one's a little bit nervous about it, what advice would you give them as they start their journey? Boy, be honest, obviously. That's one thing that's very important. What else? Pray together. Pray. Yeah, prayers.

That was a big thing throughout the whole process is even though we've got this plan that we know it's going to work because you know we've been watching the show for a while that you've you know times get tough and you got to pray and and uh even even getting extra work that you can handle requires prayer and grace you know we make our plans and god directs our steps and uh you do have to be on the same page i like that little like eyebrow raise. We were like you got to be on the same page. That's a good word. Good job you guys. I'm so proud of y'all. Well done. Very well done. Thanks for making a trip all the way from Boston to celebrate

with us. We're honored to meet you and see you and hear this great story. You guys have got a bright bright future ahead of you. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you because that is the next chapter in your story in american dollars you'll be there before you know it and uh a financial peace membership for the next year you can give that to someone that's what started your whole journey and uh that'll get going and of course a total money makeover book as well so let's bring peter in and introduce him oh it's ethan i'm sorry et Peter in and introduce him. Oh, it's Ethan. I'm sorry. Ethan in and introduce him. I'm sorry.

And so how old is Ethan? Two and a half. Oh, he's beautiful. Good looking guy. I'm not surprised. Very well. Good stuff. Good stuff.

All right. It's Peter, Angelica, and Ethan. Boston, Massachusetts, 147,000. House and everything at 36 years old. Did that in 22 months, making $160,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Tres, dos, un. We're debt-free!

Yeah! I love it! That is fun. That was fun. That was amazing. That's got to get you. It gets me with the baby. I had a pandemic baby as well to hear their journey and perseverance through it.

Your mom is. My mom's an immigrant. Venezuelan, right? Yeah. Venezuelan. And to see her face and that scream and the jump. That's it. Even the Spanish countdown. That's it. Even the Spanish countdown.

That's great. Or was it, Brazil's Portuguese. Portuguese. Yeah, okay. But the tres, dos, uno sounds very similar. I thought, yeah, okay.

Very good. Very good. Love it. Way to go, you guys. That's powerful stuff. I don't know what your story is out there, but let me tell you this. You can decide, starting right now, right this second, to have a different story.

Right now, you're listening to them. You may not be in the same situation they're in. Maybe better, maybe worse. But you can decide. You have the power. You don't have to wait on someone else to fix your life because guess what? They're not going to.

It's up to you. Pray like it all depends on God. You work like it all depends on you. This is The Ramsey Show. ស្រូវានប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប� Our scripture of the day, 1 Thessalonians 1.3, we remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Christopher Reeve said,

Once you choose hope, anything is possible. Christina Ellis, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Cameron is in Houston. Hi, Cameron. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Christina.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? We're on baby steps four, five, and six, but I feel like we're a little stuck in neutral. My wife is very concerned about using a financial advisor. She thinks she's heard too many horror stories of people losing everything from other people handling their money. But I've told her I'm in need of additional guidance and I want to maximize our finances moving forward.

Do you have any advice for helping assuage her concerns or anything that I could tell her or discuss with her that might help us move forward? I love that she's cautious about this. Okay? There are two kinds of fear the fear that keeps you from playing kickball in the middle of the interstate where there's 18 wheelers or touching a hot stove those are good fears right and you know fears that make you wary of crooks are good fears

and i will tell you this truthfully the thing that scares me more than crooks are good fears um and i will tell you this truthfully the thing that scares me more than crooks are well-intentioned ignoramuses that are enthusiastic they will screw you up with money more often and and screw you up in life more often than actual crooks because there are more of them um right and so i i love her caution in that The other kind of fear is false evidence appearing real. I once heard about a family that had a car wreck, and so I refused to drive a car. Okay. Well, that's where she is. Okay.

Okay. So how do you solve that for someone that has this fear that is based in a good kind of cautious wisdom but has gone too far the only way i know to solve it is with information now the way i would do that is this um if it was my wife i would say okay you know what i completely understand because by the way i do i can say this truthfully i completely understand that people sometimes get completely ripped off by people in the financial world because sometimes they do but i do know there are some good people in that world that also help people and i don't know how to do this without some help and so what i'm asking of you is not that we invest money with someone not that we make the decision to use an advisor but that you agree to do three meetings with an advisor or advisors

to learn about that industry because you and I don't know about it. All I'm asking you to go is to listen and to learn. If at the end of that you remain completely opposed to it, then we'll deal with that. Because here's the thing there's more regulations on those guys dude than there is on banks oh wow okay i mean they are so regulated out the yin yang it's unbelievable i don't know how they get any work done for the stupid feds sticking in their ear hole all the time it's nuts okay i mean they have to give you a prospectus

