The Ramsey Show - App - I Lost Everything Due to a Toxic Relationship (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

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Welcome 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality bestselling author, is my co-host today as we take your questions about your life and about your money.

Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Wayne is in San Antonio. Hi, Wayne. Welcome to the in San Antonio. Hi, Wayne. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Hello, John.

How's it going, man? Going well. What's up? How can we help? Well, question. We've got a 12-year-old contracting business here in Central Texas, and I'm 58 years old. And due to the past year and a half with COVID,

and then we had five very extremely difficult talent-stretching projects just right in a row. And I'm tired, ready to give up the fight. My two problems that we're facing is that, one, my business isn't sellable uh without me and the the second is that our son a 22 year old wants the business but i'm just not seeing the tools in his toolbox right now you know and my plan is is to in the next four years I want to start stepping out. We'll do mentoring and teaching and guiding as needed. And then, you know, eight years, boy, I'd kind of like to be gone out of here.

But like I said, I'm just not seeing the tools in the toolbox for our son yet. And I'm tired so you're not you're in my understanding you say that you have eight years to develop him in your mind yeah so he would be 30 he would be and you'd be 66 yep and that would be it'd be a gradual phasing between now and then with the final handoff of the baton at that point. Okay. Yeah, somewhere in that 66 to 70, somewhere in there. Okay. Well, we do know he has one major tool, desire.

He does. Okay. And you can work a lot with desire. As you know, trying to light wet wood is hard. Yes, it is. What tools do you think he's lacking? He doesn't have the business acumen. He's 22.

He is. He doesn't even have hygiene acumen at 22. He doesn't have dating acumen. He doesn't have hairdo acumen. He doesn't have a lot ofumen at 22. He doesn't have dating acumen. He doesn't have hairdo acumen. He doesn't have a lot of acumens. He can't drive probably, right? Can I tell you, I hear two different problems here. I hear one, you're looking at a 22-year-old,

and it's hard for us to remember, all of us, being 22. And the difference between 22-year-old 30 year old john is is it i mean that's those are two completely different humans thankfully and it sounds like you're gonna have to mentor you're gonna be tired mentoring and teaching your son and you're gonna have to be letting go i'm watching dave do this here and it's just something to behold watching somebody transition their business while the car is still driving down the road but the second thing is you mentioned this several times you're tired and turning the turning looking down a decade from now and and worrying about that problem right this minute when you've just gone back to back to back to back to back on some major problems

man you're you're catastrophizing a situation that I don't think has to be catastrophized because your body's cooked right now. And is there some ways you can get yourself some peace now to be intentional about a break, about some rest, about some rejuvenation, some redeveloping your mission, and then get back in the game and then begin a decade-long training of your son? It's the Lombardi quote, fatigue makes cowards of us all. Right. You sound exhausted, man. It is. It's been a long road.

Okay, so here's the thing. There's only one thing from your son's perspective that would absolutely, there's two things, that would absolutely disqualify him from this process. Okay? And I don't think you're saying either one of those things, but I'll just put them out there. Number one, he's a person lacking in character. He's a little twerp, and he's not going to get any better.

He has no integrity. He's a jerk. Nobody wants to be around him. Nobody wants to mess with him. I don't either. That's not what you said. That's not the like tool, okay? The second thing is if you honestly believe he does not simply have enough intelligence to learn.

And I don't think you're saying that. I think what you're whining about, and it's a fair whine, by the way, is the distance between where you are and where you've got to get to, and that eight years is going to require a lot of dadgum work, and you're tired. But I think he can get there. I didn't hear anything disqualifying him, because whatever tools he needs, business acumen, you can be taught in eight freaking years. If you have business acumen, you can teach someone business acumen.

That's a medical degree, right? You can teach him. Okay. I think you've got an identity challenge here because I think you have worked real, real hard to build a construction company in Central Texas, and now you are the guy that some of the people in your community go to for big projects. And you've got a great identity, and the idea of trying to land that plane where you're not a pilot anymore, that gets in your heart, right? So I think you can do it. I know you can. And I think he can do it, too.

I didn't hear any disqualifiers in here yet. Now, I would put on the table, you know, you need some clarity if you're going to engage in this process. I would put on the table, and I've done this with the Ramsey children that work here, right? And even my daughter's husband, Winston, works here, right? Runs all of our real estate. You don't get a pass because of your name. As a matter of fact, you have to bring it almost double just to be respected because of your name. And so, you know, I'm going to line up and teach you this stuff and hand you this thing,

but your part in it is you've got to bring it. You've got to be game on. You've got to be super responsible. You've got to be super responsible. You've got to be super sensitive. You've got to be thinking about every word that comes out of your mouth because everybody is watching you. And to be respected, you're going to have to do 2X of everything. And he's got to say, I'm going to bite on that apple.

