The Ramsey Show - App - If You Want To Be a Millionaire, Do What Millionaires Do

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, number one best-selling author, and Ramsey personality Ken Coleman is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, the phone number is 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas, America.

We're so glad you're with us. Brittany is going to start this segment in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Brittany. How are you? Hi, I'm wonderful. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I've got a question for you. So my husband and I have started doing the baby steps. We have started our budget, and we are just trying to figure out where do we put this leftover money that we have at the end of the month. I have quite a few student loans as well as our car payments. We have a credit card, and we have a $10,000 personal loan that my husband just had to take out because he had issues with his truck. So I'm just trying to figure out what's the best bang for our buck as far as this leftover money that we have at the end of the month. Okay. $10,000 worth of issues on a truck? Yeah.

What in the world? What? shoes on a truck yeah what so apparently the engine had some kind of issue and it's a no manufacturer problem recall hasn't happened yet but yeah it's going to be it's going to be give or take about seven to ten thousand to fix it okay um yeah and you you already took out the loan yes he did but the work hasn't been done they are starting it and doing it now okay all right all right um okay So the first step to getting out of debt is quit borrowing more. That's why I was asking. So the baby steps are your order of attack. That's what they're for. So we start with number one. Do you know what number one is?

I have to have a $1,000 emergency fund. Starter beginner emergency fund. Do you have $1,000? Yes, sir. Do you have more than $1,000 emergency fund. A starter beginner emergency fund. Do you have $1,000? Yes, sir. Do you have more than $1,000? We have about $1,600 in our savings account right now. Good. Okay.

So we're going to take $600 of that and any other money we can squeeze out of the budget, and we're going to apply it to Baby Step 2, which is the debt snowball. Does that sound familiar? Yes, sir, it does. Okay, and the debt snowball is where you list all of your debts, smallest to largest, except your home, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one, and attack the little one with a vengeance.

Yes. What's your smallest debt it's about and that's i guess that's my biggest question is within my student loan it's a bunch of smaller little ones what is your smallest debt there that's their little debts they're small some small student loans it's not a good by category it's my debt what it's it's a $2,000 student loan. Okay, good. So we're going to throw $600 out of savings at that and any other money we can throw at it and try to get that paid off in about a month here, right?

Yes. What's your household income? We make about $215,000 a year. Okay. Him and I both combined. Excellent. And what's your next smallest debt? It's another $3,000 student loan.

Good. I want both of those gone by the end of January. Okay. Including the $600 we're pulling out of savings. You see how we're doing this? Boom, just like that. Yes. And every dollar we can squeeze out of this wonderful income that you have we're going to attack attack attack attack attack now if you do not need but

seven thousand dollars then take three of that borrowed money and put it back on that loan okay and you have a seven thousand dollar loan for your debt snowball instead of a 10. Right. Okay. And it sounds like everything, the truck's already down there and this deal's already done. I might have challenged even how to fix the truck, but it sounds like we're already cows out of the barn on that one. Yeah. But good news is you have a fabulous income.

What is the total of your debt? Well, not counting our home, it is $125,000. Oh, excellent. If you live on beans and rice, you'll be out of debt in a year. That's the plan. Okay. I love it. And no eating out and no vacations and no more borrowing money. And we're going to attack this to the tune of about $10,000 a month.

And we're going to be out of debt in one year. And that still leaves you $100,000 to live on. Oh, darn. Wow, that's a pretty cool plan. That's how you do it. That's your order of attack. And then once that's gone, we go back to the $1,000 account. Maybe step three is we raise it up to three to six months of expenses,

a fully funded proper emergency fund because $1,000 is not enough. We all know that. And then once that's done, then you do baby steps four, five, and six simultaneously. Four is you start putting 15% of your income away in retirement. Five is you start funding your kid's college. Six is we throw everything else we can get our hands on at the house and get the house paid off. Usually takes about five or six years to knock it out. And then once you finish that up, you're at baby step seven,

which there's nothing left to do then, but become very wealthy and outrageously generous. And it just works, Ken. Yeah, because it's momentum. And I think it's so great to hear new callers, new people coming in, listening to what Dave just laid out. The secret to the baby steps that Dave figured out a long time ago was the sheer momentum, the emotional momentum of knocking out those debts and seeing that there is a path out of this. Because for a lot of people, $120,000 of debt, just the sound of that is bone crushing. And so to understand that we can do this one step at a time, it's really, really huge.

And I got to say, back to that truck issue, something like that happens. I think people automatically, Dave, they default to, I've got to go into debt because this is my car. And they don't sit there and go, what are all of my options right now that don't require taking out debt. They just immediately default to, well, it's my car, and that's a bit of a trap. It is. And, well, here's the thing. Most Americans, that's a good point, solve their problems with a debt payment. They get a new debt to solve a problem. I want to go to college.

I don't have any money, so now I'm a student loan. I don't have a car. I like that car. Now I have a car payment. And I want to go on vacation, and I don't have any money. So now I have a vacation loan. Oh, wait a minute. Christmas this year is in December. It caught me off guard. Oh, that's going to be some credit card debt. Anything that's a surprise, and everything seems to be a surprise, we solve our problems with a new debt payment. And you're going to be in debt the rest of your life. And that's what the banks have taught you to do. And it's a mindset that, Ken, you're exactly right.

It has to be broken where you say, I don't borrow money anymore. So now what am I going to do? Yeah. Yeah. You just take it off the table. It's not even on the table. Grammarly used to say, where there's a will, there's a way. Yeah.

And I believe if you will yourself to not use debt as an option, you can get pretty innovative. In fact, that's where innovation comes from, a lack of resources. That's the very nature of innovation. They figure out a way to solve a problem. People that have a lack of resources get more creative, always. Always. I have gotten very creative many times over the years once I drew a line in the sand and said, I don't borrow money. So that's part of her story going forward now. That's the plan.

This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. He's my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225 Ray in Houston Texas what's up Ray hey Dave how are you better than I deserve how can I help okay um so I am 27 years old, and I just finished filing, well, I mean, just completed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and I have no idea what to do next financially at all. I'm sorry. Wow. Are you working? Are you working?

Yeah, so right now I'm just bartending. I'm still trying to find a job in my career field in the meantime. Which is what? What field is that? I have a degree in chemistry, so I was working as a lab assistant, but it was a contract-based, and my contract wasn't renewed. What's the path, though? What's the ideal path that led you to a chemistry degree?

Where do you want to be I I thought I just wanted to be a chemist not sure if that's still what I want to do at the moment well I'm not worried about the moment but I am trying to think about this long-term play because now you're rebuilding your life so is chemistry off the table a career in chemistry off the table, or is it still on the table? It's still on the table. It's still on the table. What's that income look like?

What would be a top income in your field? Usually like around $70,000, $80,000. Okay. So, Ray, what happened? Why did you file bankruptcy? I was married, and we divorced, and I also lost my contract job. So, I just had a lot of debt, and I just stopped paying for everything, and I felt like there wasn't any other option to do except file Chapter 7. Okay. What was the debt?

I had a car loan for about $35,000. It was about $15,000 in credit card debt and my student loans, which is about $60,000. They're not bankruptable. Well, I actually was able to get them discharged, actually. Oh, they're a private student. They're a private student loans, then. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. All right, good. All right, so when I was 28 many years ago, I filed bankruptcy, Chapter 7. I lost everything, and and went through it. It was very painful and a lot of shame that I had failed because I had. And it took some of my confidence away. And so the way I chose to react to that was to do an autopsy on my stupidity and say, what put me here?

What are the things I believed that were obvious lies that put me here? You follow me? In other words, if you're going to go through that kind of crap, at least learn the lessons, right? At least pass the test. If this is a test, at least pass the test. So you never go back for those reasons. So you bought an education you couldn't afford, you bought a car you couldn't afford, and you had no savings. So when you went through a job loss and a divorce, everything came tumbling down because you had a lot of debt and no money. Does that sound right?

That's correct. Yeah, that's the CSI on your deal. So how do we recover from that? Well, we do the opposite of that. We pile up cash and we have no debt. And that's what I've been doing now for 35 years. It worked too, by the way. Good news. now for 35 years it worked too by the way good news um so next time you need a car uh you pay

cash for it or you don't buy it uh the next time you need to uh take a class you pay cash for it or you don't buy it the next time you need to dot dot dot fill in the blank stupid american thing we do and don't do it unless you pay cash for it. And part of my written monthly budget for the rest of my life from age 30 to age 64 today has been the first line in my budget is giving. I'm a Christian, and I tithe to my local church. That's the first thing that happens to money when it comes to us. The second thing that happens is savings. And then we eat. We're always going to give, and we're always going to save, and we're always going to eat. But we don't purchase crap while we've not been generous and while we've not saved money. These are basic principles and they're kind of common sense if you think about it.

