The Ramsey Show - App - I'm Getting Married Tomorrow - How Do We Combine Finances? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. My co-host today here on the air, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality. We're here to answer your questions about your life and your money. 888-825-5225.

Michelle is in Memphis. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How can we help? Hi, John. Hi, Uncle Dave. What's up? I'm calling. I want to let you know, first off, I love you. I love your show. I paid off my car, my credit card, medical debt because of you. Way to go. Yeah, so the question I have

today is that my fiance and I are getting married. We're getting married tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yeah, congratulations. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I mean, after this year, you know, we both had COVID-19. We recovered from it. We did premarital counseling, and we decided we're just going to go ahead and get married this year.

We're going to do something big next year with everybody else. And so because we all wanted to get started with our marriage and getting our finances together, we had some questions as far as how to pay off the debt or how to combine households. So the situation is this. For him, he has a $6,500 work truck, $5,000 personal truck, $3,500 credit card, $3,000 in a HELOC, $1,000 in medical,

and then he owes $12,000 on his house, and that's a personal loan with his dad at 0%. For me, I have $130,000 in student loans, and I have a house that i just got two years ago that i owe 205,000 on and if i were to sell it i think it would sell for like 230 or 240 and my question is that um you're we're thinking that what i'm going to do is probably move where he is it's like you say the hour out um and then just commute back and forth I can currently my sisters live with me so you know I charge them rent uh but maybe have them take over the the mortgage um but I don't know ultimately but should I sell the house um should I rent it continue rent to them but i'm not sure for how long uh should i rent it to somebody else good lord okay let's stop there's a lot going on here

there's a lot going on okay to start with let's just um you change your pronouns when you get married it's no longer his house your house it's our house it's no longer my debt his debt it's no longer his house, your house, it's our house. It's no longer my debt, his debt, it's our debt. It's no longer his income, my income, it's our income. So you become French, we, we, we. Okay? So what are we going to do with the house I used to live in that my sisters are still in? What are we going to do with this big butt student loan? What are we going to do with this big butt student loan? What are we going to do with this truck?

And so on. And so once you start kind of looking at it that way, then it's going to help you. In other words, you don't have two lists of things after you're married. You have one list of things. And so you're planning to live in the home that he owes his dad $12,000 on. Does he have a first mortgage in addition to that? No, no, that is the first mortgage.

So when it pays off $12,000, that house is paid for? Except for a $3,000 HELOT. Oh, okay, $15,000. All right. So I think your sisters need to look for a place to live, and you need to sell both of your properties. Okay. Not like next week, but within, I mean, they need to be gone,

and you need to have the house on the market by spring. Okay. Okay. You can be gentle with them, but you're not in a position to be a landlord. You're too broke. $135,000 worth of student loan debt. That's broke. Okay.

And then you guys look at the car situation, and you look at your debts, and we list all of our debts after the two houses are sold, except the home, smallest smallest to largest pay minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack them and work them together in that order what what will your household income be after tomorrow um well mine our income what will our income be tomorrow i think 130 oh great great well you'll be able to plow right through this once you get Income. What will our income be tomorrow? I think $130,000. Oh, great. Great. Well, you'll be able to plow right through this once you get organized and focused on it together. This is going to be really exciting for you.

You're going to make a lot of progress really fast, but you're going to start amputating some crap out of your life. I also have, I was wondering, my mom gifted us $10,000 to the wedding, and I also have like $17,000 in a Roth IRA towards contributions. I didn't know if it would be best to withdraw that and throw that at the debt or just leave that there. I would leave retirement alone, and any monies that you have other than retirement, you use to work your baby steps. Hold on, I'm going to give you a wedding present.

We're going to sign you up for Ramsey Plus for a year, and that includes going through Financial Peace University. It includes the EveryDollar app, and it will give you and your new husband the tools to work together. This idea of combining things changes relational dynamics, doesn't it? Yeah, because it takes the power dynamic out of it. We're in this together. There's not yours and mine. There's not I've got some more than you've got or I've got less than you've got. This is ours. We've got to learn to renegotiate who we are as one person instead of mine and yours.

