The Ramsey Show - App - How to Network By Building Authentic Relationships (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

The show about you

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. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate you being here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Joel is with us in Spokane, Washington. Hi, Joel.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks. Good to talk to you today. You too. How can I help? My question is, we are in age except six, we are pretty recently new homeowners. And I was wondering, is it okay if we cash flow some home remodeling,

or do we need to wait until we do all that home improvement stuff until we pay off the house? No, this is where you do it. You cash flow vacations or upgrades in cars or furniture or, you know, home remodels or repairs or that kind of stuff. This is where you do it while you're doing the baby steps four, five, and six. All this does, of course, is slow down the amount you're throwing at your mortgage and means you're going to keep the mortgage a little bit longer. But that's part of the balancing act here. When you're in the first three baby steps, it's just gazelle intensity. No, you don't do anything but that step.

Just game on. But when you're in the baby steps four, five, and six, you let your foot off the accelerator a little bit, and you allow yourself to do a few things here and there while still keeping your eye on the goal of having the mortgage paid off soon. Sure. Make sense? Yeah, that's great. Thanks.

Hey, thanks for calling in. Austin is with us in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hey, Austin, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I recently got out of the military. God called me out and into kind of starting up my own ministry. And so we sold our house, moved back to Tulsa area, renting my grandparents' home. But I have completely debt-free.

I have about $80,000 sitting in the bank and living kind of off that, but God is providing not steady income, but we're not having to dig in that too much. Basically wondering what you would do with that to make that money work for me so it's not just kind of wasting away until we have a steady income and probably possibly use that for a down payment on a home yeah cool very good job okay thank you for your service and what kind of ministry are you doing so it's actually uh helping young men and equipping churches with the epidemic of pornography and sexual brokenness. Okay, good. Very good. Okay. And so you are providing coaching and information and some days materials, I suppose, along this line to sell into the people in the churches and the churches, right? Right.

That's where your income is going to come from for the ministry, right? Yeah, so mentoring and the speaking engagements, conferences, that type of thing. And how long do you think you'll have a sustainable income from that? Well, hopefully the next year or two, I would say. Okay, all right. I also am still in the Air National Guard, and I do have a little bit of money coming from the VA as well. Good. Okay.

So while you're doing ministry to men in these situations, it's going to be essential for you to have a detailed game plan. He who is faithful with a little will be given more to manage, Scripture says. And so, you know, the mind of man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. And so it's incumbent upon you, especially if you're going to be doing a ministry with men, to have a plan. Because if your personal home life is burning the $80,000 because you don't develop an income model to go with this ministry, then that's going to change the way you walk and talk in this ministry.

And so, in other words, when you're dealing from solid ground, you're going to have a lot more calmness and a lot more strength and a lot more authenticity in the ministry. But going in there with your finances unstable and burning, and the 80 grand is beginning to burn down because of that, because your model, your income model hasn't been put together. And you can't just throw that under the bucket of the Lord will provide. That's irresponsible. Take care of your own household first or you're worse than an unbeliever.

God's real clear on these kinds of things, and I love what you're doing. I don't have any doubt at all that God has called you to do it. I'm not questioning any of that. I'm just saying that there's nothing lacking in faith or lacking in spirituality about you developing a model that says i'm not going to get into this 80 grand because i'm going to create enough income for my household and then that 80 once you've got that then that 80 grand becomes your down payment but you've got to stabilize first and right now you're probably going to use a little bit of that 80 and that's

not a sin that's not the end of the world but I don't want you just drifting without a detailed business plan, so to speak, for your ministry. The ones that manage well are given more to manage. Parable of the talents. And so I want your ministry to grow, and I want it to be sustainable. And it's not going to be unless you're really intentional about the income side of the equation on part of this. And I'm not suggesting you be all about money or you be greedy, and that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying it's a very spiritual thing to lay out a game plan and then let God direct your steps in that game plan. So, hey, proud of you, man.