But no one does them, Ray, and that's why most people are broke. This is how you recover, kiddo. And you do what Ken's talking about and you start, let's get your career in business. Okay, you're not tending bar because it's what was your goal when you were 16 years old. You're tending bar because that's where you're hiding while you're recovering from these wounds of a lost job, a bankruptcy, and a divorce. You've had three major blows emotionally. So I want you to come out of the cave and go be who Ray's supposed to

be which is a chemist making a hundred grand a year or whatever it is you want to do I don't care but God made you to go do something so let's get us to get that figured out because that's going to bring you in more money than you're making now more satisfaction than you're making now and then you can start saving and giving and avoiding debt going forward with a plan is that all that makes sense it makes sense yeah ray i just want to add that um dave i i'm curious to know what you would say to this having walked through this yourself but ray i've got a friend of mine um he's a big fitness expert and he says exhaust the body tame the mind and i think

there's a a bit of a truth there for you in this situation in the form of not necessarily working out, but I think you need to be working as much as you can. I'd like to see you make the transition into your field because that's your greatest potential for income. But whether you're working at a bar or you're working three or four jobs right now, I think you need a mental win, and I think you do it two ways. You're working so hard

that you have nothing else going on and you're piling up cash, as Dave says, because I think you need the emotional win and I think you need the mental win and not beat yourself up anymore. I think you need to see yourself establish that bank account and get it growing and watch yourself get some momentum of putting cash in the bank so that you convince yourself, I can actually do this. I'm not a moron. I'm not the only person that's ever gone bankrupt. Dave Ramsey has, and he's done well since. So I just think that would be my encouragement to you. Stay busy right now. Be as busy as you can, not to detach, but to grow from this and to exhaust your work body and your work mind so that you can say, hey, I'm actually winning and I can build myself back up. I can come out of these ashes.

That would be my recommendation. I think that's the best thing coming off of a big loss. Amen. Because I think it's traumatic. Well, and what happens is you start getting some wins and rebuild your confidence that's part of answering the question how do i recover that's it is you rebuild your confidence i had to um and it worked amy is in dallas hi amy how are you good how are you guys doing better than we deserve what's up hi i'm just curious is it up to to the employer's discretion to allow or not

allow a conversion from traditional 401k to Roth 401k? I've asked multiple times and my answer has been they don't do it. If the employer sets the rules of the 401k in place, some do not have a Roth option. Mine does. Mine does have both. So I've since done contributing to Roth, but I was hoping to... Your company offers a Roth 401k and a regular 401k. Yes, sir. Then it is not up to the employer's discretion.

They're telling you they won't let you do it? Correct. I'm like, what? That's weird okay it's not their money and they have rules that they have the place to put the rules in place but um and if they chose not to have a option they can do that for everyone but they can't select look at you and say no you can't do this this is a small employer no corporate america you need to get you need to get above this idiot's head somebody in hr is making a huge mistake no they do not have the right to deny you if they're offering the plan to everyone they're

offering the plan to everyone it's you can't say some employees can do this and some can't that's not not the way 401k rules work. So I think you've got to dig into this and learn a little bit more. There's something weird here. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage,

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If you have a fabulous career, you build wealth. It's not random. You do it a series of intentional acts. When you're handling money, the very basics of handling money is to handle it instead of wondering where it went. And that's telling it what to do. That's why we developed the world's best budgeting app called EveryDollar. EveryDollar will help you give every dollar a name and make every dollar behave and do what it's supposed to do. My friend John Maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. My friend Zig Ziglar used to say if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time.

Most mediocre people aim at nothing, and then they're shocked that their life is mediocre in a category or in general. Winning is an intentional act. Aim at something. Do it on purpose. You can download every dollar. The budgeting app I'm talking about, 50 million people have.

That's a lot. I wish all of them were using it. But wow. Pretty cool. But download it for free in the App Store or at Google Play. Alex is in Atlanta. Hi, Alex. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure, man. What's up? Hey, so I had a quick question. It might be a little complex, but my dad's been disabled my whole life, and he's had multiple heart attacks.

My mom's been fighting with stage 3 cervical cancer. You know, I want to know if it's honorable to go $1,000 into debt to be able to take my wife and kids down to go visit them and take them to Disneyland and what my parents used to do with us when we were kids so they can, you know, I don't know when the next time we're all going to. Take your kids to Disneyland? Your parents? All of us.

Oh. Your parents' health will allow a Disneyland trip? In a wheelchair, yeah. Disneyland or Disney World in Orlando? Disney World in Orlando. Where's mom and dad? He just got cleared to fly from California to Florida to visit my grandmother and my sister. She just had a baby, too.

I'm just trying to. So what's your household income, sir? I bring in anywhere from $80 to $120. Why can you not find $1,000? Dug myself a little hole before I had kids and bought more expensive cars than I should have, and I'm paying the price now. So you don't have $1,000?

You make $120,000 a year, you don't have $1,000? I have $2,000 in savings. Then take $1,000 and go to Florida. Okay. Why did you call me and ask me to borrow money when you have $2,000 in your savings account? I wasn't calling to borrow. I was calling just for some insight.

No, you were saying, is it honorable to borrow money because my parents are sick and dying so I can spend some time with them before they leave this earth, and I have to borrow money to do it, but you don't have to borrow money to do it. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out if i should keep the thousand dollars or two thousand for let me reframe this for you okay if you borrow a thousand dollars you're not borrowing it for your sick parents you're borrowing it to put it in savings because same thing if you take a thousand dollars out of savings and you borrow $1,000 for this trip and put it back in savings, it's the same thing.

So you're really not borrowing for the parent's trip. You've worked this whole drama thing up in your head. You're really borrowing so you don't have to deplete your little savings account. See the difference? Yeah. Now what this is, if I'm you, is my wake-up call. It's time to do some different stuff, Alex. Agreed?

Yeah. You make too much money to be this freaking broke. You work too hard to be this freaking broke, dude. Yeah. What's the depression from? You sound like you're walking around in a mud hole. Just trying to figure out the way. I mean, I've read the books.

I've read your books. You have the energy of a hound dog in the sun. What's the deal, man? I mean, are you depressed? No, I think it's just hard watching your family suffer your whole life, and then you try, and you're trying to prevent that from happening in your house with your kids, and trying to make everybody happy, and trying to be happy yourself, too, and make all the right choices. Sounds like you're exhausted.

Yeah. I think you're exhausted. Yeah. I think you're emotionally exhausted. So here's the thing. You make $120,000 a year. The plan you've been working is not working. Can we agree with that? Oh, yeah. You work too hard.

You make too much money to be as broke as you are. So take $1,000 out of the account is the answer to your question, and go visit your mom and dad, take everybody to disneyland that's fine but when you get home man it's time to sell some cars it's time to cut up the credit cards it's time to put everybody on a budget and i don't care if the 14 year olds happy by definition 14 year olds are not happy anyway and so i don't really care that's true that's the deal so i don't know if you got a 14 year old i just made that up but i would take you said you're taking kids to disney maybe it's an eight year old that's not happy well definition of eight happy when

you're eight is you have shelter and food and dry clothing that fits that's it. After that, everything else is a spoiled freaking American. So, you know, it's okay to have some nice things. It's not okay to have some nice things when you can't afford them and you can't afford them. You guys have got to change your ways, man. This is your wake-up call. When you make $120,000 a year and you have to call some guy on the radio that you've never even met to ask permission in your mind or to ask insight in your mind to use $1,000 of your $2,000 savings account, that's signaling. That's flares going off. Time for a change. Time to do something different, dude. He's going to have to get comfortable disappointing some people. Or really, to be honest with you, he's got to be to get comfortable disappointing some people or really, to be

honest with you, he's got to be okay with what he perceives as disappointment when in all reality, it's just not there. That's what I hear. I hear a guy that's just overextended and he's just lost all reason because he's trying to emotionally feel good about himself, make sure everybody else feels good about him. And he gets to this point where he calls and says, is it okay to take $1,000 out on a credit card just to pay for this trip? Because I feel like I've got to make my mom and dad happy because they made me happy. I heard that throughout the entire description, and I feel bad for him. I really do.

But it's not even an issue. It really isn't. So that's not the issue. It's all in his head. So, guys, one of the things you have to do in this regard and is um all of us dave included me included rationalize our purchase and one of the rationalization methodologies that we use is that we are um doing this for someone else. And when you unpack it, most of the time that's just not true.

Example, okay? Little family has a brand new little baby. We spend $26,000 redoing the nursery. Promise you, little baby has no freaking idea. You did not do do this for the baby it does not change the baby's environment it does not change their developmental skills it does not increase their intelligence all absolute hogwash you did this for yourself you did this so your friends could walk in and go oh it's so cute and they're not talking about the baby they're talking about the nursery and so babies don't give a crap all they want is a dry diaper and some food that's all they that and a good hug that's what a baby needs that's it man it's simple they don't need twenty

six thousand dollars worth of nursery equipment now if you have twenty six thousand dollars extra laying around and you want to spruce up your home and do something nice, do it. I can promise you Sharon Ramsey is doing that right now for Christmas for no apparent reason but that she has the money. And that's okay. But that's different than I'm broke and I did this for my child. No, you didn't. Your child is three months old. They don't have a freaking clue.

