The Ramsey Show - App - How to Manage the Home Building Process (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. Jennifer starts off this hour in Philly. Hey, Jennifer, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So right now I'm having some issues with my student loan.

I currently owe $121,000, but I was on a payment plan. Things got messed up. And so basically I am now working with a law company who's taken over my student loans. They have asked me to make a good faith payment, and they said even if I make it, I would still have to go to court with them. So I was wondering, should I make the good faith payment even though they're still going to sue me for what I should do because I'm just at a loss? Okay.

So these are not federally insured student loans. These are private. These are private, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how much do you owe the particular one that has been turned over to an attorney? It is $121,000. It's $104,000 principal, and the rest is in.

It's all one loan. Yeah, I consolidated it a few years ago because it was going to be easier for my life to make payments. A lot of bad stuff happened, and I did the best that I could. And unfortunately, I couldn't pay them. So what is your degree in? I have an undergrad bachelor's degree of arts in international studies and public relations and advertising and a master's in college student personnel administration. So basically I can work on a college campus for the rest of my life. Uh-huh.

Well, or not. Or not, yeah. Yeah. So what do you make? What's your income? Right now it's $35,000. I've been trying for the last 5 to 10 years in the field to move up from making money. However, my housing is covered because I oversee a resident call. So I don't have to pay for utilities or housing.

It's truly just my bill. Yeah. You don't make enough money. Yeah. And you have the ability to make double or even triple what you make now with a degree in publicity and communications. Okay. You're no longer in the college world.

The college world is not treating you well. No. It's time for you to start looking for a job. Okay. Because if you can make $75,000 a year, you can address this loan issue. It's going to be very difficult to address at $35,000, and you're stuck. You need to get unstuck. You mentally and emotionally are stuck on this college thing, and it's killing you.

You got to get out. Yeah, all right. I got PR people working on my team the most junior of them makes more than you that doesn't doesn't have a master's degree and has zero experience and just crawled off the college campus on their hands and knees and they make more than you. You get out there and scratch around, kiddo. You're worth a lot more than you're being paid. Okay? Because that's your issue. You don't make enough to address $126,000 debt making $35,000 a year.

We've got to get your shovel up. You're in a bigger hole. Yeah. Okay. Am I wrong? Yeah. Are you going to do something about it? No, yeah.

I've been job searching, trying to find jobs that pay more in my field, but I'll branch out and see if I can do something different. Well, I mean, PR and publicity is your field, isn't it? It is. You can make more than you're being paid right now in that field. Okay. For sure. For sure.

And, you know, you've just got to – how old are you? 33. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you just got sidetracked off on a bad track here that's not working for you financially, and it's going to make you reset your goals. And I guess because they were furnishing housing and it was easy,

and you didn't have to think about it, you just got down in a rut. And so I'm kicking you up out of that rut. You have to have a new job by Christmas. Do you hear me? Yes, sir. I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle, to help you get something landed. And then you'll be able to address this.

As far as whether to let them sue you, it doesn't matter. You can either pay them or they can sue you. It's an unsecured loan. It's not a student loan. It technically is called a student loan. But basically, it's not got any federal government intervention or guarantees or anything else in the processes. So this is a private lender that you are in default to. They've turned it over to an attorney.

You can work with the attorney and come up with payments that you can pay by working extra jobs, which is what I recommend, or they will sue you, and eventually they'll get around to garnishing you. So I've spent all my time talking about your income with you, but because that is going to be the answer. You start sending them $1,000, $2,000 a month because your income goes up, this lawsuit goes away. They're going to be just smiling and cashing your checks then. But the problem is you've not been mathematically able to address the situation, and so you're getting sued.

That's what it comes down to. And you've got to change the math. That's what you're up against. Hold on. I'll have Madison pick up and give you a copy of Ken's book. And it's called The Proximity Principle. It launched this week. It is number 39 on Amazon as we speak.

