The Ramsey Show - App - I'm Getting a $3.5 Million Settlement...What Should I Do With It? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

George Kamel & Dr. John Delony discuss: Starting a business, Making a decision about a workplace vaccine mandate, What to do with a large settlement.

I'm out. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your life, your relationships, your work, any of it and all of it. I'm John Coloni, joined here by my good friend george camel and we're taking your calls live 888-825-5225 kelly is standing by to take your call let's go out to francisco in topeka kansas what's up francisco how we doing hey can you guys hear me all right absolutely what's up my brother hey i just wanted to start out by saying I'm such a huge fan of the show. I've been listening for quite some time, and because of you guys, my wife and I have been able to pay off almost $100,000 in debt.

Wow. Way to go. It's fantastic. How much further do you have to go until you're debt-free? We are making our last payment. We're saving up. We've got $2,000 left, and we're going to make that payment next week. Yeah, Francisco. Way to go, dude. Well, all thanks to you guys. You guys have really made a difference.

We didn't do anything. You did the hard work, and you all grounded out together. I'm proud of you. So what's up, man? How can we help today? Hey, so I just wanted to ask. I am married with a wife, a beautiful wife and two beautiful babies. And I'm getting to a point in my life where I kind of want to start my own career.

I'm 26 years old. I want to start my own business. Sorry. I work for a company. I do pretty good. I make about $50,000 a year. And I recently was given an opportunity by an acquaintance of mine to go work for him as a carpenter. It wouldn't pay near as well starting out, but I would be starting with him with the

understanding that he's going to teach me the ins and outs of running my own business and eventually branch out on my own. So my question is, what do you think is a good amount of money to have saved up to get started with that? You know, should I have the emergency fund plus some other things or at what point in the baby steps do you think I should start? What type of pay cut are you talking? So starting out, I'd probably be making about $40,000 a year. Okay, so it's not like you're going to $15,000 a year. Can you make your bills with $40,000 a year? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Our house is paid for. So once this debt is done, I mean, we're just going to have regular bills. So two different times in my career, my wife and I sat down and looked at what our lives were like at the moment and a potential career opportunity. Two different times I've taken pay cuts. One time our household income pay cut was very, very significant to go to another career, another job, same career, another job at another university in another city. And within short form, we had earned it back. And then I've taken – I've done that. So I've done it twice.

It's worked out for me both times exponentially so. And so the keys, I think, are asking yourself, what are you going to get out of this thing? And what is the calendar date when you're going to say, I'm ready to go? Meaning, if you just get in there and do this forever, there's a real easy possibility that you're making $40,000 six years from now. And you've become this person's live-in apprentice. What are the skills you want to acquire? And are you on the side practicing the career career that you want to to get into the business you want to start right so you can be doing both and so enter into this season as a

student and as a practitioner and it's going to be really busy for two or three or four years you're saying so it's less about you've got a you got a house paid off you're about to be completely debt free you can cover your bills obviously george, he's going to want to get an emergency fund. But do you hear what I'm saying? This is about letting your wife know, hey, for the next two or three years, we're going to be grinding because I'm going to be learning. I'm going to be hustling.

I'm going to take on a second job so I can start practicing these things I'm learning. And the goal here is in two years, in three years, in 1.5 years, I'm going to be ready to launch and do my own thing. Do you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it helps a little bit. I do have about half a year experience doing trim carpentry before the job I have now. That's what

I did for a little bit. But it sounds like the carpentry part is less the issue. It's more, how do you get jobs and how do you do marketing and what's the books like and how do you plan and bid jobs? That's the stuff you're going to be learning, right? Right, right. Exactly. So what's in it for this guy to teach you and then help you launch a competing carpentry business? So, honestly, he's just a really good guy. He does it for a living, pretty much. He's had two or three brothers that he taught up in the industry

and then basically turned them loose to run their own businesses. And I just happened to be on a job site with him and, and he's like, Hey, you know, if, if you ever decide you want to get into carpentry, you know, let me know. Could you help him part time while keeping your job? And then eventually you launch on your own as you start to build your own client base? I could do that. Yeah. I think that's the absolute smartest way to go. Do this on the side. client base? I could do that, yeah.