Hello, Christmas present purchasers. Who are you really buying for? Think about it. I don't mind your baby. I'm not the Grinch. But quit using the little children as my rationalization. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys.

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There is no subscription anywhere around it. All you got to do is download it and start using it, and it carries the third segment of the show every day on video and audio that is not available on podcast or YouTube. And you can search by call subject. Say, I want to talk about high-yield savings accounts, and you pull up four or five times what we've talked about on the air without having to listen to 26 hours of podcasting to get there.

So if you're looking for a specific thing, you can do that, and you can communicate with us by email, which is exactly what Adam did. Today's Ramsey Network app question is, of course, from Adam. He says, could you please explain how to know if I can be self-insured? I'm 47, married with two daughters in their teens, and I have $250,000 in investments. I believe my current life insurance policy, which I bought from a relative, is overpriced,

but I'm afraid to change brokers. At what point can I pull the plug on having insurance? Okay. Well, we're talking about life insurance. And so the way you answer the question back into it is, if you die, can your wife survive? If you die this year, okay, can your wife survive on the investments in the situation that she's in? Generally speaking, we would tell folks to be self-insured. You would need to be 100% debt-free house and everything, and the kids are grown and gone, and there's a substantial investment, and she could live off of the income that the investments create. So if she made 10% on $250,000, that'd be

$25,000 a year, and she's got two teenage daughters, no, I don't think you're self-insured. Yeah, I agree. You got to replace your income. Now, if you make $60,000 a year and you have a million dollars, well, the million will create, you know, $80,000 to $100,000 a year in income for your wife without touching the million, and your kids are grown and gone, and your house is paid for. Well, your wife actually gets a raise if you die. Then you're self-insured, right? And so if your investments will replace your income and or the fact that you're debt-free

and or the kids are grown and gone. That puts you there, but, dude, you're not. I would not tell you to do this. Now, if you're getting ripped off on insurance, it's time to have some courage and talk to Zander Insurance and get the proper amount of term insurance in place. It's not that expensive even at 47 if you're if you're not overweight you don't smoke term life insurance is just cheap and zander insurance can shop among a bunch of different companies get you the right deal get that in place and uh i wouldn't even

contact the relative i would just contact the insurance company and cancel it. Your relative may not even be in the business anymore. If they are, they might not even notice the cancellation come through. And if they do, when they call up, just go, you know, I just want another different. I want a different direction. You're not required to get into a long explanation with someone that sold you something that you believe is overpriced, except goodbye. I agree. You know, this isn't scary.

I know it seems scary, but this is, again, kind of the law of the unknown, the thing we don't know anything about. We want to leave it alone because it seems scary or time-consuming. And call in Xander. You're going to find out how seamless this process is to get properly insured. There's nothing to be scared about for switching. Yeah. Well, he says, I'm afraid to change brokers. He's nothing to be scared about for switching. Yeah. Well, he says I'm afraid to change brokers. He's afraid of the conflict with a relative.

That's what it amounts to. Oh, okay. I didn't read that. I'm reading that anyway. Yeah, yeah, I got you. That's what I get. Well, you know what? Same deal there.

What are you afraid of? Yeah. I mean, if you want to pay extra money just because you don't want to deal with disappointing a family member, that's just not the way I want to live oh i'd rather save money yeah well and there's you know why would someone that loves me overcharge me there's the other side of this it's like you know who is it i'm disappointing here the person who's supposed to be having my best interest at heart and yet overcharge me so yeah i don't gosh, I'm disappointing you.

Right. Who cares? Right, yeah. So, yeah, get your term insurance in place the proper amount. You're not self-insured yet, I don't think. I don't think your wife wants to live on $25,000 a year. I could be wrong, but I don't think she does. Derek is in St. Louis.

Hi, Derek, how are you? Hi, Dave. I've been a big fan for a long time. Thanks. I'm great. Thank you. The reason I'm calling today is my wife would like to quit her job and stay home with the kids. About 10 years ago, we built a house on the family farm, which I now run.

We've got a little over $ thousand dollar a month mortgage and I'm just afraid if she quits we're barely going to be able to pay all the bills we also have we have three children the two older ones are both in catholic school because we didn't want them in the public schools here locally okay so what is your income what do you make a year i'm running the farm i well i also work full-time off the farm oh good what's your income if she quits so my ten-comb pay from the job is a little north of a hundred thousand uh it's about fifty two hundred200 a month paid home. That's hard.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. $100,000 is $8,300. You don't have $3,000 in withholding. Well, there's also 401K and health insurance. Okay. How much is going into 401K? 15% right now. Are you in baby step step four you're out of debt except the house all but my car which is a five thousand dollar loan um i drive it for work that's the only yeah and how much how much saying do you have in savings other than your 401k

um i'd have to check i didn't look today so we have three or four thousand dollars in savings um the farm accounts we make some money on it there if we have trouble we pay your car off today derrick i could yes no you could you need to now okay well now you're out of debt on the car you're and the answer to your question is um two thousand dollars a month on 8300 uh and you've got farm income what is the net profit on the farm that you pay taxes on annually well it varies year to year i know it's a farm yeah yeah the commodity prices went to half price this year from last. I haven't got everything back from the crops. Honey, how long have you been doing this?

All my life. Okay. So what do you make a year on a stinking farm? It's not rocket science. You're making $30,000, $300,000. This year, it's probably going to be closer to 10 to 15 okay in some years you make 20 so you're not making much money on the farm okay i got it well 40 to 50 well except 20 okay all right so somewhere at least by okay now um all right so

you got 150 000 140 000 household income so question is, run a budget in detail. We have a budget. We keep a spreadsheet. Then run your budget as if she's not working and bank her check. Say that again? Run a budget. For the next few months? Run a budget for the next three months as if she's not working and put her entire check in savings.

Okay. If you can do that, she can come home. If you can't do that, what have we got to change so that she can come home? Is it Catholic school? Is it we move? what have we got to change what's less important than her coming home um both of those other things the farm and the catholic school sounds very important to you uh but maybe i mean you one of these things may need to give i don't know for her to be able to come home so but if you simply the math is if you'll just practice living on your income then uh gosh it's a no-brainer she can come home you don't have anything to be vaguely afraid about you actually have done an analysis and have proven what we call proof texting the concept but if you if you can't bank her check and make it

then you start asking yourself what have we got to change for us to be able't bank her check and make it, then you start asking yourself, what have we got to change for us to be able to bank her check and make it? And we've got to work that through. It's just powerful, the deduction that you just gave, folks. I mean, you've got to take the emotion out of this stuff. I'm afraid. What are you afraid of? Is there something to be afraid of, or is it just a fake monster under the bed?

You've got to look under the bed, gotta look under the bed and that's the idea here and i think there's so much power in what you know and what you don't know and then you put the things on the scale and go that's not as important as her being home or that is more important than her being home so she's not coming home if that's how that works i mean it's just math this is the Ramsey Show. 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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

Tyler's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Tyler. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I run a realtor business with five agents and property management as well. And my attorney approached me about potentially partnering 50-50 on it. And I've been against that since I've got started for many reasons. But I just kind of wanted to run it by y'all and see what y'all thought. Give us your top couple of reasons why you didn't want to do it.

Just risky. You never truly know who you're working with. They could change their mind, you know, down the road or get greedy, get sick. I mean, many different options that could cause hassles in the future. Our rule is the only ship on sale is a partnership. Yeah. only ship on sale is a partnership yeah so um i find with the exception of medical practices and law practices we coach uh tens of thousands of small businesses through entree leadership and we find almost no partnerships of this type survive 10 years they don't make it 10 years

um and because of a lot of different things that you just described, sometimes it's not negative things, even sometimes it's a positive thing. But, um, why would your attorney want to buy 50% of your business? Well, he's,

he's been doing law for 10 years now and he just kind of looking to grow another realm, I guess kind of the same way I am just kind of wanting to grow another realm, I guess. Kind of the same way I am, just kind of wanting to pick things up and do something a little different than we've been doing. I'm sorry, same thing. You're wanting to do something different? Well, I've just, yeah, every couple years I kind of get bored is the best way I can say it. And I look to start something else.

And I've done that last couple years and has been a great decision so I thought this time I'd just kind of try to grow my main business instead of trying to branch out into other things yeah staying in your lane's a good thing yeah okay how would it how would it change is he how would it change have you guys talked about the details what it would look like if he came in? Yeah, I've been, I've been working with him for about four years. He's got a lot of, uh, you know, obviously contacts other, other lawyers and stuff like that in the area that he's merged his business with. And my main business is investors and he knows a lot of them. He closes business bills and

everything as well as regular real estate. Um, so we would, we'd be looking to separate ourselves from the overhead brokerage, kind of make the firm, you know, a standalone thing, get an office going because I don't have a brick-and-mortar office yet, and he has one kind of available, and then just kind of merge into that. He would help with the law side. You mean you don't have a brick-and-mortar for this other thing? You have one for your real estate office. No, I don't have one because i

mean you said you had nine agents or five agents i have five yeah we i opened an office one time and it never really benefited us and because i kind of started during covid is when i got started um and we've just never ran out of a out of an office we've've all ran out of our homes. In Tennessee, the principal broker has to have a location. Well, it's a brokered by business. I have my firm. I'm brokered by an overhead brokerage. Oh, you're not the principal broker. I'm a broker in charge of this firm for property management purposes.

