The Ramsey Show - App - I Found Out My Boss Has a Hidden Credit Card… (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss:   "My boss is using company funds to pay his bills..." "How do I prepare to start a business?" "Should I sell off assets to pay off mortgage?" Focusing on loans vs. increasing income, "My bank told me I need a credit score" "Sell our house to pay off student loans?" "Should I invest part of my HSA account?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramseysey personality is my co-host today as we answer your questions about you your life your money your career your relationships 888-825-5225 tiffany starts off this hour hi tiffany how are you hi um thank you so much for taking my call. I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous.

It's okay. What's up? I'm an office manager for a small construction company, and one of the owners out of the two has been using a secret credit card and purchasing a lot of personal stuff with it and then using the company's checking to pay off the balance each month. I'm just kind of curious, is it only morally wrong if I don't say anything to the owner, other owner, or is it not in my business to be passing information along?

So let me help you with how you answer a business ethics question. Treat other people like you'd want to be treated. So reverse it. You own a construction company, and you have an employee who knows that there is a thief inside the business. What would you expect that employee to do ethically? Definitely tell me, but my concern is I feel like if I say something, I'll lose my job. But if I don't say something, I might lose my job too. If you don't say something and I found out and you worked for me,

I would fire you. Okay. For not telling me. Why would you lose your job for telling? The other guy's got more power than the other than the guy she's telling they're they're equal partners but um one is kind of silent he's he he's a wimp kind of but um yeah um i just the lion is the thief and the wimp is the guy losing the money. You need to get out of there, don't you?

Yeah, I just started listening to you guys about a week ago, and I'm formally in Baby Step 1. I've got $98,000 in debt. How old are you? 33. What do you make? Currently 56 with this job, and I just got a part-time job. What do you make there at the thief place? 50.

Okay. And how long have you been there? About three years. Okay. Sometimes doing the right thing is painful in the short term. It is never painful in the long term. 100% of the time that you don't take care of this, it's going to cause you problems later.

Do you think that if you tell the weak leader that this other guy is basically stealing money, do you think there's a chance that he'll just be like, uh, yeah, big deal? Do you think that he won't care? I think he'll blame me for not, I guess, watching more closely and not giving him a heads up. I mean, every, how long has this been going on? Um, it's just gotten progressively worse over the past.

That wasn't what I asked. I asked how long he's been stealing. Uh, probably since I started asked i asked how long he's been stealing uh probably since i started which is how long about three years um but it hasn't been to this level like um i stealing has levels but at no point is it okay so you're concerned because you've noticed this for three years and you haven't said anything but now now you're like, I've got to say something, and you're afraid that the other guy is going to go, hey, why didn't you say something sooner? Tiffany, you're going to lose your job.

Yeah, that's what I figured. You need to go look for a job. I'm going to lose it either way. You're going to lose your job because you didn't take care of this when you should have. The first time you saw it, you should have walked in his office, the other guy's office, and said, look, I don't know what to do with this information but if the roles were reversed i would want to know and i'm going to leave the information with you to do with what you want but it's not going to be on me i'm not keeping secrets for thieves i went to leave a year ago and i figured that um

once i left that somebody else would see it so i was was basically pushing the problem off on somebody else. No, no, honey, this is on your watch. Okay. You have to report the thief, and you have to look for a job. Number one, even if they want to keep you, you don't want to work there anymore. That's true. Okay. This is a messed up, toxic environment.

Yeah. A strong thief and a weak need partner. And you're stuck in the middle and didn't know what to do and therefore didn't do the right thing. Yeah, that's a warning sign when you're in a situation like that and you don't feel you'll be supported for doing the right thing. That's a problem too. Yeah.

Even if they rise up and's a problem too yeah it's not even even if the guy even if they rise up and have a big clash over it and the guy we're calling the weak leader is you're going to stand up to the other guy surprise he stood up okay we're all surprised we're all shocked uh but even then you're not going to come out of this you've known this for three years you don't come out looking good because you didn't bring it up earlier yeah it makes it look like you're part of it yeah that's what i was concerned about but i look like the one who's actually and hiding it is not going to fix that okay so go get a job this week walk in and tell the guy i should have told you three years ago i'm sorry i didn't i goofed i let you down i'm out

of here i'm not going to work in a place like this this guy's stealing from you go take your new job personal question um i do have two interviews this week but it's significantly like ten dollars less an hour do i just suck it up and take them and work multiple jobs until i find something yep get something yep. Get something. Yep. Something's better than nothing. Otherwise, every day you're going in there, you are a liar. Oh, okay. You can't be that.