I'm doing it. So like Rachel selling books at the back table at a seminar at 14 years old. That's the speech she got. You don't get to kick back, put your feet up, play Pokemon or something back here in the back. You get your butt up to the table, belly up, and you sell books, take money, and smile. And tell those people you love them that are walking up because you do. And by God, you don't do that, me and you are you're gonna have a problem later you got to bring it to x that's teaching business acumen and customer service and and respect and i'd love you to be a dad who recognizes the blessing that for the next

eight years you're gonna have breakfast every morning i mean once a week with your son every every week for the next eight years i was in a two-hour strategy session with my son and his top leadership team this morning, and we got to play business together. How cool is that? It was so freaking fun. What a gift that is. Someday I'm going to miss that. Yeah, you are.

It was really fun. This is the Ramsey Show. You've got a lot on your plate, a job, your home, your marriage, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. That's chministries.org. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

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Get the best possible deal. All right, today's question comes from Cindy in Virginia. Cindy writes, as a naive widow, I fell in love with a man that took over my finances. Over the past six years, I've lost my home, my car, my boat, and my bank account. He's from Canada, and I'm his fourth victim. I've been going to therapy, speaking with domestic violence groups, but I've lost the support of family and friends. How do I get out of this mess? Well, there's a couple of things here. Number one, the way you pose this

question distances you from what happened. And so as a naive widow, I fell in love with a man that took over my finances. I would prefer you to reframe that and say, I fell in love with a man who robbed me. You've got to take ownership of this, of the situation you are in. If you continue to cast yourself at sea with no boat, no life raft, no ability to swim, you're never going to be able to wrap your head around walking on dry land and walking towards solutions here. So I want you to take ownership. You fell in love with the guy, you gave him all of your finances and he robbed you. And you've got to grieve the fact that you take ownership. You fell in love with a guy. You gave him all of your finances, and he robbed you. And you've got to grieve the fact that you did that.

You participated in this, and then somebody took something big from you. And going to therapy, great. Going to domestic violence. Including your confidence. Yeah. He took your ability to trust yourself. He stole everything from you, right? But you did play a role in that.

And then if you have lost the support of family and friends, then you need to be about finding new community. I'd want to know why you lost family and friends. And we need to have that conversation. Nothing in this email explains why. That's right. My guess is you play a part in that, too. If the people who love you and are around you all of a sudden abandon you, I always want to. Well, they came up and said, this guy's a freaking crook. And you kept playing crook and you you lost everything right and then they said we

told you not to do that and then you got upset and you were mad at them because they told you and they had to create boundaries to protect themselves right that's that's a guess yeah right so i want you to call your family write them a letter tell them i'm sorry i'm heartbroken i miss you i'd love to repair the relationship. And then you've got to be about finding other people because if they've left, you've still got to have people in your life. But this whole thing, in my eyes, Dave, starts with ownership.

Taking ownership of where you are, what happened, and your role in getting help, healthy, and healing next. There is, it's not victim shaming. No. To say that when I am a victim, that there's at least some part that I played in that. Right. Okay. There's an old book called Con Man or Saint that was out.

It's about a guy that went to jail for running a pyramid scheme down in Florida and ripping all these people off. I read the book when I was like 18 years old. It was going around the motivational movement at the time. He had come out of jail. He was speaking and trying to say he was a saint. I don't really think he was, honestly. But it's ancient. I mean, it's 40 years ago.

But the only thing I remember from the book was the title. And I don't remember the guy's name. But he said it's very difficult to con people unless they are greedy because they are trying to get something for nothing and then you can set them up gotcha and uh so they play a part in it when they get conned in other words okay and so and i liken it back to when I lost everything and went bankrupt. Okay? So what happened was the bank got sold to another bank because the laws changed allowing that.

