The Ramsey Show - App - How To Invest During a Down Economy

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: The idea of investing less to pay off your house faster, Why a 30yr mortgage is a bad idea, Preparing for a baby while still in school, Why you should work the proven process to in order to prosper. 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

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We help people build wealth. We'll talk about that.

Do work that you love. We'll talk about that. And create real relationships that really work. And we'll talk about that. Talk about your life right here on The Ramsey Show. open phones at 888-825-5225 kevin starts off this hour in saginaw michigan hey kevin how are you i'm good how are you better than i deserve what's up awesome i just have a quick question me and my wife are moving into baby steps four, five, and six. Paid off all of our bills just this past March. And the question about four, five, and six is we're both federal employees.

I also have a military pension, spent 25 years in the Army. And we both have 5% going to TSP just to get that match. And I was wondering, because TSP, we've lost about 10% over the last six or eight months. Should we work on paying off the home early instead of going up to 15% or do both, I guess? I'm just afraid if we increase our TSP to 15% that we're just going to keep losing that extra 10% that we're going to throw in. I don't know what you're invested in in the TSP, but the C plan is not down 10% in the last six months. So we have, each of us have 60 in the C and 40 in S. And that's down 10%.

I think you're exaggerating. No, I just looked at our balances yesterday, and it's pretty much 10%. Okay. Do you really think that that's going to be that way for the next five years? No. Okay. I don't either. I mean, the market's down in general, but I'm shocked to hear that that mix is down

that far in that period of time i really am but um i won't dispute you because i haven't looked at it but the uh um i know the stock market is down in general and so uh but uh that doesn't keep me from telling people to invest 15 of their income because that means the shares are on sale right and that's everything i've been reading too um But again, before I pulled the trigger, I just kind of wanted to get some reinforcement from... Yeah, I would do the TSP to the match and then I would do a couple of Roth IRAs. And if that doesn't get you to the 15%, I'd put a little more in the TSP to get you there. But I would be doing baby step four

at 15% of your income going in and then, you and then work on getting the house paid off beyond that. Baby steps four, five, six, right? They work simultaneously, which is what we teach there. Again, this economy is weird. In an inflationary economy where there's a labor shortage, we can't get workers in some areas, and we're seeing people's paychecks going up. Wages are up with inflation. Wages are way up. Everybody's saying wages aren't keeping

up with inflation. Well, yeah, some aren't, but most are. And many times, in many cases, wages are causing the inflation because every loaf of bread you buy had to be, you know, put on a shelf by someone that's now making $20 an hour, used to make $10 an hour. And guess what? That's built into that cost of loaf of bread. So you want to know why the loaf of bread went up? That's what it was.

It wasn't the magic bread fairy that did it. It was the cost of putting the bread on the – oh, and by the way, the gasoline or diesel fuel that delivered the bread, because the Bideniden administration's energy policies have driven gas they're responsible for that portion of inflation the rest of it they're getting blamed for but they're not responsible for but either way politics aside arguing about that doesn't matter the the bottom line is is that um and it's very weird in this situation the stock market's down. That's right.

Because companies, a lot of them, are making more than they've ever made. It's just a gloom and doom. There's a black cloud over the market. There is, and then there's a lot of headlines out there that tend to make people freak out. I saw a couple that popped up last week. There might be a recession, and then that's gone quiet. And I think what's important, Dave,

I'm glad you bring up this weird economy, is because we do have some artificial things that happen as a result of the pandemic, right? So you had a lot of infusion of cash from the federal government into the marketplace. Unemployment was up and down. Now it's at historic lows, wages that are all-time high. The labor market is going to continue to be hot, probably for the next couple of years, just because there still is this gap for employment. They're looking for companies or fighting other companies, and it's a grand game of musical chairs, if you remember that elementary school game. But what I know, having worked here for almost a decade, from watching the show before I ever became a team member here, watching what we teach, living what we teach, it is the financial peace principles, the baby steps,

that allow us to be in some ways recession-proof. So don't freak out about inflation and recession because what our steps teach, I really believe this, is the discipline and the freedom to be able to pivot when you need to pivot. Recessions are real, and so is inflation. However, when we know where we're spending the money and we have some behavior attached to a budget, we don't have to be walking around like Chicken Little, the sky's falling, just because we see some negative headlines.

Yeah, yeah. And here's the other thing that goes with this. We're not talking really about Kevin's question at that point. But back to Kevin's question, we do not teach to and have not lived for decades, three of them so far, to jump in and out of the stock market. That's right. You talk about the roller coaster metaphor. Based on what's down.