It is a huge selling book already, The Proven Strategy That Will Lead, listen to this, to the career you love. Rob is in Bloomington. Hey, Rob, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, my question was, my wife and I are currently in baby step two,

and I'm going to be done with that in the next month or so. I was trying to figure out when the best time to start targeting the SmartVestor Pro would be. Now? That's fine. Perfect. Yeah, you're not ready to do anything today, but you can meet them and interview them and decide which one you want to use, because when you click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com, it'll drop down a list of them in your area, and you can talk to the different ones,

interview them, decide who you want to talk to to and kind of get a game plan laid out for when you hit your baby step four which will be shortly i mean you'll be there before christmas absolutely yeah and so you know go ahead and start mapping out your next steps no pun intended and uh they can help you do that yeah i would go ahead and do it they can't sell you anything today although they technically can but they're not supposed to because our smart investor pros are supposed to help you follow what we teach the steps we teach and so if you're in baby step two they send you back home without a mutual fund until you get your baby step two done but they can start teaching you about mutual funds they can let you look at some of the paperwork let you start looking at some of the uh the history on some of the funds and let you start looking at some of the history on some of the funds, and let you start to understand them.

The mutual fund industry does a great job with teaching tools for you to learn about mutual funds and how they work and what the history of returns are. And there's really nice items out there and websites out there for you to learn from. And they can help you line you up with all that. And you'll be to where you kind of, you know, by the time you're ready to lift off, you're on the runway and you're past taxiing, you know, you're ready to go. So I would jump on it right now. Hey, thanks for calling in.

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and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, Thank you. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Davis is in Houston. Welcome to the show, Davis. Yes, good afternoon, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? show, Davis. Yes, good afternoon, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yes, sir. So currently right now, I have a credit card. It's very low right now. I've maxed it out. I'm just trying to, I got in contact with the bank, and the bank told me that I can come into the bank and pay it off. Good. So I can pay it off, but they won't allow for me to, you know, have another one. So I have student loan debt as well, too.

I've paid off most of it. I'm at $20,000 right now. So I'm a good financial place as well as far as to pay it off. So I'm just trying to figure out what I should do now as far as paying off the rest of my credit card and as well to increasing my credit score. Okay. Well, as far as your credit cards go, you should pay off all debt as soon as possible because in all of our studies and in walking with people for 30 years,

we found the shortest path to becoming wealthy is to not have any payments. Your largest wealth-building tool is your income. And so we want to get everything paid off and get out of debt and stay out of debt is a secret to becoming wealthy. And so that's our goal. If that is our goal, the credit score no longer matters because all a credit score is, is that you borrow money so that your credit score goes up so that you have the opportunity to borrow money so that your credit score goes up so that you have the opportunity to borrow money so that your credit score goes up so that you have the opportunity to borrow money that's what your credit score is it's an i love debt score who gives a rip minus zero okay and so if i'm you i don't want to trash my credit score i'm not trying to ruin it by doing something

negative but on the other hand i'm not going to worship at the altar of the great FICO. He turns out he's a false god and is not our greatest provider. So I'm not worried about your credit score. I want you to list your debts smallest to largest. I want you to pay them as fast as you can possibly pay them in that order. Minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack the little one with a vengeance. Kick it. Make it happen, baby. That's what happens. That's how you do it. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Seth is in Seattle. Seth, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How's it going today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Good, good.

So I have some good news and some nervous news, I guess. So we just sold our house, my wife and I. Wow. And we had some equity in it. And after the sale, we will be 100% debt-free and have about $100K cash, which is great. However, we're going to rent an apartment for a while and i'm kind of nervous to what the next steps are we've been debt free except the house one time and then got back in debt and i don't want to kid myself to thinking oh we sold the house we're doing this

hard work which we did cash flow about 40k of debt is good, but I'm nervous about... Why are you renting an apartment and not repurchasing? Because I think that, well, we wanted to sell the house to get the equity. You did. You have $100,000 left over after you're debt-free. Why are you not using that as a down payment? Well, we wanted to be solid and figure out what we want to do for a year, what kind of house we want to set up for a forever house. We have three children, and so

we're going to use that to put a really large down payment on the property, and we don't know if we should buy a nice piece of land and build. Home prices are pretty expensive out where we are right now, and if we built something, it would just turn, it would be, we'd have a lot of equity in it, and we would sit there for a while and live there for a long time, finish raising our kids. So I need some advice on should we build, and then how can we not make mistakes of thinking that we did all this hard work, which it was kind of hard work, but not grinding for five years getting out of debt. I just need some advice in that way.