Yeah. Principal broker in most states has to have a physical location. Okay. Hey, hey. Okay. All that doesn states has to have a physical location. Okay. Hey, hey. Okay. All that doesn't, to me, is simple. No, I would not go in partnership. I don't do partnerships.

I don't mind doing a deal with someone, a singular deal, a one-off that has a set end to it. That's more of a joint venture. And I don't do hardly any of those, but I would do that. But something that is an ongoing thing that does not have a set calendar to its expiration, a term to it, I would not do that. Now, if he's got some investors and you all want to work out some deals, you know, where, you know, he gets a certain amount of legal work. If he keeps spoon-feeding you investors and that kind of thing, a legal way to do the transfer on that, that's fine. But, no, I don't – you don't need a wife.

I mean, that's an attorney. No, no, no. I wouldn't do it. No. I think you're – you guys are just bored. You need to back up and say, gosh, what can I do to make this thing exciting and go push something out there that's different and that gives you some energy again? But no, it's a compliment that he came to you and said it'd be fun to do business with you.

I think I like the way you do stuff, but that compliment does not substitute for good sense. You just nailed it. I cannot tell you how many times I've taken calls on the Ken Coleman show like this, where someone feels like they are less than if they don't take some opportunity that in their heart they don't want to take. But because it's an opportunity, what happens is the brain feels great. There's an endorphin release from being wanted, right? Or from being approached on this. And so you feel like, oh, common sense is I'd be an idiot to walk away from this. And in all reality, you got to trust your gut. You got to trust your principles and your values. And you led, Tyler, with principles and values. I think you got to listen to those things. Those are bedrock things that keep us

grounded and keep us from making big, big mistakes. And I think, Dave, you nailed it. I think there's something weird, right, about the psyche when somebody wants you to be a part of them or they come to you with an attractive offer. I want you in this deal. And one of the things that has happened to me over the years running Ramsey is people come in with ideas. Sure. Hey, I want to share this idea with you and see if you want to work on this idea. And, you know, I don't. I just don't.

You know, one guy was, you know, he's like, well, this is the best idea since sliced bread. You need to sign an NDA so I can tell you about it. You sign a nondisclosure agreement so I can expose this wonderful idea to you. And I said, please don't tell me anymore. Because, dude, I get ideas in here like shovelfuls every day. Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who can actually get crap done, those are hard to find. Ideas, not hard to find.

They're everywhere people that execute and follow through with excellence and energy and enthusiasm and that those are those are a rare gem you bring me one of those i'll sign an nda but um but i don't need because please don't tell me your idea because we might have already had the idea and then you'll think I stole it from you because they're that easy. Ideas are just everywhere. When you're entrepreneurial, I mean, I'm somewhat ADD, I guess. It's undiagnosed. When I was a child, they called it hyperactive.

But, yeah, Dave talks too much on all my report cards. Now I make a living doing it, but there you go. So much to my grade school teacher's chagrin but the uh but yeah so ideas are everywhere i'm a squirrel there's another idea you know you boom they're everywhere so but people that can do them or not and that's the same it's the same category here of the affirmation of oh i brought you an idea oh thank you i'm worthy of your idea thank you but then i quickly figured out no no i don't need to i know no no that's a nightmare so true you know it's because of the law i tell people to eat beans and rice

rice and beans yeah would you believe that to date we've had over 1 000 over 1 000 people proposed that i co-author a book with them of course of beans and rice rice and beans recipes yeah it's a great idea because they didn't understand it was a metaphor no i didn't literally mean everyone should actually eat i thought you were going to tell me people pitched you on having your own rice brand or beans oh that too i'm sure that's that too yeah uncle ben's got the market he's got the market. He's got the market. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit union because they share the ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously in fact they design products to help keep you

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and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose on sale at the RamseySolutions.com store right now. One of the many books we have on sale that'll make a difference in someone's life. Check it out for Christmas. Hey, I love talking to you guys about money. I also love talking about business and small business as well. Like we were just a last caller there.

If you didn't know, I host a podcast called the Entree Leadership Podcast. It's been on the air for many years since podcasts first started. I took it over. We had other folks at Ramsey doing it, but I took it over about two years ago and started taking calls from small business people with questions about business and leadership and so on every day, or not every day, but one day a week. And if you have a small business or leadership question, reach out to us. Leave us a voicemail at 844-944-1070. We'll set you up to be a caller, 844-944-1070. Or you can go to entreleadership.com slash ask.

Sterling in Austin, Texas. How are you, Sterling? I'm doing good. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So we are on, my wife and I are on baby step two. And I was wondering, according to the baby steps,

when should we purchase a house? We call it 3B. After Baby Step 3 is in place, you're debt-free, and you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, then start saving for your down payment in 3B. In other words, between 3 and 4, if you want to not start retirement savings for a short period of time and use that time to build up your down payment, that's when we would tell you to do it.

Okay, that makes sense. We are sadly about to have to go back into step one because of car repairs, but then after that, we're going to be back to step two and so we're thinking about the future yeah um and trying to you know look at the market and uh see when you know we can save up for a down payment yeah we want to get you in that that's perfect so how much debt you got left sterling um it's still a lot uh right now I want to say it totals to $109,000 with, uh, all the student loans, all my student loans. And then we both have, uh, two car loans and then we have one personal loan. Yeah. What's your household income? Uh, together we make about $120,000 a year after taxes. Cool. What's the most expensive car loan? That would be my truck at $26,000. Okay. All right. Cool. It sounds like you got a good plan.

If you want to speed up the house, you jet the truck. I've been considering it. I've really been considering it. Right now, it's been giving me a lot of problems. I have a friend who says the one thing that's worse than either parts or payments is having parts and payments when it comes to a vehicle. That's a good saying. And, yes, you can thank Robert Looney for that one. He's told me parts and payments are, unfortunately, one of the worst things you can have,

and right now my truck has been giving me both problems, and I've been really debating about getting rid of it. Yeah, if you could get 26, and you probably can, you probably get close to that for it, depending on what it is, it gets you out of a fourth of your debt and speeds the purchase of the home, which goes up in value and the truck goes down in value. I'm not against having a nice truck. I'm just always trying to figure out a way to get to my goal faster. Yes, sir.

I was doing some kind of estimation on every dollar, and it looks like after all the bills and other things that my wife and I are about to cut out because we're deciding we really don't need, we have about $3,500 left over. Yeah, it's about a three-year plan. So we're going to start really cutting things out and try to get that close to $5,000 left over every month. That'd be great. At least $4,000 and then really start paying things to make it a two-and-a-half to three-year plan. Yeah, and the truck payment is how much?

The truck payment is $712.07. It's like a 3.9% interest rate. Put yourself in a hoopty and run the numbers with that extra 700 on there and that's what you'll see what i'm talking about then that's cool hey man you're doing great i'm proud of you can't wait to hear you do your debt-free scream good job rick's in columbia south carolina hi rick welcome to the ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. What's up? Well, I'm 47, and I'd like to retire at 55, and I'm not sure where to go yet. I thought I was pretty fiscally responsible, and then I started to listen to you in 2022 and realized I wasn't as smart as I thought I was.

So I'm going to ask for help. Oh, my goodness. Okay, cool. So how much debt have you got today? The only debt I have is I've got a company truck where I got a three-year loan and it's $1,500 a month, but I get reimbursed $1,100 to $1,700 depending on how many miles I drive from my company. You get that whether you have a car payment or not? Correct. So, yeah, I need to get that truck paid off, and then they still give me the same amount. But the truck has to be, it can't be more than three years old.

So you have to systematically keep money moving that direction so you can upgrade the truck periodically. Yeah, correct. But no more payments. Yes. The program more payments. Yes. The program is independent of debt. It does not require debt. Yeah. You just used it to justify debt.

Correct. Okay, so we're going to clear that. Now, what's your nest egg looking like in your 401K? Well, I came out of a different position where I was in a pension program, and then April of 22, I started in with this 401K program. And I've got, this is a big question, is last year I started doing a Roth 401K. Good. And my tax advisor said that I should be doing a traditional 401K.

You should fire your tax advisor. Because you said, yeah. I'm serious. It was a heart attack. They're trading a tax deduction for tax-free growth. This guy can't do math. That's what I thought, too. So I kept doing the Roth 401k this year.

And changed tax advisors because I don't know what else he's doing this dumb. Yeah. Anyway, so you don't know what else he's doing this dumb yeah all right anyway so you don't have a lot there so you're a long way from retiring in seven years yeah so i got 19 000 in the 401 roth 401k 67 000 in the traditional 401k 18 000 in the hsa and that's all since april 22 good okay well you're tracking I mean you're dumping a bunch of money in what do you make? My base pays 111,000 and then my bonus was 56,000 this year. Okay you married? Yes three kids but my wife stays home with the kids so it's just my income.