If I can help further any time, you call me back. You keep it up. Rachel's with us in St. Louis. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. you, man. If I can help further anytime, you call me back. You keep it up. Rachel's with us in St. Louis. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So I just opened a business this year. I'm a dog groomer. And about a year and a half ago, I heard the statistic that the five people you spend the most time with, you're going to be like them. And I kind of looked around and said, I don't want to be like these people. So I opened my own business. And so my question is, how do I find those people? Because I didn't grow up in the city I'm in.

Okay. Well, the thing is, you don't want to be stilted and weird about it. It's just developing authentic friendships. And that generally takes time with strangers, right? So just give yourself a little space to do this. It's not like by the end of the week you're going to have six eagles that are automatically your people you run with, right? But you're going to run into folks and get in some business mixers, get into the Chamber of Commerce.

If you belong to a church, talk to people in the church that own businesses and say, hey, I'm trying to kind of learn who some people are my age or a little bit older than me that I can just have coffee with and get to know, and maybe I can help them, maybe they can help me, but I don't really need anything from them. I'm not trying to sell them anything. I'm just trying to develop friendships with successful people. And what I've discovered is in my life, Rachel, was that that didn't happen when I – let's use a scale of 1 to 10. If 10 is like super unbelievable, hundreds of millions of dollars successful, okay, and like when you're starting a business, you're a two. Okay. And so you're,

you're already more successful maybe than some other people, but you're just a two out of a 10. You're probably not going to jump and start hanging out with tens when you're a two. I didn't, when I was a two, I started hanging out with threes and fours, and then I was a three or four started hanging out with fives and sixes and so on. And so incrementally, your contacts and your network will change over time, but just get started with some people that are doing some small business startups like you are. Not a bad idea at all. So I think you're very wise to do this intentionally, and I would just find some social situations to plug into some folks and give yourself a year to find five. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

You know, I still get lots of questions about ID theft, and now is a good time to delve into this a little deeper. ID theft has become a huge problem, and most people think it's all about financial fraud. But there are so many other areas where people are being victimized. Tax refund fraud, for example, is out of control. Last year, the IRS paid out over $3 billion in fraudulent refunds. Thieves are filing false returns and stealing your refund.

Credit monitoring and prevention plans don't detect this type of ID theft and don't help resolve the problem. That's why the only plan I have for my family and all my team members is through Zander Insurance. They cover all types of ID theft, including tax refund fraud and work with the IRS to get your refund resolved. Go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282. This is the smartest, most affordable way to protect yourself and your family.

That's ZanderInsurance.com. Thank you for joining us. Scott is with us in Las Vegas. Hey, Scott, you guys got snow? We did get snow. My children built a snowman in our backyard in southern Las Vegas today. Crazy. Crazy. I was flying out of Grand Rapids this morning. I popped open my app, my weather app, to see what it was doing at home here when I was landing.

And it shows Vegas is snowing. And I thought, man, I wonder if this app screwed up. You got a snowman in your backyard. I love it. Crazy, crazy. So it was good for my kids to see it. You know, I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old that never saw snow before, so it's excellent.

My 8-year-old has, but, you know, being from New Jersey originally, he's seen plenty of snow. Yeah, very good. But anyway. How can I help? So I thank you. First thing, I thank you for your ministry. God bless you and all your team.

You guys have really made my wife and I turning our complete 180 in our family trees. We're at baby step five at this point. We're completely debt-free. Love your ministry. I love your books. I mean, God bless you and all your team. It really is phenomenal. Thank you.

That being said, I have a question regarding Roth IRAs. We're at the point right now where my salary is really, really close to not being qualified for last year. It was at the 195 range as my gross between my wife and myself. So we're just qualified. My question is between the Roth and an overfunded IUL. I know you don't like them, but I wanted to get more information about what they are. Okay. You're talking about a universal index? I believe so, yes. An index universal life, right?