That's not who you are. That's why you called us, because it's tearing your guts up. Yeah, it's eating you up. You're not that person. You're not that person, and you can't. I've been taking anxiety pills for the past year. Hello. Yeah. Hello. person you're not that person and you can't for the past year hello yeah hello john mack john mack so john john deloney says anxiety is a fire alarm warning you that there's a problem well guess what there's a problem of course you're going to have anxiety in a situation where you're

protecting a thief and you're not a thief and you're not a liar by nature of course you're going to have anxiety. So, hey, we're going to save you a bunch of money. We're getting rid of your anxiety pills because we're getting rid of this job. There you go. You're going to feel so much better, Tiffany, when you get out of there. You don't feel clean like you took a shower. Yeah, I'm just concerned, too, about financially

because I only have $500 in my emergency emergency fund and i've got so much debt well you've got these jobs lined up you don't have a choice you're about to get fired as soon as they find this they're going to blame it on you if you don't bring it up because mr lion that's the thief is going to have a story that somehow well tiffany's known about it we all thought it was all okay what's your problem well the problem is you're a freaking thief that's the thief is going to have a story that somehow well tiffany's known about it we all thought it was all okay what's your problem well the problem is you're a freaking thief that's my problem but nobody stands up to this guy so you got to get out of there girl this is bad news and next time you're presented with an ethics problem don't wait three years to fix it and chew on anxiety pills and wonder why you got anxiety. You step into the ethics stuff, face up.

So, team member at Ramsey knows another team member is stealing, doesn't tell me, I discover it, they're both gone. I'm not a big old meanie, but I can't trust either one of them, and trust is an essential part of a relationship. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So, if you feel like the system is working against you,

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Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. High school graduation season winding down, but plenty of sophomores and juniors who will be getting their diplomas are still uncertain about their future. They're asking, like, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? What should my major be? Should I really get a degree in German polka history? If that sounds like a high schooler in your life, here's some good news. With the new Get Clear assessment for students, they don't have to walk this road alone.

We took our popular assessment for adults and made the questions more relatable to students who are about to take the next step into entrepreneurship, college, trades, wherever they're called. They're going to answer a few questions, and minutes later, they'll get a custom report with clear answers that truly drives them, their top strengths, and their possible careers that will be a great fit for them. Give them the gift of confidence, of knowing what they were made to do, because that's the kind of gift that will last a lifetime. Order the Get Clear assessment for students today, RamseySolutions.com slash Get Clear. You know, Jade, I was going through that just now, and I was remembering a guy that's a friend of mine.

He's an old guy my age. He might be slightly younger, but he's right around my age. And many years ago, he was a photographer and is gifted, and this Get Clear assessment would reveal that he was gifted at his ability to see things. They call it spatial orientation. He can see things in 3D in his mind. So he is a gun guy, and he loved guns, and he started building a gun. And he ended up building a gun that became world famous and opening a gun company, selling that gun worldwide

for millions and millions and millions of dollars and sold the company for millions and millions and millions of dollars all off of this one set of gifts. Now, he obviously learned business. He did a lot of other things along the way. Sure. Sales, you know, all that. But in terms of actually building guns, he had a tradesman-type gift that he could see the engineering of that.

Never had formal engineering training. Does not have an engineering degree. But turned that. So getting clear on what your gifts are is a big deal. It is a big deal. It can keep you from going and getting a degree in exactly the wrong thing and spending $200,000 doing it. And it can show you all of the ways that your skill set can be used to earn money.

Yeah. As opposed to just drilling down on one type, one job. What was interesting about his story was he was a very good photographer using that exact same spatial gift but that was not his passion when he used that same ability to see things in 3d that spatial orientation to see a gun yeah you know and then went to the machine shop and built one not an engineer not a machinist but knew how knew what he wanted and kept working it till he got it to do what he wanted it to do. And it's a phenomenal piece of equipment. That's cool.