No one gets hurt on a roller coaster except those that jump off the middle of the ride so yeah the market is down right now it is down uh when will it come back up i do not know that's right i also try not to predict the weather um and uh those that do predict either one are scary people uh because they're wrong most of the time and they get to keep their jobs, and it's amazing to me. That is a good one. But anyway, the thing you want to do is you want to have a long-term mindset with your retirement planning. Yes. You put money in mutual funds this month when it's down,

next month when it's up, next month when it's down, next month when it's up, and you'll look up, and there'll be a million dollars in there. That's right. And you'll be going, well, how did that happen? And no blood pressure or indigestion. If you've got a long-term view, which you teach and we've taught, you don't get all hung up in all this stuff. It's ridiculous how much I don't look at the daily news on it. I just don't even look at it.

It's not because I'm scared of it. I just don't care. It doesn't change my decision. Well, at this point, you actually being the model for this whole thing, it doesn't actually matter. No, because I'm not going to make a decision based on what it did today. I want to make a decision what it does over a long period of time, but not over what it did today or what it did in the last three months. And so that does not drive my decision-making because I believe in the value returns on the stock market over the long haul. Why do I believe in that? Because we've got 70 years with almost a 12% average annual rate of return on the stock market.

Look at the S&P 500. It's 11.8% for 70-plus years. Wow. That's extraordinary. I believe in that. You know? And so if it's half of that, it ain't bad. You know?

But that's the average so far. This is the Ramsey Show. Did you ever get to the end of the month and have no idea where your money went? It feels like as soon as the money comes in, it goes right back out. Listen, if you want to take control of your money, you have to be the one to tell it where to go. And that means getting on a budget. Give every dollar a job every single month. And the best way to do that is with our budgeting app, EveryDollar. That's where you'll make your monthly budget, plan for your expenses, track your spending, and clearly see where all your money is going. Guys, when you live on a budget, it puts you back in control of your money. You can start budgeting right now for free and never wonder where your money is going again. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and set

up your free account today. A budget is your tool to beat debt and it should feel like you've given yourself a raise. We've made the process easy for you to get started with every dollar. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash every dollar. That's ramseysolutions.com slash every dollar. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. All right, guys. How many of you are thinking about buying a home,

but you're cringing at the thought of paying off that debt for the rest of your life with sky-high home prices? Some people want you to believe that a 30-year mortgage is your only option. Do not fall for this. If you're not paying for your home with cash, your next best bet is a 15-year fixed rate mortgage where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. You'll pay off your house faster. You'll become a millionaire. You'll pay thousands less in interest. And of course, the monthly payment is higher. And of course, that

scares some people. But you know what? what you're ready and if you're not ready you shouldn't be buying so don't be doing financial decisions fear-based you make decisions that when you make them you do it calmly with peace the free mortgage calculator on our website can help it'll give you an idea what your monthly payments could look like. That way you'll know how much home you can afford so you can be mortgage-free in 15 years or less. Go to RamseySolutions.com, click the free tools to use our mortgage calculator and a bunch of other good stuff, and get confident about buying a home.

Click free tools at RamseySolutions.com. Brandon is in Winston-Salem. Hi, Brandon. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Ken. How are y'all doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? All right. So I'm just going to kind of give a brief overview of my current situation. My wife and I are currently in Baby Step 2. We've got about $7,000 left on a car and then about $45,000 left on student loans. We've been busting through them over the last year or so. My wife is now seven months pregnant. Yay! Thank you, thank you.

And then she is actually getting ready to start her online master master's degree for nurse practitioner school. We stopped Baby Step 2 to save up for the baby a couple months ago. We've got about $6,000 saved up right now. I am expecting to get around a $10,000 to $12,000 bonus once I finish the job I'm on, probably around October timeframe. Baby's due into July. So I'm just trying to figure out once we start back up with the baby steps, how much should I hold back for the cash flowing of the master's degree, just maybe a little bit more padding for having the baby?

This is our first child, so I am a little nervous. You don't need any padding for the baby once the baby's here and healthy. You'll be okay. You just start learning to budget for diapers and formula. That's part of the process. There's not anything that's going to completely blow your mind. They're very, very small at this stage. They do not eat a lot.

