The Ramsey Show - App - If You Can’t Afford a College Degree, DON’T Borrow for It! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

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

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we talk about your careers, your money, and your life. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Big day here at Ramsey. Launch day. It's here. For another number one best-selling book. That's my prediction.

I like those predictions. From Paycheck to Purpose. Hit the Streets Today by Ken Coleman. And we've been working on pre-selling this for a couple of months now, letting you guys know about it. It is now officially available. If you've already purchased one, it is in the mail, baby.

We are shipping it that direction. So get ready. Here we go. I mean, this is cool. The book is From Paycheck to Purpose, The Clear Path to Doing Work You Love. Now, here's the thing. What Ken has put his finger on and what he does with the Ken Coleman show and the website KenColeman.com is to keep you from getting stuck in the resume pile, showing you do it strategically so that you don't end up in a worse situation from toxicity or lack of purpose i hate my job don't spend your whole life i hate

my job yeah paycheck from paycheck to purpose you need to get a paycheck and you ought to get it doing something that has purpose that's it well it's why we titled it that because we want people to go from the universal view of work that i just work to live. Of course, you've got to have a paycheck and provision. We want you to have a great paycheck. But we know that everybody, Dave, at some point in their life asks the question, what should I do with my life? Why am I here? And we don't have to teach ourselves to do that. Just like you don't have to teach a toddler to take a toy or to say no. Why is that? Well, because we are souls and we long to make a difference. And so what we're doing in this book through a very practical seven stage process, think of it as climbing to your professional pinnacle where you're making the income that you want. You got that big shovel, you're out of debt,

you're giving yourself away is the seventh stage, and it really works beautifully with the seven baby steps. This idea of live like no one else so that later you can give like no one else. Well, what if you worked like no one else, or very few, where you showed up and you were doing something you were good at? Hello. You actually enjoyed doing the work, and then the results of the work make you feel tremendously significant at the end of the day because you go, there's a connection to that. And we talk about that here at Ramsey Solutions all the time, work that matters because in this place, we're crusaders to give people hope.

And I want to give people hope as it relates to the thing they spend more time doing in their life than anything else besides family time and sleeping, it's work. Well, what if there was purpose in your work? What if you could do something that you were created to do and fill that void that so many people never get filled and make a great paycheck? That's what the book is. It's tremendously practical if you're just going, all right, I know what I want to do, Ken. I got that part. How do I level up? How do I keep moving up? Because we all want to be promoted. Well, we cover that. We cover the basics. How do I answer that question? What should I do with my life? Ken, I got that part. I just don't know how to get there. Well, we talk about that

too. Get clear, get qualified, get connected, get started, get promoted, get the dream job, give yourself away. Those are the seven stages. And here's what's beautiful, Dave, as you know, you and I are both in the dream job. You're further along than me, but those stages repeat themselves because when we get to the top of the mountain, folks, the view changes. We've been looking up the whole time. When we get to the top, we begin to look out. And in this book, the final chapter, Dave, you know, I write about the great explorer who gets to the top of Mount Everest, you know, and he says to his Sherpa climbing partner, he says, after they've taken pictures and they've put a few things at the top of the mountain mementos,

he sees another mountain range, and he says, that's the one I want to climb. And that's the same thing we as humans are humans who are driven by progress uh to to make a contribution and so we don't just sit in our hammock and drink sun tea when we get to the dream job the view changes we look out in the commercial wasn't right it's not right turns out that doers they they have another dream yeah hammocks aren't usually. They're nice for a season. It's okay.

To rest and recuperate. It's why we have weekends, right? Okay for the afternoon. Recreate. Yeah. So from paycheck to purpose. Yeah. Ramsey's next, Ramsey Publishing's next number one bestseller comes out today.