And has saved lives all over the world in the military. It's amazing. Yeah, but it all comes back from recognizing your genius and stepping into it. Robert is in West Palm, Florida. Hi, Robert. Welcome to the ramsey show good afternoon dave and jade i just had a question about um you my wife are about 110 thousand student loans and we're looking to possibly get out of our house sell the house use the difference after um we pay off the rest of the house

and pay off the student loans and then go into putting into a down payment into a new house and just kind of are back and forth and want to run through some numbers and see if it's the right idea or if we should try and stick it out. Okay, so the price home that your current home would sell for how much? Around $400,000. And if you did all this and bought another house, what would the value of that your current home would sell for how much? Around $400,000. And if you did all this and bought another house, what would the value of that home be? We're looking somewhere between $450,000 and $500,000.

So you would move up in-house? We have two young kids, and we only have the house we have now. So you're thinking of moving up in-house anyway, and you're trying to use the student loan as an excuse. Not necessarily. It was just something that we could do cross-house and about the same size house around the same amount, around that $400, between $450 amount, somewhere around that price, but just mostly to pay off either the whole student loan

or a chunk of the good chunk of the student loan. So you don't like your current house? No, we do. Really? Yeah, I mean, we do. It's why we've gone back and forth because we stick it out in the house for another because I think we have about four years for both of ours to be paid off. What's your income?

What's your income? About $85 to $90 net per year between the both of us. Okay, so if you sell your current house and you buy a home slightly more expensive and pay off $110,000 worth of student loan debt out of the equity from the sale, therefore have less of a down payment by $110,000, on the next house, did I get the story right? Yes. If you do that, it's the same thing as just refinancing your house and paying off student loan with a mortgage.

Okay, so you think it's probably the same thing. No, it's exactly this. You understand that's exactly the same thing. You moved your student loan to a mortgage. Yeah, and I think that's where we're looking at it because instead of paying interest on a student loan is that it would be paying towards equity in a new house to where it was more paying towards ourselves.

You already have a house. Yes. So that does not mathematically hold water. Okay. If you didn't have a house and this got you a house then you would say we'd be building equity but if you have a four hundred thousand dollar house that's building equity you have a four and fifty thousand dollar house building equity they're both building equity regardless of the mortgage all you did was put the more the student loan on a mortgage that's

all you did in this scenario so you could either refinance the current house if you like it and do the same thing. Okay, yeah, because we refinanced on the house and got it down to about 3%. So that's why we're thinking maybe we should just stick with the house that we're in now. Because, like I said, I think it's about four years max if we don't. That's just based off of normal pay. What's your household income again? $90K. $85 to $90K. of normal pay what's your household income again 90k 85 to 90k

oh okay yeah you're probably three years if you really bear down on it with beans and rice what do you do for a living i'm an insurance adjuster okay all right so what i'm trying to get you to see is i want you to rethink your process of decision making. Because effectually what you did was you borrowed on a mortgage to pay off your student loans as if you had refinanced your current residence in your scenario. And when I reframe that and point that out to you i'm still not 100 sure you got it you know i understand what you're saying because that's why we've had the decision of if we should just stay in the house for and i i get that we're moving it's almost moving you're just moving the dead over instead of paint yeah you truly are using the house move as an excuse to refinance

those student loan into a mortgage. Yes, and I understand where, that's why we are going back and forth and we've had this bleeding towards the not moving and just thinking about it. I don't really need to go back and forth. Don't do that. That's what I was trying to tell you, okay? Don't do that. So you would not, we would not suggest that you go

refinance your home and use the money to pay off your student loans we would tell you to pay off your student loans and we would therefore not tell you to do effectually the same thing with a move um now if you told me you were going to move to a two hundred thousand dollar house from a four400,000 house and free up $110,000 to pay on the student loans, and you wanted to make that sacrifice to get out of debt, now I'd have to think about, do I really want to do that or not? Yeah. That's not bad, but that's a pretty deep cut.

And I usually sell my home to get out of debt as my last resort but selling it with what you're talking about you're not there's no sacrifice involved as a matter of fact it's quite the opposite you're going up yeah in house going up at home yeah so you're not sacrificing at all as a matter of fact you're you're you know you're trying to skip over getting the student loan paid off and you don't get to do that. It's in there somewhere. You can always hide the P, but it's under one of those shells. Oh, it's under there. All right.

This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Brent is in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Brent. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. It's a pleasure to be on here, sir. How are you doing today? Honored to have you. How can we help? So I'm going through a little bit of a dark valley. Just get a little back story real quick.