Right. They'll get around to it, but not yet. You're going to be okay. Now, so I'm not worried about that what's this master's degree costing um it's about so right now she's part-time she's taking about three or four credit hours a semester um and it's right around uh about two thousand twenty five hundred dollars uh for three uh credit hours so going up to four credit hours i'm guessing that'll be right around three thousand what's your household income when she's back to work so i i make right

around 90 a year um that's with like vehicle allowance and uh phone and stuff like that my base is 80 it all ends up being around 90 and then she last year made right around 50 she actually just dropped down this a couple weeks ago to prn which is just picking up shifts um but she's already scheduled out for two two shifts a week uh for the next two months. Well, I mean, she's in her third trimester. I mean, I'm talking about when she's back to work after baby. So she's making $60,000, $80,000 a year. You're making $90,000.

Right. She's actually going to be staying home. So she's going to stay at home with the baby. Okay. So she's going to quit work but go get her master's. Now I'm really confused. Well, once she gets her master's, so the master's is a three-year program. Once it's a dual master's, I don't remember exactly what the two are.

I know it's nurse practitioner for, like, family and maybe critical care. But the question is, is she getting that for the long term after baby goes to school yeah once oh so i'm sorry i thought you meant like directly after she comes so once she starts working again i'm right around 150 000 no stop okay when she's getting a master's now to use it when once the baby is older uh so probably maybe two years in the future once she's been around and then and then she'll start going back to work and getting uh and then we'll send the baby to daycare i i'm still confused so two from now, but it takes three years to get the master's? You're right. Now I'm confused.

It'll be shortly after she gets the master's. Okay, how long is she not going to work? I guess until she gets her master's. Three years. So she'll still be picking up shifts while she's taking the master's degree. I am so freaking confused. Okay. To be fair, he is too. He's not even sure what the dual master's program is.

I think this is a steak dinner, and let's all get on the same page. You guys need to figure this out because I don't understand why. Number one, you do not need to go get a master's to be a full-time mom, period. If that's the goal, if the goal is to stay home, you don't need to do that. Pause the masters. Pause it, okay? Number two, you guys, if you are, if she is going to use it and go back to work, great, go get the masters.

A PA is a wonderful thing. I'm with you on the career track. It's a great career track if she's actually going to be in that career field. Then the masters will roi you'll get a return on investment on it but otherwise you're just gathering up education certificates that you don't need um and what are you thermometer you know you don't need more degrees i mean so you but you have if you're going to use them that's fine i'm game for it so you guys need to decide that because that's going to tell you the urgency on paying for her master's. Because right now, my urgency is getting you out of debt so you can breathe.

So if I had my druthers based on what I think I'm hearing, but I have no idea what I'm hearing. But what I think I'm hearing, I'm going to put the master's on hold, get out of debt, work a few shifts, be a mom. And once we're out of debt, then you can cash flow. She can work a few shifts to pay for the master's as she goes along here or there and begin to restart the master's at that point. But just going to collect degrees, we're not going to rent. Ramsey doesn't tell you to do that. We believe in education.

We're not anti-education, but we are against spending money on education that does not have a marketplace use and meaning you're not going to use it and so people get upset with us for that deloney and i told a guy the other day you know he's going to marry this girl that wanted to go get a degree at a prestigious university and was going to go in deeply in debt to do it and she had no intention on using it all and we told him she's not marriage material and so we got a bunch of hate mail from him but that's okay um you know because here's the thing we're going to tell you what we would tell our own son or daughter what we would tell each other because we're friends with each other because we love you and that's what you're always going to

get here this is just common sense she can she can go back into nursing once the baby once they've determined what that time frame is and then be full time and blow through that masters you know i mean that's when we do it but not now they need that money to be paying off debt i mean this is not urgent um you know but they've got to get on the same page he doesn't even know what she's pursuing and why she's pursuing it now the time the time matters the the timeline yeah matters because but my but i would like to see you if she's not going to be working for a while go ahead and get out of debt and then cash flow the masters yes that would be my preference if she's not going to be working for a while if she's going to go back to work fairly soon then and the masters accentuate that, then we can talk about piling it all up on top of each other and you guys cutting to the bone on this.

But that's the process. So, hey, thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. guitar solo Just found out some big news. Congratulations to our team in Ramsey Network's production. The documentary that we released last year, Borrowed Future, just won number one in the Webby Awards under the category of documentary long-form video category. So there you go. Number one documentary.

It's phenomenal. I feel like I should be handing you something right now. Is there an actual physical Webby? It's on the web, so it's virtual. They gave me Bitcoin, actually. No, not at all. I'm kidding. Next segment, I'll bring some popcorn in.

