The Ramsey Show - App - I Drive 40,000 Miles a Year...How Do I Handle a Car Allowance? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

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Thank you. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Number one best-selling author and host of the brandnew book that we have launched pre-sale on, From Paycheck to Purpose, The Clear Path to Doing Work You Love. Again, 888-825-5225. Joseph's in Kansas City. Hey, Joseph, what's up? Oh, not a whole lot. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. How can I help? I have a career question with a life insurance side question. The question, first of all, is how do I transition my lawn and landscape business from a one-man operation where I do all the work to one where I make the sales and supervise the jobs that I sell? And I can give you as much background as you'd like. Yeah. Well, I mean, if we simplify it,

you've got to train people to do what you do to the level that you do it. And it may not be exactly that, but pretty darn close to where there's trust transferred from two entities, trust from you to them to where you actually go do the things that you need to do for the business because you have trained them and you've seen them do the work and they're doing it. And then trust from your customers that they're not seeing you out in their yard or around doing the landscaping, but they see other people and they see results at the same level you've been doing them. I mean, that really is that simple. And that means you're going to have to train, but then you're going to have to let somebody go and do it and show them and be patient and find people that really enjoy working outside, people that enjoy doing the kind of work you enjoy doing. Joseph, when I hired the first people I hired 25 years ago, I was stupid.

I was so dumb, I thought if you hired people, they would like work and stuff. Yeah. I thought if you hired people, they would like work and stuff. And I've had to learn how to lead and how to delegate and work on my business, not just in my business, as my friend Michael Gerber said in the book E-Myth. And so the thing that I learned about what you're doing, which is delegation, from a leadership standpoint, you're going to delegate some of this work. You're going to trust these people with your brand, with your reputation, with your customers, where you made all the customers happy, the chances of them pissing them off. You're trusting all of that, right? The only way you can do that intelligently is exactly what Ken just outlined,

and that is the way you can delegate is you have to trust the people you're delegating to. You have to trust their competence, or can they do the work, and their integrity. And you cannot delegate, and you should not delegate to someone until you've trained them sufficiently to trust their competence and their integrity and it takes a little time now it doesn't take a lot of time to delegate get me a cup of coffee that's a pretty basic level right i need a cup of coffee i'm in the middle of something and somebody else goes and gets that that's a delegated task do they come back with the coffee we can measure the results uh are they competent do they have integrity did

they lie three times along the way i mean people can screw even that up right and so um uh you know but but now you're saying we've got a we have to complete lawn lawn care and that's probably going to be with you still riding the tractor at first and you're riding with the crews. You're now heading up a crew and then you find your lead guy in the crew that can lead the guys to do the work at the level you expect and then you can step back and do that again. But when you delegate to someone just because you hired them and gave them a title and they have not proven competency and integrity that makes you stupid.

And I was stupid. I did that stuff and I screwed up some stuff, man. I had to pissed off customers because I thought if I hired a guy to do that or a gal to do that, they just would go do it. That's how dumb I was. And you, as Exeggler used to say, you can't expect what you don't inspect. Yeah, that's so good. You know, and I would say this too, too, that when you're training, those people, those clients are going to see you out there training.

That's going to help create a checkpoint list. This is what I expect. I showed you how to do it, but this is what I want done. And then I would stay the face of this. So you're going to sell for new clients, but I also want you to stay as the face of customer service for the new clients. So you're not out there cutting lawns and doing all the stuff, but maybe once a month you show up and go, hey, how's everything going? And I think if you do that, you're still focusing on the right thing.

So you're still the face. You check the job for quality. Yes. You make sure, you know, I've got a buddy that owns, I think they're running six trucks now in the lawn care world, and he's got GPS on everything. He knows where all of them are at all times. Yeah. So they're parked at the gas station for two and a half hours.

When they're supposed to be cutting, he knows what's going on, right? And so you've got ways to check and to follow what's going on. You can check the quality of the work, and you have to constantly do that the rest of your life. But the more that they've worked for you and the more they've proven themselves, the more rope you can give them, the more freedom you can give them because you trust heavier their competence and their integrity. Hold on. We'll send you a copy of the book Entree Leadership.