I am a born-again Christian. I just gave my life to the lord about eight months ago wow very cool and in it i was in a very very bad time um my life my old lifestyle you know either could have ended me up dead or in prison so and i wanted to make a change and plus um unfortunately it cost me my marriage uh but i'm on the right path to at least make myself better and hope and pray that you know god can answer a couple prayers for me and reconcile my marriage but um i am I am on a business venture. It's an untapped market that nobody has touched before. And I'm just trying to make sure that I am going to be able to, with my income right now, being able to also pay my bills that I got to pay,

plus be able to pay for all the patent stuff that I got to do. My patent's already in the process right now, but I have to get, there's stuff that you got to pay because we all know patents aren't just something that you pay for right on the spot. You have to pay for it over time. So I'm just trying to make sure that my patent, the money that I have for my patent is there when it's needed and then also be able to pay for my bills and also be able to make sure that I have for my patent is there when it's needed and then also be able to pay for my bills and also be able to make sure that I'm able to do what I need to do to sustain my living while I'm out on the road okay so you

have a job yes then you make what I may I'm on track right now to make roughly about $81,000, $82,000 this year. And out on the road is with your job? Yes, I'm a truck driver for a living. Ah, okay. All right. Basically, you want to make sure that you're having the money to maintain your lifestyle, but also start this business and be productive with it. What have you been told your need for the patent money was?

How much money? My patent lawyer said that throughout the span of the next year or so, I'm looking at probably close to about $15,000 to $20,000. Okay. So you have a patent lawyer in South Carolina that you're working with? Yes. Okay. And this is an attorney in a law firm that was recommended in a building that you went and sat with?

Yes, my personal attorney recommended me to this guy. Okay, good, good. Because in the world that you're dabbling in, there are a bunch of shysters, and I was trying to make sure you didn't get hooked up with one. There are companies that will claim that they can get you a patent, and they'll claim they get you distribution and help you with prototypes and all this stuff, and they'll take $10,000 from you up front, and you'd never get anything. Those are out there. There's a bunch of those out there, okay?

So stay away from that kind of a thing. So it sounds like you've got an attorney, though, that's on the up and up, so I'm fine with that. And then you do have to go. It sounds like you're building a physical product, so you're going to get a prototype, and you have to think about who's going to buy it and how you're going to get it to manufacture, or are you going to sell the whole kit and caboodle off of the prototype and walk away?

You know, you've got to decide your approach after that, because getting the patent is just the very first step. Mm-hmm. And I've already got the prototype. I'm actually in the process uh of building uh i've got a set you know design everything i've already built one kid and i am uh this weekend actually i start production on building the the rest of the kits from the materials that i have right now all this stuff will be of course branded um i have my own branding, my own business name.

So it will, and I make everything in-house. The only thing I don't make in-house is one of the components that I have to actually order. Who's buying this? Who's the customer? So truck drivers. And so how are you going to get the information to them so that they buy it? Okay, so I have a background in social media marketing. I actually used to have a huge following on social media,

but when I gave my life to the Lord, I got rid of everything. And I focused solely on just trying to help people's businesses grow. So were they following you on social media? What was the reason they were following you? They admired your hell racing, or they liked something else you were doing? Well, it was because of my old lifestyle. I don't want to get too much into it because he that be in Christ is a new creature, and I don't even feel like I'm talking about the same person anymore.

You know, so I was, a lot of people liked it because I was telling people the truth about something, and I still stand firm to a lot of it, but it's no longer who I am. That's fair. So I just branched off of it. Okay. I'm just trying to, without getting too far in, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. Good.

Good. Okay. So what's the timeline on it? You got a way to sell it. You got a way to produce your first sets. What is your question? So with me and my separation and everything when i when all this happened i pretty much invested as much money as i could possibly invest into uh building myself up in my marriage and

stuff like that and i practically spent way too much money um me and my wife sold our house um fortunately we were able to um we had a place that we could go to and it didn't cost us anything um but we basically a lot of that money was spent to go to go forward in our life but at the same time there was also a lot of it that was blown and i pretty much had to look at my account one day and basically just say oh my goodness my goodness, like $100,000 was spent in a year. Yeah, Brent, how can we help you today? So I'm building everything up the right spot that it needs to be in so that I can tackle this business venture that I'm doing and be as successful as I possibly can

okay as far as money goes all right so what I would do is tell you it sounds like you probably have already done this but the basics are you open a separate business account to do the business out of, the new patent deal. Okay? The only money you put into that account is money that comes from sales. The only money you take out of that are business expenses, and you take care of your household budget off of your truck driving income. Okay?