And there's a shame dynamic too. Well, of course. People bring, if they bring a negative financial end of the thing, they feel ashamed. Right. Like, I should have to clean this up. It's a mess I made. And the other side of it is there's a power in feeling superior. Well, I didn't bring any debt into this, so that's your stuff.

And when you sign up, you sign up. Same team, same team. That's your stuff. And when you sign up, you sign up. Same team, same team. That's right. Richer for poor, in sickness and in health, unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. You almost never hear that part anymore. But that's Book of Common Prayer, marriage vows, the old-fashioned marriage vows. If you had heard a marriage ceremony in the 50s or 40s or 30s in this country, you always heard that. And it got truncated, and now people just write their own vows.

It's like, you know, I love daisies and Skittles and whatever, right? I love you and butterflies and gummy candy. And unicorns. But, yeah, but I mean, there's a commitment, there's a pledge here, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer. Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. And there's a combination there, there's a combining there, and it does away with the shame, it inserts grace, it does away with the power dynamic, to use your phrase.

That's a great phrase. And it sets you up in a completely different way. And I stumbled into this. I didn't know it. I was just making people get on a budget together because it was practical. It was impractical to run two checking accounts. It was impractical to try to run two different lives inside one house. I'm an efficiency guy. So when I first started doing Financial Peace University, it was all about efficiency,

and people kept going, you saved our marriage. And I'm like, you went to the wrong classes, sex classes down the hall, dude. But then I started figuring out this stuff is so intermingled relationally that you really cannot separate it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Families all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs, whether they're anticipated or completely unexpected. For example, take the Olcheski family from LaGrange, Texas. Jeff and Carice had just celebrated the birth of a new baby boy. Shortly after, they had another expensive medical issue come up. They could have faced a huge financial setback, but thanks to Christian Healthcare Ministries, the Olcheskis were

spared from a ton of medical bills. As members of CHM, they're part of a group of believers who financially and spiritually support each other. CHM is the longest-serving health cost-sharing ministry and is a Better Business Bureau-accredited charity. It's Christians helping other Christians, and it shared nearly $97,000 to help the Olcheskis. To be a part of Christian Healthcare Ministries, visit chministries.org., visit chministries.org.

That's chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. This year may not have been what you hoped it would be. Of course it wasn't. But you know what? You can still get your money goals. To celebrate the pre-order launch of Rachel Cruz's new book, Know Yourself, Know Your Money, we are giving cash away every week here in the month of august you can enter our giveaway to win we're giving away five hundred dollars every week this month

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No purchase necessary. Be sure and check it out. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host here today on The Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jacob is in Tampa. Hi, Jacob. How are you? Hey, Dave.

How's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have an income problem, and I want some advice from you. I'm 24 years old. I'm single. I have $0 in debt. I live at home with my parents parents and I have $10,000

saved. I make about $45,000 a year working 70 hours a week and a couple of restaurant jobs. And I need to change careers to boost my income, um, and, you know, really be able to support a family someday. And I want to ask you, uh to ask you what is the best way of doing that amid the whole COVID situation and the state of affairs right now in the world? No, I don't think COVID affects us, to answer one iota. Well, I had originally planned to get into aviation mechanics to be an aircraft mechanic, work for an airline. But why were you going to do that?

Um, well, it's good money. Um, it's a job I like, you know, I like working with my hands. I know I have a job anywhere in the world in any major city.

I feel like it's a safe job. Um, very secure. But now with all the airlines being drastically reduced um in volume i'm not so sure that's a good idea anymore okay well you're probably right i was wrong covid does affect your decision and if you had it nailed down to something like that um but it doesn't mean you can't earn more money and have a career goal uh it just means you're probably not going to do that one. So what we identified out of this is that, number one,

you picked the career for a couple of wrong reasons. You were under the illusion it would be safe and secure. There is no such thing. You're only as secure as your own ability. And your ability is what will always cause you to be able to land on your feet when something moves and something happens. But the good part about what you picked with the career was you said, I like working with my hands.