We outline some of that in that book, and it'll help you get there. And, of course, the way you do that is you've got to get enough accounts going. And it sounds like you're right there that you need the help. The first thing you do is you staff your own crew. And then you put a leader on that crew, and then you staff another crew. That's exactly right. So it's as simple as, all right, I'm going to do most of this. I'm going to get a sharp young man who wants to work hard.

I'm going to teach him. I'm going to get him started. I'm going to run over three streets over, and I'm going to get the next one started. You can get a couple part-timers. You just ease into this because your reputation is, as Dave said, once you hire somebody and you put them on somebody's lawn, that's your reputation. It's not just their reputation. So one thing I want to tell you to anticipate is, I hear this a lot at Entrez Leadership events. I'm blessed to speak at those for Ramsey Solutions. We hear this a lot. I can't find anybody who'll do it.

Well, that's not true. You've got to ask yourself, why do I like working outside? What about this kind of business got me into it? Find kids like that because they are. You know, some people just don't want to be around a bunch of other people, right? They want to do that kind of work. We hired a guy a long time ago in customer care. This is a great story.

He came to work and his third day here he just stood up threw off the headset and went running out to his car and left and we called him we're like dude where did you go we went through all this hiring process and everything and he goes i just i just realized i can't work inside that's right so well i mean when you were interviewing we like told you it was in a building and stuff right yeah yeah i just can't work inside i just can't work inside so on one hand we appreciate his honesty he didn't handle it the best way well you've been nice to know up front that you know that we do our call center inside yeah yeah well first of all there's a great clue if you love working outside with tools and being outside don't take a call center job.

It's not for you. Yeah. Oh, that was great. I mean, he truly, we thought a family emergency or something happened. Oh, sure. Stood up, slung the headset down on the desk and went running out to his car. Just disappeared. He had had enough.

Yeah. Just after three days. Two and a half days. Ugh. This is a hard place to work. We're inside and stuff. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, I'm Christi Wright. Listen, I know how easy it is to feel anxious in our crazy, busy world.

That's why I want to tell you about an app called Glorify. Glorify is the number one daily worship and well-being app, and it will give you tools that will help you ease stress and anxiety in your life. Just search for Glorify in your app store. It's free to download and use. And if you like it, you can access their entire content library at half price by using the promo code Christy. So download Glorify today. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We were laughing going into the break about the young man running out of the building.

I can't work inside. Well, at Ramsey Solutions, we're hiring. For inside jobs, I want to point out. They're all inside. They're all indoors. So here's the deal. We are trying to shake up this culture, and we're doing a pretty good job of it. We're trying to disrupt the way people think about careers with the Ken Coleman show. Most people hate their jobs, and Ken's on a mission to stop that.

Most people retire broke. I'm on a mission to stop that. Most people wallow in debt. I'm on a mission to stop that. I want to make the credit card the cigarette of the financial world where nobody wants to do anymore it's not cool anymore because it is that it's killing people but uh it's a problem we want to disrupt if you want to be part of something that's pretty serious disruption we'd love to have you if you want to join the crusade you know about half of our thousand people are technology

people because a lot of our products are digital products, obviously. So we've got software engineers with expertise in Ruby on Rails, Java, C Sharp, front end technologies, UX designers, SEO people, content folks, data engineers, data analysts. And we need all of them. We're hiring about 300 people this year to add to our 1,000. And if you want to check out the available jobs, tech and otherwise, it's a high-tech environment, which means I absolutely do not understand what most of the people that work for me do. But that's part of it.

But I do understand enough about their competence and their integrity to delegate to them. Yes. And to their leaders who do know what they're doing, so that's good. So to find out all the available jobs, text WORK to 33789. Text WORK to 33789 right here at RamseySolutions.com. You can jump on there and find out as well. Tom is with us in Lima, Ohio. Hey, Tom, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave and Ken. It is an absolute honor to speak with both of you. You too, sir. How can we help? Okay, so I'll just give you a little breakdown of where I'm at, and then I'll get to the question. I'm 19 years old, getting married next year. I have $118,000 net worth, and here to break that down for you, I got $52,000 in non-retirement, $11,000 in Roth IRA, $25,000 in savings, $28,000 in a paid-for truck, $2,000 in

a paid-for car, and I have zero debt of any sort. Wow. How'd you pull all that off at 19? I mean, I guess I would contribute most of that to my grandfather. He introduced me to his show about two years ago, and he's just helped me out between him and you guys. Just a lot of inspiration there and a lot of working hard and savings. What do you do for a living? I'm a welder. Okay.