IUL, index universal life. One of my friends, IUL, one of my friends had mentioned an IUL instead of a Roth, and I don't know if I agree with that at all. Okay. That's just basically cash value life insurance. It's universal life insurance. And the investment inside of the cash value life insurance is an index fund. That's all it is.

That's what an IUL is. It's an index universal life IUL. Got it. Okay. And so, no, it's just cash value crap. Stay away from that stuff. Crap. Yeah.

It's just high fees, horrible rates of return, and the life insurance portion goes up every year and is super expensive as well. So it's just garbage. No, I don't do any investing inside of life insurance products ever because 100% of the time you will get your pocket picked one way or the other, or maybe three different ways. So all of that to say, then, we've got 401ks, we have Roth IRAs. Now, what you can do if you get up above your adjusted gross limit on Roths,

you can do backdoor Roth IRAs. I do them every year. A backdoor Roth is where you do an after tax traditional, which anyone can do at any income, and then 20 seconds later roll it to a Roth. Okay. And there's no taxes on it because you didn't

have taxes held on it anyway because you did an after tax traditional, not a before tax traditional, which is what a Roth is anyway, right? Except the Roth grows tax-free, and that wouldn't grow tax-free. That would grow tax-deferred.

So you roll it to a Roth 10 seconds later. So I do that every year. Sharon and I put, we did $7,000 a piece the other day for this year. You know, we're over $50,000, so we can do $7,000, and put it right in there. I'm going to meet with one of your SmartVestor pros on Monday. I contacted SmartVestor through your show, and I'm set up to meet one of them in Las Vegas on Monday. He already mentioned this backdoor Roth concept.

I'm going to hit him up on that again and make sure that we stay with that process going forward. Yeah, just do that and then load up your 401ks. Have you got 401ks available? 401k, percent matches my company not to six percent so i have it at six percent and i'm investing outside of that up to 15 already so okay if you can do the 15 up get up to 15 and get your house paid off but you can and if your company has a roth 401 be doing the roth 401 and taking that match there too so you can do backdoors. You can do your company. You can do a lot of stuff and get to mutual funds with nowhere near the fees and much better returns than a universal life product would give you.

So, again, I don't have any money, nor do I ever tell anybody to put any money investment-wise inside of life insurance products. They suck. William is with us in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hey, William, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So I was stupid back in my college years, and I got myself into a large amount of debt, $71,000. And I've been trying to get on top of things since getting married and refinance my loans. And the minimum payments have gotten high enough to where I'm worried that $1,000 as an emergency fund might be not enough in case an emergency comes. It's not enough. But $71,000 is not going to go away if you spend all your time saving money.

So what's your household income? $65,000. Okay. And what kind of debt is the 71 on uh i have 44 000 in a parent plus loan refinanced and uh 27 000 in federal loans okay that's all student loans yes sir you don't have any other debt no sir you don't own money on a car i do not okay and you make 65 000 a65,000 a year? Yes, sir. Are you married? You said you just got married.

Yeah, you said you just got married. I just got married last year, and my wife had some money in savings that she had. Oh, what's she got in savings? We have about $4,500 in savings right now, and we're trying to figure out if we should. I wanted to go all the way down to $1,000 and put that on some of the debts, but I was warned that that $1,000 might be a problem if we have an emergency. I think it will be, but the point is that we need to have a plan to plow through the 70 really, really quickly. Really, really, really quickly.

Does your wife work outside the home? She's in school right now getting ready for grad school. She does part-time work right now. Okay. And how's she paying for grad school? We're hoping to get scholarships, and if not, then we'll pay cash on hand and we'll have to get more jobs. I'm working on getting a second and third job right now.

