The Ramsey Show - App - I Have $200K in Student Loans… (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, George Camel, Ramsey personality, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, and recently back from Chicago with all of us. We just finished up doing a smart conference there. A lot of fun, and we appreciate you guys hanging out with us up there. We'll be letting you know when other things are happening around

here that you can join into. Meantime, the phone number here is 888-825-5225 kyle is in boise idaho hi kyle welcome to the ramsey show hey baby george thanks for taking my call sure what's up so uh i've been a fan of this show for about two months my wife got me hooked on the show i've been listening ever since thank you i just just graduated from graduate school um got my degree in nurse anesthesia so i'm a certified nurse anesthetic yeah wonderful feel so you got the new job yet i just got a new job. What are you making, $300,000? I'm starting at $220,000. Yeah, very good. Good for you.

Awesome. Proud of you. So my debt, you know, all I have as far as debt is my student loans, which is actually $220,000. Wow. Which was what it was to go through graduate school to do anesthesia. So my question is, I just, you know, I haven't been good at managing money. You know, fortunately, I'll have a student loan, but I'm like, what do I do?

Like, what's my next step in life? Do I, you know, do I get into a house? Do I, you know, throw everything in my debt to get out of debt? What do I do from here? You're going to keep living how you've been living. What's the most you were making the past few years so again how much am i making how much did you make before this oh so before i started the anesthesia school i was working as a nurse and i was making about 22 bucks an hour yeah so can you keep living as if you're making 22

bucks an hour and throw the rest of it at your debt? Probably. Not probably. That's the hardest part because right now you graduated, you get the big boy job, everyone's going, dude, you're making the big bucks. How are you still driving that beater car? Why don't you have a house yet?

It's not a question of can you, it's a question of will you. Yeah, see, that's where I'm married. I have two young children. And everyone's like, oh, you got all this money. My mother-in-law's like, you can afford that. There's a lot of broke people now speaking in now that you hit the lottery. You know, I spoke to a financial advisor briefly, and she's like, oh, no, you know, start saving for retirement and put money here, put money here.

I'm like, I got, you know, I've almost got a quarter of a million dollars in student loans. Yeah, what does your wife make? So she's, you know, she went to school for interior design. She's staying home now with the kids. But we just have the one income. Oh, okay. All right. So you make $220,000 a year.

And if you were to live on $60,000, you would be debt-free in 18 months, and you have the rest of your life to make a quarter of a million to $300,000 a year with no payments in the world, and you will become very wealthy, and you will have a different financial advisor, and then your relatives will be asking you what to do instead of telling you what to do with money because you will not be a broke version of them. Okay. The other aspect, too, is I'm a 1099 contractor with a hospital,

and that, you know, is throwing me off, too. I'm like, well, now I've got to pay all my own taxes and buy health insurance and all this other stuff. Whoopi, you make $220,000 a year. Just set your taxes aside. Go buy some health insurance. And oh, by the way, you can actually pick up overtime too. Yeah.

You can work on the weekends in the ER, can't you? I can't actually, but I've got, you know, part of my contract gives me 10 weeks of vacation a year, which I could maybe use, use you know to find employment on those weeks off not maybe you're 220 000 in debt absolutely so if you're in my position throw everything at that then so yeah that's what i've been saying for the last five minutes the um okay the uh the way i'm answering this is if i were in your shoes here's what i would be thinking okay as far as i'm concerned here's what i think you did maybe you didn't but i think you said i'm a nurse if i was in anesthesiology as a nurse i could make three

times more than i make now or four times more than I make now or even five times more than I make now I'm going to go get this degree so that I can make a lot more money so that I can have a lot more money at the end of the story and have my a better life for my family during the story is that what you were thinking yeah then for God's sakes go get rid of the debt so you can have a lot more money. Makes sense. Okay. Yeah. And get a different financial advisor.