I think that's the absolute smartest way to go. Do this on the side. I'm going to work for you six hours. I'm going to be there all day Saturday for the next year. I want you to come over to my house and let me look at your books and see how these things work. I'll provide the nachos and the drinks and we can just figure this out.

Make it a regular thing. I think George is right. I just don't like dropping everything you have on the promise that this guy is going to give you this, and he's going to teach you this, and he's going to help you launch the business. He does sound like he's a good guy, but I don't want you to make that kind of risky move before you know this is exactly what I want to do. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. But get that emergency fund in place. You can get a floating fund on top of that if you want to split the gap. If you do end up making the jump, let's have $10,000 there to go, all right, this can help me keep the income we have,

if that's all of your household income. George, you talk with young entrepreneurs a lot, and there's this fire burning, right, between I have a particular thing that I want to see out into the world, and then you talk to other entrepreneurs who are, I just want to go do my own thing. I don't really care what my own thing is. I'm going to go buy a car wash franchise.

I just don't want to work for the man. For the man, right? They'll get into the vending machine business. They'll get into real estate, house hacking, you name it. They don't love any of that. What they want is some easy, quick money. And there is no such thing. Okay, so that's helpful for me. So

there's the entrepreneur that's like, I want to fix healthcare in my local community. So I'm going to develop a courier business that helps with it. That's an entrepreneur who sees a gap in the market, who has a hole in their heart that they want to fill by serving other people. I hate the pizza in this community. I'm doing something about it. I'm starting a pizza company where the pizza's not garbage. That's a mission worth solving. I agree. Man.

But then there's the other entrepreneur that it's not about entrepreneurialism. It's a, I just want to hack my way through this. No, they saw the TikTok video about the guy who has a vending machine and he makes $100 a month on this vending machine. If you can do that 28 times, you can make some easy, quick money in a few months. Gotcha. And it's just never that easy. And so I think in people's minds, they have this picture of, man, I can stop working for

the man because I hate my boss and I hate what I do, and I can go work for myself. Replacing Skittles all day, and I am free. And so I just want people to find things they love to do. And usually when you do that, you're going to find a way to make money doing it. Yeah, and if you find things to do that fill that purpose need in your soul, right? Yeah. What am I doing here? And Francisco clearly loves carpentry.

Yeah. He's not doing it to make a quick buck. He just is drawn to that world. And that's awesome. We need good people in the trades and our community. He wants to start his own thing. Great. And he's doing it the right way, which is I'm going to learn how to run a business and how to be a carpenter. You know what, Francisco, we're going to send you a copy of Entree Leadership. That's Dave's playbook on business and leadership. And I think it's really going to help you and get you inspired on the business end. It's awesome. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. I just saw a study that really made me sad.

It showed that families owning life insurance in the U.S. was at its lowest point since the 1970s. After what we've been through the past few years, I'm just lost on how people don't make this more of a priority. How are you going to make sure your family needs are met if something happens to you? This is why getting term life is an absolute necessity. Rates have never been cheaper and the whole process to apply is pretty simple with many companies not even requiring an exam anymore. This is why I send you to Zander Insurance and I have for almost 25 years. They'll make sure you get the right protection at the lowest cost possible and they're there for you and your family every day. I

challenge all of you to make sure your families are protected. It needs to be a top priority. Call Zander at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. That's 800-356-4282 or zander.com. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. In case you didn't know, I'm George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. May is joining us up next. She's in Raleigh, North Carolina.

May, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for picking my call. How are you doing today? Great. How can we help? So I have a question which is more not really baby steps because we are financially free. Awesome.

Incomes, I make about 70 and he makes close to 70 also. So let's say 148 here. Okay. Who is this? I am a nurse. My partner. Okay, cool. Yeah.

So I'm currently a nurse in an ICU, and I want to go to anesthesia school. However, I cannot get over the idea of going to an IV league anesthesia school, which is such a hassle to go through because I went to undergrad for free by merit, got scholarships all the way through and then like applied for some on the way.

So I came out with zero debt. Awesome. And when I met him, he had some debt. So he cleared the debt so that we could, you know, go forward

and do stuff with our lives. But I'm at that point where I'm like, I really, really want to go to an Ivy League school. Do you want to go to an Ivy League school? Yeah. So, Mae, I've spent my entire career working at universities. I even did a development program at Harvard.