Well, you need to be saving aggressively, continuously with your written budget. Every month there should be money piling up with your written budget. You and your wife are working together. You're looking at the written budget every month using the EveryDollar app. And when you are in control like that, you're not going to slip back into debt because what happens when you go into debt, it's not an intentional act. It's an unintentional act. You are unintentional about everything, and you wander into debt.

But you stay out of debt by an intentional act of making EveryDollar behave and using some of the money you find then to save towards this project i don't care if you want to build a house and live in a rental for a little while but i'd start that project immediately okay yeah start talking about let's let's find the let's start looking for the land let's let's start drawing a house let's uh do that or you need to go buy one of the two there's no such thing as a forever house. Yeah. Because your life changes.

People upsize, they downsize, they move. Stuff gets old. You get tired of it. The neighborhood changes. No one stays. It's very, let me tell you, it's very rare for someone to stay in a home their entire life. It's almost unheard of. Maybe a 10 to 15 year.

Yeah, 10 years is not that unusual. The average nationally is 6.6. But 10 years is not that unusual. We've stayed in our homes about 10 years each time. And the one we're in will probably stay in a while longer. I suppose we'll stay there forever. I don't know if we will or not. But we've been there 10 years. So, you know, just things change. Life

changes and you go, well, I think I might want to do this or I might want to do that. So, anyway, 15 years, though, is worth building for. If you're going to build, you've got to do that very intentionally. And there are three things that keep people from getting in a pinch in building a house particularly your first house of course you're going to research out a high quality builder that knows their stuff and convinces you that they know their stuff um number one know your stuff is do you hit budget and so number one piece of paper is there's a budget for building this house we're going to spend x and y and z on this

house and it totals a b and c right and so you have a detailed budget uh i was looking at a thing just about 10 minutes before i came on the air we're building a building and we had an item on that building that was 47 000 budgeted and and it came in at $62,000. And so we got to go back and go, uh-uh, that's not going to work. We have to change something because we have a budget. And the reason to have a budget is so you freaking stick to it. And that's how you manage a project. The second thing is you have a schedule of when things are going to be done.

The trim is going to be done here. The framing is going to be done there. The roofing is going to be done here. The framing is going to be done there. The roofing is going to be done there. Windows will be installed here. And then you have dates associated with those. And you manage to the budget and to the date. And the third piece of paper is the blueprint. And that is the plan for the house.

And so if the blueprint is being built on budget and on schedule, you have a successful building program going. Very few times does that happen in residential building because most people are incompetent around that business. And so you've got to get on top of it and ride that out. So that's the danger. You might get a little equity by doing this, but that's the danger as a beginner is to learn to be a project manager

and manage to plan, manage to schedule, manage to budget every Friday. And that's, you know, until the house is done. And you've got to go locate the land. You've got to do all this. In the meantime, you're parking this money just in a money market, and you're just waiting on, you know, waiting on your plan to unfold. But it's an enjoyable process as long as you manage the process. But a lot of people

get burned a lot of people get disillusioned a lot of people get stung building a house because they do not manage to those three pieces of paper and they think they're building their dream house and there's no such thing it takes a while to build a house and by the time the house is done, your dream changed. And it's a freaking house. It is not an altar that we worship at. So it's not going to be perfect. I've built several, and I've never built a perfect building, ever. Every one of them have problems. So just manage your expectations.

Don't worship, because every little thing is going to set you off otherwise. You're going to spend your whole time building miserable. Oh, it's not perfect. It's not going to be perfect. You can manage for quality and you can manage to schedule, manage to budget, manage to plan. But even then, it's not going to go like it's supposed to go. And if you're freaking worshiping the process or the thing, you know, you've got an idol in your life, you're going to have an issue here.

So that's just to all of you thinking about building a few things to touch up on. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Jason and Arisa are with us in Arkansas. I don't know where you are. What are you guys doing? We're doing good. It's Larissa. You're in Larissa. Okay.

