The Ramsey Show - App - I’m Now Debt-Free, Should I Get a Mortgage? Dave Says… (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 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. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. David is going to start us off this hour in Las Vegas. Hi, David. How are you? Hello, Dave. I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm a new listener.

When we started doing our budget, out of curiosity, we also did our net worth, and we realized that we're worth over a million, but we're still in debt above $400,000. So I was wondering if I should sell some of my investments in order to pay off the debt that we have. What kind of investments and what kind of debt? The debt is a $24,000 car payment, $110,000 on a rental, and then we have about $280,000 on our own house. What investments would you liquidate? It would be just stock.

Okay. Just common stock. Okay. So another way of asking the question then is, would I rather have $1,400,000 in assets with $400,000 in debt, or would I rather have $1,000,000 in assets and zero debt? Yeah. My worry, not my worry, but obviously the investment is making me good returns. So by selling that investment, I'm not going to have those returns anymore.

And I was wondering if the debt that we have is small enough where I can work it into the steady steps, or if it's better to just pay it off. Yeah. We make about $200,000 a year. $200,000 a year. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Well, to start, how old are you? 35. Well, congratulations, sir. Absolutely. You have done very, very well with money. So there's not an answer on this quiz that says you're stupid, because we've already established that you're smart. Right.

Okay, you're already doing really well. Congratulations. The answer I have is, at 60 years old, having lived through losing everything, because I had a bunch of investments in real estate in my 20s and had the opportunity to start again. I like the peace of mind coming out of a dumpster fire of a year like 2020. I like the peace of mind of not having a single debt. And that lowered risk also is going to cause me to increase my rates of return elsewhere yeah because i don't have any risk so if i woke up in your shoes i'd be debt free by friday

i see and david you're one year younger than me man and so i can just keep it 100 with you on the millennial age i'm doing exactly what dave said. Because if I'm in your shoes, I'm paying off all of my debt. And because we're young, we can actually now, being smart, getting some wise counsel, invest a little bit more aggressively. So now your rewards could be actually very well, a little bit more than what you're used to seeing today. Yeah, exactly. And so you now have no payments.

How long does it take to recoup that $400,000? Not long. Not long at all. Not long at all. And so then you'll be at a million and a half dollar net worth and zero debt all along. So what we've done is we lower the risk and increase the peace, and then that allows you to make investments because now I don't have anything holding me back. My house is not at risk anymore where my kids sleep, my wife sleeps, my dog sleeps there.

The house is not at risk. And, you know, we've done detailed research. 100% of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. There's risk involved. I know it's not much in your case because you've got the money but let's just say that investment went kaput because we had this weird thing called a pandemic come up and then all of a sudden you can't pay off the house then it's like oh okay now i got a problem so if i'm in your shoes i'm going to liquidate enough investments to be debt free

by friday in your case good question question. Very good. Thanks for calling. Smart young man. Absolutely. Man, he's killed it. Very well done. Melissa's in Birmingham. Hi, Melissa. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm great. Good. How can I help? Thanks for making financial peace simple and rewarding, and we're celebrating. We have been debt-free since 2013, and that was paying off the house. So just it's exciting and it's fun, right? Absolutely. We're looking to buy our dream home, and I just wanted to know, and your call before kind of answered my question, I think, but I wanted to know if you thought it was okay if we take out a mortgage

just for a little bit to cover the difference. Wait a minute. What happened to the woman I was talking to a minute ago? No, I know, but I like the security. I get it. Dave, I love financial peace. I like being out of debt. Dave, can I go back in debt?

Who is this woman? My husband just got a really good promotion at work, and the salary structure is going to be a little different, and he is going to be on an executive bonus plan now. And we don't really know what that's going to look like, if it's going to be $10,000 or $50,000 or what. But he also got a sizable salary increase. So literally, in just the salary increase alone, we could make the mortgage payment until we got the first bonus. So literally, he just the salary increase alone, we could make the mortgage payment until we got the first bonus. So literally, he just got a sizable salary increase,

and you're more worried about security instead of less worried about security? My dad died when I was very young, and I am a freak about having money in the bank. I'm not suggesting you use your emergency fund. No, no. We have the investment to take it out. I'm suggesting you don't buy this house. Okay. Do not buy the dream house.