I don't want you eating out of the business right now. I want all the money that goes in, all the money that goes out. The difference is called profit. So if you put $10,000 in there, cause a whole bunch of people order some of these with your social media skills and you, uh, you, and you go and order some materials for $6,000, the money that's left is $4,000. That's called profit. Okay. And so you just run everything completely separate. Don't mix your grocery money into your business account.

You follow me? Because that will give you clear pictures on how the business is doing and what's going on. And if you're feeding the business or the business is feeding you. Because sometimes in a small situation like this where people are passionate like you are they can throw money into the project and and they look up later like you looked up and realized a hundred thousand dollars is gone you'll look up and realize god i just put eighty thousand bucks in this i did not mean to do that over the last two years and um without making a profit because and but if you've got this account that's either getting squeezed or flush, it's talking to you about how the business is doing. If it's squeezed, you're not selling enough. You're paying too much for your materials, whatever it is.

If it's squeezed, you're looking for what's causing the problem. If it's flush, it means, hey, we've got things going. We've got good sales going here. We've got a production problem. Maybe we have trouble producing the items fast enough, but keep it completely separate. Like you're running it for someone else. And then that, that way, that simple checking account will do that. If you pull money out of that business or at the end of the year, if there's money left in that account, it's going to be taxable. And so set aside a fourth of anything you pull out to get ready for taxes

on that business. And you may want to get a CPA to help you pull out to get ready for taxes on that business. And you may want to get a CPA to help you make sure you're doing that right. Our scripture today, Proverbs 13, 4, The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Tim Allen said, if you don't decide where you're going, life will decide for you. Pat's with us in South Bend, Indiana. Hi, Pat.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. It's a real pleasure to speak with you today. You too. What's up? Well, I've been contributing to a health care savings account for several years now. I never thought much about that money. I just kind of considered it an emergency fund for medical stuff.

Well, I looked at it a couple weeks ago, and it's up to about $20,000. So the account offers investment options, but I haven't looked at them because it kind of seems opposite to the purpose of an emergency fund, right? It's not an emergency fund, though. You have an emergency fund, don't you? I do. Is it in a good savings account? It's in what used to be called ING Orange. I think it's now Capital One.

Money market. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Yeah, my HSA is 100% invested in mutual funds. Okay, so that was my question. Should I consider investing at least a portion of that money now that there's more in there than I would ever need immediately? Yeah, I guess the exception is do you have an oncoming known medical event? I don't. Not as of now. Kind of blessed with good health so far. I don't spend very much

money on health care. So, you know, there's more money in there than what I see an immediate need for. So, Dave, you fully invest your HSA. Because I won't be touching it. Yeah, I save out enough for the deductible. Yeah. And then invest the rest. That'd be fine, too. You know, if you said, okay, my deductible's 5K,

so I'm going to invest 15 in your case, that'd be a good plan, too. I've got a lot of liquid cash in my particular situation, so the likelihood of me tapping into that hsa is very low unless i just wanted to pay some medical bills with tax-free dollars which is what the hsa saving the health savings account allows you to do um and right now instead what i have as i approach 65 i'll be turning it into a retirement account yeah Yeah, which is very great. You know, so it's just grown tax-free. It's like another 401k for me because I've never used it.

So if you're not using it, invest it. And so Jade's right. If you want to hold out the deductible portion to be super safe, you could do that. Or if you have a known medical event, you say, I'm getting ready to have to come out of 10 grand. Well, don't pop that in mutual funds and then try to take it back out that just leave that liquid but it's a great vehicle if you don't yeah exactly if you don't then let's use it that way matthew's in new york hi matthew welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thanks for having me sure what's up just looking

for looking for your advice on how i should handle my mortgage. I'm 30 years old, recently married, and my wife and I have about $250,000 on our mortgage and about $400,000 in assets, not including the house. So I just don't know how fast I should tackle the mortgage, and it's also at a very low interest rate, 2.5%. What kind of assets? So $100,000 in retirement, and then of the remaining $300,000, about $150,000 in mutual funds, and the remainder are in stocks like Apple, Costco, Tesla, real estate stocks. Okay, so you've got $300,000 in stocks and mutual funds.

Yes, and they all have a high... And you have a $250,000 mortgage. Yes. I'm getting... I hate to tell you this. So the $300,000, it's non-retirement money? No. Non-retirement money, $100,000 additional in retirement money. I would pay off the house.