Okay. Let's not start our debt snowball until you establish how we're going to pay for grad school. Okay. Because that $4,500 needs to be sitting there right now because she can't go to grad school unless you pay for it. You're not going any further in debt. Her parents, thank goodness, they've been gracious enough to pay for her school so far but we we always try to treat every year like we are going to pay for it if they pay for

it then then it's a blessing gotcha and what is she studying she is studying speech pathology oh good okay very good and so what is is it, two years of grad school, right? Yes, sir. Okay. And then she should come out making about $100, right? Yes, sir. Hopefully. Okay. So if you guys can hold that $4,500 and tread water and get her through school without any more debt, that's a big goal right now. And then suddenly when she makes $100 the first year, you're debt-free, right?

Yes, sir. And so if I can just keep you breaking even for right now for the next 24 months and then in the following one year, soon as she passes her boards and gets a job, boom, you're done. Just like that. It's instantaneous. And you might want to hold the $4,500 through that because you're not really working your debt snowball at that point. So now if you start coming into some extra income, way more than enough than you need to get her through school, you can start throwing it at that, and you may want to loosen up some of that $4,500. But for right now, I'm kind of doing a treadwater motion and not really working the debt snowball

and make sure we get her through school with no more debt. And that's your biggest next step good question man thank you for joining us well over five million people almost six million people now have chosen every dollar to keep track of their spending it is the best budgeting tool on the planet it's easy to use takes just a minute or two to set up your first budget oh and did i mention it's free? No excuses. Every dollar. Download the app for your phone or put it on your desktop.

Being good with money is not an accidental act. It's an intentional act. You have to tell your money where to go or you will wonder where it went. The best way to do this is with a budget. Download the EveryDollar app at iTunes or Google Play or jump on EveryDollar.com to learn more. It's free. This is the Dave Ramsey show. Why in the world would you trust some random guy in a cube when getting your mortgage? Do you really think he cares about your long-term money goals?

Well, he doesn't. Those companies care about getting you into whatever home loan program they're pushing that week. When it comes to ordering a cheeseburger, the meal deal works fine. But let's get real, people. We're talking about the largest investment you'll probably ever make, so don't be naive and trust an order taker who pressures you into a prepackaged loan. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been helping my listeners for over 25 years. Call Churchill Mortgage and get custom solutions from an expert within 10 minutes.

It's simple. They'll shoot straight with you and quickly show you the real way to save money. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillemortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Thank you for joining us, America. Kyle is with us in Kansas City. Hey, Kyle, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for taking my call, Dave. It's an honor to speak to you, sir. You too, man.

What's up? Hey, Dave, I'm 22 years old, man. My wife and I are going gonna have a baby next month yay yeah i'm real excited there's some real fear there as well uh so um i just figured i'd be an idiot not to ask you how you balanced working your tail off while you're getting your business up and then also being a present dad and a good husband because I want to do all three. But I'm just wanting to pick your brain about it. Cool.

You're a good man. So what do you do for a living? I'm an insurance broker, sir. I'm just got my license. I'm trying to kind of get this networking going and building up my business. Yeah. So two things come to mind when people ask me how I've managed to pull this off and have a good marriage and good kids and a successful business and so forth

and not lose any one of them to the other one, which means somewhat of a balance, right? So, you know, Sharon, I have been married 37 years. So how have we pulled that off? The first thing that comes to mind is that balance is actually an illusion. It's mythical horse crap. It doesn't actually occur. You're not going to be balanced. When you are at the hospital and your child is being delivered,

you are not going to be worried about work you're going to be out about you're going to be completely out of balance you're going to be completely enthralled with this new life coming into your hands it's going to be the most cool moment you've ever seen in your life and it should be and you should be out of balance you should concentrate on that right um yes sir yes sir and so there's a period of time here that you're going to be really all about being a dad and that's probably going to maybe you're not going to stick with your workout regime or your bible reading regime or you're not going to be quite up to par at work because you're going to be all about baby and that's the way it should be and then there's a time you're going to be quite up to par at work because you're going to be all about baby,