This one's a goob. And talk to them when you're ready. Right now, you don't need one. You just need Dave telling you, go pay off your debt. You don't need to talk to that one ever again. That one's not got us, you know, stay in $220,000 worth. If you have a financial advisor that says stay in $220,000 worth of student loan debt, run out of their office like your hair is on fire. My God, that's just dumb. But what do you think they're going to say? They want you to invest with them so they can put food on the table.

They're not going to be helping you getting out of debt. That's what you call this show for. Let's just do a little sidebar here for a second. Your financial advisor's job is not to tell you what to do. If they think it is, get you a different one. 85% of the people in the financial world, whether they're insurance or mortgage or brokers or planners or whatever are salespeople. 15% of them are teachers. Now, I made that number up, but it's pretty close. You want one that has the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman. You've got one, Kyle, that has the heart of a salesman.

Do what I do because I have three letters after my name. Let me tell you, I got a whole bunch of freaking letters after my name, and one of them is a Ph.D. in DUMB, which qualifies me infinitely more than them. Plus, I have all the degrees that they've got, most of them anyway. I don't have my CFP, my Certified Financial Pharisee. I don't have that one but yeah but anyway yeah it's not not all of them are pharisees some of them are really good folk but anyway you want a financial person whoever it is in any category to have the heart of a teacher their job is not to tell you what to do their job is to teach you and then you can decide what to do and this stuff is not that

complicated you can do it well people call the show and they say well dave my financial advisor they made me they didn't make you do anything you chose and you didn't speak up and so that's what we're wanting you to do here's get yourself educated you make the decisions. But, Kyle, excellent career choice. Phenomenal. Go make a big pile of money for you and your family, and the first order of business is get this mess cleaned up. The second order of business is start to build some wealth. The third order of business is get your house paid off.

This is what we want you to do for your sake. By the way, we didn't charge you anything for this, and we don't need anything from you. We just love you, and we want you to win. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.

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Nick Murray published this essay in a financial planning periodical that I got a hold of this week. One of my buddies sent it to me in the business. It's very well done, and he's kind of snarky like you, George. That's why I like him. I like just reading this article. Yeah, The Persistent Illusion of Gold. This is good.

For the record, the subtitle of the Wall Street Journal piece is Swings in Stocks and Bonds Have boosted the metals popularity with ordinary investments the statistic at the heart of the article is the percentage of americans who believe gold is the best long-term investment jumped to 26 this year from 15 in 2022 according to a gallup report from may in contrast those preferring stocks dropped to 18 from 24 last year while those favoring bonds climbed to seven percent from four percent this happens quite reliably every time there's a bear market in stocks ordinary investors are always recalibrating their preferences in the rear view mirror my which is wrong my major purpose in this little essay is to parse through the pathology,

which persists in the illusion not just that gold is an efficient inflation hedge, but that it's somehow preferable to holding a broadly diversified portfolio of high-quality common stocks like a mutual fund for the long term. First, let's get our terminology straight. Gold is not, in any accepted sense, an investment at all. That is, it does not produce anything. It just sits there. Gold's sole financial function is as an inflation hedge.

The question then becomes, how's that working out? In August of 71, the price of gold was arbitrarily fixed at $35 an ounce. $35 an ounce. By January of 80, the last time ordinary investors went totally gaga over it, gold had reached $35 an ounce. By January of 80, the last time ordinary investors went totally gaga over it, gold had reached $800 an ounce. Thus, if you bought an ounce of gold nearly 44 years ago at $800, you now own an ounce of gold that is, at this writing, worth $1,965. That's up about two and a half times, having produced in the interim neither dividends nor interest nor anything else. It now becomes my painful duty to disclose to you that the Consumer Price Index in January of 80 stood at 78.