In Alaska. In Alaska. Okay, cool. Very cool. Good to have you guys. I see on my screen you are debt-free. Congratulations. How much have you paid off

ninety four thousand dollars in four years and ten months very good and your range of income during that time starting at thirty thousand going up to fifty thousand and then um going back down to thirty five thousand wow what do you guys do for a living? I am currently a dental assistant and I'm an illustrator. Now I work freelance, but I had to work a day job during paying all this off. I work security mostly. Okay, cool. Good for you guys. Well done. So what kind of debt was this $94,000? It was all student loans. Very cool. Good for you guys. So how old are you two? I am 31.

Okay. And I'm 34. Okay. And so you spent almost five years paying off $94,000, so about $20,000 a year, while making $30,000 to $50,000 to $35,000. Yep, that's correct. So tell me your story. Did you start when you came out of school, or what lit your fuse on this? Well, it happened after we bought our house.

We were kind of doing bavish up until that point. And when we had our chimney cleaned, the guy's like, you really need to get your chimney replaced because you have single walls and it's about to, like, go up in flames if you keep on using it. So we had to replace that as well as the actual stove itself. That's our main source of heat. So the homeowner's expenses kind of overwhelmed us a little bit on what we were expecting to be paying. I guess. Yeah, so what you say is true. If you buy a house when you're in debt, it's a curse, not a blessing.

So we found that out. Anyways, we saved up for it and paid cash for that. And also in the process, we went through like three vehicles. I think I showed you, I gave you some guys some pictures. Because I was a road warrior before I became a dental assistant. And so transmissions went out on almost every car that I had. Oh, my gosh. Which was lovely.

So we had to push pause and start back up when those events happened. Very cool. Cool. How does it feel now that you did it, that you're debt-free? It's absolutely wonderful, Jason. It feels amazing being free. Well, Jason is now able to work full-time as an illustrator, so that was really hard for him.

He was putting off his career to have a day job. But you got the mess cleaned up, and then that gives you the freedom. That's a big deal. Yes, absolutely. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? You did it. Budget and the communication um our communication has improved drastically because i it took him it took him a while to get on board but

um uh communication how long did it take you to get on board jason um took me a couple of years i i wasn't really uh up for the getting rid of all spending on ourselves as far as fund money, and we kind of came to a compromise over that one. Based on a percentage system, we gave ourselves a small percentage with a cap of $100. Yeah, because I just wanted to do absolute scorched earth, and he's like, we're not going to be able to make it if we don't give ourselves something okay so what got you on board after a couple of years what made you decide to that you were going to do this and beyond that i mean you went to work well i was sitting down

looking at the numbers and kind of realized how quickly we could pay it off if we just kind of buckled down and cut everything extra from our expenses and you know some at least a thousand or so extra in cuts that we could make and then we kind of pretty much did the rest from there gotcha okay well well done you two proud of you good job four years and 10 months is a slog, man. You've been at this. This is very cool. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. You're going to be one. You are on the track to do that, and things are going to happen in a way that, you know, you're not going to believe how the next decade unfolds because you've learned how to handle money,

you've learned how to work together, and now you've freed up your most powerful wealth-building tool, which is your income. So way to go, you two. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Jason and Larissa in Alaska, $94,000 paid off in four years and ten months, making $30,000 to $50,000 to $35,000. They're free. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Four years and ten months, making $30 to $50 to $35. They're free. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it. Well done, you guys. Very well done. That is fabulous. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com.

Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get 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 possible deal. Kristen is in Rhode Island, and she says, I'm wondering if I should work the debt snowball or pay my CARE credit card, which is right now interest-free, until December. There's a $1,600 balance. I don't know's better to tackle that first or let's do the snowball. You can knock it out if you want to.

You shouldn't have a lot of debts that are smaller than $1,600 that you can't get to before December. So it sounds like you're not paying enough on debts, like you need to sell some stuff and take an extra job. I mean, if you've got five debts that are under $1,000 and you can't do all of that, including $1,600 by December, you need to look at what's going on. So you should be able to knock this out and anything that was in front of it on the debt snowball by then. So that's what's bothering me more than anything about this. But if you want to move something around, that's up to you. You can decide. The proven thing that works is to list them smallest to largest.