And suddenly the banker that I was working with that I had trusted and done all of my deals with and I had never been late on a payment got fired. And some guy in another city looks down and says, there's a kid 26 years old, owes us millions of dollars. In Tennessee, we need to limit this relationship, which is banker talk, for screw him and run him out of business. So the mean old banks took Dave out. The IRS changed the laws, and Ronald Reagan changed the IRS laws

and screwed up the S&L business about that time. Ronald Reagan's fault that the S&L business went down. I'm a Ronald Reagan fan, but he screwed that business up bad put basically put him out of business what's snl business it was savings and loans savings loan okay yeah yeah okay and so uh that and the changes in the depreciation schedules at that time that reagan did to cause the economy to recover in his mind, but he did it unilaterally and back before, and he screwed up real estate values instantaneously. And so all of these outside variables that I had no control over came crashing in on a 26-year-old kid,

and the banks called our notes, and that precipitated over two and a half years us losing everything we own. Very easy. And I did for a while sit around and whined and blamed everybody else. It's Ronald Reagan's fault. It's the IRS's fault. It's the banker's fault. And all three did horrendous things that affected me negatively.

But guess what? It wouldn't have affected me if I hadn't signed up for a trip that I got to take. Gotcha. That house of cards I built was vulnerable. That business model I built, borrowing up to my eyeballs, was vulnerable. And I didn't know it. I didn't understand it. But it doesn't matter.

You don't get a pass on the law of gravity just because you don't understand it. Jump off a building, it kicks in either way. Gotcha. And so I reached a point that I was sitting and whining, and a friend of mine said what you just now said. He said, you know, you can whine about this the rest of your life, and you'll just be that guy. Or you can take all these lemons and make some lemonade, because guess what? You signed up for a trip you got to take. You got the crap beat out of you, but you went in the ring with people, and they beat the the snot out of you you didn't have to go in the ring gotcha and i went my fault yeah

so i quit saying the banks put me out of business i started saying i signed up for a trip i got to take and it changed everything in my heart it it gives you it it's like being in the ocean and you suddenly find yourself out and it's too deep and you're kicking your legs, kicking your legs, you're kicking your legs, and then there's that moment when your feet finally touch the sand. And you just can go, okay, I'm here. And if this woman, if Cindy from Virginia was here,

I would hug her and weep with her. This guy stole everything. This guy's a scumbag. Well, these bankers were scumbags that I dealt with. And they paid for it because I beat on them for the last 30 years on the radio. But you got a widow here who somebody said, I love you.

It was a con man. And she was all in. She was vulnerable. And then she gave her checkbook to him. And then she gave her boat keys to him. And then when he misbehaved, she didn't act out on it. She let it go. And something felt bad and her family told her and her friends told her. She did it anyway. She kept going.

She kept going. So the person that she feels most violated here is probably Cindy. Yeah. Right? That's exactly what I was talking about. Because she's looking in the mirror and going, oh, I don't trust Cindy. Because I had to look in the mirror, and the biggest problem I had was this arrogant, cocky young guy now suddenly had no confidence.

Yeah. I don't know. Those are uncharted waters for most of us. I had never been there. Right? I had never been where I didn't know all the answers. Yeah. I don't know. Those are uncharted waters for most of us. I had never been there. Right. I had never been where I didn't know all the answers. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Oh, man. But it's. So Cindy was. The point is, that's where healing begins. Exactly. Exactly. Healing begins when you take responsibility, not for the whole thing and not inappropriately

and saying, this guy really wasn't a con man. I'm just an idiot. No, that's not what we're saying, this guy really wasn't a con man. I'm just an idiot. No, that's not what we're saying at all. But you say, I'm going to take ownership of my part in this because I did something that left me open to this to some degree. Yeah. My part in it that I'm not a victim. Now, there's part of it you are a victim. A victim.

But there's part of it you take your own. The only thing you can control is your part. That's it. And then once you take that, that's where healing starts. It's powerful. Take those lemonades, baby. Make some lemon. We're with you, Cindy.

Take those lemons. Make some lemonades. I'll say it backwards. There you go. Oh, well. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you. in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage steven and tristan are with us hey guys how are you good how are you doing good better than we deserve. Where do you all live? St. Louis, Missouri.

Oh, good for you. That's fun. Welcome to Nashville and all the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? $162,746. Good for you. And how long did that take? Eight and a half years. All right. Very good. And your range of income during that time?

Between $35,000 to $70,000. Nice jump. What do you all do for a living? I'm a teacher. And I just got a job as a teacher also. All right. A couple of teachers. What do you all teach?

I teach personal finance, business, those things. I love this guy. I love this guy. And I'm going gonna teach marketing all right too great i love it so both of you in high school then huh yes all right you're brave good for you good for you 163 000 over eight and a half years uh what kind of debt was 163 000 uh about 110 000 of it was a house oh you paid off your house? We sold the house. Okay, wait, wait, wait.