that says you're going to lose all your money in the first 17 pages before you can even see the actual investment analysis behind it. And this is an investment that's been open 85 years and has not had but five down years. But you still have to say you're going to lose all your money. And they make you say stupid butt stuff like, past performance is not indicative of future performance of course it is that's dumber than crap but they make you say stuff like that you know of course it is it's not a guarantee of future performance but it's the only

way you do forecasting in investments or business you have to use past performance to do it so anyway my point is when you get in there with a good financial advisor and say just tell them the truth she's scared because she thinks there's so many crooks in this business and tell them ahead of time show us what the safeguards are tell us how the industry works to protect us if you're a crook and if they're offended by you saying that get out of their office because i if i was in that business i would love to have this conversation and tell the uninitiated how regulated that world is um it's it's nuts but anyway all that to say i think the other thing that'll happen as a sidebar is she'll see a human

being that is that she will sense with her spirit is a good person or is a bad person okay and you and you've got you got to trust her when she says that absolutely now all of our meetings so far have been over the phone but we do have some in-person meetings scheduled soon yeah so i think this will be a good uh good way to do it if we show us the safeguards might be the best way to just just tell them the truth she does not way to do it. If we show us the safeguards, it might be the best way to do it. Just tell them the truth. She does not want to do this because she's afraid of all the crooks in the business and the stupid people in the business.

Tell us why you're not that or that that's not. Meet with our SmartVestor pros if you can, dude. Click on SmartRamsaySolutions.com. Get with some of them because they will relish because they have the heart of a teacher, and this is like you're going to give them the opportunity to do what they love to talk about right okay yeah we've done a lot of the vetting too so we're only going to recommend people that we trust yeah hopefully that but it always scares me when we do that because sometimes people will go in there and do business with them just because we trust them i would rather you trust them

you vet them you get in there but i mean we vetted them we feel good about them and one of the things we vetted is they're going to have the heart of a teacher and so just you know what are the types of investments i should be scared of what are the types of people i should be scared of and how does that work and i'm really scared and i don't even want to be here i would encourage her to say all of that and if they raise their hackles up and are offended get out of their office don't use them okay okay because i think a good one will say rise to the challenge on this and go i thank you for letting me tell people how this all works because i don't get to tell many people how screwed up our business is by the few crooks that are out there because truthfully there's a lot more

crooks in the real estate business than there are in the financial business because real estate business is relatively unregulated i mean there's a little bit of regulation but not much and there's not many crooks in real estate business either it's there you know you're not taking people's money there you're just doing a transaction most of the time so but i mean golly i think a lot it is so i mean i mean and there's a lot more idiots in the banking world a thousand times more idiots than there are in the financial advising world because the tests are so hard to get in there number one but number number it just requires a level of intellect to get in there gray matter and you don't have to do that to work in a bank right well i think a lot

of people get into these situations and they feel like they're being interviewed they sit down with an advisor or a real estate agent and they feel like oh gosh i gotta be but it's like you are still hiring that person like you get to ask questions you get to dig deeper yeah you feel inept because you don't know right i mean anytime you go in a situation and the expert is there you feel like like like you know and i but man i tell you what the best thing ever happened to me in my life is i learned to bow up on those people and make them prove themselves and by teaching me right i'm not you don't need to be my lawyer if you can't teach me how we're gonna win you know you don't need to be my tax guy if you can't teach me why we're doing this and what's

going on you know i don't have to be as good as you i don't have to know everything you know but you got to be able to transfer the knowledge enough that I get comfort because I'm not doing it because you said so you ain't my daddy right you know I said so bull crap my money you know we're not doing that so that's the thing you got to get to there and I love his wife's spirit for that reason I think it'll lead them to really good solid conservative investments that they won't get screwed on. That's a wonderful thing. So, folks, you're always looking for someone with the heart of a teacher.

Yes. If they're condescending or they're offended by you asking hard questions, which is a form of arrogance or condescension, if they expect you to do stuff just because they said so you got the wrong people whether it's mortgage people real estate people insurance people uh lawyers uh financial advisors you're looking for the heart of a teacher around the financial world and i gotta tell you more people learn how to sell in the financial world than learn how to teach so they're the teachers are harder to find and that's the only people I work with, the only people I'd tell you to work with.

That's good. That's good. Yeah, be willing to look around, ask those hard questions, and really explore for yourself. I love her heart that she wants to see. Oh, yeah. That's a good place to be in. It's a healthy.

There's the unhealthy side of fear that makes her maybe not want an advisor, but being cautious and going in and interviewing people, that's wisdom. Yeah just going i turn it all over to my man that goes to the man lost the money no no you are the man you you don't turn it over you get somebody to advise you're in charge so i love yeah she's sitting in the driver's seat man that's awesome good stuff good job christina today good job to james andrew zach ben, Austin in the booth. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. 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. Have you been inspired to make a change with your money?

Want to know where to start? Take our three-minute money quiz to get a plan you can follow. Go to ramseysolutions.com and search for Get Started to get a plan for your money.