In July of this year, it was 306, just shy of four times, which means that to have kept up with inflation, your $800 gold ounce would have to be valued at $3,200, but it isn't. It's at $1,900, not even even close so not much of an inflation hedge uh wait it gets worse the standard and poor 500 stock index the end of january 80 was 115 uh as of right now it's in the 4490 and uh that's right while the price of gold was rising two and a half times the s&pP 500 went up 39 times, not counting dividends, which at the risk of repeating oneself, gold does not pay. With reinvested dividends and assuming you paid taxes from another source, $800 invested in the S&P in January of 1980 left to compound

would currently be worth $95,000, not $1,900. There's the difference in mutual funds and gold. Mic drop. You can't even argue with that. I mean, that guy just laid it out so beautifully. Boom. In your face. Boom.

So I read somewhere that gold is actually a pretty effective inflation hedge over extremely long periods, perhaps a century or more. Not true either, by the way. If you go back and pull gold since the 1800s, it has an average annual of about 2.2%, where the S&P has an average annual of about 11.8%. How is that an inflation hedge? It's not. It's mythology.

Gold has the mysterious ability to make people look like idiots. Really, it's mysterious. I mean, they make, they, they say things that are just blatantly not factual and believe things that are blatantly not factual because it is a shiny rock. I do not understand. Now I'll tell you what, from 1980 to today, you could put $800 in and you'd have $95,000, or you could put $800 in gold and you'd have $1,900. Ouch.

I don't know how anyone could just be doing the math on that. Well, Dave, I sleep better at night. No, and I got gold in case the economy crashes. No, and I got $1,900 instead of $95,000. I'll help you with your sleep. We've played this game because we've played it out of what happens. Let's see that every company goes to zero. That's what would have to happen for the stock market to go to zero.

Every company goes bankrupt. You have your gold bars. If the stock market had grown from 800 to 1,900 since 1980, the American economy would have collapsed. Yeah. Would have collapsed. Because that would have meant that the typical economy would have collapsed. Yeah. Would have collapsed. Because that would have meant that the typical company is losing money. That the average is that horrible. I mean, for the stock market to be that anemic, the economy would have to be that anemic.

And it would just be, I mean, I don't know if our society would have survived if the stock market had done the same rates of return that gold had done. Wow. Think about that. Yeah, that's wild. I mean, you would have had to make nothing on your, I mean, jeez. Like, yeah. So these people are scared of the stock market.

Hey, if this collapses, I'll have my gold bars, and it'll somehow keep its value in these dark times but they've lost so much money that and it hasn't even kept up with inflation that i'm going i'll be way better off than you just haven't been the tortoise over here investing in the stock market for 30 40 years yeah well it's about as dumb as the guy called me up and said you know i got four hundred thousand dollars i buried it in coffee cans in my backyard. That's an inflation hedge, Dave. No, it's paper money and buried in the ground. This is not going to go well, buddy. We're talking insects.

We're talking dampness. We're talking, well, I sealed the car. I don't care. Well, even if the money is. You buried it in the ground. Do you not know those things rust? And now what happens when you die? Your hillbilly relatives are out there with their metal detectors i would make that a reality show i'd watch that on hgtv

that's about as dumb wow you know and your forty thousand dollars forty years later having sit in the ground ain't worth forty thousand dollars four hundred thousand oh my gosh so i told him you're losing forty thousand dollars a year it's been 10 years i said you've lost you you know you've lost four hundred thousand dollars what do you mean i didn't i don't i didn't lose it i know where it is no you lost what you could have made another four hundred thousand dollars in 10 years on this millions and meanwhile it's sitting back there doing absolutely nothing your 800 could have become 95 but you put it in gold and it became 95 000 and you put it in gold it became 1900 nick you did a good job with this article i don't know you personally i hope we get to meet someday

but your analysis and your critical thinking skills are dead on um yeah that it is not proper to say that gold or any other commodity is an investment. It is a speculation, but it's not an investment. Reminds me of crypto. Investments have an income that they produce. They have something going along with them. Even real estate, when you buy it and it doesn't have an income associated with it, all you're looking for is the increase in value. Now you're speculating rather than investing.