And so that's what I tell people to do. But if you're going to get tagged with a bunch of back interest or something on this zero interest credit card, they're going to charge you back interest or something if you don't get it done by then. Well, you need to make sure you get it done by then. But I'm really thinking it should be done by then anyway so really be looking at your budget really be looking at your income and decide which of those directions you're going to go open phones at 888-825-5225 if you have changed jobs listen listen to this. A recent study showed that 51% of employees who change jobs leave their old 401k with their previous employer. Don't do that.

Always take your 401k with you and roll it into a direct transfer traditional IRA, unless you have a Roth 401k, and then you'd roll it to a Roth and pick out good mutual funds with a SmartVestor Pro. You can find mutual funds that will outperform what's in your 401k unless you have a highly unusual 401k, and then you've got 100% access and choice and control over it. You don't have to go back through your old company's HR team to mess with your 401k. I always, that's like every time, recommend when you leave a company, if you have a pre-tax anything, 401k, 403b, pension, lump sum, anything, take it with you and roll it into a traditional IRA and a direct transfer. There's no taxes for doing that, and you get much more access, much more control, and likely will get better rates of return.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Sacramento's on the line. Todd is calling. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Todd. Hey, it's great to speak with you. You too, man. What's up? So I have a public pension system right now, and it's public safety. And so I max it out at 53.

And so at that point, my pension doesn't go up, and I'm putting money away toward nothing at that point other than my 457. But my question is, I have $50,000 in the standard 457, and I just started dumping into the Roth. But if I continue with the Roth, I believe the Roth is subject to tax until I'm 59. Yeah. So what should I... You need money before you're 59 out of this?

I don't think so, because it's a 3.0 at 50. And so at 53, that's my 30 years. And so that would give me 90%. And so I should actually get a pretty good pay raise when I retire. But if I was accessing any of it, should I continue with traditional 457? No. I mean, I would do Roth is what I would do, and just keep your hands off all of it. Anything you can do.

And I'd do regular Roths before I did 457s. I'd do individual Roths. Are you married? Okay. Yes. How old are you? I'm 31. Okay.

Well, I mean, you can do 6,000 each. You can do 12, 000 a year in that in a regular roth and i would do that before i did a 457 oh really yeah an individual roth you got more control of it and 457 is simply deferred comp you're just not paying taxes on your compensation yet i didn't know they had a 457 Roth. Well, I guess they would because you're not paying taxes on the comp. Well, you haven't paid taxes on your comp yet. So how is it a Roth? I didn't even know you could do that.

No. Yeah, so my traditional 457 was pre-taxed. It was taken out of pre-tax. Oh, you're doing it with post-tax. And so now I just switch all my money to the Roth side of it. Right, and it's all after-tax? The money going in is after-tax. Correct, but then my understanding is while I don't get penalized,

it's at the 457. Right, and it grows tax-free. I didn't even know you could do that. That's very interesting. Okay, well, you'll have better mutual fund options and more controls by doing that first $12,000 outside of that. I would do the first $12,000 as individuals before I did a 457. I didn't.

That's interesting. So a 457 with an after-tax contribution, because the very definition of 457 is deferred comp you're deferring you're putting off your compensation thus not being taxed on it yet but you can go ahead and be taxed on it and then it grows tax deferred that are tax-free that's just weird but it's cool i didn't know you could do it that's neat i'm liking it but yeah so it grows tax-free and now if i don't touch it until I'm 59, then everything's tax-free. Right. My understanding is if I touch it between 50 and 59, that part gets taxed.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, your growth will be taxed, the portion you touch. Yeah. Because you cashed out early, and you'll be penalized, too. So, no no you don't want to do that but as you what happens is this let's say you get up to 45 years old and you rerun your calculations and you go hey i got about eight years and i'm not going to be able to live