Because I think you want the money in the bank more than you want the dream house. I want the sunset view because it is water to my soul to see that every night. Then pay for it. Then pay for it. If you're not willing to pay for it,'re not ready to buy it yep and i knew that's what you were going to say but i wanted to hear you say it you know this show is really kind of boring because we're so predictable you're gonna love the sunset view more because it's paid for paid for when you have a mortgage on it that's got this little needle under your back while you lean back and you try to relax,

you can't figure out what's going on. It's poking me back there. Absolutely. Absolutely. I got a sunset view, too. I like them. I got 18 miles one way, 12 miles the other way off my back deck, and it's sweet. I love it.

I love it, too. It's peaceful. It's very peaceful. Because there ain't any dead gum dead on that thing. I love it. I'm just saying. I could love your view. Well, too. It's peaceful. It's very peaceful. Because there ain't any dadgum dead on that thing. I love it. I'm just saying. I could love your view. Well, yeah.

No, you can't move in, Anthony. Oh, man, I was about to ask the question, Dave. You move more than any gypsy I ever met, man. You move all the time. And I have a nice view, too, but your view is better. You got a view off of that roof. Downtown Nashville looks like a toy box off the top of your roof. It's nothing like your backyard, though.

Your backyard is the city. Now it's on. Now it's on. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. 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 Health Care Ministries,

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I'm probably going to what? Yell at me, maybe. No, I'm not. No, you probably will, Dave. So we have a six-month-old baby. And my fiance and I, we're supposed to get married twice by now, but because of the pandemic, it's gotten pushed back. So we have $88,000 in debt. And we have the option to move in with my mom, with the baby, of course.

And my aunt also is there. So it's kind of like a, my aunt moved in there because she had financial problems. So I don't know if you would recommend like we sell our house and move in there or if we just right through the debt hold on hold on dave dave's not going to yell at you okay i i'm not going to yell at you but i'm gonna tell you no okay i'm gonna tell you no and here's why i don't even want to answer your first question dave may come back and answer that but help walk me through this process why is the pandemic pushing off the wedding like how come how come we just can't go down to the courthouse you're already living together you know you're already i hear a lot of we so just go to the

courthouse get married and then if y'all want to have a bigger wedding do that whenever y'all feel comfortable doing that but help me convince me to why you cannot get married today well yeah we've talked about that um but i guess we just wanted our families there so well your family can't be there invite them to the courthouse with you they have to travel um they live like across country yeah they can come to the celebration yeah because you're already doing everything that married people do you You might as well be married. Might as well. It's just a formality at this stage of the game.

Now who owns the house that you live in? We co-own it. Okay. Please get married this week. Yeah. Do you understand what happens if he dies? Because he doesn't have a will. Uh-huh.

Do you understand what happens if he dies? Not really. a will uh-huh you do you understand what happens if he dies um not really you and your baby are now partners with his heirs in the house that you live in this is how dumb this is yeah yeah he doesn't have a will and you are in a partnership and so i assume like his mom and dad are probably his heirs, right? His child is one of his heirs. And the state will give the other half of the house that you live in to his mom and dad and his kid, which happens to be your kid. Messy, messy, messy, messy thing that happens. And then you're going to call me up and be a brokenhearted young lady that, please, please get these things in order and go do this immediately. No, you don't need to move in with your parents.

No. What is his income? $70,000. What is your income? I just got ours cut, so I'm only making about $5,000 a year. $5,000 a year? Yeah, like $400 a month right now. All right, so you've got to get a different job. This one sucks. Yep. You don't have a job. It's a joke. Yeah, pretty much. How much is the mortgage payment, Brittany? $1,450. Yeah, you need to 50 yeah you get another job so here's the thing

i'm gonna give you ramsey plus for a year as a wedding gift right yeah okay no because i'm afraid for you young lady yeah you're in a very precarious situation legally and relationally right now. And you don't even know what you don't know about how badly this can go for you. So you guys need to get married and then do a celebration later on when the family can come to town. That being delayed for pandemic, I understand. But I'm with Anthony. Get in touch with a local pastor. And let's step out on the front porch and have whoever lives in town come by, and, you know, we'll have a little miniature celebration tonight. You know, you got to get

blood tests, get paperwork, but I mean, probably by the end of the week, but you're really in a dangerous situation. There's no will, and you're in a general partnership, and there's a baby. You guys are going to be more responsible than this. And so I'm not yelling at you. I didn't raise my voice. I'm just worried about you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brandon is with us in Salt Lake City.