Okay well I mean the beautiful thing about what you're doing is you're making all the right moves. I think the thing that will help you is to, you know, just do some calculations. You can use some of the calculators on our website. They'll help you. Or in the EveryDollar app, either one. And start saying, okay, what will I have when I'm 55? What will I have when I'm 60 based on my current trend line with the lump sum I have now plus the payments I'm putting in now?

And that'll start to tell you, you know, give you some comfort level as to where you're going to be. I don't think you're going to be mathematically able to live like anywhere near like you're living now at 55 years old with no work. So I think you're working a while. That's not a bad thing, though. You need to be doing something. I'm 64. I work. So it's not the other world. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the 55 is a little too aggressive. So now, you know, double down, do your numbers, crunch, and go, okay, what is it really going to look

like? And again, the data, Dave, just to back up what you said, the data is overwhelming for people who want to research it on what happens when you truly stop working. Now, financial retirement, in my mind, is different than just straight professional. I'm not doing anything any longer. I think that it's not good for the body, and it's definitely not good for the soul. Not good for the mind. It's a terrible thing to waste yeah doing something well i just having enough money to not have to work is different than just not working that's what you're saying 100 yeah yeah but either way either way you can start to run your numbers out and it'll give you some insights onto where you are so that you're doing you're doing pretty good rick sounds like it i'm gonna

get out of the truck debt and i'm gonna jack up on some of these other things on the investment side and get this thing moving. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have. George Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information

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Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's Ramsey show question of the day is sponsored by Y Refi. When you're trapped in a maze of defaulted private student loan debt, it's hard to find your way out. But Y Refi can offer you a lifeline with custom refinancing based on your ability to pay and a lump sum payoff option.

You could qualify for after 24 months. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Nikki in Kansas. My husband has been at his current job for over five years. He has received yearly inflationary raises. A new manager

position was recently created and my husband considered applying for it, but before he could, it was given to another employee that has no previous experience in the role. This new manager now repeatedly asks my husband for advice and wants him to work extra hours and to cover his lack of competence. I think it's time for him to find a new job, but he wants to make it work here. His annual review is coming up should he mention the situation and bring up needing increased compensation or a path to growth. Well, Nikki, when somebody has done me wrong, I found, Dave, that my wife, Stacey, has always taken it worse. I don't know if Sharon's that way or not, but it feels like this situation where your husband's griped a little bit about this, Nikki, and you've gotten really upset about it.

And I would listen to your husband here. He wants to make it work. And based on the facts you've given us, he never raised his hand for the job. And because he didn't raise his hand, whoever hired this other employee is not on the line for that because they can't read mine. So in this situation, I always tell people to never ask directly for a raise. I teach to talk about a growth plan after you talk about a desire to grow. In other words, I think in his interview, he needs to sit down and say, hey, listen, you know, I was thinking about raising my hand for this other position. I didn't. And that's on me.

But what it did show me is that I want more. I want to lead. I want to step up. I want to climb here at company XYZ. So to that end, in my review, whether you got it for me today, but in the future, in the near future, I'd like to meet with you and discuss a growth plan. What tools can I add to my tool belt? In other words, skills and experience. And then what are some shortcomings? What are some areas that may be blind spots for me that I need to be aware of

so that I do better and make myself a better employee? And then can we lay that plan out and how do we measure it so that you and I are operating off the same sheet of paper, same sheet of music? And if we measure that, will that lead to opportunity for more responsibility, which should come with more compensation? That's the spirit, the posture that you should have so that you do not put your leader on the defensive because many times they are not the sole decision maker in you getting a promotion and a raise and so the reason i prescribe it that way dave is it allows them to have some ownership in it they don't feel put on the spot they don't feel backed into a corner and then we have an adult mature professional

conversation about a path forward the other thing I want you to ask yourself is who is ambitious here, you or your husband? Because, A, he didn't raise his hand for this position. B, his wife wrote us an email. Not him. Two indicators he ain't real fired up. And so, or not as fired up as you are. That's correct.

That's very obvious. So, I don't want you to want something for him more than he wants it for himself. Because that's going to come through when he sits down in his review. He needs to be confident competent how can i add value to this organization what do i need to do to make myself more valuable so that i can grow here grow meaning grow in responsibility and value that i'm adding and hopefully in compensation someday. And that requires a body language, a little swagger. Yeah, you've got to show some hunger. I think what they want to see here is I want to get better, I want to do more, be more, and that's attractive.

And, you know, I think that's a discussion. Maybe your husband doesn't want any of that. Maybe you want it. I think it's very possible. So you need to talk that through before you send him into the lion's cage. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matthew is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Matthew.

How are you? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, so I have a budgeting question. I'm trying to figure out what I should do for an extra $20,000 in income I'm going to receive three to four times this year from overtime work.

Send it to Dave's Bahama Fund. P.O. Box. No, I'm kidding. Okay. All right. So you're going to make an extra $80,000? Yeah. Sweet! Very nice. make an extra 80 grand uh yeah sweet very nice pretty nice where are you on the baby steps bro uh i'm not sure what baby step exactly okay so this whole this whole thing's new to you okay

that's cool that's fine okay we teach a process to use all extra money to achieve wealth as fast as possible and we apply it in an order a forced ranking of importance okay and that that that system is called the baby steps one baby step at a time and you'll become wealthy so i'll walk you through them right quick you ready okay first thing you need to do, save $1,000. I bet you've already done that. Yes. How much money do you have in savings? Just savings, I have about 50K.

Okay, good for you. And how much debt do you have not counting your home? None. Good. Okay, baby step one is save $1,000. Baby step two is to become debt-free, everything but the house. Ding, ding. Check those two boxes.

Three is to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. If we call that $50,000, that emergency fund, you're there. Three. Baby step four is start putting 15% of your income towards retirement, not more, not less, in 401ks and Roth IRAs. Are you doing that? Yeah, I'm maxing them out. It's more like 25% at the moment.

Okay. Baby step five is kids' college. Do you have kids? No, I'm single. Well, that's easy. We skipped that one. Baby step six is pay off your house early. How much do you owe on your home?

Yeah, I owe $200 on my home, and right now I'm putting an extra $400 a month towards the principal. Okay. And what do you make? What's your total income, sir? Well, depending what this OT, it should be close to about $200 this year. Okay. And you're single, and you have no debt payments. If I woke up in your shoes, what would I do following those steps I just gave you that I've taught 10 million people?

I would tell you to reduce your 401K to 15%, not maxed out, and I want you to take everything you can squeeze out of your monthly budget, including this bonuses that are coming in, and throw it at the mortgage. Let's pay this house off in two years. Okay. Yeah, that's kind of what I've been leaning towards, too. I don't like having it hang over my head, but I was also wondering if i should consider a side brokerage

account or uh after the house is paid off okay so after the house yeah here's here's why here's why okay this is i did not i don't want it hanging over my head there's actual data okay we did the largest study of millionaires in north america ever done 10 167 of them two primary things caused them to have the first one to ten million dollars of net worth investing steadily into their 401k and paying their home off they and paying the home off is a big part of it by the way so So a paid for household are you? I'm 26. And the house is worth what? Probably about 260. Okay. So when the house gets paid off, by the time it's paid off, somewhere around 34 years old, 33 years old, you're going to have a net worth of over a million dollars at the track you're on right now. So way to go, dude.

You're killing it. Proud of you. Hang on. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, Baby Steps Millionaires. It's my latest number one bestseller, and it'll show you exactly the stuff I'm talking about, why, when, and where, and it'll help you dial this in. You are a stud.

Keep it up, man. This is The ramsey show thanks for joining us america we're glad you're here open phones at 888-825-5225 well it snuck up on you again christmas is here are you ready hey whether you're shopping for yourself or you're looking for the perfect gift to help someone get their money in order now is the time to shop and get up to 30 off our best-selling products including ken's book paycheck to purpose my book the one that just mentioned, Baby Step Millionaires or Total Money Makeover, Non-Anxious Life by our own Dr. John Deloney, Breaking Free from Broke on Sale by George Camel, Questions for Humans decks of cards, $12,

ramseysolutions.com slash store. By the way, the reminder, this is the last segment of the show on podcast and YouTube. You can pick up the final segment of the show, the final episode, or the final portion of the episode, rather, at the Ramsey Network app. It's completely free. You can download it right now at Apple or at Google Play. And you can always hear everything we're doing at Ramsey Network on their video and audio. So be sure and jump over to the Ramsey Network app and pick up everything you need to know.

Tammy is in Nashville. Hi, Tammy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up? Hey, thank you so much. Thanks for accepting my call and sharing your knowledge. I just have a quick question. My husband and I are actually wanting to buy a home.

And he wants to do this shared mortgage, and he's trying to convince me that it's a great thing and that it's so wonderful, and it sounds very stupid to me. And so I would just like to know what you – Don't hold back, Tammy. Tell us how you really feel. Well, I wanted to know what is this and the negatives and the positives, if there is any positives.