Now, there we go. Now we're on to something. So you see the way things go together, the way your mind works. You would be what researchers would say you have a spatial IQ. You can see the way things go together. Am I right? Yes, sir. Yeah.

Okay. I got a good friend that is that way. He's probably close to savant in that area. He's dumber than a rock in some other areas. But he can see the way things go together at a level i mean the way he it's like he's got a three-dimensional thing in his head you know and he's made a lot of money doing that because he designs uh a manufactured item that has sold worldwide and he put it together no one else could have but he could see the way it was going to work.

You know, he could run the thing in his head. He didn't have to have a computer model. He didn't have to have a CAD drawing or anything. And so that's the kind of guy that you are. And so you were really on to something with the aircraft mechanic. But there's a whole lot of other stuff you could do with that gifting. And it would satisfy that work with my hands kind of a thing. And you could make maybe more money and have, therefore,

a lot more stability than you might have had in aircraft mechanic world. The problem with aircraft mechanic world is even when the airlines were booming, it's still a fairly small club compared to, like, real estate agents. Millions of those, just a handful of people work on aircraft around the world comparatively. So it's a fairly small club versus car mechanics, millions of those, you know. But aircraft's a fairly small niche, you know so anyway all that to say uh what would you how would you guide him john to try to discover some votech type feel of something to where he can utilize that gifting yeah i i would start all the way back at his original question which is you're 24 you don't owe anybody any money

you got 10 000 bucks in the bank you're making 40 grand you're way ahead i would tell him to exhale a second um and yeah nobody wants to be living with their parents at at you know 24 making that kind of money i get that i would make my goal less about finding my dream job right now and getting a plan to get my own place um then go sit down with a coach i'd probably hook them up with ken's book and uh ken coleman's book and see if you can get connected with a mentor or somebody. But I've never met somebody who's fully satisfied with, I got a safe job and it paid the bills.

Those two metrics never count. There's never enough money. There's never enough time in the day. There's never safety is an illusion. And so getting into something that you're good at, that makes time go by fast, that fills your soul up, that into something that you're good at that makes time go by fast that you're that that fills your soul up that you feel like you're contributing to something those things are way more important than coming out of the gate with what's the

safest job i can do and now that'll pay enough well and if you said uh what do i want to be doing 10 years from now when i'm 34 that could be aircraft mechanic because to assume that the aircraft industry is going to completely go away because of covet is ridiculous right is it is it yeah it's definitely bruised and battered and got a few broken bones and set back and so there might be a whole extra grouping of aircraft mechanics already on the street today looking for work you're going to be in a crowd right in that regard and besides that you got to go get trained and there's not going to be a lot of people wanting to train. So it slows down.

COVID does slow down that dream. But you can still be there in 10 years if that's what you want to do. Absolutely. So go out there in the future and set what it is you want to be and then start asking yourself what has to be true that's not true today. What have I got to know? And Ken says get clear and then get qualified and then get connected and then get connected and

then get started that's just some of his steps on how coleman gets you started on this process in that qualification everybody every college on planet earth from harvard down has put things online has made education accessible in all sorts of facets and so maybe you stay at home for another 18 months get certified in something um get just up to the internship where you can start actually getting into some of these shops that you want to do, whether it's car mechanic or restaurant mechanics, or I guess not mechanics, but fixing restaurant equipment, or whatever it is he wants to do working backwards 10 years from now. Now's a great time to get trained up.

Yeah, excellent. Excellent stuff. But also, 24, no debt. Well done. Making 40 grand. Relax a second. Yeah, very 40 grand. Relax a second. Yeah, very well done. Relax a second.