So you still have a mortgage? We're renting right now because we're saving up for a down payment. All right, that's good. Yep. That's cool. About went crazy, but that's good. Well, we sold it because we were moving. Okay.

All right. About $30,000 of it was her student loans. Well done. And then the rest of it was a lot of stupid. We had a car that we finished paying off and those things. Okay, cool. Wow. Good for you guys. So you've been on quite a journey here for eight and a half years. There's a lot to this story. What got you started on this? Well, we were entrepreneurs at the time. And a friend of mine we had an eight and a half power trip down to a a friend's bachelor party and he said hey you should listen to this dave

ramsay guy and he stuck it in and for the trip down and the trip back we listened to the entire fpu you had no idea i had no idea this casual comment was going to turn into a trapped yep force fed oh my gosh yep so we got home, and I went and told her about it. We had just bought a house a month before. Oh, my gosh. Of course, no money down. Borrow the down payment. Borrow everything for it.

And I was like, oh, a month ago, this would have been good information to know. So he gets force fed with a fire hose for eight hours, and he comes in and tries to distill that to one conversation. I got a feeling this didn't go well. You answer this. Come on, Tristan. Come on, Tristan. Tell the truth.

Tell the truth. At first, I was kind of like, I don't know, because I kind of grew up with, you know, you take out a car loan, and you make the payments, and whatever. Yep. And then life got real crazy okay in there so okay well and no wife wants to hear after he comes back from a bachelor party honey we gotta talk right nobody wants that conversation right what are we talking about this is a serious conversation oh god oh no oh no yeah okay wow well very cool very cool that's a long time to persevere through this whole thing twenty thousand dollars a year for eight and a half years and then eventually make the decision to sell that house

as a part of it what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Never give up. So even if you do bad one month or one year, jump right back on board. So, Dave, part of our story is we're entrepreneurs, and our business failed miserably. So that's why the income was so low at one time. She was working for free for about a year and a half, and then I took income outside the business, and then we finally decided to throw in the towel. And we were living in Florida at the time. And we moved back home to Missouri. And that's kind of what got us kick-started.

The heartbreak. Yeah. Part of our story is your dream turns into a nightmare. Absolutely. And that puts that knot in your throat for the rest of your life. I'm about to cry with you. I'm a sympathy crier, but I also went through the exact same thing. I cried at Applebee's commercials. But, yeah, the dream turns into a nightmare.

And something about that nightmare, you've chosen to spend the rest of your life working with high school kids, so this never happens to them again. What put you on that path? Absolutely. You know, it was funny. It was July 18th before school started, and I was looking for a job, and a job back home called me. And he interviewed me via Skype, hired me, said, hey, you're going to teach personal finance and business. And I was like, okay.

That was what my degree was in. And then that school, I actually got them to buy your curriculum. Touchdown. Yep. So, and I've been teaching your principles ever since. Wow. I had a good conversation with a parent last year. She goes, you know, you're telling my kid he shouldn't take out any car loans and that stuff and he's coming home and telling me that i did it wrong i said i just want

you to have the conversation i said you can take with it how you want i didn't tell your kid to come home and tell you you were stupid exactly i just said you were i'll give you a phone number to a couple of guys that'll tell you you're stupid wow we do it for a living oh that's one of my favorite parts of this job if not the favorite is when i see folks who are looking in a pile of ash and they grab each other's hand and they stand up and they say no more and they take a tiny step and a little step and another step and then they've got i see your beautiful kids over there and you say if not for us but for them and suddenly every single thing looks different y'all done this for the better part of a decade right and it's still as fresh in your

throats as it was 10 years ago right absolutely this is what heroes look like right here yeah right in front of me it's incredible work y'all have done she told you the secret folks persevere never quit even when you screw up even when you fall off the wagon, you crawl back on, and you go again. Never quit. Never quit. Never quit. That's such an honor to see you. That's the hardest part.

That's why you are such heroes. Yeah. Very, very well done. Good job. And so you brought the kiddos with you. What are their names and ages? Let's bring them up into the debt-free screen. So our oldest is Tenley.

She's 10. Mm-hmm. And then we have Riker, who is 7. Mm-hmm. I almost said 6. He got mad at me. He had a birthday last month. And then we have Ashton, who is 4.

And then Kipton is 3. All right. Good looking, guys. Way to go. So they've been practicing their debt-free scream? They have been. They know what all this means? Absolutely.