Hi, Brandon. How are you? Hello, sir. I'm doing well. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm calling in.

My wife and I have just started listening to you guys a few months ago. We've been married for three years. And conveniently, before we started listening to y'all, we had a fire in our belly to get out of debt. So we started going through, and then when we started listening to y'all, we got really close to where we were and lined up with your track. So long story short, we're now on Baby Step 4. Good. Just paid off the last bit of student loans last month.

All right. We're completely debt-free. Thank you. So my question is, in Baby Step 4, we've got the saving household income in retirement. So I used your SmartVestor Pro and reached out, and I'm talking to someone for a Roth IRA. But he is unable to help me with 401ks for some legal reasons, he says, which I respect. So pure question is, my work, I'm currently doing 10% of my income and my work

is matching that at 10.5%, which is fantastic. Yes, it is. You're a very generous company. But the question I have is up to this point for the past two years or so, I've been doing it in a standard 401k and I'm just now digging around and trying to make sure I'm making the smart decisions. And I found out that they have a Roth 401k. I have about $20,000 in the account. My household income, my wife and I make a combined about $120,000 a year. Basically, I'm wondering, is it a smart idea to right now or very soon move that money from the traditional to the Roth? Do I leave it in the traditional and just switch the fund allocation over to the Roth?

Yes. How do you recommend? Do the second one. Because we don't want you to activate the taxes on the $20,000 and rolling it over is going to cost you about $4,000 or $5,000 in taxes. I don't want to do that until you get your house paid off. Right. Okay. So we're going to just keep, yeah, so just from this point forward, everything's a Roth. That's wonderful with the 10 and a half match. Now the 10 and a half match you need to know is not going to be Roth. It's going to be traditional as well. So you're always going to

have some traditional, unless you're just get real ticky tacky like in my case i match myself i own the company right so at the end of the year i roll the act because it's always a traditional on the match i have to roll my traditional at the end of the year into a roth and pay the taxes on it to keep it all in roth uh and you can do that okay but i wouldn't i don't i would just let it build right now, traditional and so until you get the house paid off. Yeah. Okay, perfect. So then just go ahead and switch over to those Roth and divide it into those four categories. You're talking right, the growth, growth and investment, progressive and international. You're on it, baby. Right on it. I'm curious. What are you doing? What are you doing with the other 4.5%, the other 5%?

Are you doing that into a Roth IRA? Yes. I literally just opened that up with my SmartVestor crowd. Okay. All right. So you're there? That's perfect, man. Very well done. Very well done.

You know, this whole thing about money, having the people in your corner to do it, help you with stuff, is a big deal. Your insurance company ever bumped your car insurance for no apparent reason no freaking reason they just bump it it's maddening and it wakes you up you don't have to sit there and take it jump online at DaveRamsey.com with one of our endorsed local providers for insurance and these guys are great because they actually fight for you they're independent insurance brokers and they'll shop among a gazillion different companies, get you the best possible rate. And most people who work with one of our ELPs, the average savings they do, it doesn't cost anything to get an estimate, but they average saving $700 a year. That's pretty cool because they have the freedom to shop among hundreds of different companies

and get the one that's right for you. So never again should you sit there and watch your rates go up. Text PROVIDER to 33789. Get started. PROVIDER to 33789. Thank you. Anthony O'Neill Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the air. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Kent is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Kent.

How are you? I am great. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I retired last spring. My wife is still working and so we are living basically on a pension of mine and what she

makes. But in about a year and a half, she's going to retire and at that point, we may or may not need to take some money out of our retirement accounts. And I was just looking for a recommendation on the percent that you might recommend to take out of retirement accounts to guarantee that you won't run out of money, I guess. I've always heard the 4% rule, but just wanted your recommendation on that. Well, it's a fairly simple formula. You need to take out less than it is making.

Okay. So I don't know what it's invested in. If it's making 5% and you pull out 4%, you will never fully deplete it. Now, you're not accounting for inflation when you do that. And so 40 years from now, that won't be as much money as it is now. It'll be the same dollar amount, but it won't have the same purchasing power. But mathematically, if you simply take out less than it makes, it's going to continue to grow by the difference, isn't it? Right, right.