and that's the way it should be. And then there's a time you're going to be all about work because you've got some work to do. And then there's a time you're training for a half marathon and you're going to be running and you're going to have some time on the road, you know, and out there working out or whatever. So my point is that ebb and flow in seasons and if you spend

the next 10 years a hundred percent focused on your child to the point that you do nothing else well that would be completely out of balance and ludicrous and really wouldn't be that good for the kid for that matter but um and so you're not going to do it for 10 years but for 10 months or 10 days or or whatever or three weeks or whatever yeah you're going to to do it for 10 years, but for 10 months or 10 days or, or what are three weeks or whatever? Yeah. You're going to be out of balance. And then there's a period of time you got some work to do and you're not going to see your kid as much for a short period of time because you're going to be getting your dad

gum job done. Right. And then there's a period of time you're going to be working out and there's a period of time you're going to pour into your marriage. And, and so there's, you know, you you ebb and flow you got to touch all the bases it's not like we're not going to go to work when we have a baby it's not like we're not going to see our kids when we're at work it's not a hundred percent but you're going to have waiting heavier on different portions of your life in different seasons for short periods of time so

try not to put yourself on some kind of guilt trip in other words that you're oh i'm out of balance i'm out of balance you're always out of balance you're all you better be out of balance the second thing is that i've learned to do and it was really hard for me because i'm a little bit add or a lot um undiagnosed but it's true and so um uh the second thing is wherever you are, be there. Don't be six places at once in your brain. While you're at work, concentrate on work. Work while you're at work. When you're at home with your child and wife, turn off the stupid television.

Be present with your kid. Sit on the floor, play games, read read that kind of stuff wherever you are be and put your phone up don't take work calls right be where you are you're going to date with your wife turn the phone off leave it in the car look in her eyes be where you are that's hard for me i'm it's good for me to tell you to do it because now i got to go home and do it tonight right but but uh but you know sir thank you very much that those two things have helped me a lot and uh those are things that old guys taught me as i was going along is uh uh you know i think sometimes people get all tripped out and they go well you know if i miss one soccer game the kids probably going to be scarred for life and in counseling.

No, they play 7,000 soccer games. So they're going to be okay. They're not even sure, you know. I missed a lot of them. I didn't miss the important ones. And I coached my son's ice hockey team. And I was there for almost every one of those games, but I missed a couple of those.

And, oh, well, you know, I didn't miss any birthdays. I wasn't on the road during a birthday. Didn't miss any birthdays. I wasn't on the road during a birthday. Didn't miss any proms. Wasn't on the road during a prom. Made sure we scheduled around that. But, you know, you pick your battles. But this idea that you're a bad dad if you're not home at 530 every night and, you know, doing all this stuff, sometimes you've got to work, you know.

And that's being a good dad. So let the thing ebb and flow. Be comfortable with the tide going in, the tide going out, some rhythm to your life rather than this straight line idea of balance. And Christy Wright does a great job teaching business boutique. A lot of ladies ask about that when they're running a business, how to be a mom and run a business the mom guilt thing right and she talks through all that and it's the same answer she gives exactly so amen cool question and congratulations man proud of you very fun stuff hold on i'm gonna send you a copy of our book smart money smart kids

how parents can teach their kids how to be smart with money. Give you a baby gift. That's fun. Taylor's with us in Tucson, Arizona. Hey, Taylor, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I guess I just, my brief, I just have a question about investing.

We're going to be looking into, we're on Baby Step 2. We just started a new program last month, and we're on baby step two we just started a program last month um and we're on baby step two uh we should have baby step three completed or that completed in eight months and three by next year so we're looking at investing for our children's education um what is your experience uh with gerber life grow up plan education system they have okay well the first thing that always comes to mind with me is that this is a baby food company and that you that should pretty much tell you everything you need to know okay that you don't buy invest you know i don't buy mufflers for my car