That's my question. Shared mortgage, negatives and positives, and is it a good thing? It is not a good thing. Your instinct is correct. You win the argument. Now, let's talk about why. Praise the Lord. Yeah, let's talk about why. You have a good nose for stupid.

Yes, sir. So, you're like my wife in that regard. So, a shared appreciation mortgage is what we're talking about, and what this is is the mortgage company in return for a lower interest rate and in return, usually for lesser down payment, you give up a portion of the increase in value. And so you buy a $300,000 house and it goes up to $500,000, the sum of that $200,000 increase goes back to the mortgage company when you refinance or when you sell. So you do not get all of the growth in value. The downside is two things. One is it can trap you and make it very difficult to refinance if you were able to and get rid of them, okay? Get rid of that loss of growth. And it can also make it difficult to sell. And of course, the third thing is, is you gave up some of your growth. And it's

not the trade-off's not worth it, is what it amounts to. I don't know why he's being pulled into that. That's very strange. Because the thing is, very, very few mortgages, very, very few people do this. I thought the program was actually dead until a few months ago. I heard somebody bring it up. I think somebody's out there promoting it or something, because I hadn't even heard of it in a long time. The first time I heard of it was back in the 90s and but and high interest rate environment, you know, and so, you know, interest rates were really high and people were trying to

get the rate down by giving up some of their future appreciation. So, Tammy, kind of think of it this way. Have you heard these things with student some of the student loan things where uh you can go to a certain college and uh you don't pay as much to go to the college but you give up some of your income to that college no i've never heard of that same deal same kind of a thing here you're you're selling off your future for a little bit better deal in present. And that's never a good trade. I'm sorry. So you're saying that once, if you ever decide to sell or if you ever decide to whatever, you have to give them a portion of the value?

Yeah, of the increase in value, yes. So if you bought a $300,000 house and it went up in value to $500,000 and you had a 20% shared appreciation as an example, then you would give up 20% of that $200,000 growth or about $40,000 when you refinance to get rid of that mortgage. By the way, if you wanted to just pay it off if you start making a lot of money and you're working the ramsey plan you want to pay it off you got to pay off that appreciation that you owe them to not just the loan balance so here's the here's the idiotic

thing to me is we have four hundred thousand dollars or whatever in cash liquid we could just buy the home but he doesn't want to do that he wants to go through the bank because in his mind he's keeping his money and making some money from the bank and i'm like this is why would the bank do that that makes no sense to me well the bank did because it's good for the bank but it's not your husband's wrong you're right pay cash for your house you have the money you are exactly right i told him. And he's listening to his wife. In his mind, he's thinking he's keeping this money for somehow in his possession or something.

And I'm like, I don't understand why we need to go through the bank and loan the bank our money to get a mortgage through the bank. Let's try a couple things, okay? Number one, you could say this. Let's pay cash for the house. If two years from now, after we pay cash for it, you want to talk about getting a mortgage, we'll talk about it. You know how hard it is for somebody emotionally to put a mortgage on a paid-for house? He'll never do it.

Okay. So try it, try it honey try my way pay cash for it for two years and then we'll talk about it so that's thing number one thing number two all right we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america i say this all the time because we did we studied 10 000 plus millionaires the number of millionaires that out of 10 000 of them that said we became a millionaire by borrowing money on our home so that we could invest what your husband's talking about the number of millionaires that said they did that out of 10,000 was zero. Okay. So the data says the facts are that your husband's theory is wrong. Okay. Okay.

One last thing, and I'm going to keep throwing stuff at him and at you too, but here's the thing. Good, good. When I went broke, I did whatever I wanted to do because i'm really smart with math and i did some stupid butt stuff like he's trying to do and i found i found in the bible proverbs 31 says who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. Now, that doesn't mean he can't argue with you about this.

He should. In challenger theory, he should. I do with Sharon, with my wife. But I trust my wife to have common sense and input. Ken trusts Stacy to have common sense and input. Ken trusts Stacy to have common sense and input. Hang on. I'm going to give you a copy of the book, Baby Steps Millionaires, for you and your husband to look at.

I think it will help your husband with this. He's trying to do a good thing a bad way. It's a bad move. You smelled it out. Congratulations. I'm going to say what I think a lot of Americans are thinking right now, that Tammy would be a great co-host one time with you. Were you not thinking that, James? I mean, was she let off with stupid with the same passion that Dave says?

And I thought Tammy, America would love Tammy. I love Tammy. She's a treasure. I just wanted to say that. I think that was one of my favorite calls that I've ever heard because she's on it. She makes no mistakes about what she thinks, and I love her. I think she's great. I don't think communication is a problem in their home. You and Tammy co-coaching someone would melt the Internet.

It would melt YouTube. Picture Dave fired up andmy a little fired up it would be great radio oh you're awesome tammy very fun you're amazing lady well solutions it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. He's my co-host today. Thank you for joining us.

The number is 888-825-5225. Rocio is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Rocio. What's up? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. How can I help?

Okay, so I need some advice. I need to know if I should take out a loan for my business or if I should use our savings. Use your savings. Okay, my husband is going to be 100% against that. Tell us about the business. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Why? He thinks the business is not going to work?

No, I think he really supports me on that end. He really believes in it. Not really. He doesn't want to use your savings. I know, but I've been on the baby steps, and I've done so well this last year, paid off all of our bills, doing really good, and I think he's gotten a little greedy because we have some investments and the money's growing.

I feel like he's gotten greedy. If he was greedy and your business was going to make a lot of money, he would love it. Well, I don't know that the business is going to make a lot of money. It is going to make money, and I'm still going to continue to work. I'm a registered nurse, and so I don't know. What is your business, kiddo? My business is health and wellness and fitness hub catering to women. Be more specific. What do you mean by hub?

Hub. So I'm creating a hub that. A digital platform? No, no, no. This is a brick and mortar oh brick and mortar we do aerial fitness dance um health and wellness uh we're going to be doing meal prep a recovery lab all under one and have you ever run this business before i have not i've had a previous business but it was had nothing to do with this it was service-based also okay how'd your previous business do it did well it put my kids through college okay how'd you previous business do it did well it put my kids through college and you know covid kind of made it go wonky so we sold it about five years ago okay so you've got a track record here um okay so

this sounds like a lot of stuff happening under the roof thus the name of my guess. Yes. Okay. Um, what's it cost to set this up? Um, so I think it's about close to a hundred. I've had to, um, start paying some rent because it's been about a year red tape with the city plans, you know, unexpected costs. And so that money that I had set aside has really just dwindled down and I'm going to need more. How much did you set aside? It was about 80. You've been through $80,000 and you're not open? Almost. Almost. I still have like 20 left. I just got sick to my stomach. I kind of think I know why your husband doesn't want to do this.

I agree. I don't think he's greedy. Okay. Here's the thing. So far, now you and I, we've just talked for a few minutes, okay? And it could be just because we're on the air and it's nerve-wracking and all that kind of thing. But so far, everything you've told us, we're both sitting here thinking it's a complete pipe dream. And you dropped 80 grand into it, hadn't got it out the door.

Your concept doesn't sound that solid. If I were shark tanking this, I would pass after talking to you so far. So no wonder your husband hasn't bought. But the problem is with your husband's idea, go take out a loan, he gets to pay the loan. So either way, you're losing the money if you do this and you doesn't work so what we've got to do is we have to tighten up you and your husband together have to tighten up your business concept and lay down your pro forma and say when are we going to get to monetization when are we going to get to making money before

and and how are we going to make money and how much money do we think we're going to get to monetization? When are we going to get to making money before? And how are we going to make money? And how much money do we think we're going to make in the first year reasonably based on these product lines and the profit margin in each of the product lines? And we're going to open March 1 or whatever the number is, and we're going to bust through and get that done. And how are we going to get our hundred and eighty thousand dollars back from this business i haven't heard anything yet now again i'm giving you a benefit of the doubt it could be the format in which we're having this discussion that's not fair to you okay but you need to you need to not convince me and ken you need you and your husband need to convince the people in your

mirror that i got i'm going to get a hundred that I'm going to get $180,000 back, and then I'm going to make $100,000 a year off of having invested that money. Right. Because it doesn't sound like it. Well, my projections say that I will. When? By the end of the second year. You're not profitable for two years?

No, no, no. Oh, you'll have recoup. You'll make $180,000 profit in the first two years? Yes. Okay. And when do we open? Hopefully in March. Oh, so I just guessed randomly, right.

Okay. Or did you make that up just now? No, no, no. Okay. It's still low margin. It feels really low margin. Am I right? I mean, I think the first two years because recouping that money.

No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking just your straight transaction. What's your margin? Because this is subscription revenue and probably a lot of equipment, manpower. Am I right? No, there's not a lot of equipment. There is not a lot of equipment. Okay, what's your margin?