No doubt. And if the inflation rate has been 4.2% for 70 years, if you take 4% less than it makes out of it, then you're going to keep up with inflation and break even, right? Yes. Well, there's a good amount. What's it invested in? Mostly index funds. In what? in uh mostly index funds in what s&p 500 in s&p 500 and uh total stock market index funds okay and so you you know if you look back at a long track record on that a 40 or a 50 year you're

going to see uh between 11 and 12 percent depending on what those other indexes are but the s&p is like 11.8% since inception per year average. Okay. Right. Now, I don't know what it's done in the last 10, and you can use whatever figure you want to use. The bottom line is what it did in the past is a way for you to estimate are you okay, but if it does more in the future or less in the future, you have to take less than that amount out. Agreed?

Agreed. And so how much do you have in this nest egg? A little over $2 million. Excellent job. Okay. So, I mean, if you said, okay, the indexes that I have have averaged, just make up a number, 10%. 10%, yeah.

Okay? And they probably have averaged better than that. But if it makes 10% this coming year and I want to leave four in there for inflation, the formula gives me six, doesn't it? Yep. Yes, sir. Which would be $120,000. That's on top of your pension, too. That's $10,000 a month, and you really weren't thinking about that much, were you?

No, no, no. I'm a silver. There's nothing wrong with that, Kent. There's nothing wrong with that. You did great, man. Absolutely. So how much of the $2 million did you inherit? Oh, maybe $15,000.

So you did this? Wow. Yeah. You're an everyday millionaire. Yeah. Yes, I am. I love it. I'm proud of you.

Kent, when did you start investing? You know, I remember in like 1982 trying to pull out $25 a month to put into a 403b and uh my goal was to get rich slowly well it worked how old are you 60 okay so we're the same age and you're two million dollars and you have any debt no what's your, what's your real estate worth? The house. The house is debt. Oh, it is. I've got a mortgage on my house. Okay.

Yeah. So you're worth, you know, $2 million plus, whatever the equity in this house is as far as the net worth goes. Excellent job. Yeah, about $150,000 on the house. Yeah. So here's the thing when we're sitting there and we're 35 we're anthony and we're projecting how much we need for retirement you would say i want to live off of the rate of return minus inflation and if you're looking at your particular investment and it's averaging 11 then you would say i've got to

live off of seven i got to build a nest egg we're gonna live off seven percent if it's averaging 12 i got to build a nest egg where i can live off of eight but when you get to where you really are now this is no longer a theory this is no longer a projection so the four percent rule you brought up includes a conservative investment rate of return and net of inflation and that's where the 4% rule comes from. But that's sitting there when you're 35 going, how much do I need to invest? I'm going to run my calculations. But today, this is no longer a theory.

We have $2 million real dollars sitting here. Real. Way to go. Yeah. So you can really look at it and say, you can dial in the, you know, have your investment professional, or if you're just setting it up yourself, if you've got these with just simple no-load funds, you can dial it up and just say, just watch the rates of return and say, I'm going to dial this thing up at 4% below what the average has been.

And if it's a slower year, towards the end of the year, you back it down. Q4, you don't take any, right? Yep. But if it's a fast year, you could overpull or you could let the investment continue to grow. Let's say it's one of these banner years in the stock market and it did 16%. Well, you don't have to pull the 12 net of 4, right? You could just pull 8 if it did that and leave eight in there, right, and get a little growth for one of those other down years.

You see what I'm doing? Yes, sir. So you just manage the withdrawals to where they're less than the returns. Yep. And I thought about taking out a little more in that year where I did really well, so I would be a year ahead. You can, but leaving it in there also builds up the amount you're going to get the next year. Yeah, that's true.

We fattened the goose up a little bit, so he's going to put out more eggs. I like the sound of that. And so it's okay to leave it in there, and then that offset. And then you can say, I'm going to cheat and actually burn back into the goose the next year when it's down a little. Right? So you can ride the averages a little bit over time as long as you don't just start burning through the $2 million. That's the whole point. So you've done a great job, and that's how I would do it if I were in your shoes.