Very well done. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sonia's on Facebook. I'm 56 years old. I have three kids, one married, one 29, and one living with me since he lost his job. And my younger son, who's 15, how much term life insurance do I need? Well, the older two, if you died, couldn't figure it out. You do have a responsibility, the 15-year-old. And so what, you know, for four years, what's it going to take to support this

youngster, 15, young man, 15 years old, until he is up to 21. So he needs six years' worth of income, and do you want to take care of college and some other stuff, and who's he going to live with? And that kind of a process. That's a great question, Dave. I've never thought about that, but my kids, they're 10 and 4 now, but they grow up, they get jobs, they get married, they're off on their own. Do I still carry life insurance at that point?

You would for Sheila. Right, for my wife. And for the household that is there, but you don't carry life insurance for them. Right. There's three things that happen. If you get out of debt, you build some wealth, and the kids are grown and gone, you do away with the need for life insurance if there's enough wealth to take care of your spouse with no debt. I love it.

And so you're working towards, with just good financial planning, becoming self-insured. I become my own safety net. She's largely self-insured here, up to six years left with a 15-year-old. We're that close. And I don't know how much she's got in her 401K. She might own enough in there she doesn't need any life insurance. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Most people's money problems come from not paying attention. That's why before I spend a dime of my money on something,

I do the research and make sure it's going to live up to what it claims. Recently, I got a great pair of sunglasses from a company called Shady Rays. When you're looking for sunglasses, it feels like your options are limited. Name brand sunglasses cost too much, and the cheap knockoffs are ugly and really don't protect your eyes. Discovering Shady Rays is a game changer. With Shady Rays, you can count on premium sunglasses that protect your eyes and are affordable.

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Better than I deserve. Where do you live? I am from Mesa, Arizona. Oh, cool. Welcome to Nashville and all the way over here on the other side of the continent to do a debt-free scream. Yes, sir. Love it. How much you paid off? I paid about $45,000 in 23 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

I went about from $31,000 to $75,000. Whoa. How'd you double your income in two years? So I graduated with my degree from Arizona State, and then I had an opportunity to go work for a great company where I moved up in about a year. Wow. Yeah, I was a supply chain major from Arizona State. Oh, very nice.

Yes, sir. Good degree. Good degree. Well done, dude. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Very fun.

What kind of debt was the 45? So it was really, I was a normal person, I guess, I would say. So I had a lot of credit cards. I had about six credit cards. And my car loan, I had a big car loan. And then my student debt as well as tuition. So it kind of started from there. My biggest debt was probably school and my car.

What happened? What turned you around? So I had my dad actually pass away about three months ago. He's the reason why I started all this. When I was doing school, he introduced me to you, Dave. And he's like, here's to read a book. And I said, no. I thought I was too cool for that because I was in college. He's like, he's like, here's to read a book. And I said, no, I thought I was too cool for that because I was in college. He's like, no, I'm not going to read

no book. I read enough books already. And after that, he just kept asking me, hey, did you read the book? I said, yeah, sure I did. He's like, okay, what'd you learn? Oh, you know, nothing. So I didn't really, I didn't really, I didn't push it until towards the end of my graduation where I really figured out, okay, how do I want to live? And do I want to keep having a lot of debt and just live for everybody else? Or do I want to live for my family and myself? So that was kind of my fire, essentially. Wow.

Wow. Very cool. Very cool. So what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? The biggest secret, honestly, is the way I look at it. You say why, say why but mine is that kind of changed a little bit and i figured out what is your fire you know when you camp out if you don't put the tent you don't you tend to your fire it goes out so um for me i had to get you know for me i'm a little lee bloomer so i he was like okay where's my where's my gas let me dump a bunch of gas start the fire and keep it going so um by doing so i he was like okay where's my where's my gas let me dump a bunch of gas start the fire

keep it going so um by doing so i just had to kind of accept the fact that you know i'm i'm you know my mom and i moved to the states when i was nine so um i fell to the norm i said okay so what i do from there do i want to live for somebody else or do i want to live for myself and you know build a future so that was was essentially my fire and go from there. And now I'm kind of blessed, you know, thanks to you, my dad, my family, good friends of mine. A lot of people don't understand what we go through because they're so, they're in a different path and they constantly want to see, okay,