So I've been there. I love it. Tell me why you have that picture in your mind that you can't get out of your mind. I think, so I came as an immigrant, and I think when I was coming in, I missed the opportunity to do that undergrad. And so, you know, I kind of like made the grace so that when I do decide to go back to school for the graduate level, that I could be able to do that. But he is not buying the idea. And it's like,

it's what he could desire. Well, so tell me what, is your dream to be an extraordinary nurse, anesthetist? Yes. Okay.

And, let's see, are you all going to, do you have plans to make your home and your family and to do life back in Raleigh?

Yes. I plan to stay in the North Carolina area. Okay. If you told me, I really want to be an anesthesia research scientist. I want to swan dive into the biochemical physiology of anesthesia. I want to know how the body responds. I want to be around the best scientists in the world. Then maybe, maybe, depending on the program,

that type of capital outlay, paying that price would be worth it. What you want to be is a great nurse who sits with people who are scared and you have a calming voice. I can tell that you're kind and you care about people. You want to go do good work on the lives of people.

And so, there are a whole bunch a whole bunch of relatively inexpensive, that's not true, they're expensive but not as expensive programs closer to your home and here's the thing

as an immigrant to this country you've been given a picture that is partially true if you get this degree it somehow completes you it somehow proves that fill in the blank, that you should be here, that you've got value, that you're smart enough. And I want to tell you that's nonsense.

Now, I'm also not going to be one of those guys that I see on YouTube and whatever. Ivy League schools are stupid. They're not. There's a lot of real smart people there. I've sat with them. Brilliant people. Incredible resources. They're not. There's a lot of real smart people there. I've sat with them. Brilliant people, incredible resources. They're great. And I've also sat with some mind-bendingly extraordinary people at local community colleges and especially at local state college and at private faith-based universities. I've sat with them all. And so depending on what you do and

why you want to do it, that's how I'm going to decide if that's the school for so depending on what you do and why you want to do it that's how i'm going to decide if that's the school for me and what you want to do is serve and love people and so i want you to do that with no debt in your there's there are some killer colleges by the way in the raleigh north carolina in that in the research triangle you know that they're great you are worth getting through college and not having a bunch of debt, and you're worth getting a great education, and you can do that right where you are. Don't buy into the myth. We should not do it.

And by the way, your husband called in and asked me to tell you this. I'm just kidding. He didn't at all. I'm just kidding. So, Mae, you're asking if you have the cash, is it okay to do it? Yeah, he wants us to buy a house. And I'm just like but i really really want to do this and he said no no it's fifty thousand dollars we could pay for 50 grand well it a house

is an appreciating asset you're going to live in that house it's an appreciating asset that student loan is a piece of paper that no one's going to ask you about until you have to weave it into the conversation very naturally well and hey here's the thing. A degree, a graduate degree, to become a nurse anesthesiologist, I can even make an argument that that's an appreciating investment. Do it with cash. Do it with cash.

And do it for the right reasons. That's exactly right. Do it with cash. Here's the thing. If you sit down and say, hey, look, when I factor in what's going to cost us to cash out our $140,000 a year jobs to move to Cambridge for three years for this program, and you can put that together in cash,

I'm not going to be sad about it. But if you can keep your $140,000 a year jobs and your current workplace will help pitch in for some tuition reimbursement to a college there in Raleigh of which there are some great ones um and you're going to keep it going do it just do it you're worth more than an Ivy League certificate you are freaking May from Raleigh and you did it and you're going to go make it happen love it thanks for the call May appreciate it Deanna's up next in Tucson Arizona De. Deanna, welcome to the show. Hi, guys. How's it going? Great. How can we help? Good. So my question today is, my husband and I, we bought a house last June, and it's our first house that we bought. We started listening to the show back in January. Our house value has gone up almost about like $100,000. So we're wondering