from the transmission store you know and this is a baby food company. They sell baby food. And, you know, we probably don't want to use their investment product just on that alone. But aside from that, what the Gerber Grow Up Plan is, is basically a crummy whole life policy. Okay. It's about as crappy a product as there is out there. So stay completely away from it. You're much better off to do an ESA for your kid's college, an educational savings account,

with the first $2,000 you have a year to put into something. If you have more than that, you can look at a 529. But I'd just do an ESA, and I would pick a good growth stock mutual fund that has a long track record. And you can set some of those up as little as $50 a month if you want to, or $100 a month. You don't have to put a bazillion dollars into to get into a good mutual fund. And one of the reasons the Gerber Grow Up Plan attracts people is it's like $25, right? Yes, sir.

So you feel like you're doing something. The problem is you're making absolutely no money on your money, and the rates of return are horrendous, and the fees are horrendous, both. And so it's just a thing where they just milk parents' emotions is all it is. So now go to what you want to go to is just good mutual funds, and if you want to click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com, you can pick out one of our SmartVestor pros that we tell folks to use and sit down with them.

They'll help you lay out a plan for your baby, and they'll be able to go to college. They'll not get to college on the Gerber Grow Up Plan. There won't be enough money to go because you're not going to make any money on your money. And you won't be putting enough in either. That's the other issue. So now stay completely away from it.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Logan is in Detroit. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Logan. Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? I thought you had a question. I'm getting married here in about 45 days, and I'm only 20 years old,

and I'm supposed to close a house tomorrow. I just didn't know if it was a good idea with my financial situation. Well, if you're contracted to close, you've signed a contract. I don't know if it matters. You're closing. Yes, however, I can back out up until closing. Based on what? Um, at least that's just what my realtor told me, to be honest.

I'm sorry? That's just what my realtor told me. Well, yeah, you can back out, but you could get sued for backing out because you've signed a contract, and the contract says that you've agreed to buy a piece of property, and unless there's a thing that says I changed my mind clause in the contract, is there some kind of an out in the contract that gives you an out? Yes. In reading it, it said I could back out and get my deposit back up until the day of closing.

For any reason uh any reason yes i'm pretty sure it's a highly unusual real estate contract most contracts are there to cause you to uh you know you've agreed to buy somebody's house they've agreed to sell it to you and you're contractually bound to do so if the element, I mean, if you get your financing and you get your elements for the contract are met. Okay, so let's pretend that this is true. It's unusual, but it's possible that you can just walk away. Of course, the seller is not going to be happy, right?

No. I don't believe they would be. No, I'm thinking not, yeah. They think they have their house sold. They think there's a closing tomorrow. How much is the house? The house, we're buying it for $134,000. And what is your income and what's her income

uh so my income uh roughly before overtime is about 40 grand a year gross and hers and her and her income is about 20 years or 20 grand a year growth and do you have debt? We do own two vehicles that we own. I still owe $12,500 on mine, and she owes $9,000 on hers. But other than that, we have no debt. She does plan on going. She's going to school right now, and we do have to pay for her last year of school. Without debt? Yes.

Yeah, you're going to pay cash for it. Okay. Yeah. And what's she studying? She's studying psychology. To do what? She wants to be a licensed professional counselor. Okay.

She has to have a master's degree to do that, right? Yeah, so she plans on going straight into her master's, which we've been trying to decide what's the best financial way to go through that. Well, there's only one way, and that's pay for it or find the scholarships. I mean, going into debt for a master's in psychology would be ludicrous. Going into debt, period, for a degree is a bad idea, but that's a really bad idea. Well, I wouldn't, you know, if you had called me ahead of time and said, do I buy a house, I would have said absolutely not. Number one, I'd wait until I get married, and I'm married a year, and I've got my finances stable,

and I would rent something cheap and not be a homeowner. Number two, I would have you to be debt-free. And number three, I'd have you having this education plan figured out long before you buy a house. So how much are you putting down? We're only putting 5% down. So how much? I think $6,000, $7,000 is what we're putting down. And where are you getting that?