All right. They look ready to me. They look like debt-free screamers professionals. Very good. We've got a copy of The Legacy Journey for you. That's the next stage in your story, the next chapter in your story, where you completely change your family tree. You're in the process of doing that in so many ways.

With the lessons you've learned, the things you've been through, the pain you've endured, it all gets redeemed. It all gets redeemed and used for you to have a dream, and we're looking at them right here. Life is good. Well done, you guys. Well done. Also, a copy of the Total Money Makeover, and you know somebody that needs that, like you got force-fed those CDs in that car that time.

That's the worst bachelor party ever. That's the worst trip. Yeah, that's the... So, Dave, every year I'm an FBLA-sponsored, so I give all my seniors a copy of your Total Money Makeover book. Oh, wow. As a graduation present. Well, thank you thank you my goodness gracious you guys are incredible thank you so much wow all right steven and tristan tenley reicher ashton and kipton it's 163 000 paid off in eight and a

half years making 35 to 70 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream. Alright, guys. You ready? 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! Even the little guy. He's in, baby. I'm about to turn my microphone off. I'm going to start crying just sitting here. They're all in. I love it. What a wonderful picture. That is so fabulous. I'm not crying. You're sitting here. They're all in. I love it. What a wonderful picture.

That is so fabulous. I'm not crying. You're crying, Dave. That's right. And quit pinching me. And Dad's teaching Financial Peace University. That's what... Our foundations of personal finance in high school.

I mean, this is... What redemption looks like, man. By God, this is going to change. And that's what happens. That's a complete and thorough transformation. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. The good news about somebody like that is, I don't know, maybe you were listening and you didn't think you could do it. What you might not think you can do is eight and a half years.

$35,000. That's a long time. But I think you can. And Stephen and Tristan know you can. No whining, boys and girls. This is grown-up stuff. Go get it. Step up.

Get them. Get them. This is The Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Teddy is with us in New York City. Hi, Teddy. How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I just found out about you and your show a few weeks ago, and I'm hooked. I've been binging a bunch of your videos online, and my question is, as a college student, how do I start investing? I hear you talking about these mutual funds that increase at about an average of 12% a year, so I'd love to get into something like that because I want to start investing. Good for you. So how old are you? So I'm 22. Good for you. So how old are you? So I'm 22. Good for you. What are you studying?

Mechanical engineering. Oh, very good degree. When will you graduate? Yeah. I'll graduate at the end of this year and potentially may be doing an extra year for grad school. Still haven't figured that out. I don't want to have to take out, you know, to spend a little more money to go to school. I just want to, you know, hit the floor running and get a job. Okay, excellent. Good for you. What advantage does the master's in mechanical give you over

the bachelor's? So, to my knowledge, it gives more specialization to the area of mechanical engineering that you want to go into, and obviously a little bit of a pay raise. Okay. And what's your specialization you're aiming at? I have a few. I haven't narrowed that down yet. I think you typically figure that out in senior year,

because that's when you take, like, your technical electives. I'm looking into more, like, the thermal sciences or potentially mechatronics, so, like, robotics. Yeah, cool. So you're going to graduate in December. Did I understand that right? No, it's at the end of May. Oh, the end of the academic year. Oh, I see.

So a year from now. Okay. Yeah. All right, good. So you have a whole year left. Good. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Hmm. And how much money do you have to invest? Well, I have about $45,000 saved. And about $7,000 to $8,000 of that is going to pay for my rent with utilities for this coming year because I go to a state school, but it's not near my house. So I have to rent somewhere else. So I estimate by the end of next year, I would have saved about $43,000. Okay. All right.

Well, 12% on $40,000 is five grand. Okay. And $5,000 is nice. If you send it to me I'll take it That's alright But it's not going to change your life The difference in $40,000 in May or $45,000 in May Is not going to change your life

Would you agree with that? Yeah What will change your life is You completing this education debt free And not being encumbered By a bunch of student loan debts. And so I am saying that the best investment Teddy can make in the next 12 months is in Teddy, and that's a mathematical statement, not a philosophical statement.