You know, speculators lose money. Investors make money. All you're looking for is the increase in value. Now you're speculating rather than investing. You know, speculators lose money. Investors make money. Well, over the years as you've been doing this, Dave, most people are drawn to this out of fear. Or greed. Which is usually not a great reason to do anything financially, fear or greed. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's not. I mean, right after I get afraid, I get stupid because I'm in freak out mode and my critical thinking skills shut down.

I'm in the middle of a trauma experience. Well, and usually I saw a headline of some guy yelling at them, go buy gold. It's all coming down, guys. Go buy gold and silver. You'll be okay. And it doesn't work out like that. And if all goes down, we're not going to be looking for gold. I'm not going to be looking to trade Dave Ramsey for gold.

I need food, bullets, shelter, water, ammo. Yep. Bullets and ammo, both. Both of those. Well, Dave. You're loading up over here, George. I'm going to Dave's compound if it all goes down. So I'm okay.

You guys fend for yourselves. Yeah. So Nick Murray that did this essay is quoting from the august 7th uh online edition of the wall street journal the article that he was uh picking apart was titled when markets get scary mom and pop buy gold uh so not mom and pop that want to be wealthy if you want to build wealth typically what we find is people buy real estate and they buy mutual funds and they pay cash for their real estate no debt these are the typical paths that we find among millionaires we don't find millionaires to say i got rich buying gold and now we know why because 800 in 1980 turned into 1900 today and what is, 50 years or 40 years later, 45 years later?

Wow. In 45 years, you doubled your money barely. Well, don't dance in the street over that. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks podcast. Fabulously popular along with his blasting off new YouTube channel, George Campbell with a K. Look it up. He's my co-host today. George is also going to be working with the EveryDollar team and hosting a free live virtual training on budgeting tomorrow, September 19th at 1130 in the morning Central Time.

George, this is going to be good. I love it. And what I love to do is show people what the budget can do for you, how it can create that margin so that you can hit those goals, get out of debt. And we're going to walk you through it using our tool, and it's going to be a good time. So join us, everydollar.com slash budgeting to sign up. It's completely free. Yeah, here's the deal. John Maxwell says that a budget is people telling their money what to do

instead of wondering where it went. Give every dollar a name is what we say. Every dollar an assignment. That's how we named the world's best budgeting app, Every Dollar. It's completely free for this training it's a zoom turn or not a zoom training it's a webinar that george is doing free live virtual training george camel 11 30 a.m september 19th tomorrow for most of you check it out every dollar.com slash budgeting we'll be doing a few more of these too so be watching

that particular site and it'll tell you what's going on dennis and shelby are in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage hey guys welcome thank you thank you where you guys from washington state all right welcome tacoma tacoma tacoma good welcome to nashville how much debt have you paid 325 000 all right and how long did that take seven years seven years good and your range Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid? $325,000. All right. And how long did that take? Seven years.

Seven years. Good. And your range of income during that time? Starting at $100,000 together, and then it dropped because of COVID to about $75,000. It has come back up to about $85,000. But now we're both retired. Oh, wow. Very good.

What were your careers? I work with an armored car company. Okay. Yeah. She counts about 300,000 a day. Okay. All right. I have been driving. What was your career before you retired? My career before I retired was a post office. Worked at post office. Oh great. Okay. Very cool. Good for y'all. So 3 325 over seven years i'm guessing this is the house that's right you paid off your house and a car weird people i love it completely 100 percent dead that's right completely how long have y'all been married seven years oh wow okay so seven years ago is when this started so we get married married, we go, okay, knocking out the car and knocking out the house.