Yeah. You can pick it up in bookstores and tarjay that fine french store you can go to um uh amazon and you can certainly go to ramsey solutions.com and we've got them here and we'll get it right out to you no delay in the shipping at all it'll go out the day out the door immediately if not sooner so good stuff good stuff very cool. So I went over today. We have 15 new people start at Ramsey Monday. Oh, yeah. So that we do two days of onboarding.

And I always go in, or I try to go in if I can, second morning and just listen to what's going on. And it was really interesting hearing them go around the room after they've been here one day. And a couple of developers sitting in there coding guys top top shelf i mean senior developer level uh and they're like oh so refreshing they're just so refreshing to get to do my craft in a situation where what the code i'm writing is helping people change their lives the code i'm writing matters it's not just in a you know in the basement of some machine that's just cranking out and we don't work 80 hours a week which is on the coders if you don't know out there developers web world they just work they should work the snot out corporate

america burns them up and so they work 80 90 hours a week most places here we work 40 hours a week we go home we actually see our families and stuff like that. We do, yes. Yeah. But it was cool to hear those guys living out what your book is talking about. That's exactly right. That they found a way that – and these are major, serious positions. Wildly talented people.

Senior devs are big time and can work anywhere they want to work in the world right now because the demand is so high. But it was just a sigh, just a release of oxygen. Well, the reason is they realize that now passion and mission are coming into the picture when they walk in the workplace. Before, it was just talent only. They're very talented people. A lot of these people Dave's talking about come to us from big name companies. We're talking top, top, top talent here. But talent isn't enough because what we as human beings long for is a connection to the work. We want to actually love the craft. You and I both

love history. We love craftsmen. When I was a kid, we would go to all these historic presidential homes and things of that nature, and I would watch blacksmiths and silversmiths do their thing. These are craftsmen. They love the craft itself. That's passion. But it's more about what are you producing? And these people that are coding, they're producing hope on the other end, practical steps to give people freedom.

That's mission. Versus the salt mines of the developer world. It's making a rich guy more money. Go into the mines. That's mission. Versus the salt mines of the developer world. It's making a rich guy more money. Go into the mines. Produce coke. Not here, baby. I love it. This is the Ramsey Show. In today's world, technology and innovation are crucial for any company's success.

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Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life, your money, your career. On launch day for Ken's new book, From Paycheck to Purpose, The Clear Path to Doing Work You Love. I'm going to start off with Jennifer in Los Angeles. Hi, Jennifer. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? Okay. So I am planning on moving out of state from Bakersfield, actually moving out of state for work. And I have a home here. I'm on Baby Step 6, working on paying this house off. The market's really high right now. So if I sell my house, I don't know where I should park my equity or if it's a good idea to just rent my house out. Because when I do move, I will be

renting for a year until I figure out where I actually want to live. So that's my question. Cool. So why are my question. Cool. So why are you moving? You're getting a new job. Where? Well, I'm a nurse, and there's just a lot of restrictions out here. I've wanted to leave the state of California for a very long time, and I spent the last eight months working out in Texas,

and I really enjoyed it. So Texas, here we come, huh? Possibly, or Tennessee. between there we hear that story a lot yeah we we are in Tennessee we hear it a lot yeah so it's very cool well good uh well what I would do if I woke up in your shoes which is by the way how I answer questions here is if I knowing what i know if i woke up just like you what would i do i would sell the house okay a lot of reasons the reason is um number one like you said the market's hot and it's a possible high point to i don't know it probably is going to go higher uh long term but right now you can get really really good money out of it you can sell it really easily and you're going to pay no income tax on the growth.

Okay. Are you going to make a profit of more than $250,000? No. It will be close to, I think, after closing costs and everything, around $100,000. Okay. Then you'll make all of that $100,000 without any taxes on it. Single person.

Married filing jointly is $500,000 you can make on your home. A single person can make up to $250,000 profit on your home over what you paid for it with no taxes at all. And I would take that and I would put it in a money market account, move to Texas, Tennessee, wherever it is, start my nursing career. Once you decide you're going to put down roots in that location, then I would start looking at purchasing. But long-distance landlording is not a good plan. It's very difficult. I always laugh, and I've got a bunch of real estate. I love real estate.