What's your margin, projected margin? I mean, my projections and my business plan has me set up to do about 60 the first year 120 the second year up to 160 280 profit for the third year yes okay all right then you and your husband need to sit down and together believe that enough to put your money he has seen it before he doesn't believe it or he wouldn't want to be borrowing money okay he's not supportive because he's not wanting to put his money in it your money in it it's your money too by the way yes but yeah but I mean he's you know just don't do this we're begging you not to

go into debt for this you've already burned a lot of cash take your time on this slow down you really got to do your homework i don't need to slow down a 80 grand burn doing nothing we need to speed up but well you know what i mean i i mean let's just not go let's not keep just going into this with rent when we've got all these expenses. I already signed a lease, don't I? Well, a sub-lease. I don't know, Dave. I just, to pour cash into this right now, it feels like this is really risky.

We don't know a lot, to be fair. To be fair. Shark tanking it, you didn't make the sale. Yeah, that's what I'm feeling. So the two of you need to make the sale to yourselves and believe in it enough to put your money in it, you don't need to do it that's the answer to your overall question yeah thanks for the discussion this is the ramsey show you Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host Jasmine's in Los Angeles hi Jasmine how are you hi Dave I'm well in yourself better than I deserve what's up um thank you for accepting

my call so I have made some poor financial decisions. Welcome to the club. The biggest one right now is that I had co-signed for my mother's car back in 2019, and it was charged off on my credit in June of this year for $24,592. Where's the car? The car is with her in Northern California. In her name? Actually, I don't know how the car dealership did it, but they put it in my name as the main person.

I don't know what it's called. So why did your mother not pay the bill? Well, last year, my youngest brother passed away from cancer in June of 2023. And my mom had stopped working during that time and I was taking the bill as much as I could but I couldn't afford to help her and help myself and take care of my son. Why did they not repossess the car? I'm not sure why the car hasn't been repossessed.

Okay. So you're telling me you're pretty broke right now. Yes. Well, I just started working. The situation is pretty complicated. I was living with someone who I found out that was preying on children so I had to move and I will fix the authorities route and took care of all of that so I had to leave which made me have to live with family then right after a month a month after, my brother passed away. Been a hard year. And then a month later, my car was stolen with all of my stuff in there. Oh, my. My car. My mom's car is separate from my vehicle. So I went through a series of a lot of things,

and I had to get some mental help with therapy. and I took a year off of work so that I can focus on my mental healing and being there for myself and for my child and how have you been eating well I was receiving governmental assistance for assistance. Okay. Well, you don't need to worry about paying off your mother's car when you're on welfare. You need to first get up and get your life sustainable.

Get your life where you're in control of your life. Yes. That is the route that I'm taking right now. Yeah. So they're not going to come after you because they can't get anything. You don't have anything.

Okay. Okay. So there's nothing to worry about with this. Someday when you're rich and famous and you have $200,000 in your bank account, you want to maybe go settle this and get it paid off, right? But today, you need to take care of food, shelter, clothing, transportation, a career, get yourself and your child on a sustainable life. The standalone, you follow me?

That's by far more important than whether you pay off a car that someone else is driving. Does that make sense? Oh, I think I lost her. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, that's the answer to her question. Anyway, all right. Ron is in Phoenix. Hey, Ron, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, that's the answer to her question. Anyway, all right. Ron is in Phoenix.

Hey, Ron, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I know how you feel about debt listening to your show, but I have a couple of loans that I wanted to get your opinion on because I feel like I'm doing the right thing, but I know you might have a different idea. For instance, I can pay these loans off.

I have a car loan at 1.9%, and I have a home with a mortgage at 5.25%. The reason I don't pay them off is because I feel with the money market rates right now, I'm making more on my money in the bank, and I feel like that's the better option. Plus, with the home, it's the only tax deduction you have. You don't have a tax deduction on your home because you don't itemize. You took standard deduction.

You did itemize? Yes. Really? You didn't take the standard deduction? Well, okay, I'll have to claim ignorance on that. Well, okay, what's your income? I thought I itemized. Well, 92% of the people don't itemize.

92% of the people take what's called standard deduction because the deduction that the government gives you is larger than the interest that people pay on their mortgage and larger than their charitable deductions, which is the two primary ways you would take, that you would itemize unless you're running a business and running a Schedule C. Are you running a small business? No. Okay.

I'll give you a high probability you took standard deduction. What's your household income? About $125,000 a year. Okay. I'm almost sure you did not deduct your home mortgage, that you took standard deduction instead. Talk to your tax pro and you'll find out. So you lost that tax deduction. By the way, you did have to pay taxes on the money market account income. You know that, right? Yes. Okay. So your high-yield savings was how much? What was the interest rate? Well, right now it's down to $4.25.

It was over $5. And you make $1.20, and so your $4.25 is reduced by 32%. So that means your $4.25 is $2.75. After taxes. Okay, that's true. That's still higher than the 1.9 on the car. Wait a minute, dude. 275 over 1.9 on $16,000.

Do you know how many millennial it'll take you to be rich? You're trying to arbitrage a car debt. I mean, the math on this won't buy you a biscuit. The actual dollars that you're creating here. So that's where your whole thing falls apart. So, Ron, pay off your debts, hon. Your life will be so much better. Be calm, peace.

You know they represent. The number of millionaires that we have met that became rich borrowing on their car and investing the difference on a high yield savings after taxes netting almost nothing is none precisely none the same number they got rich using airline miles off their credit card none so these are actual facts not theories see the problem with these theories ken on i'm making a spread on an interest rate is when you actually plug the math into it and adjust for taxes and inflation, you end up with nothing.

Yeah, it's pennies. Versus paying off the debt and having no payments and now investing that money, you're giving yourself a massive raise and setting yourself up. I don't understand the math how they think that that's a math win now i mean if you have ten thousand dollars and you made a one percent spread it's a hundred bucks yeah eight dollars and 33 cents a month 28 million light years from now you you will have some money. Yeah. Not.

Okay. So it just doesn't work. So it doesn't get you there. And the interesting thing is that people don't grasp until you're out of debt is that when you don't have any debt, your body physically feels different. There's a release across the top of your shoulder blades. You will feel it. And as soon as you don't have any debt at all, you'll feel that. And you'll go, wow, I had no idea. I was so tight there. I thought I was carrying 300 pounds and now I'm weightless changes everything. That's what I would do, Ron. You're right. You're right. Thanks for it. Let me have the discussion with you, though.

It's kind of fun. Pay off your debt. Still, same answer I always give, but it was fun to have the discussion with you. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. I have done a better than average job predicting where the real estate market is going to go. We did a real estate live stream two years ago and i everyone was saying that the market the prices were going to crash because they'd gone up so fast after covid and um i brought out the

data and showed you that the there was a shortage of housing versus the demand and so we were not going to have a price crash and the contrary we're going to have a price crash, and the contrary, we were going to have a price increase, but we were going to see the market slow down considerably because interest rates got jacked up, and it slowed down the market. But the speed at which a house sells or the number of houses selling is about what we said. We said it's going to be slow, and prices have not gone down. They have gone up during that time. So I didn't miss that. Now, I'll give you one I'm not as sure of.

I was real sure on that one. Because this one, I can't really place as much on data as I can just on the perceptions of an old guy who's seen the rhythms of this stuff come through several times. My prediction is that by the end of 2025, one year from today, we're going to be in a booming real estate market. The market's been sitting like a deer in the headlights. The change of administration, like it or not, is going to create action and movement in a predictable environment, and that always causes economics to move.

So I'm going to say that you're going to see real estate blow up. That means that as a buyer, you've got to get knowledgeable. As a seller, you've got to get knowledgeable. As a seller, you've got to get knowledgeable. We'll help you. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate and go to our real estate home base. There's calculators, there's predictors, there's statistics, there's data to help you look at your situation and determine what you're going to do in a real estate market that's getting ready to get hot. I'm not saying Q1, but I am saying by the end of 25, it's going to be moving big time. So you can play this back for me later and tell me I was an idiot because the only people who can

be wrong and keep their jobs all the time are weather forecasters and economists. So I just stepped up onto that thin ice. But go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. We'll get you going. All right. Parker is in Little Rock. Hey, Parker, what's up? Hi.

How are you guys? Better than we deserve. How can we help? So I wanted some guidance moving forward and how to better separate my money. I'm 18 currently, and I've been around $150,000 in sales in the past two years with clothing, but a lot of it's went into ad costs and whatnot. But I've maxed out my Roth IRA this year,

and I've invested in the S&P 500 through it. I have around $12,000 in crypto. My business account has around $147,000 in it. I have a high-yield saving account with 7K going towards future real estate investment and now 47,000 in my checkings. No expenses, no expenses, no doubt at the moment. Where did you get this? Where'd it go? Originally, I was reselling shoes when I was like 14, 15. Then I got the clothing and that started doing well after a while. But I kind of just wanted some advice on how to move forward and better separate my money.