Tell us the story. What happened? I was debt free prior to this, but when I met my wife, I said, are you willing to go to Financial Peace University? And she said. Absolutely. So we both went and she got on board with me. And two months after we were married, I said, why don't we see if we can pay off your credit

card? She said. I said, why don't we see if we can pay off your credit card? She said. I said, okay. And so in her little savings account of $5, you got to start somewhere, right? $5. And I said, if we pay off your credit card, I want you to make sure to put the interest that you would have been sending to them in the bank and watch it grow. So after about two months months she saw it grow and then we did the same thing with her car ah very good you're a great coach you got her excited

and motivated about this not only that but she excited me because every month she says we got a bill let's get it paid so we just paid it well and the fact that you were so willing shelby is amazing yeah you know honestly i wish i had done this in my 20s it's just so relieving yeah now you don't have a payment in the world anything how does that feel it's amazing now we can give more too and yes giving is just become such a joy yeah was this a carrot you dangled to say hey we're going to retire once the house is paid off? How did that work? Basically, my goal was to make sure the house was paid off before I retired. And we got that done in April. Wow.

And then you just call it. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. Well done. Very well done. All right. Now that you have done it, house and everything.

Okay. How old are y'all? 65. And I'm 69. Okay. And so you started this at 62 and 58 yes okay so any of you listening is it too late dave nope not too late dennis and shelby did it and they got a really bright future financially i mean you got you can do anything you want to do now uh so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Go ahead. Just use the snowball effect is the first thing that is the best way.

You know, all the tools that you taught us, the envelopes, staying at home, not eating out, just need versus want, everything. Eating out is the most detrimental thing you can do to your budget, in estimation yeah we don't eat out and this trip has been horrible because we've had to eat out every day oh darn it's not her cooking well i'll go along with that okay i'm going home to dinner tonight and it'll be sharing cooking so So there you go. So what's the house worth? Oh, what is our house worth? Yeah. Pushing $850,000. Wow.

So you guys are probably with investments and everything, millionaires then. Yes, we are. Baby steps millionaires. That's right. Way to go. You got it. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Pam?

Seven years. I like it. What a great plan, you guys. What a great plan. Who was cheering you on as you're doing all this i was cheering her on she was cheering me on i don't know that we had anybody else that's really on board you know part of the family or anything so yeah uh actually listening to your show and and you guys are cheering us on every day wow the surprising thing is that we told

everybody what you taught us. Wow. Everybody that would listen. Wow. And what did they say? They were, you know, they were always a little skeptical, but we're trying to get our kids to do it, everything. Yeah. They'll get on board eventually.

I like it. Yeah. Good for you guys. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. And you'll be there. I just praise God for the opportunity. Way to go, guys. We're proud of you. There you opportunity. Way to go, guys. We're proud of you.

Way to go, hero. Millionaires and retired seven years after being married in your 60s, paid for a house and everything. This is what it's about. Well done. You have set yourself up

to enjoy this. Well done. Thank you. We've got the Live and Give box for you to celebrate you being here. That's the Baby Steps Millionaires book, the Total Money Makeover book, and a Financial Peace University membership. You can use those or give them away.

Your choice, whatever you want to do. Thank you. For you to live or you to give. Whatever you want to do. Thank you. People buy that box all the time just for that, to use some of it and give some of it. So, very cool. Congratulations, you two.

Thank you. Woo-hoo-hoo! I love it. i love it i love it dennis and shelby tacoma washington 325 000 paid off house and everything they did that in seven years seven years after they got married in their 60s at 58 uh plus seven is where we are today. $100,000 down to $75,000 down to $85,000 after retirement, setting pretty for the rest of their lives. Excellent, excellent work. All right, Dennis and Shelby, Tacoma, Washington, count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Love it! way to go you guys way to go man you know we get the uh 22 year olds in here but getting the 65 and 67 year old in here with a paid for house doing it in the last seven years is very impressive that's just as rewarding it's such a great reminder it's not one we see that often but it's just proof it can be done yeah people in their 40s 50s 60s they went i dave i made my mistakes it's too late for me but maybe my kids can do better and they went well it's not too late they're like hold my beer no i got this

we can do it retire with dignity if we just sacrifice for seven years and we're going to have a great next 20 30 years of of retirement? I'll take that. Yeah. Well, they set up this next chapter of their lives from 58 on, from 62 on. You say 69 or 67. I got confused. But either way. Yep, 69. Yeah.