let me get this new car to show off or, you know, here let me post this on Instagram and et cetera. But at the end of the day, you're not going to meet them ever again most of the time. What was the hardest thing you had to go through? Um, the hardest thing, honestly, was working two jobs. Um, I was working over a hundred hours a week. Wow. Yeah. I was, uh, bartending slash serving well after my job. So I wake up at five, get off at five in the morning, get off at five, right after that, go come home probably two o'clock one o'clock and then repeat again and i had to do that for a whole year um wow yeah a lot of people didn't

understand and it wasn't my job to really tell them exactly why i'm doing this for me so they'll ask i had a little portrait of my car and had highlighted every time i hit the goal told my dad's like hey scratching that line he said all, all right, keep going. You're not done. So that's that. And then I have a really good friend. His name is JT. Kind of preached him about you a little bit. He avoided like I did.

And then now he's on his path. He's going to be debt-free by January. All right. Very cool. Exactly. So I'm really excited. And I want to share my story and help everybody I can that really wants to learn

and kind of you know send them your way like hey read this book sometimes if they take it they take if not you know you just go on at that point so were you out of debt by the time your dad passed did he get to see that uh unfortunately no um i finally got out of debt after he passed away like maybe two weeks after oh Oh, my gosh. Yeah. He had to be very proud of you. I hope so. I really do. He was my fire.

And it's really hard to lose somebody, especially when you share a lot with them and do your journey. And he just couldn't make it. I'm glad I did this, not just for me, but for him as well, because he was pushing me. Absolutely. Hey, are you a father? No, no, sir. I have my sister here. She's my little sunshine. me but for him as well because he was pushing me so absolutely hey are you are you a father uh no no sir i have a little my sister here um she's my she's my little sunshine i guess so i want i want

you to look at me and dave we're both dads and you said something i hope he is i'm telling you right now speaking from two dads he was very proud of you he watched his legacy grow in you and he watched the the the roots of a tree get deeper and deeper, that he planted seeds that he's not going to get to eat the fruit of, but you are, and that's what every dad wants for their son and for their daughter. So he was proud of you. Don't ever doubt that for a second. You got it?

Yes, sir. That's incredible, man. Congratulations. And we are, too. We're proud of you. Well done, man. Thank you. Well done.

It's very cool. You got a great degree, a great field that you're in your fright your future is bright well done what do you tell people the key is now uh focus the fire and what else oh and just stay focused you know don't compare yourself to anybody else you know everyone has their own journey yeah and um just focus on yourself that's the that's the key point is just i. I think you're right. When you get fired up about something enough, you find a way. And, you know, you push through, you push around, you crack stuff, you blow stuff up. You find a way, you know, when it matters enough. And that's exactly right.

Well done. Very, very, very well done. Good for you. Well, we've got a copy of Chris H hogan's book for you everyday millionaires that's your next step yes sir you're gonna be one man that's the plan how old are you i am 27 i just turned 27 june yeah you're on your way man you are totally on your way well done all right it's nazim in Arizona. $45,000 paid off in 23 months, making $31,000 to $75,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! This is how it's done. Wow. Awesome. That is very cool.

Very cool. Awesome. You know, a lot of you out there listening right now are going, you know, I would love to help a guy like that and coach him and help him get moving. And if that sounds like you, you need to consider working with a financial coach or becoming one of our Ramsey Preferred Coaches. We've got Ramsey Preferred Coaches. If you need some help, you can get in touch with them. They're trained the Ramsey way. If you want to become one of the Ramsey Preferred Coaches, we will train you the Ramsey way, show you what to do and how to

set up a business and the whole bit. It's time to stop trying and start winning with your finances. Get in touch with a Ramsey Preferred Coach. YourPC to 33-789, 33-789. Text the word RPC, and we'll get you in touch with those. And just check online at our coaching section if you have an interest in becoming a coach as well. Very, very cool stuff. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host on the air here today. There is something about, I mean, when he mentioned fire and why, in Simon Sinek's book Why, it was mentioned in another hour

with a different debt-free screamer. And very few money struggles are noble in of themselves but why you do them is really noble right and what you said about his dad being proud is absolutely true absolutely true and when you can add an element to to your idea like i'm doing this to change my family tree it's big it's everything right it puts everything in perspective we get so we get so focused on shiny things and not things of legacy not things are going to last and so coming up with that why come up with that fire that thing you're going to fuel every day if it goes out you're going to get cold right so i'm gonna i'm gonna make it a priority to keep keep fueling it and keep fueling it and keep fueling it for a year.