What kind of money are you making? I'm making about $55,000 a year. At 19 years old. Good for you. When did you you making? I'm making about $55,000 a year. At 19 years old. Good for you. When did you start welding? I started welding in a factory whenever I was 16 through a school program. I'm working second shift after I got off school. And then as soon as I got out of high school, I went full time.

Fantastic. There's a great story, Dave, of the trades. You are a stud. Yeah. I love it. How can we help you, sir? So my question here today is my grandfather's farm. He is 72 years old, and he's getting closer to finally admitting that he's ready to retire and slow down a little bit.

So he wants to sell me the farm. I'm about the last one in the family that's interested in it. The farm is worth about $1.1 million, and he's asking $500,000 for it. And then there's probably roughly $100,000 worth of equipment that I would have to purchase off of him over time. He wants $50,000 down, and he wants to do a land contract i think is what it's called at the minimum required interest rate of 1.2 percent over 15 years so i guess my question there is i want to make sure that this is a good financial decision for me if this isn't going to be too much for me to take on um was getting married next year and and wanting to start a family after that um the farm brings in about 30,000 a year so

after that the actual uh mortgage payment so to say on it um would only put me at about 500 to a thousand dollars a month out of my own pocket um and I would plan on tackling that way faster and hopefully having it paid off in about five to ten years. Do you want to be in the farm business? Yes. Not welding. This is what you want to do. Well, I want to own the farm.

I still want to keep my day job of welding, and then it's about a hundred acre farm, so it's, I mean, Grandpa's always just done it as a hobby. He always drove a truck over the road full time and then farm too. So that's kind of what I'm wanting to do is just have this as a way of life, I guess. So I guess the question would be is, you know, I guess based off these numbers, I don't know, it's just a lot to bite off. I want to make sure it's not going to put me in a bad predicament. Where do you live now?

You live at home? I live with my parents. Yeah, I still live with my parents until I get married next year. How much is your wife going to work outside the home? Yes. She's going to bring in about $45,000. So that would be about $100,000. So you have $100,000 household income.

And then I'm currently in the process of starting a'm currently in the you're going to live on the farm business you're going to live on the farm yes it has a house on it yep okay probably about uh 17 or 1800 square foot brick ranch home okay and what's the rest of the family say about you getting this at 50 discount i mean they're all on page four so over the last year we've had a lot of family meetings where grandpa sat down all the kids offered it to all of his kids first none of them really spoke up as interested um but you're getting 1.2 value for 500 yes okay all right yeah and he offered it to all of his kids. Nobody wanted it. Nope.

I mean, none of them really have. I'm taking it. I've got to make one adjustment. There's no way under the sun I'm doing a land contract. Okay. They're dangerous. Let me explain what a land contract is. It's called a contract for deed.

The deed is not in your name. You have a contract that gives you The deed is not in your name. You have a contract that gives you the right to the deed when you pay the property off. If before you pay the property off, the owner of the property were to get sued and have a lien placed on the property, they would not be able to transfer the deed to you even if they wanted to. Your grandpa falls asleep at the wheel and hits somebody head on, and they sue him for $500 million for a wrongful death. You lost your farm, and it wasn't your fault because it was never in your name don't do that okay or your grandpa dies and all of a sudden his children's memory of the fact

that they didn't want this farm goes sideways and the property's not in your name it's a contract now with an estate that is now in dispute because your uncle lost his freaking mind when he found out you bought it for $500 instead of $1.2. Yeah. And this has never happened in any family, right? Say that again? I said this has never happened in any family. Yeah, I'm sure. The property goes into your name or you don't do the deal, and it's called a mortgage then.