if we should sell our house to pay off our debt and just rent temporarily. How much debt do you have? We have about, well, we just paid off $2,000. So we have about $58,000 in debt. And it's student loan, credit card debt, personal loan, the whole nine yards. Okay. What's your household income? We make about $125,000 a year together. Okay, great. So what does your plan look like to get rid of this debt? How fast right now can you do it? So right now, based on our calculations, it's going to take us, we're considering getting second jobs right now, but based on our just regular, it's going to take us about four years. Okay, I'm getting the second job, and I'm going to get that cut down to two years. And if you can do that, I'm not selling the house. That's a big move. There's a lot of costs associated with it. You haven't been in there for two years, so there's going to be some capital gains tax. It's not as clean of a break as you think it is to just get rid of the debt and let's do this leapfrog shortcut. I'm not mad at selling a house to get out of debt and renting for a

little while. I think that's very noble and I love that sacrifice. But I think you guys can do this with $125,000 income and $58,000 in debt. We can clean this up in two years. It may take getting a second job. It may take doing the monthly budget, really dialing that in, getting all of our expenses down to bare bones for a short period of time. Because here's the thing, four years, it's a long slog for you guys to sacrifice. 24 months? Yeah. Okay, I can do a second job for 24 months. Hey, will you do me a favor? Take that nuclear energy that is currently pulsing in your chest, in your husband's chest, which is the regret and the, are we idiots? And I can't believe we did.

Take that and don't run. Don't run from the problem. Go gazelle intense right into the middle of it. Okay. Running from it is, okay, let's just sell our house and call it good and don't do that because that's not solving the problem. That's a band-aid. You're not going to change your behavior. I want you to grind it out for 24

months and not, you have a second job and probably a third hustle on the side of that. At the end of 24 months, you and your husband will never borrow money again. Your kids won't borrow money. Your kids won't borrow money. Their kids won't borrow money because y'all have bled and y'all sweat and y'all have argued

over budgets and what's important to your family. And now you've got this beautiful house worth a whole bunch of money that's all yours. Great points there. The housing market is absolutely wild and everyone's going, we should sell right now. But then you got to go buy at the top of the market or rent at the top of the market, and you're back to square one. Change your behavior. Good reminders there. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney.

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All right, let's go to the phones this hour. Caleb joins us in Indianapolis. Caleb, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you guys doing? What's up, man? Oh, not much. I had kind of a career question for you guys. I started a new job about two months ago.

In that time, I've been fully remote. The day, actually, not the day, but the week I started, the company instituted a booster requirement. Okay. But since we've been fully remote, we haven't really enforced it. However, today, they basically said, months from today, everyone has to be in the office two days a week, and they are enforcing the booster. been fully remote haven't really enforced it however today they basically said uh months from today everyone has to be in the office two days a week and they are enforcing the booster

um so i'm just kind of at a crossroads like i i'm not boosted um trying to figure out kind of the best way to handle this especially being so in so new into the role just kind of the best way to go about this so um man i've had this conversation a lot over the last especially the last year um here's the simplest way to go about it do you want to get the booster and keep your job or do you feel strongly about not getting the booster and you're just gonna need to go find another job yeah and what i've found is any other angst you give yourself any other rage i get all that whatever side of this you fall on but any any additional weight you bring to the conversation beyond answering those two questions

is a choice for you you're choosing to be more miserable. Don't do that. If you feel really strongly, I'm not doing this. Great. Go get another job. Just be in the market today. Start applying today. You got all weekend.

Get after it. If you say, man, I hate this, but I'm going to go ahead and do it. Great. Then go do it with a smile on your face and then go on about your day. Anything other than that is a choice to be miserable you see what i'm saying yeah yeah i know that that makes sense it's it's just difficult because it was like you know this requirement was in place when i was going through the process i wouldn't have even accepted the job and then i was like well maybe i can

make it work for you know as long as they'll me. And then obviously today that kind of all blew up. So just trying to understand and also trying to make a clear decision, not obviously a little emotional, just, you know, the suddenness of it coming on today, but also understanding I have kind of a month long runway to figure out what I need to do, but just kind of wanted to get an outside opinion. Yeah. Kind of the best way to go about it.