He went on four hours of sleep. So now he's got a changed family tree and he gets to sleep a full night, man. There's that. That's helpful. Right. You're worth a full night's sleep, man. Amen. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today here on the show.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christopher's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Christopher. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? Yeah, I was just going to ask you, if you were in my position, what would you do? I'm living at home. I'm 27. I'm delivering pizzas. I got about $9,800 in student loan debt, and I got about $29,000 in savings. You have $9,800 in student loan debt. You have $29,000 in savings, and your only job is pizza delivery yeah i have a list in uber that i've done from

time to time to i used it to help pay off my car but i'm not doing that anymore now that my car is paid off i don't want to put all the miles on it so what are you going to do with your life? I would really enjoy to go back to school. With my degrees right now, they're not marketable for a good career. I'd love to go back to school and study human resources. There's a program I got in mind, and I've just been saving up for that. What's your degree in? Psychology and political science. So what can't you do with a psychology degree?

I feel like I definitely could go down the route of human resources. I feel like eventually, though, to get a better advantage i believe getting a master's degree would hold a lot more bullcrap credibility absolute bullcrap you don't believe so okay i run a 250 million dollar company no one in my hr department has a master's degree no kidding and they're awesome too by the way they're great and i don't think any of them even have an hr degree armando might our director of hr might i don't know my original director of hr did not i know that um no you you've got what it takes to get in there you need to get your foot in the door and if you want to go pick up some classes some one-off classes and audit some

classes just to get some knowledge on HR, that would be advisable. But I don't think you need to go back and get a four-year degree in HR plus a master's in order to be able to be in HR. You need to get in the game, man. Get in the game. Yeah, it's time to get in the game. I would pay off my student loans yesterday. And I'd move out the next day.

Yeah. And go get a job in HR. Go get your foot in the door, entry-level position recruiter or something else in HR. Get started and get with a company that will pick up some of your tuition and go start doing some study at night instead of delivering pizzas with them paying for it. My sister's a recruiter. She does remarkably well. Recruiter's my bank.

She is awesome. She knows the business. She knows well, but she's got a bachelor's degree, and she's smarter than me 10 times. And so, man, you've got to get in the game, dude. Master's degree in human resources? No, she's got a bachelor's degree. A bachelor's degree. Yeah, I'm just saying.

Yeah, she's a rock star, but she put the work in. She works real hard. And you've got to get in the game, brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a perceived blockage, a blocker here that's not real. Right. It's not a real blocker, Christopher. But get your foot in the door and get stirring it up.

Hang on. I'm going to give you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle. And if I were you, I would get started tomorrow on all of that. I'd pay off my student loan today. I'd make plans to move out. You've got plenty of cash. You're in good shape. You can work the part-time gigs if you have to to pay bills for a little

while until you land the job but i would go get an hr position uh somewhere that you'd love working and again use ken's material ken coleman can help you land that job ken coleman.com there's all kinds of get the interview get the resume stuff right all of it's free and downloadable and i'm going to give you his book so we've given you everything that he's got and he can help you land that for sure but um you know so chris if you hear what just happened is dave ramsey just called your bluff he just called his bluff man and so now he's taking all the excuses off the table all of the well you know i'm just stuck my degrees nope it's over dude here, dude. Here's the book. Here's the resources.

Here's the high five. Go get them. And I'll tell Dave, his HR department here is extraordinary. Our HR department, they're excellent. They are. Excellent at what they do. They are. There may be 17 of them with master's degrees.