But long-distance landlording is always a good way to get somebody to change their Harley oil in your living room. So money market accounts and not like a mutual fund. Long-distance landlording is always a good way to get somebody to change their Harley oil in your living room. And so it's just – So money market accounts and not like a mutual fund. Unless you're going to leave it alone five years, I wouldn't use a mutual fund. Yeah. But I think you're going to move somewhere, and a year from now, you're going to start getting an itch to buy if you've decided to stay in that city. Okay.

Does that sound right to you? Yes, it does. Now, I have one more question from that would if i because i'm considering going and getting my master's degree and i don't i'm sorry why just to um i guess grow my options as far as nursing goes um because i would like to get into like management leadership administration okay That's a good why. Good. I would use some of this money to pay for that then.

Okay. Let me just tell you, master's degrees are priced all over the map. Do not overpay for this little two-year degree. Absolutely. I plan not to. I plan to spend as little as possible. Yeah, because where you went to school will not determine whether you get hired. Okay.

No one hires people based on famous colleges. That's absolute BS put out by famous colleges. Yes. Jennifer, I'd ask, are you positive that you need a master's to get those leadership positions? I'm not positive, but I feel like I've been trying to, like because I've been a nurse for almost 12 years, and I want to get out of bedside nursing, and it seems like they want that degree. Sure. Well, again, it's a great why, but I want you to go from, I feel like, it seems like, to I absolutely know that there's a higher percentage chance, much higher percentage chance if I have it versus not.

And the reason I say this is because you have an opportunity here to get in as you move into a new place. You've got 12 years experience, very talented, and you express the desire to lead and begin to lead up and show leadership that you're leading, being that 360-degree leader, as our friend John Maxwell wrote a book on. I would just look into that, and if it's the best way, then do it. If it's the only way, do it. If it's not either one of those two, then hustle.

Save yourself some time and money on that master's degree. Sometimes people have an illusion that a degree is necessary for something when it's not. That's ken's point and so really dig into it start talking to people in the role that you want to be in and find out if they how many of them actually have master's degrees and how much of a barrier it is to not have one so um because sometimes it's just like i don't feel secure i don't feel confident and so i'm going to get this degree and that's going to make me confident. Not really.

You hire a lot of leaders, Dave. We'll just put this to the test. I don't. Master's degree's nice. You respect it, but that doesn't factor into the decision. Not at all. I mean, 2%, 5%, whatever. I mean, a master's in business is a great degree.

MBA is a great degree. It's a good field of study. And we've got some of them on the team, and they're smart and they're good. It's all great. But I didn't hire them for that. I hired them because I could see in their eyes and in their mannerisms and in the interview process that they were going to be able to lead people. And that is usually not taught in the classroom, by the way.

But you've got to get that built out. Keith is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Keith. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I had an HSA question.

I just wanted to know if I should open one up this year. I already maxed out my RALT 401K. I maxed out the RAL 401k. I maxed out the RAL IRA. But I'm only able to do that because I've been working a lot of overtime at my job. So when I go back to say the overtime dies out, I just want to know, do I need an extra retirement savings vehicle, or should I just stick with the 401K and IRA? Stick with the 401K and the IRA. The HSA is fine to use for saving money long-term.

I've used mine that way, but that's way down the road of stuff you worry about. The HSA is a health savings account. It's tied to your health insurance program. Are you currently in a high-deductible plan that allows an HSA? No, I'm not in the plan, but because it's open season, I was thinking about switching over. You could jump over into that plan. Are you in a PPO now? Yes.