Wait a minute. I'm sorry. You made how much money reselling clothing? Not reselling. I actually do. It's all custom. So manufacturing, promotion, we do it all. So it's my business. But it was $850,000

around that. But this year we went a lot more into ads. So my return on investment has been a lot lower than like last year. For example, it was all or get. So what was your taxable income this year? um it said 165 000 i had to pay around 35 000 in taxes okay and you're 18 way to go man you're amazing making custom clothing you're amazing way to go all right now that i kind of caught up and got over my mind being blown by an 18 year old doing what you're doing way to go your question again is what is how to separate my money like a good percentage when it comes to paying myself keeping money my business investment and so forth okay well there let's just start at the top you've got the gross revenues on the business which is your total take right you know what that is. Then you've got your cost of goods sold, which is what it actually costs you to produce the clothing item.

That gives you what's called gross profits. Do these terms sound familiar to you? Yes. Okay. So gross profits then minus operational expenses to run the business is your real net profit. Okay. I would take that number times some percentage. And, well, let me back up a minute.

You're growing this business quickly, I can tell, obviously. So before we get to net profit, from a cash flow management standpoint, I would take a percentage for automatic reinvestment. How much of that net profit number do you want to reinvest back into the business immediately? I was thinking, so I recently came up with a plan. It was around 50-20-20 where I reinvest around 20% of my account because I can't use over $100,000 in production costs. That money is just sitting there.

So I was thinking lowering that, and I plan on having expenses soon, so I was going to move to California, get a place, and then also... Why are you going to California? There are a lot of people I work with. It's just... Yeah, you're getting ready to pick up an extra 15% in taxes. Yeah. Don't do that.

Is there any possible way I would be able to keep my business here? Yeah, plenty. It's called an airplane. You can fly to California. It's a lot cheaper than the tax bill living there. So, no, I wouldn't mess this up. You've got a good thing going around here. I would just catch an air flight and run back and forth and service your customers.

You're 18. You ain't got anything else to do. Go do it. All right. So I'm going to set aside a percentage above the line of net profit for automatic reinvestment into the business. Not cost of goods sold. Just keep the business growing.

Okay. Cost of goods sold. You have to reinvest that money anyway to have the next set of clothing so that number is set aside up up above all right so when you uh you set your cost of goods sold aside uh to to create the next clothing item you set some money aside for reinvestment and i'm going to call that 10 or 15 percent just for the heck of it right now. That creates a number called net profit. Then I'm going to set aside 10 percent of that.

I'm just making this up right now off the top, but set aside 10 percent of that net profit number for retained earnings. Retained earnings is your slush fund in the business. OK, so now we've got in the gross profit fund in the business. Okay? So now we've got in the gross profit number, in the cost of goods sold number, we've got the clothing reinvestment covered. Before profit, we've got 10% or 15% going to grow the business. After profit, we've got another 10% sitting there to protect the business

and allow some operational costs to grow all right everything after that is coming home bring it home and then invest that money in paid for real estate and mutual funds and like you said do some s&p 500 that's fine do that that's not a bad thing at all with some of this, but max out your 401ks, your Roth IRAs, and that kind of thing. Do you have employees? No, I just have a designer, and I'm thinking of hiring customer support and respond to emails.

Okay. Well, you can set up a simple 401k and load up another batch of money in addition to your Roth IRA. So you can get a pretty good chunk of money going away each year into retirement and still have a lot of money left over with the numbers you're giving me to do other things with. But I would set the business up on a mathematical system that allows it to continue to operate and grow,

and everything else comes home and just set your set yourself a little math formula on that like we just did here and that'll get you going parker you're amazing well done sir very very proud of you good work wow there's hope america it's 18 and he just kicked your butt. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. Albert Einstein said, wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it. Very good. Ashley is with us in Atlanta.

Hi, Ashley. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Oh, wow. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I just recently became a youth pastor, and I'm on currently babysit two, and I'm just wanting advice on how I can help my youth. They don't have any debt, but I want the best advice that I can give them going forward so they're not in the same shoes I am very cool good for you good for you we have a high school curriculum that is taught in

high schools that you could plug into called foundations in personal finance um and uh but before you do that let me give you a copy of the uh graduate survival guide for college students and it'll give you a framework to work with and then i'll give you a couple other things you got a pencil handy or something to take notes with yes sir Yes, sir. Give me one second. Okay. I'm ready. Okay. From the biblical perspective, if you can teach children really about three main things or four main things, you can get them on the right track. All right? One is avoid debt.

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lenders to the lender. Proverbs 22, seven. All right. To live on a written plan, a budget. Jesus said in Luke, don't build a tower without first counting the cost lest you get halfway up and you're unable to finish and all who see you begin to mock you and say this man began to build and was unable to finish work scripture says in proverbs the diligent prosper. Jesus looked at his disciples and said, when you're faithful with the little things, I'll give you more to manage. Work.

Create an income. Have a written plan. Stay out of debt. Save money. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil wise people save money proverbs uh give money generosity is all through scripture god loves a cheerful giver i'm sure these scriptures sound familiar to you don't they yes sir they do okay so but there's real basic things there that if you teach someone to spend wisely which is avoiding debt to have a plan to work

to be generous and to avoid debt you've got a real solid foundation to become wealthy and healthy and it's all straight from scripture it's god's and grandma's ways of handling money it sounds suspiciously like common sense too by the way yes i wish i had um done your plans a lot sooner but i'm almost there well good for you i'm proud of you good stuff and i'm real proud of you to teach these youngsters this stuff. Here's what you're going to find. I actually taught teens this material 40 years ago, and we've had a high school curriculum for many years. Forty-eight percent of the high schools have now taught it. Six million students have been through it. You're going to find they love it.

It's a subject they adore because it's so practical. Because one of the things teens want to learn is something they can actually use. The Pythagorean theorem I've not used a lot. I learned it because I had to pass geography or geometry. Probably geography too. I'm so confused over here. I just got lost there for a minute, but I'm back. And, yeah, I mean, but kids love stuff that they can actually use. Thank you.

I was going to add, Ashley, one of the things I think you should do is share a lot of your own personal story on this. Dave's given you the actual principles. He's going to give you the content. But, you know, sharing the emotions that you're experiencing, sharing the traps and the things of that nature, it's very, very personal when you can be vulnerable with them and they see that there's real emotion as to why you're so fired up to share this stuff, whether from the Bible and or from our materials. That's going to go a long way. My old pastor used to say having a testimony is a good thing.

Getting one's a pain in the butt. Yeah. There you go. Tell your story. It's there for a reason. Tricia's in pain in the butt yeah there you go tell your story it's there for a reason trisha's in dallas hi trisha how are you hi dave ramsey is fantastic to hear from you i'm doing better than i deserve good how can we help today yes so my question is can i and should i withdraw some of my 401k to buy a home with farmland to grow our farming operation no ever never no i know i read i looked on your website i read where you say no no no but even

under no circumstances here's why here's why okay they're going to charge you a 10% penalty plus your tax rate. What's your household income? So that's a really great question, and I'm totally drawing the blank. You want like before taxes and all of that? Your gross household income, you and your husband. Yeah, so we're on a single income, and it's about $140,000. Okay, all right. So you're in a 30% or and it's about $140,000. Okay. All right.

So you're in a 30% or 32% tax bracket, something like that, plus 10% is 42%. So what you just said was, Dave, should I borrow money at 42% interest to buy a farm? To which no one would say yes. No one would tell you to borrow money at 42% interest, would they? No, and I agree with that. What I'm not clear about is that 42%, does it actually go before your taxes? Because like last year, like with our farming operation, we only had like 1.2% that we paid in taxes.

No, I'm talking about your tax rate. The money that you withdraw will be taxed at your tax rate. You made $120,000. Okay. So your tax rate's based on that plus a 10% penalty. Okay. So you're going to get your, you know, let's pretend that it was only 10% plus 10%, not 30%, okay?

Okay. It's still 20% interest. It's still 20% interest. No. Yes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So you have a farming operation, right? Mm-hmm.

And you're wanting to do what with it? We farm and sell at farmer's markets and to a local co-op. What is it you're wanting to grow? What is it you're wanting to buy? With the 401k money. Oh, a new property that we will live on. Right now we leased land and developers have purchased it, and so that's going to come to an end pretty soon.

Oh, okay. And so you don't own a home right now? We do own a home, and then we lease farmland. Okay, but you would sell your home and move on to this other farm? Yes. Sell your home and move on to the other farm and get a mortgage? Yes, and in 50 months, the amount I would pay in mortgage interest is the same amount that I would pay for the cost of cashing out the 401k. No, that is not true, because you're not making money on the 401K after you cash it out. So you've lost all of that money too, which is more than the interest rate on your mortgage.

Okay. If your 401K was in good mutual funds and it's making 12% a year, you're also losing all of that going forward every stinking year. So the lost opportunity cost was called on the money you're also losing that no no take out a mortgage and then pay the mortgage off as fast as you can do not cash out retirement accounts unless it's to avoid foreclosure or bankruptcy it makes no mathematical sense whatsoever and it's really, really bad. You just got the fever to buy this piece of dirt. You may need to just take a good cold shower, but, um, but, but either way, you know, the fever is

dangerous in the real estate business. It'll cause you to do really stupid things. I'm glad you called me. I hope I talked you out of it. I kind of think I did because I think you were actually listening, which is good. I appreciate that. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and 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.