Even though it's a 2.5% interest and I could get higher returns on REITs and other stable stocks? Matthew, if the house was paid for would you go borrow 300k on it to invest? No I would just. Same thing if you switch it around it's the same thing. Okay just it's tough for me to you know pull that trigger because like you know I've been investing since I was 18 years old. Have you ever lived in a paid off home before? No I lived at home until I was 27. I think that's why it's hard for you. I think that's why it's hard because you've never experienced that. But when you pay this home off, you're going to go, oh my gosh. And you're going to think back on what we just said and you're going to go, man,

that's absolutely true. I would not borrow, now that I'm free, I would not borrow that money to do those investments. Let's walk this out a second okay what's the house worth houses worth about 450 000 and what is your household income now that you're married uh right now it's about my wife and i about 170k and i hope to get up a little higher in the next couple of years okay so you know average 200k over the next few years zero payments in the whole world. And you're how old now? I'm 30. Okay.

And so you understand that by the time you're 35, you're going to have a net worth over a million dollars. Yeah, that's my goal to get there. Well, I mean, that's with what we just outlined. Because if you take your old house payment, you've got that and tremendous ability to cash flow. You start maxing out all 401ks and doing additional investing because you like to invest. You told us that. And if your new wife likes to invest with your fabulous income and absolutely no payments in the world,

see, your most powerful wealth-building tool is not borrowing on your house. Your most powerful wealth- tool is not borrowing on your house. Your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. And when you're not paying it to some stupid butt bank, you can use it to get rich, my friend. And that's what you're in the process of doing. So if I were in your shoes, I would do exactly what Jade told me to do. I would, too. By the end of the day, I would be debt free. And I'd be running around Manhattan like a wild man yelling i would be debt free and i'd be running around manhattan like a wild man yelling

i'm debt free and or queens or the bronx or wherever you are i mean you have to you have to admit though dave that's a jarring that's jarring for people to say hey cash out your stocks pay out your pay off your house it's not as jarring as to the tune of 250 000 i mean that's not it's not as jarring as taking a paid for house and borrowing on it sure invest in stocks of course and it's the same thing i i i agree and i accept that but i you gotta i mean i hey we've always been known at ramsey for being weird we have i just i know that when i said that to that guy he was like what what what what what Hey, we've always been known at Ramsey for being weird. We have. I know that when I said that to that guy, he was like, what, what, what, what, what, what? Yeah, say what?

Yeah, because he's been taught to use the difference in his mortgage rate and investing in apples. He's made good money on that. But you're basically saying I'm going to risk my home with my new bride to play stock market boy. Not doing it, man. Yeah. Not doing it. And all you got to do is reverse engineer these questions. Yeah, that is exactly right.

And they tell you what to do. Sometimes you're like, no, I would never do that. Well, effectively, you are. So it says, if you keep that stock tomorrow, Matthew, instead of paying it off today, it says, if you borrowed on your home $250,000 to put it into the market and play. Well, and he's going to have, I mean, he's going to have. Talk about a high-risk maneuver. And by the way, none of your math that you're doing where you think that um you're making all

this money on your borrowed money you've not entered any mathematics to represent the risk that you're taking that's right well that's what everybody feels to account for yeah it's a perfect you know when you mathematically adjust for risk it takes a lot of the fun away where you thought oh i'm so smart i borrowed money at three or four and i'm investing and i'm making 10 or 11 and you feel smart but you didn't adjust for taxes and you didn't adjust for risk and when you adjust for those two things mathematically it neutralizes the advantages of leverage if you do the math properly um because that you know, all things have risk. That's right. And debt, every time you borrow money, it has risk.

The more debt, the more risk. Sometimes you've got such a small amount of debt that it doesn't feel like you have risk, but a small amount still represents risk. It's just small. And big debt, big risk. I mean, if you borrowed, take a $400,000 property and you borrow $600,000 on it, that 12%,

and now we've got big risk. And so it's because you're over-leveraged, and that's where you're setting yourself up. Matthew, that's a really good question. Congratulations on the new marriage. I'm not sure you're going to do what Jade told you to do, but you should. I just think it's a boss move to live in a paid-for home. Can I just say that? Mathematics aside.

In New York City? Okay. Hello. I'm with say that? Mathematics aside. In New York City. Okay. Hello. I'm with you there. That's amazing. Putting this hour in the books, the Booth Dudes are back together. Austin, Ben, James, Zach, and Andrew. The Booth Dudes did it again.

It's like a band reunion. I'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Step, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click get started.