Okay. How much does it save you a month on the insurance to go to the HSA? Well, I know the biweekly premiums would be maybe 20 30 hours less a paycheck okay so like 60 bucks and so we're talking six seven hundred bucks a year say less expensive how much greater is the deductible um that i don't know i rarely see a doctor no it doesn't matter you need to know what the deductible is, okay? Because if you've got a $200 deductible now and you're going to a $5,000 deductible for a $600 savings, that might not be a plan. The HSA works really, really good for people like you that are very healthy or for people that are chronically ill and always blowing through their deductible because most of them have 100% after you blow through the deductible.

And so there's no copay. I don't know what yours is, but I have an HSA on me. We offer both at my company to my team, and about 90% of the team is on the HSA because it's cheaper premiums. And if you choose to, you can save money over there. I'm less concerned with you saving money over there than I am just getting the right health insurance in place and not paying too much. But if you can cover that high deductible with your emergency fund and save $600, $700 a year by moving over to that HSA while it's open season,

I would look at doing that, dude, if you're healthy and things are going well. But I would not do it because of the savings element. The savings element is just some extra goodies. I do it, and I fully fund it, but I want you to get your house paid off and that kind of stuff. I want you to concentrate on baby steps four, five, and six before we start worrying about that too much. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Jonathan and Grace are with us.

Welcome, guys. How are you? Great. How are you doing? Great, man. Where do you all live? We live in Miramar Beach, Florida. Oh, fun.

It's near Destin. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you guys. Thank you. So, all the way up here to do a. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you guys. Thank you. So all the way up here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? We paid off $124,693. Cool.

How long did that take? 26 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time? Somewhere around $140,000 to $160,000. Cool. What do you guys do for a living? CPAs. Both of you? Both guys do for a living? CPAs.

Both of you? Both of us. All right. Very good. Fun. So what kind of debt was this $125,000? Well, we had a cell phone to pay off for about $600. We had a credit card for almost $14,000.

A car loan for about $18,000. And then $92,000 was our mortgage. Oh, you paid off your house! Look at it, weird people! CPAs with a paid-for house, go baby! I love it. Very cool. Good for you guys.

Thank you. That's got to feel great. It feels awesome. I bet. It's surreal, but it feels pretty good. Pretty amazing. How long have you guys been married It's surreal, but it feels pretty good. Pretty amazing. How long have you guys been married? I'll let him answer that.

No. 12 years. Almost 12. Yeah, 12 years. Jonathan, this is a test. Yeah. I felt it. Don't mess it up on the radio.

Oh, that's funny. All right. 125,000. House and everything in 26 months. A couple of CPAs, been married 12 years, but something happened there two and a half years ago. What was the wake-up call? Got you plugged in on this Ramsey stuff, and you guys went hog wild. Yeah.

Well, we've always kind of been normal. We've used a credit card to pay you know pay everything to get the points you know like smart people laugh laugh and uh we you know we've we've always felt like we've made decent money but we're always kind of wondering where it went and so we lacked intentionality with our um with our spending and our budgeting and And like 2018, I just found out I made partner in my firm and thought things were going really well. And I got kind of caught up in this NFL daily fantasy and winning some good money and putting more and more into it.

And then, you know, hit the mother of all dry spells about halfway through the season and i was kind of putting a lot on the credit card every every weekend to play around this right after the super bowl i remember seeing the credit card bill is going to be almost fourteen thousand dollars that was one month and uh we had just wiped out most of it. Grace doesn't look happy right now, too. As she recounts it, she didn't chuckle. No. It was not a laughing matter. And so I remember going to talk to her about it, and I had already been starting to kind of trying to figure things out. I'd already started to listen to the podcast. And I was like, listen, this next credit card bill is going to wipe out all of our savings.

She's like, no, no. We just paid the $13,000 credit card bill. I said, out all of our savings she's like no no we just paid the $13,000 credit card bill I said no that was last month's this so uh this one's going to wipe out all of our savings but I think I think I have a plan that we can we can get on and really buckle down and so it was kind of my mismanagement my irresponsibility that pushed us over the edge and gave us our I had it moment watching watching Watching my wife cry after telling her that was really eye-opening. It gave me the drive and the push to submit to the plan. We bought the Total Money Makeover and read it to each other every night until we were done, and then we were gung-ho.