I don't know. I really don't. But they were not hired for master's degrees, and they were not kept from doing something because of a master's degree. I mean, I cannot think of anybody over there that even has an hr degree much less a master's degree they might one of them might but um but uh i mean you know we're again hr is about taking care of the team love people love loving the team and hiring the team right hanging on to recruiting and taking care and loving the team and hiring the team. Hanging on to the team. Recruiting and taking care and loving the team.

And, you know, a psychology degree will assist you in that. A big heart will assist you in that. Caring about people will assist you in that. And then God help you somewhere along the way, you're going to learn something about the law as well. But the rest of it is, you know, there's no technique that they're going to teach you in a master's degree that allows you to be able to, unless you want to work in a cold, toxic corporate environment, then you might need a master's degree. But I don't think that's going to be your goal.

You need to get jobs where you go in and look at people. Here's another thing Christopher can do is when he delivers pizzas in the evenings as he's grinding through trying to get some get his foot in the door and another position he can take those 30 second those one minute exchanges and learn how to read somebody learn how to be kind to somebody learn how to make somebody's day when i worked at burger king at the front register i learned at a young age it takes about 10 seconds to make somebody's day or to ruin it yep right and that lesson as a 16-year-old kid has ridden with me all the way through is treat people with dignity, get to know somebody that fast, honor somebody, give them what they need and step back. Those kind of little personal skills, those investments in people,

loving every person you come in contact with, that's going to make you a great HR person down the road beyond a whole other program, man, six or three years. So you know what a nail apron is i do not you don't know you never wore a nail apron nope it's a little thing you get at home depot or something ties around the back okay got two little pockets in the front okay your nails oh yeah yeah yeah nails in it if you're driving nails and you know you're doing carpentry right so pizza guy number one pulls up in front of our house, honks his horn,

won't even get out of the car. Nope. I got to go outside, down the stairs, give him his money. He gets no or one level of Dave tip. I got to give a tip because it's Dave. Right. I don't have a choice. Right.

But, I mean, what a jerk. Pizza guy number two knocks on the door. This is his third trip to the house. He's got a nail apron. Steps back three steps from the door so that his presence is not intimidating if the lady of the house happens to answer the door or, for that matter, if anyone. Because if you're all up in the grill too close, that physical presence wrong you know what's in the nail apron dog biscuits no way for my dog well played man you give my dog a dog biscuit you didn't crowd the space you're smiling and happy

the pizza's hot you're happy to be here guess who gets the tip bigger than the stinking pizza you know right i mean what ingenuity well in the ingenuity is just i'm honor the person i'm serving a meal to right yeah and i don't know when that dave i don't know when that became a a move right when we had to start teaching people hey you're bringing somebody a meal you got a noble thing you're doing here you're taking somebody dinner do it with a smile on your face you're helping somebody out be joyful be a good person to be around be a kind person bring a dog biscuit can you imagine the roi on the dog biscuits man? Oh, God, man. This guy's, yeah, $5 thing of dog biscuits, $2 for a nail apron. Right.

And he made that back in one stop. Anywhere there's a dog. I don't know what you do with a cat, but oh, well, there you go. Well, I've got my own thing about cats. Because I don't know anything about, I don't know what you do with a cat anyway. I know people on the internets don't like people who talk about their cats. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. Oh, really?

I'm not a cat guy, Dave. I didn't know anything about the internet. I don't like people who talk about their cats. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. Oh, really? I'm not a cat guy, Dave. I didn't know anything about the internet. I don't either. They tell me so. I'm going to stay off it. We can just talk about your lovely dog. Yeah, that's it. Well, he has an underbite, so those dog biscuits are a problem.

But it was still a great gesture. There's a 100% chance the next time I come to your house, I'm bringing a dog treat. A nail apron and a dog biscuit. I'm not wearing an apron to your house, but I will put some in my pocket. I love it. You got to get to Sharon's heart. I'm just saying. You can get a tip out of even Sharon doing that.

You know, there you go. Oh, that puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show mercifully in the books. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.