It's also a philosophical statement, I believe in you. But the best rate of return you will get is in a completed without any debt without any encumbrances without any weight around your neck degree in mechanical engineering that is worth much more than you can make on a mutual fund in 12 months you got plenty of time the rest of your life to start investing in your retirement and mutual funds and i want you to sit down with somebody outside of your school outside of your graduate program um who works in the field you want to go into maybe one or two or three of them over the next year and ask them about the graduate it does that matter is that actually going to help you right now should you stay next year because if you got the money and you got cash in hand you

can pay for it and walk out it may not be worth it it may be one of those things that if the college is going to tell you it's going to be worth it because they want you as a student but um the market may not demand it or the market they may tell you yeah man stay one more year and get this thing done and you're going to have the cash in hand to do that but when you transition out you're going to think about car you're going to think about where you're going to move to all these little little expenses add up, man. And you've set yourself up so great, right? Yeah, absolutely. You've really done a great job. So in other words, I would just hoard cash until graduation.

And at that point, once you've landed the new job, you bought the car, you got the new place, you got to pay the utilities, you paid the deposit, you're set up in the new job, life is set up in the new job, then with what's left, we can start talking about working your baby steps and getting you to an emergency fund and start saving towards a house down payment and start investing in good mutual funds. But you are a better investment than mutual funds are mathematically because you have chosen to study something that has a marketplace value

you're not getting some nuanced degree in left-handed puppetry and then think the society owes you a living which is the biggest load of horse crap that higher education ever sold and i dave one of the things i remember drastically underestimating was i needed grown-up clothes right i had to go to a grown-up job. I had to have, like, tuck my shirt in now. I couldn't just roll out of bed and go to college. And so there's all those little expenses, man, getting a car, getting all the grown-up stuff, man.

So, yeah, I love that. Wait a month into wherever you're going to be working your new job, and then if you're sitting on $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 cash, then you can go invest that thing. The irony is that later on neither one of us got grown up i come to work in blue jeans and a shirt every day a buddy of mine a buddy of mine had a guy sit him down and say you need to start dressing up nicer you need to dress for the job you want and this guy had a suit and a tie and my buddy todd is he was a bank executive he looked at me goes whatever

job you have i don't want that one i don't want to wear a suit and tie every day so yeah there's not many you do anymore but uh but yeah you do have to uh you have to be thoughtful about uh dressing for success was an old book when I was 18 by Steve Malloy. Yeah, Dress for Success. That's part of the program. Justin's with us. Justin's in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Justin.

How are you? I'm great. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Well, I'm 23. I have a bachelor's degree in marketing and about $30,000 in savings. I just recently started Baby Step 4 and just started a new job,

but they don't offer a 401k match, so I'm wondering if I should still pursue that or look at other opportunities and ideas. Good for you. Very cool. Yeah, it's awesome. You've got things going, man. Thank you.

Well, here's the thing. Match is the best because 100% rate of return before you start investing which is what a match is you put in a thousand bucks they match it that's another thousand bucks that's 100 rate of return before you even get started in investing you can't really beat that so match is best the next best thing is tax free growth which is a roth and so you would open a Roth IRA since you don't have a match, and you can put $6,000 in that. And if your 401k has a Roth option, which it probably does, does it? I don't know, actually.

Yeah, most of them do these days, but most of them have a match, so it may not. So you just have to ask. So if they've got a Roth option, then you would pick the four types of mutual funds inside that, and you would take your own Roth as well, and you'd put it across the four types of mutual funds. We talk about growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international. That's the four categories I personally invest in, and I've recommended that people invest in for 25, 30 years now. And you pick the longest possible track record mutual funds that you can get a hold of. And so with your personal IRA, Roth IRA, you'd sit down with a SmartVestor Pro

and you can pick those out and you can find stuff easily with 10-year track records that have outperformed the market. And then within the 401k, they may or may not. They may or may not have long track records, but get the best ones you can get with the best rates of return in each of those categories and put it across those four. And then if you run out of Roth, meaning let's say your company doesn't have a Roth, 401k, and you do your Roth and you still need to do more to get to 15% of your income, which you probably would need to do more, then you would do non-Roth, non-matching, meaning a traditional. So you do your 401k. So if your 401k does not have a Roth option, you would do a Roth IRA to the max and then

anything you've got to do more than that $6,000 to get to 15% of your income, you would do that in your 401k across the four kinds. And that doesn't mean it's a horrible 401k. It just means it doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles to it. That's a really great place to find yourself, man. Yeah, you're 23 years old. You're getting started. I wish I'd have had a half a clue that you got.

Yeah, you're going to be in great shape. If you keep following the baby steps, you'll be calling in in being one of these baby step millionaires that we're hearing. This, that puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks, John. Good hour. Good hour to James Childs and Kelly Daniel. I'm Dave Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast.

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