I'm 26. 26. All right. So is this your first or second, third big job? This is my second job. I actually just left at the end of the year my first job out of college for this position. Okay. So the vaccine is a it's a lightning rod okay and you are wise beyond your years to say i want

to i want to exhale a little bit and get some perspective but here's what i want to tell you for the rest of your life jobs you take are going to you're going to you're going to start a job on monday and you're going to get re-orged on tuesday i started this job with no radio experience in an 18 month plan to learn how this thing works. And then COVID kicked off and Dave said, well, congratulations, you're on the radio, right? We had to figure this out live. And I, man, I've made a train wreck of a few things. And so then there's a reorg and there's a this, and then, Hey, we're not going to be able to do retirement funding matching this year because we're having, it's always going to be a thing.

And so, and this is with all of your relationships, all of your life is always going to be a thing. And this is with all of your relationships, all of your life. There's always going to be a thing. I'm living in a house, and then the county raises my taxes. I live in a country, and now they require, whatever the thing is, make the decision you're going to make, and then be at peace with it, and go on about your day. Don't choose to stew, and spit, and be angry, and talk about it, and call everybody, and Facebook about it and call everybody and

Facebook about it. That's just choosing misery. And that misery has a physical toll on your heart, on your brain, on your body. Don't do it. Just say, I'm in or I'm out and I'm going to go on about it. And you're making grownup decisions with whatever, for whatever reason. Great, man. I'm proud of you um do you have somebody in your life that you trust you can sit down and talk to yeah i mean i'm married and we're we're in a good church too so so i would i reach out to a man that you trust not to say your wife's going to be your wife is is going to be team caleb um or maybe she's going to be absolutely opposite team caleb if you're in my house.

But find a man in your church that's 10 years down the road. That's 35, 40. And say, hey, can I take you out for coffee? Here's what I'm wrestling with. I just started this job. Here's what I'm thinking through. And let them speak some wisdom into you. And I'm not saying wisdom on what you should do,

but it helps take the emotion out of this thing. We can look at this objectively. I do that when I get emotional about decisions and I still do, right? Um, I get somebody that I trust to help me walk through it. I make the decision and I'm all about my day, man, just because I'm not going to choose to poison myself. Does that make sense? Yep. Caleb, I'm less emotional than John. Definitely helpful.

Yeah. So I'll walk you through a different scenario here. How much do you make right now? Um, with a bonus, I'm at 101. Wow, way to go, man. 101 at 26 years old, you're crushing it. So tell me this. Here's how I look at it. If someone said, hey, if you get the booster, I'll give you $101,000 a year forever.

I'd be like, okay, well, now it's a decision to consider. But if you say, hey, my principles, my values, tell me no, it's not worth that. Well, then we have to turn that down and go, okay, I got to go find to work somewhere else that will hopefully pay me that much or more that will allow me to still have these values and beliefs. Does that make sense? So what's your line of work? I'm an accountant. Okay, cool. So in accountant world, you can find another accounting job in Indianapolis, right, that may have less strict policies? Or you may – or here's the thing.

Your values may say I can't be in Indianapolis anymore. Your values may say I can't be in this – you see what I'm saying? So it's where these values go, and they're your values. That's the beauty of them. And I'm going to pick them, and I'm going to hold them firm, and then I'm going to go about my life, right? And, yeah, if the matrix is there's not a lot I wouldn't do for $101,000, then great. I just try to take the emotions out of it for a second and go, okay,

let's look at logic on paper versus just the emotions. I think both are important. The other side is, yeah, I won't work for a company who chooses to insert themselves into my life at this level. I don't want that sort of control. All right, great, man. And then be at peace with it. Yeah, and that's what I've been struggling with.

It's like if you can't trust me to make a medical decision for myself, how can you even trust me to do my job correctly? I think that's really what I've been wrestling with on the flip side of it so here's what i want to i want to really caution you against okay i'm glad you mentioned this there's a it's an old psychological principle called the fundamental attribution error okay it's when you get inside somebody else's head and try to decide for them why they just did what they did. And then you respond to your perception of why they did what they just did. And you get mad about it or angry about it or happy about it or whatever. So what I'll tell you is get out of

people's heads, whether it's your wife or that your workplace, just look at the policy on the paper. They're asking me to do this. This violates my values. I got a month. Cool. I'm out. Have a great week. Here's a micro version of this. You walk in from a hard day of accounting and your wife left her shoes by the door again and you trip over them and you can think, she just did that to make me... You could get in her head and think that or you could say, man, my wife's probably really exhausted, and something must be going on. I'm going to pick these things up, and I'm going to do the dishes too. Right?