It's not a land contract. Okay. It's an owner-financed mortgage on the terms that you outline. And then no one can take it from you as long as you abide by the terms of the mortgage. And if you don't, then you could get foreclosed on by the estate, which will be the owner of the mortgage. Your grandpa's estate, when he passes, is who you will owe the money to. Okay. And then you go out there and take all the OT you can get and bust your butt and pay

this thing off. That's the plan. Because it scares the crud out of me. But there's so much that's right here that I'll overlook a couple things that are wrong. I will not overlook that land contract. I would beg and plead with you not to do a land contract. i think i outlined all the risks clearly didn't i yeah i do believe so tom you're a strong young man yeah that's a powerful place to be at 19 years old uh you're biting off a really big chew here yeah i'm a little nervous about it yeah it's a lot of chew

it's a lot of hobby here's the a lot of hobby. Here's the thing. That's what he's basically saying. Here's the thing. Listen to me. It's in his name. That's true. Four years from now? You're right. It's a nice asset. You can sell it for 1.5 if you decide you don't want to be there. I know where you're going. You're right. I love it. I agree. If it don't work out, it's going to work out.

That's true. It's good real estate. This is the Ramsey Show. Imagine a world where people never have to worry about money ever again. At Ramsey Solutions, our mission is to teach people how to get out of debt and build lasting wealth. And if that means we have to take on the toxic money culture that says you need debt to get ahead, then we're okay with that. We've seen millions of lives changed and we will continue to create digital products and services to help people transform their lives. If you want to join our thousand member team on this crusade, we're currently on the hunt for software engineers with expertise in Ruby on Rails,

Java, C Sharp, and front-end technologies. Or if you're a UX designer or an SEO and content marketing specialist, we'd love to talk with you. Together, we will disrupt the toxic money culture in America. Find out about all the available jobs by texting careers to 33789. Text careers to 33789 to find out about all our open opportunities. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Athena is with us. Hi, Athena.

How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? I now live us. Hi, Athena. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? I now live in Fort Worth, Texas. All right. Well, welcome to Nashville.

And all the way up here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? $93,317.60. Love it. How long did this take? 33 months to the day. Woo! You were kicking it.

What was your range of income during that time? I made 70, changed jobs, took a pay cut, and ended up making up to 78. Okay, that'll work. Good for you. What kind of debt was the 93? One car and student loans. Wow, okay. So what happened three years ago that set you on fire? Well, I wasn't really on fire for the first year and a half. Made my first job out of college, kind of messed around with my money, had a little fun with it. It was like I worked really hard for this.

I deserve to have a little fun with my money. Moved to Orlando, ended up pulling your book back out that I purchased while I was on an internship in 2017. Read it, took some notes in it, put it away. What made you pull it out? It was on top. I don't know. It ended up being a God thing i packed up my everything moved to orlando and when i opened the box it was on top ah so shuffle the deck thing pretty much um read through it again took

some notes put it away and then 2020 happened um and i said well I've been saving up for all of these things, these fun things that aren't going to happen, so what do I do now? Pulled the book out again, read through it, and said, well, we're going to kill it. We're done. Scorched earth. Okay. So a little bit of wandering along. The book keeps popping up. And what month did you go to complete uh defcon 10 or

whatever i mean where you just went crazy what what was that in the middle of covid yeah uh they sent a year ago yeah they sent us home in march i've been working um from home turned on your radio show it ended at five o'clock and i knew I could get off at 5 o'clock. Started listening to it. The book popped back up, and I said, well, beginning of April, and then a year later. So the last 14 months

of the 33 have been game on. Absolutely. I paid off double in the last 13 months than I paid off the first. Yeah, so you didn't do anything. You just paid off debt. Yeah, pretty much. Finally got there. first. Yeah. So you didn't do anything. You just paid off debt. Yeah.

Yeah. You finally got there. Okay. Wow. Very cool. How old are you? I'm 26. Oh, wow.

Fantastic. Good for you. What'd you get your degree in? I'm curious. A mechanical engineering with a minor in economics. And did you go into that right out of school? I did. Yes. Are you still in engineering?