Yeah, there you go. Oh, there we go. We can have a fight. Food fight. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Scott and Julie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Dave.

Welcome. So good to have you guys. So where do you live? We live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Ah, very good, very good. Well, welcome to Nashville. I'm here to do a debt-free scream. How much did you pay off? We paid off $262,000 in four years and nine months, and we also cash flowed $255,000 in that same period. Whoa, for what? Lots of stuff. Okay, all right. $145,000 of home improvement projects.

Whoa, okay. We had $35,000 for our wedding and $10,000 for my son's wedding. We had a love letter from the IRS for $40,000 that caused me to completely deplete my emergency fund, which then had to be rebuilt. Absolutely. And I also had to borrow some money to pay back the IRS. And your range of income during this four years and nine months?

$188,000 to $480,000. Okay. What do you all do for a living? I'm an attorney and CPA, and Scott is? IT project manager. Okay. All right. So the jump in income was the combining of the two households, I'm guessing.

Sounds like you got married, and that's why it went from $188,000 to $480,000? It was twofold. Getting married certainly helped increase the family household finances. I took a new job with one of my clients that has been very good to us as well. Very good. Excellent. Excellent. So how long have you been married then? We have been married for about 20 months. We had a COVID wedding. Ah, very good. Good for you. And I'm guessing the way the story went down that this is the paying off of the house. this is the paying off of the house. It was the paying off of the house.

So you are debt free. I'm looking at weird people. We are as weird as you can get. I love it. Okay, so a lot of stuff going on in this story. You guys have been busy bees. I'm just saying. There's a lot of things going on. So back up a little bit and tell me what in the world happened here? Well, we're going to start our Dave Ramsey journey in 2013, which is when Scott and I met. Okay.

And at that time, I've always made good money, always took care of my money. So I thought I didn't have bills. I did have credit cards that I paid off every single month. But I thought everything was good. I had savings. Didn't have credit cards that I paid off every single month. But I thought everything was good. I had savings. Didn't have a lot of debt. And from our very first introduction, Scott and I were talking about values, which included a lot of money discussions from the very first day we met. Wow. He's a real romantic. Oh, no. We both are so romantic. All right, let's get to the money.

Well, it gets better, Dave. Within the first three months of Scott and I started to date, he had mentioned that he had followed the Dave Ramsey program for a long time. And right around month three, he handed me a budget worksheet. And he said, I've been using this budget worksheet since 1996. If we're going to be together, is this something you think you are willing to follow? And will you participate in following the budget that I've done for years? And I'm like, sure. I like the guy. Why not?

Lucky for me. Lucky for me. It was the first written budget I had done in my adult life. And that was transformative for me in doing a written budget. And I didn't realize at that time that Scott was just pulling me very, very slowly into the Ramsey cult. Oh, hello. This is getting better. It was a very slow process.

It took him about six full years. That's how the best cult leaders do it, I'm just saying. Yes, yes. It's gradual. Gradual. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting into. About a year or so after we had started dating, I was still using credit cards, got points, went on nice vacations with my points. It was awesome.

And I paid them off every month. I didn't have a problem. A year into it, Scott challenged me to go 90 days without using a credit card. And I'm like, okay, fine. I'll do that. And I stopped using my credit cards and I shaved $800 a month out of my budget. Oh. Which was, yes. I don't have a problem. No, I didn't have a problem at all. 90 days later, my credit cards were cut up, and I've never used a credit card since then. Man, he's smooth. Yeah, he's smooth. And he's standing there watching you do this. For those that aren't watching the show right now, he's just calmly going, I knew it was going to happen.

My plan worked. I love it. This is great. Then the final step of me drinking all of the Ramsey Kool-Aid happened about three years later. I was getting ready to buy a house. The house I was buying was a project house. Had not been updated since 1967. And I was getting ready to sign a construction loan for $160,000 in addition to the $262,000 mortgage that I needed to buy the

house. And Scott didn't say a lot. We weren't married at the time. He didn't say a lot, but just a few little things during the loan closing process. And two weeks before I was supposed to close on the loan, I went to him and I said, I can't do it. I want to buy the house, but I don't want the $160,000 construction loan. And so I walked away from the construction loan, still closed on the house, but now I had a house that hadn't been updated since 1967 to renovate. And so that began a journey of saving a bunch of money, doing one bathroom, saving a bunch of money, doing another bathroom. So for about two years, it was just saving as much money as I could to do the next project. And so I did $145,000 of home renovations. That's the cash flow you're talking about?