It's exactly what I do, the way I look at it, except in my case, I'm in a little different situation. I'm not touching the mutual funds at all. I live off the income. I'm still working, and I've got real estate income that would easily support us where I'm not working, not counting the investments. I'd probably just leave the mutual funds completely alone in my case. But were I in your shoes, that's what I would do. And so, Anthony, we get a lot of, shall we say, criticism

from people in the financial community because years ago in the Financial Peace book and in the old Financial Peace workbooks, I said, okay, stock market has averaged 12%. You live off of 8%. That's 4% for inflation. And for inflation and they kept coming back go why it's never averaged that well it has yeah it has averaged that but i don't know that it's going to do that in the future so you know everyone wants to have a conniption fit and argue about how to do these projections like a bunch of nerds without a hobby yeah yeah instead of actually going kent

yeah has freaking two million dollars in a pile right i think we can figure out a way for him to live off this absolutely without having some kind of theoretical meltdown in nerdville absolutely dave i'm right there with you on that one so if he wants to invest in something different that doesn't pay as much he needs to plan on taking out less yep if he wants to invest in something different that doesn't pay as much, he needs to plan on taking out less. If he wants to invest it in something that does a little bit better than those, like a good mix of mutual funds versus those index funds, he probably can outperform those index funds. But by a point, maybe two points, something like that. My personal mutual fund portfolio has outperformed the indexes by a point and a half to two points every year. And it's just, and it's the four types we talk about growth, growth and

income, aggressive growth and international. So the market did 11 and a half. I'm pretty well making 13, you know, and that's if the market does eight, you know, I'm sitting there at nine or whatever, something like that. I've never made less than the indexes. Wow. But I'm not a genius. I just picked mutual funds. I had good track records working with our SmartVestor Pro. Yes, sir.

And so, but people just go into meltdown mode on theory. If you get $2 million, you know what you got? No longer a theory. That's what you got. $2 million. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, James 2.18, But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

And Rand said, the ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity. Woo! That's a good one. Like it. Good stuff. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brad is with us in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hey, Brad, how are you? I'm good, Uncle Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can Anthony and I help? So a wife and I are thinking, help us make a wise decision here. Should we stay where we are, three-bedroom home, four kids, getting a little tight, compromise on a floor plan, move to suburbia somewhere with an HOA, find a lot, build.

Okay. So the question is stay where you are or build a house. Was there a third option? Yes, sir. The third option is move and compromise on space in the backyard or compromise and get an HOA. So move into a more traditional subdivision where there's an existing house. Yes, sir. Versus building. If you built, you would build on land that was not in a subdivision.

Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Now, what's your average household income? In between $200,000 and $300,000. Okay. All right. Now, what's your average household income? In between $200,000 and $300,000. Okay. Do you have any debt right now outside of your current mortgage? No, sir. We just have about $130,000 left on our current mortgage to be done next year.

What's the house worth? $350,000. Ooh. Okay. So you've got a couple hundred grand from that that you can throw at the program right any other money saved you're going to throw at the program uh about 87 000 okay so let's call it 300 for round numbers and uh so what's the budget on these two options? One budget was 25% of take-home is probably between $500,000 to $600,000. But I'm thinking we may be able to beat that or match that

but get exactly what we want in the floor plan if we were to find a lot built depending on the cost of the lot. Are you going to go outside of the city of Atlanta, like in the Gwinnett County area or somewhere out? Due to my commute, I'm not planning on it. Right now it's a great commute. It gives me more time at home. Obviously, if we move further outside of the city.

Yeah, you get to sit in the car all day. Okay, so what I'm trying to figure out is if you bought the used house, what would you spend on it? And if you bought a piece of land, I guess this is not a lot. It's not a large track of land with what you're describing. And you built a house, what would be the turnkey price on each of those two options? So if we move to a house that's already existing, it's probably going to be between $550,000 and $600,000. With $300,000 down? Yes, sir. Okay. And the other one would be? It probably would be close to $400,000 down, but yes, sir. And the other one would be dependent on the lot value, which is around $140,000 for an acre in the area that we're in. And all said and done there, it would be in between $500,000 to $600,000. So about the same.

Okay. So the only question is whether you want to go through the building experience or not in order to not be in a traditional subdivision with an HOA and to build custom to get exactly what you need for your family. Have you ever built a house? Never built one. What do you do for a living?