So, yeah, 62 and 58 starting point. Wow. And you go, okay, we're going to lean into this. Both of them are in agreement. And you could just see there they are in sync well you guys are listening and not watching you didn't see it but you can see in their body language that they're in sync they're they're they're in agreement oh it's such a joy and peace i don't know there's been a study done but i wonder if you did a study on those who retire with no debt do they live longer do they have a higher quality of life? My gut says

yes. When you see that kind of piece. Now, stress registers in your body. I mean, you know, financial stress, it has to have a medical effect. And just their optimism. Yeah. They're hopeful. I've never seen the study, but maybe

we ought to commission one. There's an idea. There we go. Be like the millionaire study. Make everybody mad. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 14, 15. The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps. Jack Canfield said, I believe that people make their own luck by great preparation and good strategy. Austin is in Charleston, West Virginia.

Hi, Austin. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure. Recently, my father passed away and he left me $400,000. And I don't know what in the world to do with it. I don't want to bury it in the backyard and wait for inflation, you know?

I hear you. I'm sorry. What happened to him? It was an uncurable illness. I'm sorry. How old was he? In his 50s. My goodness.

How old are you? I'm 29. Okay right how long ago was this uh 11 months okay wow 400 grand um well we always follow a process around here because we truly i have proven that it's the shortest right way to become wealthy. The process we use is called the baby steps. And so we would take the $400,000 and begin to work up through those. What personal debts do you have, not counting your house? No debts. Me and my wife both have no student debts. We both own our vehicles. Do you own a home? Yes, we own a home.

Does it have a mortgage? We do. $220,000 left on the mortgage. But this is where I'm kind of in a pickle with maybe that decision of paying it towards the house. We have kind of a crazy rate for a mortgage and it's 2.3 percent and I'm curious or maybe you're the thought of would that money be better invested and make more money than the money I would lose on paying it down on the house well the number when we studied 10,000 millionaires,

the number of them that borrowed on their home in order to invest the money and make the spread in order to become wealthy, the number of them that did that was well less than 5%. 95% did not follow that path. That's real millionaires, not somebody with a theory on tiktok yeah um and uh between myself um i make two hundred thousand dollars a year sitting at home coding and my wife is a pharmacist, but she's currently being a stay-at-home mom with our newborn. So I know there's money to come down the line.

So, you know. I'm sorry, what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, I know we're not going to be made. We have the potential to make a lot of money whenever she starts working. Oh, I see. I see. So your income, when she re-engages her career, your income is going to be crazy.

Yeah, I got you. Yeah. It's great now. It's great now, but it'll be crazy then. Yeah. So what would Dave and Sharon Ramsey do? What would George and Whitney Camel do? We would pay off your house today.

We would invest the house payment plus $1,000 a month in a separate mutual fund just so you can see how fast paid off house becomes a million dollars. I did that when I paid mine off. I just wanted to see how quick it happened. It was blindingly fast. I took my old house payment and added a little bit to it and rounded it up, and it was like $2,500 or something. How fast that money alone became a house payment became a million dollars

was crazy. And then, of course, in addition to that, you got another $180,000 or so that you can invest, and with no house payment at all, and your house payment plus some being invested, dude, you're going to be in great shape. The truth is the spread is just not worth an ounce of your brain calorie. You have an incredible income.

You're about to be completely debt-free. If you even invest 20%, 25% of your income for the rest of your life, you're going to be multi, multi, multimillionaires. Yeah. With freedom in the meantime, with no mortgage payment. So what's your house worth um since we purchased it um it is now worth three hundred and thirty thousand dollars okay all right and and so basically you got four hundred thousand dollars um with a paid for house and with a170,000, $180,000 in the account, okay? And you're 29. So at 36, that'll be worth $800.