So you get to pick how you respond here. I'd say get out of your company's head. They don't trust me. Nope. They have nothing to do with you. They made a policy. Just say, am I going to follow this policy or not? And then I'm going about my day.

One of those choices is filled with anxiety, and one is just freedom. This what am i gonna do next that's right yeah well good luck with the decision caleb no matter what you end up with but you're crushing it man 26 100k not so bad i'll take that this is the ramsey show Thank you. Today's scripture of the day is a deep cut from Zephaniah 3.17. The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves. Dale Carnegie says, remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. That's fantastic, Dale. It's a riddle wrapped in a rhyme.

I've never even heard that quote. Dale Carnegie, remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. I'm just going to go straight to Alex in Kansas City, man. That's all I got to say about that. What's up, Alex? Not much. How you been, man? Excellent. What's up, Alex? Not much. How you been, man?

Excellent. What's up? How can we help? Well, I'm 17, and here in about two weeks, I turn 18, and I gained access to a trust fund from some lawsuits when I was a kid for some medical issues. Okay. And it's quite a bit of money, and I was just calling to see, like,

what do I go, uh, what, what do I go? Like, what do I do about that? Like it's how much money? It's more money than I've ever been accustomed to. How much? 3.5 million. 3.5 million. Okay. Are you, are your parents in the room with you? Uh, no, they're not.'re not. I asked that the wrong way. Are your parents in your life? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Are they going to be helping you with this? Yeah, I understand.

Okay. When it comes to this amount of money at your age, it would do you a solid to have a long pause before we do anything with this money. And there's going to be a lot of people who are going to want a piece of this, who are going to be happy to help you manage this money. Alex, people are going to come out of the woods. They're going to come off your roof. They're going to come out of everywhere.

Now, have you had a job before? I've always had summer jobs, but I'm an athlete all year round, so it's just like a summer gig. Okay. Well, there's only three things you can do with money. You can give it, you can save it, and you can spend it. And at your age, I would focus on the first two before the spending part, because this can easily become like Richie Rich style. You're like buying the mansion, you get the fancy car, and at 17 years old, you still have another, I don't know,

80-something years to live. And so if you manage this well, you won't have to worry about money ever again. Or you could go full prodigal son and it could be gone tomorrow. Yeah. Is it okay for me to go out and purchase a house at 19 next year? I would not. Is it okay for me to go out and purchase a house at 19 next year? I would not. Is that okay? Do you need a house at 19?

It's not a matter of okay. Yeah. Why would you do that? I mean, I don't know. It seems like a smart thing to do. I live 4,000 miles away via one, two, three, four cities away from where I was at 19. The idea that you'd buy a house at 19, i just don't know why you would do that yeah you've got the money but i don't know why you do you're gonna go to college you're gonna go to school yeah yeah was there money saved up for that outside of the settlement uh no that is part of like that's going towards my college. Okay. So I would sit down with your parents and say, what's the game plan with this money? We're going to go to college debt-free. Go buy a car.

And don't buy a Tesla. Buy a used truck and get yourself to and from school. Right? Listen to me, Alex. I'm asking you to do something that most people on planet Earth would not do, and that is to look at $3.5 million to buy a $20,000 car. Okay? Most people would not have the discipline to do that,

and you're acting now for 35-year-old Alex and your two or three kids that you don't even know yet. You haven't even named them yet. Yeah. Okay? So I'd put the rest with your SmartVestor Pro, and they're going to not put their hands in all your money. They're not going to spend all their time trying to figure out how they can bilk you

out of this thing, and you're going to let it grow and grow and grow. Do you have any debt, Alex? No, none. Okay. I want to keep it that way for the rest of your life, and that's going to help you make the most of this money. I want you to it that way for the rest of your life, and that's going to help you make the most of this money. I want you to have an emergency fund once you have a picture of what your life looks like, maybe beyond college, of three to six months,

and I want you to be investing 15% of your income from whatever job you have. So let's pretend this money isn't there. Then when it comes time to buy a reasonable car like John's talking about, we do that with cash. When it comes time to buy a reasonable house, maybe once you're married, maybe we do that. Beyond that, I want you to assemble a team. And you can do that at RamseySolutions.com. We've got people in the tax industry, in the real estate industry, in the investing industry.