Wow, that's powerful. You guys are probably a little bit like me. Maybe you're not. until we were done, and then we were gung-ho. Yeah. Wow. That's powerful. You guys are probably a little bit like me. Maybe you're not. I don't know. But I've got a degree in finance, and they don't teach us. When you get a degree, you can get a CPA, I mean a certified public accountant, and they don't teach you personal finance.

Right. We learn debits and credits. We learn GAAP, generally accepted accounting principles. We learn financial principles for corporate America and for stock trades and all these other things. But the idea of living on less than you make or the idea that credit cards suck or the ideas that student loans don't have to be forever, they don't talk about that. And we walk out of there with a degree in business, finance, accounting accounting and we don't know beans about how to live it's true and and yet i feel i kind of felt even though i wasn't taught i still felt like i should have known it yeah i got a finance degree and i'm stupid i'm broke i mean that's how i felt shame from that a little bit i got two cpas here you know and the wakeup is freaking football betting.

I mean, my God. I mean, it's the same thing. It's just that stuff's not taught anywhere. And we need to insert these Ramsey classes in the business curriculum at these colleges, I guess. But way to go, you guys. Thank you. Way to go. You took a really messy, nasty, scary, angry, frustrating situation and turned it into wonderful your house has paid

off you've rocked you are heroes man that's so cool yeah i just wonder i you know i really appreciate you jonathan sharing your story i mean it's pretty vulnerable stuff and there's a lot of emotion there when you guys got you know full on into this process and you walk it out now you're debt free uh that football betting that was kind of pulling something there was something in there that you it was it was engaging now that you're on the other side you're debt free and you walk through that pain and fix that stuff what are you excited about now what is your mind on when it comes to money now i think uh learning learning patience and learning that that kind of tapped into my uh

i've always been trying to you know figure a way to get rich quick a way to make a quick profit a windfall profit um and just uh learning that uh you know the the tortoise always wins yeah slow and steady wins the race and uh and learning to be patient i've still struggled with that even through this process, you know, just following the plan and not trying to jump ahead. And so patience was a big thing, learning from me. I've got to ask, Grace, too, two CPAs, when you actually started to get together on this and got in the budget meeting,

what's it like with two nerds in there? Was it a true two-nerd situation? I'm kind of more of a balanced, you know. I'm kind of free spirit and a nerd. So I'm kind of in the middle. So he's the nerd. So I think at the first budget meeting, I think I might have cried. I'm like, we're doing what? We're spending only this much on this?

So definitely it took us a couple months to kind of, you know, get down to what the budget should look like and what will work and, you know, what we need to spend. I mean, grocery and eating out, that was like two our major spending, you know, other than the fantasy football. So kind of nailing down to, you know, what we need to do to kind of make it work. And at the time, we just found out we were pregnant with Zoe, my two-year-old. So it was kind of going through pregnancy and hormones and, you know, cutting spending. And that's when you want to spend.

You know, you want to have a new baby coming. You want to buy new things. You're excited. And, you know, so it was kind of, it was a difficult time kind of going through it. But, I mean, patience and just trusting the system and just, you know, steady wins the race. So we kind of had, and I had my moments where I'm like, okay, I can't do this anymore. You know, and he would be like, well, just, you know, just let's stick to it and see, you know, a few more months and we'll get there. And it seemed like the 26 months were never going to come. It was just kind of a long process.

But we made it. what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is you paid off your house and everything in 26 months um let's see um i mean patience and just sit down and budget i mean take off anything the wants out of it and just keep the really the needs that what you need to survive on day to day. You know that, I mean, we went through, you know, not buying the kids gifts, you know, birthdays or not, you know, all the gifts that we want to get them. So we'll get them like one thing instead of 10 things. Just kind of the necessities. And I think that helps and just kind of working together and trusting each other and making sure that, you know, your spouse or your partner are on board.