on my 90 pension uh then you might just stop all 457 and ross and just pile some in mutual funds, you know, for eight years to have some what we would call bridge investing from between 53 and 59 covered. But I don't think you're going to need it. I think you're going to be fine. I think you're going to end up very, very wealthy, and it's going to be irrelevant. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to need it because, I mean, how everyone says, like the numbers, you start working for free once you hit 27 years and then at that once you hit 30 years you've maxed it out and and with as much money as i'm putting in the 457 yeah i'm no longer paying towards my pension i'm no longer paying

towards my 457 no more medical no more union dues all that stuff goes away and so my income should actually go up significantly. Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, I think you'll be fine. But what I would do is just run from 31 to 45 and then revisit the numbers at 45 and see if you need some bridge investing. I don't think you're going to need to. James is with us in Portland, Maine. Hi, James.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question is, I'm a firefighter, and I'm forced to pay into a pension. And I've got about 20 years left on it, so I can draw off it. My question is, on top of...

Okay, your phone's going in and out. You need to speak directly into it, please. Sir, can you hear me now? Yes, sir. going in and out you need to speak directly into it please sir can you hear me now yes sir so my pension i'm forced to pay into a pension and i'm just my question is how much more do i need to invest or do i need to do any more investing you know on top of my how much are they forcing you percentage wise about 10 okay we recommend when you're at baby step four which means you're debt free except your house and you have your emergency fund in place, that you put 15% of your household income towards retirement.

You're already putting 10, so you would put at least another 5% towards retirement, probably in a Roth IRA in a good mutual fund. You might want to do a little bit more than that because you don't have much control over this pension. They could screw it up. But when it's a Roth IRA or 401K, you have control over it and you own it. And only you can screw that up. But pensions have been known to be mishandled.

It doesn't happen that often, but we've all heard those stories and hope it's not yours. You know, I doubt it is. I'm not saying yours is weak. I don't know anything about your pension. But the fact that you don't have control over what it is invested in, you don't have any control on withdrawals, whatever they tell you is what you're going to get. And you don't have control over the stability of the investments

that they put the money in. It could go belly up. So based on all of that, I would put more than the normal 5% difference. In other words, I might put another 10% of your money into Roth IRAs. And if you're married, maybe your wife's 401K or something like that where you've got control. So hope that helps you. Thanks for the call.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Maria is on Facebook. Dave, what are your thoughts on prepaying funeral expenses? Never. You don't prepay anything. Okay? Here's why. If you take $3,000 and you're 45 years old and you pre-pay it

for a funeral expense and you die 50 years later that three thousand dollars will it would have grown where it invested to hundreds of thousands of dollars who are you king tut so no you don't prepay your funeral you just invest your money and then they take i mean i've been doing this show 30 years funeral expenses have hardly gone up at all during the 30 years if i used to be a three to a five thousand dollar funeral now it's seven to twelve thousand in 30 years i mean so you're not really saving anything by prepaying now i do believe in pre-planning i don't mind if you go down and even pick your casket out that doesn't matter if you want to do that that's not a bad thing because sometimes relatives upon your death are so upset at your passing that they don't make good decisions.

And they put daddy in the Bentley coffin rather than the Chevy coffin. And, well, daddy would want this. It's going in the ground. It's going to be dirt, okay? So it might leak. He ain't going to know. So, you know, you get into all that stuff, right? So you have all these discussions.

And, you know, I'm not suggesting you want a leaky, bad coffin, but do you see the point? We make all these weird decisions at the worst possible day of your life to make a decision. So it's a great thing to do pre-planning, and that way you don't, you know, just get impulsive in your grieving or whatever. And so that's wonderful. Prepaying, we never do. The funeral business makes a lot of money on you people prepaying. A lot. Maybe more than they make on funerals.

Think about that and chew on it. Yeah. So, love it. It's a great business to be in by the way because profit margins are really good but don't pre-pay and the old joke is i'm not even going to use it it's just such a dad joke you know people are dying to get in but anyway so oh well oh my gosh i had to do it i couldn't stop myself. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, it's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer for the show. You know, you can listen or watch anywhere with the Dave Ramsey Show app on your smartphone. Catch the full show or watch the highlights and check out Dave's upcoming guests. Head to the App Store and download it today.