I am. Yes. Yes. You have a very bright future, too. And we're having a good time with it. Yeah, good. That's good. That's awesome.

Very cool. What was the hardest thing you did? Because you said you didn't do anything, but you also made some tough sacrifices to be able to do that in 14 months. What did you do? What was tough? The hardest thing was to realize that this wasn't my money. I was making it. I deserved it.

I was having fun with it, but it had already been spent. I had already made that choice. That's good. Some depth there. That's good. And that hit me like a ton of bricks about June last year.

I was like, well... What was the weirdest thing you did that your friends all gave you the eye roll for? The weirdest thing I did was actually do the Ramsey Plus. I went and I took these courses and I was telling a couple of friends of mine, hey, I'm, you know, I've run out of things to do. You can only watch so much TV. And so I started taking a financial wellness course and they looked at me and they're like, you need a financial wellness course. Don't you make too much money to have problems? I was like, no, we all have different issues. So did that, took all the money I was saving for a family

vacation we were planning to take overseas, said, well, they're not going to let us into their country anyway right now and threw it at my debt. Wow. Wow. And now you're free. Absolutely. You're glad you did it? Absolutely. I actually will be finishing up my six-month emergency fund at the end of the month, and everything is different.

How does it feel? Shock. It feels like shock. You don't really know what you're doing until you start putting your money away to make the next payment and then get the letter that says, congratulations, you know, here's the check for the overpayment you made of one cent. Cost us $16 to generate this check.

Pretty much. Yeah. Wow. Good for you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt? Now that you've had the book pop up and you went through Financial Peace University at Ramsey Plus, you've done it all. What's the key to getting out of debt? The key that I've been telling people, you know, the few people that have asked me is we want to do what you did. And it's like, you're not going to do what I did. Your journey is going to be different from my journey, which is different

from all of these people that I listened to their debt-free screams on the radio. You know, I did it on one income. You know, you just got married. You have two incomes. Or, you know, it's going to look different, but that doesn't make it wrong. Okay. That's good. Yeah.

Good insight. Very well done. Good job. Very proud of you. Who are your biggest cheerleaders? I have to say my biggest cheerleaders were my sister, two wonderful mentors, Alex and Josh, and my wonderful boyfriend here, Drew, who looked at me and said, you're kind of crazy, but we're here for you.

What do you want to do? What's going to make you successful? We want to see you do this. I love it. That's great. That's really good. Now, that's an interesting thing, Dave. So when you said they looked at you like you're kind of crazy, they're like, I'm not sure you need to.

You're a mechanical engineer. You don't need to be this gazelle intense. They didn't use those words. But that's essentially the emotion. Am I understanding you right? Yes. And yet they still said, but we support you. And I think that's important.

People who, they may not see it, but they're going to at least support you. That's important. Because not everybody's going to see this. You've got to have community. This is very countercultural. Way to go. Good for you. Proud of you.

Excellent job, hero. Yeah. Thank you. Took control of your life. You've got a bright, bright future ahead of you. You're going to be able to do anything you want to do after you've done this. You climbed the mountain. Well done. Well done. done we got a copy of the legacy journey for you that's the next chapter in your story because you have changed your whole legacy and a copy the total money makeover you can give it to someone it'll just keep appearing in their life

until they finally do it it's like a bad penny it just keeps showing up i love it america's greatest largest coaster coffee tables everywhere i love it she just opened up your faces right there total money makeover there it is again it just pops up it's just you know just a reoccurring theme so well done athena we love it fort worth texas 93 000 paid off in 33 months making 70 to 78 count it. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah!

Yeah! That is absolutely fabulous. Now, what's key here is uh and sometimes people miss this stuff because you some of you watch the news too much and you you need to turn it off it's a bunch of crap amen but um all you hear about millennials and 20-somethings is how they're all uh participation trophy, avocado toast eating, no ambition, live in their mother's basement useless. And, you know, we know at Ramsey that that's just not true because of two things. One is we see them on our debt-free stages every day. We have these 20-somethings that show up.