And, you know, if they start to fall out, you know, kind of have doubts to kind of encourage them. All right. Let's get the kids in there. What are their names and ages? All right. We got Joel, who's six years old. And this is Gabriella, who's four. And Zoe is two.

And we have baby Madelineeline who's going to be three months tomorrow and weston couldn't be here he's 125 000 paid off in 26 months count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free Free! Yeah! What a fun family. That's awesomeness right there. Very cool. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is our co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. It is launch day for Paycheck to Purpose, his new book, The Clear Path to Doing Work You Love.

You can get it anywhere great books are sold. Go buy it today. You can get it at any of the great bookstores. You can certainly get it at RamseySolutions.com, Amazon.com, wherever you want to go. We'd love to. It's $20 here on sale. It's going to be a big week.

He's been doing a bunch of major media, and he's going to be moving a whole bunch of these. This book is going to change some people's lives without a doubt. Brittany is with us in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hi, Brittany. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Can you hear me?

Sure. What's up? Yeah. My husband wants to go back to school and we're working the baby steps and he wants me to be open to loans student loans and i don't want to i do not want to do that it absolutely terrified me and i don't know how to still support him but stand my ground about not getting into it because we've already been working the baby steps and i want to keep going forward and baby step too. You're working the baby steps. He's not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's he want to study? He wants to go into school social work. You want to go into debt to do social work? Yeah. Do you know what that pays? I know, I know. I know.

I don't want to pay that much money in student loans to go into debt. I don't even want to pay that much money to be a social worker. They don't pay anything. What's he make now? He's at about 20 now. He's a teacher assistant. How old is he? He is 30 teacher assistant. How old is he? He is 30. Teacher assistant in a public school, and he wants to go into social work.

Yes. You know, I think Dave's right. I think I would expand the options. Certainly social work is one path, but there are multiple paths to probably do what he enjoys most about social work. For instance, he probably has a heart for the counseling side of it, the helping, the advocating side. Does that sound about right? That sounds right. Yeah. Does he have any college education so far?

Associate's degree. Uh-huh. Yeah, I got to tell you, finishing out that full degree because he's already in the system and getting that four-year degree finish would put him in a position where he could potentially move into some type of guidance counselor role or something along those lines. But I think he's got to research multiple options. But getting that student loan, taking out loans to do a degree to do social work, it's just not necessary. Because quite frankly, he can cash flow that.

I mean, we teach that here at ramsey solutions so if he buckles down and is patient right you guys got to get through the baby steps at certain points or he's going to have to work harder and he's going to have to cash flow his way through maybe a second job but he doesn't need the loan and it's actually a bad business it's not a good roi if that's what he really wants to do taking out a loan for that is is is really a bad idea so britney sometimes when people feel like they're stuck in a job like he feels like he's stuck at this public school in this resource role right they they go oh what i need is a degree and that just pops into their head because that's what we've been telling people for a couple generations. And that's not necessarily a fact.

What he needs is some clear direction on what he wants to be and what he wants to do exactly and then determine if a degree is absolutely necessary. Is there a way that he can make $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year instead a year instead of 40 and not even have to get a degree to do it uh yes there is uh and maybe be in an area where he's serving the underprivileged in some way which is what his heart is and that's a good heart and i'm not against social workers don't misunderstand me but i i the number of people i've talked to that spent 200 000 bucks on a master's degree in social work to make 38 000 worth of state makes me want to shoot somebody that's just cray cray and i over the years of doing this i've just seen a lot of people they

destroy their lives because they didn't lay out their dream in such a way that it didn't become a nightmare and so i'm going to send you a copy of Ken's brand-new book, From Paycheck to Purpose. Tell him to read that. And then the other book I'm going to give you is our book here called Debt-Free Degree on how to go get a degree debt-free. Tell him to read that. And if he's not willing to read two books, he doesn't need to go to school.