That's the cash flow. Okay, wow. Sky, go back a second. 1997? 96. 96. Yeah, I was looking at the binder today for the first time in a long time. It was July 96.

So I'm teaching Financial Peace University with an overhead projector at this point. Right. In the hotel ballroom. Yes. And you were there. Yes. Wow. There were about 300 people a night in those days.

And we broke up into small group discussions around in the sleeping rooms in the bottom of the hotel. Right. I don't even think there were 300. I think the group I had was 35, 40 people. Oh, wow. It was pretty small. Real early. Right.

Oh, my goodness. And all of these years you've been doing this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Hiding in the weeds, ready to pounce on Julie when the time was right. But like her, you know, I cut up my credit cards in 1997, or 96 probably, and I immediately cut hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month out of my budget. And my life was unchanged other than I had a bunch of extra money.

Yeah. And so you started living it way, way back there. And I assume you've lived completely debt-free. And so the debt-free and so the the debt-free scream is about your households combining and then the final steps of julie paying this off is this i'm getting the picture right now nailed it okay tell them about the the aha moment so so there was an aha moment she she's leaving out was uh two years in, she goes, we start comparing income and net worth. And she was very surprised.

Even though she made way more money, I ended up with a much higher net worth. I suspect. I suspect it's unbelievable. I'm about to run out of time. I don't want to lose you. This is great. Scott and Julie, Detroit, Michigan, $262,000 paid off in four years and nine months. What a great story.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it! Wow! Our scripture of the day, Job 2310, but he knows the way that I take when he has tested me. I will come forth as gold. Phillips Brooks said,

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers pray for powers equal to your tasks okay we ran out of time on that tim ken and i got to spend a little more time with that couple at the break on that debt-free scream so let's unpack that the rest of the way because it's very interesting actually oh yeah i think it's a case study in a sense so he goes through financial peace university in 1997 35 people in the room he said and i'm teaching it with an overhead projector and a bad suit and that's how the whole thing started um and um he was a uh saturn a general motors employee yes that's why he was here in nashville at the time

moved to michigan back home to transfer him back up there um and as he said on the air the surprising thing was his income was considerably less than her income as an attorney and a cpa uh and yet when they actually compared net worth before getting married she was kind of blown away because his net worth was four times hers um and uh and she's a millionaire so he he went through in 1997 and is uh baby steps millionaire oh yeah we had 4.1 million dollar net worth now and uh you know i didn't ask his age but i'm guessing in his 50s probably something like that yeah and uh might be 40 i don't know but i think he's in his 50s and so um is he he's out there in the lobby shaking his head he's in his 50s and so um is he he's out there in the

lobby shaking his head he's in his 50s we gotta we gotta i'm going with that sticking with it okay so i wonder if he has i i want scott if you've got pictures from that group you gotta we gotta capture that because i just i think of that that's probably had a little bit of a comb over because for how many years have you been saying that projector bad suit joke yeah well it's not a joke it's what was happening i know but people want to see that suit yeah but the uh oh there's pictures of it around here but the uh uh the point is i what i was saying you and i were walking back in i wish i could have i wish i had a time machine to go back and tell that class that that's what's going to happen to him. And then he subtly works with his new fiancée.

Oh, sure. Marriage. And she gets out of debt. She's a millionaire. But she gets up her credit cards and following this plan. And now they're going into a whole other mode with a combined $5 million plus net worth. And they're going to be worth tens of millions of dollars. But this is what happens. a whole nother mode with a combined $5 million plus net worth. And they're going to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

But this is what happens. You know, and you go, I wish I had known this. Well, he did. He did. And he did it. And he played all the way through from 1997. So pretty, pretty cool. It's amazing because he showed us during the break earlier his binder. And it's literally put together. It's not in tatters us during the break earlier his binder, and it's literally put together.

It's not in tatters. I mean, he lived it, and it is pretty extraordinary. If you think back to those years, you know, you're telling people. We three-hole punched all that stuff by hand, put the lessons into those three-ring binders, and slid color stuff that we ran off at Kinko, slid into those binders bought at Staples is how we used to do that because you're doing 35 of them.

You're not ordering a carton of them from Chicago, you know. So, you know, that's how, but the principles were the same. That's right. And they worked. Yeah. And here he sits, and yet you are 24 years old out there, and you want to argue with this. Yeah.