They're just amazing. That kid, 19 years old a few minutes ago, calling in here. Absolute amazing young people. Mature way beyond some of you that have your little lips stuck out and you're 55 years old. Somebody ought to smack that scowl off your face. And they're just unbelievable. And we know they're amazing. We've also got a building full of them.

And we don't hire people at Ramsey that aren't rock stars and that don't care deeply and that aren't excellent at their that don't care deeply and that aren't excellent at their jobs and they have a tremendous work ethic and they're the easiest to interview because there's only two kinds of millennials awesome and sucks and so they'll just tell you I don't really want to work much and I want to know what your benefits package is well you suck your next interview you know i don't you know we want somebody here that's gonna work yeah and we want somebody like her that's fired up and wired up man whoever hired her they got a jewel oh rock star this is the ramsey show Thank you. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money.

Luke is with us. Luke is in Kansas City. Hi, Luke. What's up? Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? So I travel through the Midwest selling building materials in four states, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska. I drive my own vehicle, and the company gives me a vehicle reimbursement program. As you can imagine, I drive about a lot of miles, about 40,000 a year, and certainly have racked up the miles on my personal vehicle. My question is, should I buy a second vehicle exclusive to work, travel only, and separate the two since they do give me so much money a month?

Well, the misnomer is that the money that you get for vehicle reimbursement all has to be spent necessarily on vehicles. That's not true. It's just part of your income. And then you just have this unusually large expense associated with your job, which is gas maintenance and replacement of a vehicle you destroy the value of every two years. That's correct. Yeah, you've got a budget for that. It's not a bad idea to get a second car,

but the reasoning for that is not that they give you so much money, because they really don't give you so much money after we factor in the loss in value on whatever you're driving, because whatever you drive, you destroy it value-wise. That's right. And so, yeah, what I always tell road warriors is that it's a business expense, and the goal with business expense is to do the minimum expense, thereby maximizing profits. And so the less we spend on car the more money you have and how do we how do we minimize the damage done to your finances with you being on the road all the time and so my

formula is you buy the least vehicle least expensive vehicle that will get the job done in quotes now let me describe to you what i think get the job done is in this situation. If I spend 40,000 miles a year in a car, it's going to be a decent car that rides well. I'm not doing that in a freaking Dodge Neon, okay, because you'll be in the chiropractor. You've got to have something that's a decent ride because you're in the car all the time okay so that's part of get the job done the second part is it has to obviously be reliable but you don't take a sixty thousand dollar vehicle and go destroy it you take a twenty thousand dollar or fifteen thousand dollar vehicle and go destroy it and then you figure out what you know what that does and uh um and every two years or every three years

however you want to do it i mean 120 000 miles 80 000 miles you got to roll that thing over and do it again but you've lost every bit of the value during the time you drove it uh and that's just that's just part of your reality and that's okay it's like it's like you own a heat and air company and you got four trucks on the in your your fleet going out and calling on houses. It's part of your cost of doing business. But you want to limit that. You don't go buy a $150,000 service truck if you're in the heat and air business, if you're smart anyway. And so that's how I would do it.

Okay, so now we've got a $12,000 or a $15,000 whatever. Okay, you can call it whatever you want to call it. I don't care. It's got reasonable gas mileage. It's reasonable comfort and is reliable. Now do we spend some more money on something that sits in the driveway most of the time that is my, quote, real car, unquote, that I don't plan on destroying? And if you want to do that, either way, you're going to pay cash for both,

and both of them are going to go down in value, but obviously the one on the road is going to go down the most and the fastest. And that's how I look at being a road warrior in that. Anything we've got around here, we do the same thing. You're amateurizing the expense. Another example in our world is we spend a lot of money on computers around here, 1,000 people, and they've all got a computer. And you know what that computer's worth in two years?

Nothing! Oh, boy. Wow. Nothing. And Dave is okay with that. It doesn't bother him at all. It's not a problem. It's a doorstop after two years.

Yeah. It's like, something else comes out. And the same with this stuff. You know, I got, what, two million bucks in a stinking studio, you know, and all the wires and the electronics and the spaceship. It looks like you're in there running NASA or something. And, you know, it's probably got a five-year shelf life. Wow. And so you just got to look at that and go, okay, stinking stuff is going to deteriorate.