Right. Because at school, they're going to like require you to read books and stuff yeah yeah yeah you catch the sarcasm right yes i've said several of the things you all have said all right you hold on kelly will pick up and we'll ship those two out to you but there's this mythical thing It's not a genie in a bottle. That's exactly what it is. They think degree, here comes the genie. Hey, I grant you your three wishes.

I grant you your three wishes. You now have a degree. You get to be whatever you want to be. Before, you weren't going to amount to anything, but now you have got the genie. That's so true. That's a good line. Well, it's really true. I hear Robin Williams' voice on the Disney cartoon.

Oh, that's so good. And so that's the cultural pressure, folks. Make sure you catch that. That's what good line. Well, it's really true. I hear Robin Williams' voice on the Disney cartoon. Oh, that's so good. And so that's the cultural pressure, folks. Make sure you catch that. That's what we've been told. We've been marketed to since the 50s that that's the only way to success. It's like the lie that you have to buy a house 20 seconds after you're an adult. Yeah, or you're, yes, you're wasting your credit opportunities. You're wasting your money.

You're throwing your money out the window. Yeah, and so you're exactly right. And that, again, one of the major reasons why we wrote the book, From Paycheck to Purpose. How do I figure out what the mountaintop is? That's where this gentleman's at. It might be social work, but how do you go from it might be, I think it is, to I know it is? And that's the stage one that we start with. Get clear.

Get clear. Does it align with how I'm created? Does social work involve skills that i actually have or some raw talent that i can hone into skills do i love the work that if you read a description under social work would that make your heart come alive if you spent 75 percent of your day doing that then the final piece is mission does it produce results does social work or that type of work produce results that fill your heart up with, hey, this is significant to me? That's the ultimate test there, and if the answer is yes, go for it.

Lindsay's in San Diego. Hi, Lindsay. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken. Congrats on that book launch. Thank you.

I'm excited to get my copy. Thank you very much. Yeah, so so quick question my 13 year old son started working for a family friend a couple hours a week and earns about 40 to 60 dollars a week he wants to invest the majority of that money after tithing obviously do you have a suggestion as to where he should park this money well here's the thing the goal of this investment is not wealth this is not much money number one and number two it's not much money so it's not going to turn into much money okay so the goal is to create knowledge and to reward his interest in the subject and to teach him what to do when he's an adult.

And so I don't want to have him doing stuff that I wouldn't tell him to do if he's an adult because we're endorsing it by telling him to do it now. Okay. I mean, he could. Sometimes teenagers get in a little stock club or something, and they'll buy and sell single stocks. But I don't tell adults to do that. I don't do it. So I don't really want to train a teenager that that's the proper way to do this.

The problem that this presents is if I'm going to train him to invest in good mutual funds, you can get with a SmartVestor Pro and open up a mutual fund for fifty dollars a month and you'll be the custodian he can't open an account until he's 21 but he you can open it as in his name with you as the custodian and he can have it automatically drafted get him a checking account all of that all of that would be good learning exercise and he can learn to calculate the value of his shares and see what they do. Here's the thing. Over the period of 12 months, which when you're 13 years old is an eternity, there's not going to be a lot of action. It's kind of boring.

Okay. And that's the downside of this. But that's what I did with our kids. We opened them mutual funds. They could add to them, and we would show them how to calculate the shares. And one of the things we taught them was

that it's a little boring. This wealth building thing, it's slow and steady wins the race. It's not sexy. It's not jumping all over the place. It's not get rich quick.

It's not something you get to brag to your friends. It's just kind of there. And I don't want to train him to do anything else because that's what I want him to do. So that's what I did.

Thank you, Lindsay. This is The Ramsey Show. This is James Child, producer of The Ramsey Show. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? Subscribe or follow today wherever you listen to podcasts.