When you weren't even born yet when he started yeah and so you know you know this is what's called a proven plan and i'm not bragging on me i'm bragging on the stuff that we teach works and there you are so where do you want to be a couple of decades from now? You really think Bitcoin's going to get you there? That's dumber than a rock. Do you really think nothing down real estate's going to get you there? That's dumber than a rock.

Do you really think indexed universal pie ends are going to get you there? That's dumber than a rock. None of these things have any data points over decades that show you that you're going to be a multi-millionaire doing following it they just don't know there's no you can't find people out there walking around with a three-ring binder from 1997 that did that stuff and ended up with they're not there they're not there and so but this stuff this god's and grandma's ways of getting a job doing work that matters. Same thing.

You're going to run into them a couple decades from now. And, you know, the person is going to walk in here and go, you know, I was making $15,000, $20,000 a year. Heard your radio show. I got paycheck to purpose, and I followed this plan. I'm walking around with an old tattered copy of paycheck to purpose and I follow this plan. I walk around with an old tattered copy of paycheck to purpose. And they go, you know, now I'm making $250,000 a year and I run three companies. You know, and it's just that's what you're going to hear. And that's because he's proven common sense, integrity-based, values-based decisions that we have taught and continue to teach in every area of life on the Ramsey Show

and all throughout the Ramsey curriculums all through here, from Ramsey Plus to Entree Leadership Elite and all these different things that we have around here all have that same net effect. They all are tied back to God's and Grandma's common sense. If you want to prosper, there's a process. It's just the absolute simple fact that any prospering in any of your life, whether it's nutrition, physical exercise, marriage, parenting, money, work, there is a process by which you need to figure out,

or in this case, Ramsey Solutions provides you the process, and it's going to allow you to prosper. And quit looking for the shortcut. Well, that's right. My gosh. That's really the issue there. All right. Jason is with us.

Jason is in Seattle. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. Nice to talk to you. Long-time listener. So I'm going to run through my numbers here before I get to my question. Right quick, because we're short up on time.

Okay, sounds good. So, we have a mortgage of $190K, $1,700 a month, 15-year, 2.5 interest, student loan debt about $13,500, no car debt, no other debt. Okay. College savings for our daughter is roughly $5,000. What's your question, Jason? So my question is, I've potentially got an opportunity to move jobs, but the pay decrease would be equal to about $33,000 a year.

Why would you want to do that? Well, I would be going from private sector to public sector, and I would get a guaranteed pension. Who gives a crap? That's awful. Yeah. The guaranteed pension is a carrot that does not actually exist. It's not worth it because you can grow your income over the next three, five, seven, ten years,

and that's where you invest with the strategies that we teach here. That pension's not worth what you think it is. Not to take a $33,000 hit, quite frankly, not to take a $3,000 hit. If you put $33,000 in and invest it, you'll have a lot more than the pension. Okay. Why? All right.

That answers my question. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Take, stay in the private sector, make more money, and you handle your life. Yes. Don't look for someone to give you a life, particularly the government. Yeah, I think you're going to have a whole lot better result.

I know you'll have more money if you put $33,000 away per year than a pension will ever pay you. Dave, there's a hook there that's not just something that Jason asked. We were talking about this the other day with you you and the ramsey personalities what is it about that he used the phrase guaranteed pension that would make someone consider a thirty three thousand dollar hit um it's a mistaken view of what a guarantee is right um yeah it's i guarantee you if you have thirty three thousand dollars that when you put it in a jar you'll still have thirty three thousand dollars you know and if you put it in an investment that went up a little bit you'd still have thirty three thousand plus some and you'd have more than a pension i mean it's a mathematical guarantee so but the what

you're looking for there if you're not emotionally, is someone else to take care of you instead of you taking care of you. Yes, I think that's right. Self-determination always makes you wealthier than other people providing you what you need to win. And so if you're waiting on the government to fix you, if you're waiting on a secure job, if you're waiting on corporate America to fix your life, if you're waiting on your mama to do it, if you're waiting on someone else to fix your life, your life's always going to suck. And we all have a little of that. We all would like for mama to cook our bacon and eggs every morning, and we didn't ever have to clean the pot, you know.

But, you know, when you grow up is when you realize you gotta cook your own bacon and that's not picking on somebody has a a job but don't look for security where it isn't and it's a misnomer there and mathematically it's a misnomer so it's a good question jason thank you for calling in ken good show today good show to james to ben to kelly jack in the booth i'm 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. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world?

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