The electronics don't deteriorate, but the stuff that they plug into on the other end becomes obsolete. Might I make a suggestion, Dave, to see if you like it? I'm opening myself up here. Okay. All right, so we're talking cash. We gave this man advice. It's got to be cash.

Maybe he gets a car that runs, but it's an older car, a classic car, and the value doesn't go down. He's on the road Monday through Friday, and when he's driving around on the weekends, I'm just saying. Is it in his Karmann Ghia? Maybe. Like yours? Yeah.

Yeah. That car's going up in value each year. It's not bad. And it runs. Not bad. I'm just saying. My 1960 Corvette's actually going to go up in value, but there's very few things that go up in value that have motors and wheels. Yeah. Very few things. And they don't go up much. No. It's not like you actually going to go up in value. But there's very few things that go up in value that have motors and wheels.

Yeah. Very few things. And they don't go up much. No. It's not like you're going to make money. No. This isn't like real estate. And it's not got, you know.

No. Neither one of those cars have the creature comforts of a modern vehicle. No. That's true. There is no. But it's not a horrible idea is what I'm asking. Not a bad idea. I don't mind.

I'm saying, hey, if you take that. You can have a little cool get around car on the weekends. Yeah. Just something fun to tool around in, a weekend ride. Yeah. But it's not your, quote, daily driver. No. Yeah.

That's not a bad idea. But, again, you don't want to spend $100,000 on that. Oh, no. You can't have a lemon. You've got to be smart about this purchase. Yeah. In terms of, I mean, the purchase price doesn't have to be that. No.

No, no, no. It's a driver. No, no. It's not a museum piece. So it's an interesting world. But, no, no. It's a driver, so it's not a museum piece. So it's an interesting world. But, yeah, the thing is you're going to lose the money on it. Yeah. So Alex is with us in Austin, Texas.

Hey, Alex, welcome to The Ramsey Show. I pushed the wrong button, didn't I? Alex is in Austin, Texas. Hey, Alex, how are you? Hey, thanks for having me. I thought I was the one that messed up. No, that would be me. You would think after 30 years of radio, I could push the right freaking button.

What's up? Okay, so I am 25. I have $18,700 left in a student loan. And I recently took a new job in May. And my previous company, I had a bunch of RSUs, some stock that I had, and that's about $16,000. I've read numerous things. I don't know if they've been from Ramsey or elsewhere that were kind of advising against selling stocks to pay off debt and tax implications and all that. So I kind of just love your take on that because I could see $16,000 and probably two more paychecks and that debt's gone.

Well, you did not read from Ramsey anything that we wrote that said don't sell stocks to pay off debt because we always say sell stocks and pay off debt. So it was quite the opposite. And RSU is a restricted stock unit. Is it still restricted? No, these are all mine now. So you're fully vested and you can turn them off. And it's $16,000 worth and it makes you almost debt-free.

Correct. Yeah, I'll do that by like in the next two hours. Okay. Immediately. Don't hesitate. Do it. Be done with it. Because here's the thing. Do it. Be done with it. Because here's the thing.

Let's pretend you had no debt. Would you go borrow on a student loan to buy restricted stock units? No, of course not. Effectively, that's what your balance sheet says. Okay. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, totally.

So if you kept them, it's as if you bought them again using student loan money to do it, because you should have sold them and paid off your student loans. So all those other articles you read were wrong. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. By the way, restricted stock units, folks, are in initial public offerings. This is a brand-new startup company, which makes this particular company by definition volatile. Yeah.

And so what you do is you get out while the getting is good because everything doesn't turn into Apple and Facebook. I'm just saying. Three words, cash out, baby. That's it. I'm done. And then you're debt-free with another couple checks. That's huge. That's fun.

That's fun. And there he is, another mid-20s. And so, you know, it turns out the stock benefit was a blessing. It's a fantastic blessing. But we're going to use it wisely. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. Stay tuned.

Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer for The Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to theramseyshow.com. Thanks for listening.