You've got to start assembling your team of people who care about Alex, who want Alex to win, who can help you do things the smart way, who have your interest at heart. And so that's what your best move right now is. Make a game plan with your parents and assemble that team of people who can help you manage this well and be a good steward of what was given to you. Hey, Alex, this is a hard question I'm going to ask you. Are your parents trustworthy? My mother, yes. Okay. If this money

has specific legal designations, this money is for you, this is your money, I can see a scenario, and I'm not saying this is your parents, your dad, or your mom, a scenario where your parents want this money to pay off their house, pay off their debts, to pay off their things.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you are feeling uncomfortable, that other people are using you as a lottery ticket, it might be a cousin. There are going to be several cousins that come out of the woods on this one. It's best to say, I'm going to not continue this conversation right now and go get with a smart investor pro, go get with a smart investor pro, go get with a legal professional. This is enough money that I might even reach out and get an attorney that's going to help me walk through this. And at the end of the day, protect me, not from myself, but protect me from other folks around. Man, the fact that you're 17 years old

and you thought to make the phone call that you're thinking, I want to do this right, tells me that you're way, way ahead of the game, man. As George said, you've got 80-something years to go. So slow play this. You're in no hurry. You've got your college taken care of, and that's the next, what, three, four, five years of your life. Then let's invest in Alex right now because he still has to live a life. He's going to work a job.

You're not just going to live on an island somewhere. But if you invest, I did some math for you, you invest $3 million of this over 30 years, you're going to have upwards of $50 million to $60 million sitting there. Imagine what you could do for your community, the ways you could give. Man, that's inspiring to think about. Exactly, man. Because you were a good steward of this

and didn't blow it to look showy on Instagram. And I don't feel that from Alex at all. No, man. But, man, that's a lot of weight to put on a 17-year-old. Yeah. That's a lot. Call us back if you need help along the way, man. We're here for you.

All right, let's run out to the town I was born in, Chris in Houston, Texas. What's up, Chris? Hey, thank you all so much for taking my call. You got it. What's up? All right, so I'm in a situation where I've been paying you on a card for two years now, and I have about two years left. I'm paying $497 a month, so about $500.

And I just started listening to the Ramsey Show for about a week, and I love what I'm hearing. I wish I would have heard it two years ago. But my question is, if I should sell my car, I keep on paying it. What's left on the loan? $11,000. And what's the car worth? I actually called a dealership today, and they said $11,000 to $13,000. Okay. I want you to check about four other places outside of just a dealership. Facebook Marketplace, AutoTrader, Kelly Blue Book, Carvana Room.

I did a Kelly Blue Book, and I did a Carvana. Carvana hasn't gotten back to me, but the Kelly Blue Book was also, like $13,000 or $14,000. Okay. How much money do you have? Man, I've been so bad with money. I'm glad I found the Ramsey show. All I have to my name right now is about $1,700. Hey, Chris, hold your head up high.

We've all been there, okay? Oh, yeah, for sure i'm on i'm on the right track now i feel like and i'm trying to get i'm trying to absolutely get rid of my debt man that's good how much debt do you have outside of the car what else like overall total yeah like my entire debt man i just bought a house. I'm in about $65,000 in debt. Outside of the mortgage? Including your house? Yeah, because I bought a trailer house, a manufactured home. Okay, so just the car debt outside of that.

All right, here's what I want you to do. Sell the car for $14,000. Then you have $3,000 left over. Take your $700 that leaves you with $1,000. Go buy a $3,700 car to get you around for now until you can upgrade and get yourself out of debt. Chris, we're walking with you. We've all been there. Keep your head up high and let's start making good choices

from this moment forward. I'd like to thank George Campbell, James Childs, Ben Hill, Kelly Daniel, and even Zach Hendon. America, laugh often, be generous, be kind, turn off your screens, and don't outsource your life. We'll see you soon on The Ramsey Show.

Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.