In transportation, it's very stable. Okay. What do you do in transportation? Aviation. You're a pilot? Yes. Okay, good. Okay, because I'm trying to figure out how your brain works. Okay, because building a home is project management. It sure is. There's three pieces of paper. There's a budget, a schedule, and a blueprint. And every Friday, we have to have that discussion with the general contractor.

And every time we talk to the decorator, we have to remind them there's a budget. Because they don't understand the word. They don't. Neither does the general contractor. The general contractor does once you drill it into their head about four times. Right. We're not going over budget, and you're going to freaking stay on schedule. And this house

blueprint any changes you want to make you need to make them while you're doing it on paper rather than with wood wood and bricks changes are super expensive and so we built our first home four months under schedule two percent under, and we made two changes. But we did all this work ahead of time before we broke ground to where the team, the builder, the decorator, my wife, was all on the same page. We're going to stay on schedule. The trains run on time. We're going to be on budget, and we're going to build this house, and we're not making this up all the way up.

Now, you get it up, and you look at one or two things. You may want to make a couple changes. We did make a couple changes. Both of them were good changes. But these are the things that will kill you and drive you crazy building a house. It's like running a budget on your uh on your income right right and so if you dial this in that way you're going to get a better product for the same amount of money absolutely without having to deal with a freaking hoa i hate hoas and we're in one

now and we're looking to get out oh my god it's freaking Peyton place i'm glad i left mine and so they just i mean i, I dread it. And I'm in a bunch of them because I own a bunch of property. But if you'll manage it that way and you have the time to manage it that way and you and your wife can get on the same page that this is the goal and you can get a builder that understands you're going to turn over your schedule. And so when I walk through this and the trim carpenter is not there on March 19th and you said he was going to be, that was the date.

I'm going to be asking where the flip the trim carpenter is because I know you're getting ready to get off schedule. Yeah. And matter of fact, I'd rather him been there already a week early because I have the spreadsheet that shows when he's supposed to be there. Yes. We're supposed to put the light fixtures in on this date. We're supposed to break ground on this day.

And so you can run the schedule and you run the budget and you stick to the plan without a bunch of changes. You'll have a good experience building. Most people don't do that. Most people drive themselves, their decorator, their spouses, and their general contractor crazy. And that is not a good experience. But I've built two houses and I'm really, really good friends with both decorators and with both builders, both general contractors to this day after we finished. But we had a real set, real clear set of expectations. And also, too, when you go to build before you decide, yes, we're going with this this general contractor, you need to meet with them because there's there's a lot of general contractors out there who you do not want to work with.

Yeah. You know, and I learned the hard way, you know, and so I want to recommend everything that Dave is saying is great. If you go this route, just meet with different builders. You're interviewing someone to build it, to spend a million dollars with. Yes. Yes. That's a lot.

I mean, it's a lot of money. You're hiring a consultant on a million dollar project. Yes. So, yeah, you on a million-dollar project. Yes. So, yeah, you need to interview several. Several. You need to be on the same page about this. And if your decorator is an artist and doesn't do budgets, then you have the wrong decorator. Come on now.

You need an artist that can do a budget. Yes. And I found several. I know several, and they do good work, and everybody in the business isn't crazy. No. But there's plenty of them that will drive you crazy. Absolutely. And, you know, the difference is this.

Residential, you have to lay this out like I'm talking about, very specific. When you get ready to build a piece of commercial, we're building this $50 million project next door over here. You know what? It's exactly what we do. We sit down. When we sit down with them and they're taking a draw on that project next door they go we're 2.67 percent through this piece of concrete and we're going to draw that much and the engineer and the architectural firm verifies that we put 54.4 percent of the steel

on site and we're going to take a draw against that i mean it's down to the digit of exactly where they are and they know exactly where where they are, and they know exactly where they are on their schedule. They know exactly where they are, and they don't ask for more money than they've actually done the work. And it's real easy to see where we exactly are on the budget, where we exactly are on the blueprints, exactly are. And here's three problems we've got to solve this week, and we have a weekly meeting to

go over this and manage the dadgum project. Yes. That's how you do it, Brad. And you do that, you'll have a great experience. Love it. Anthony, thanks for hanging out. Dave, thanks for letting me.

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