So I have right now about $10,000 in the bank, $3,000 in investments, and then the other $8,000 in my 401. Okay. All right. Well, I would stop adding to your 401, and I would – here's where I'm torn. Okay, Logan? No, you should not buy a house. You should not buy a house. But you gave your your word and i'm pretty disturbed about this

idea that you can just walk away from and break your word uh that bothers me so i'm not sure that's what a contract is i mean you shake hands you sign a piece of paper and say i'm gonna do a deal oh change my mind. You know, people get hurt when you do that. Those sellers, you know, they're expecting to move. They're expecting to use that money to buy another house. They have plans, and now you're just going to jerk the rug out from under them. And so I can't tell you to do that.

I just don't think that's ethical. Even if the contract allows it the day before you're closing. That's not the way you do business. It's not the way you should behave. So, no, you shouldn't be buying a house. But, no, I'm not going to tell you to just back out on a deal that you said you were going to do. So I don't know what kind of a contract you've signed here. I mean, I've done probably 3,000 real estate transactions, and I've never had one that allowed me the day before closing to just change my mind without being in violation of the contract, without breaking the deal.

It's just strange. I've done stuff where I had 30 days of due diligence, and during that 30 days, I can look the property over. I can decide what I'm going to do on an investment property in particular or a development property. And, you know, we can do soil testing. We can do all kinds of things. During that time, I can decide not to buy it for any reason. But by the time I get up the day before closing, I've never been in a deal where, and if I was a seller, I'd be pissed. So I just can't tell you to do that.

It doesn't feel ethical to me. It doesn't feel right. But, no, you should not be buying a house. So I don't know what to tell you to do that. It doesn't feel ethical to me. It doesn't feel right. But, no, you should not be buying a house. So I don't know what to tell you to do, other than you probably ought to go ahead and buy this house because you said you were going to. And then that's going to slow down and mess up some of the other stuff you were trying to do. But such is life. You've got time to recover.

You're only 20. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Austin is in Los Angeles. Hey, Austin, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can I help?

So I'm 26, graduating Cal State Long Beach over in December of this year, completely debt-free. Woo-hoo! I have 15,000 in liquid cash. And so being in kind of like the Southern California area, I'm trying to figure out. I haven't funded my Roth for this last year yet. And so I'm wondering, should I completely fund it or should I be saving up that money to put a down payment on a home? I'm also planning on getting married next year as well. Okay.

Are you out of debt completely yes sir good for you no student loans what's your degree in finance um i'm working as a certified general appraiser trainee right now i'll be getting my license in december as well great great good feel man you did well um cool well you're in the middle of a lot of transition okay you're coming out of school you're getting married you're going into a career there's a lot of dust that's going to settle in the next 24 months would you agree with me on that yes sir your life's going to settle down and a lot of these things that are quote up in the air right now are going to be very clear and settled in 24 months. It would be okay with me if you just piled up cash, big pile of cash for that 24 months to cover stuff like rings and weddings and honeymoons and deposits on your first rental,

and maybe even towards the down payment on a house after you get married and been married a little while and made sure that her debt was clear and anything like that's all done. And a big old pile of cash helps the dust settle a little bit because you've got plenty of time starting 24 months from now to become wealthy by investing. And so I'm not like my hair's not on fire as if I have any hair, but it's not on fire to get you to invest instantaneously right this second and be in some big hurry. And then you come up short $7,000 worth or $6,500 worth of Roth money.

You come up short that much on some kind of a thing you're trying to do for the wedding or some kind of a down payment later, right, on a house. That's right. So right now, I think it's okay to not work the baby steps. We're just going to have a big old pile of cash and then get life settled down. And once life's settled down, how much of that cash is left sitting there is probably the down payment on your home and can get you started with your retirement investing. And make sure you have your emergency fund in place, of course. Three to six months of expenses.

Cool. Sounds like a great career you've got ahead of you, brother. Thanks for calling. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.