At 43, that'll be worth $1.6. This is if you add nothing to it. At 50, it'll be worth $3.2. At 57, it'll be worth $6.4. And at 64, it'll be worth $124 and at 64 it'll be worth 12.8 million dollars that's what 400 000 will be worth it'll double about every seven years if it's invested making around 10 or so and you've got it in real estate you've got it in good mutual funds that's where you should be so if you don't do anything right after this, as long as you avoid debt and not even invest more, you're going to end up with $10 million in retirement. Jeez.

Yeah. That's how smart this is. And during all of that, you have zero financial stress. Yeah. That's what, you know, even before getting this money, you know, my wife and I were following your steps, and, you know, we started with building that emergency fund. Once that was done, starting.

Oh, you're on the track then, yeah. Yeah, so both of us have Roth IRA iras and 401ks and our emergency fund is beautiful and i didn't even count that i didn't know you had that but everything is going great and with our new with our new son that's another thing um should i do anything with that money for my son. You are. You're building wealth. Your dad did. Your dad did something for his son. He left him 400 grand. That's very true.

It doesn't have to be in your name. I hate to go back to advisors, but, you know, they always say start like a college fund, the 529. Yeah, that's fine. But nowadays, well, nowadays college is getting more expensive, and nowadays you don't need a college degree to actually make money. Yeah, you didn't in your world. But I would have some money set aside for, I would start putting some money into a 529.

You don't have to overfund it because you're going to have such a pile of money you're going to be able to just write a check when they go to school. But having some of it in a 529 is not a bad thing. And education is not a bad thing. Knowledge is a good thing. It's when you do it, knowledge in a stupid way that it's a bad thing. When you pay for the famous school or you pay for a useless degree, that's or you think a degree is what makes you successful knowledge is what makes you successful knowledge is the currency and that's what we're looking for yeah these kids are going to school debt-free and if you have a paid for house and you're making 200 plus they're gonna be okay you could cash flow the difference if they don't have enough in their

college account and so that's the value of following these principles you're not even worried if your wife wants to stay at home forever, you don't even blink. You go, man, we're going to have a payment. Go for it. But, I mean, if she's making, if you guys are making $350,000 and you continue to invest and you do what we just talked about and you stay out of debt and you live reasonably and generously, you should have between $10 and $20 million at 65 years old. I mean, there's no reason you shouldn't have.

Yeah, the trick is not getting distracted. And if I'm half wrong, shut up. Still a good life. Oh, my gosh. Really? And, you know, we will credit your dad with a lot of that because that $400,000 mathematical jumpstart, yeah, you will be one of the few millionaires

that became a millionaire because of inheritance. Yeah. You're probably almost there now. uh but yeah that that's okay i don't care where the money came from i care how you use it and what your next steps are that's the whole thing the hardest part is ignoring all of his friends family advisors who are going to tell him to do something insane and stay off social media and tiktok yeah i mean we, we're on TikTok just because we got disgusted with how bad it is over there. I'm trying to displace the filth. And we want to put something good out there.

Yeah, George is displacing the toxicity, the nuclear waste. I'm only one man, but I'm a lot of man, Dave. That's what I'm told. You are a serious TikToker. Dave couldn't even hold a straight face while I said I'm a lot of man. I'm just thinking about anybody on TikTok saying that. That's what I'm thinking about. That's fair. It's hard to call yourself a TikToker and also say I'm a lot of man. I'm just thinking I'm thinking about anybody on TikTok saying that. That's what I'm thinking about. That's fair. It's hard to call yourself a TikToker and also

say I'm a lot of man. Yeah, those things don't go in the same sentence. I'm just saying. There's so many places I can go. That's one way to end a show. Just not going to. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace,

Christ Jesus. Hey, it's George Camel. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click on 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.