The Ramsey Show - App - I'm Scared And Don't Know What To Do (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host today. He's also the co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour and the host of the George Camel Show. Very popular on YouTube, both Ramsey Network Productions. And we'll be taking your calls. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Brian starts this hour in St. Louis. Hey, Brian, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for the call. Sure, what's up? My wife and I are trying to build a house, and we're discussing how much we should have saved ahead of time. I would like to have $100,000 saved, and she wants to start now. We're at about $40,000 saved. Okay, and so she isn't as concerned about the down payment as you are?

She's just excited to get going. More so than concerned about the down payment, which you are, yeah. So what does the payment process look like for this build? When is all the money due? Well, we haven't started anything yet, and so I would like to save $100,000, hopefully get $200,000 out of our house, and then maybe go $350,000 total and then just have $50,000 left to finish up when we're all done.

What do you make? Which we could. Which you also did? About $100,000. Okay. So you're talking about a $350,000 build. Okay. And you've got $40,000.

How long does it take you to get to $100,000 if we went your way? Went with your goal? A little over a year. So we're not arguing about $60,000. We're arguing about a year. Right. She wants to go now. You want to go in a year.

Correct. Okay. Okay. Which means that if we go her way, you end up with a $100,000 mortgage, not a $50,000 mortgage. Yes. Or a $110,000 mortgage to be precise, right? Am I doing all this correctly, Brian? Yes. Okay.

How sure are you this home is going to cost 350 uh not sure that's just the goal that we'd like to keep it under do you have a blueprint no we haven't started anything you have a builder we have nothing just discussions do you own the land uh we have family land set aside. Okay. Sidebar before we keep going. Family land set aside means that there needs to be a plat that is deeded to you, and you have the right to sell it someday if you all don't want to live there anymore. Otherwise, don't do this deal.

Right. You don't build your house on daddy's land or your house on a lot that daddy gave you off his land, and he says you can never sell it. Neither one of those are both deal killers. It would be purchased. Okay, and you would own it. Oh, wait a minute. The land is part of the 350? purchased. Okay. And you would own it. Oh, wait a minute. What does the land, the land is part of the three 50.

Yes. Okay. And then you would have full rights emotionally, relationally, legally to sell it later if you want to. Yes. Okay. I've taken that call a lot in the last 30 years. Someone that's stuck in a piece of property because everybody's going to be mad if they

sell their own house. Right. Don't do that. All right. all right now all right back to the deal so the land is how much uh 40 000 and that's included in the 350 did you say or not included yes okay all right we think but we really have nothing to base this on except square foot and you think you're going to build x square feet i i would tell you this. I'm in the middle of building a house right now. It took us nine months from the time we decided we wanted to to get a blueprint, a builder, and a budget completed.

Completed. I mean, from day one, and i've done it before so i'm guessing uh that you can start on the process now and it's probably going to take you close to a year then you'll have that hundred yeah or not i mean you know it may take you nine months and then you split the difference right but i i think you can go ahead and get started because here's what's going to happen when you start drawing this house and you actually start talking to builders and you actually start getting bids you're going to find out your numbers are wrong right or they change and i doubt they change down right you got to watch the scope creep thing here yeah my fear is this thing is double what

you thought it was going to be and now we got to relook at is this the right next move or do we just buy a place yeah so i think we gotta you got bigger issues than when to start okay you need to go you guys you can start today on the get looking at builders and looking at blueprints and getting it dialed in and once all of that's done if it's not been a year um and you've got everything dialed in and you really can still do the numbers that you come up with the real numbers not hopeful numbers um then we can say all right i still don't want to start then and what i would recommend back to your original argument is just split the difference just you know instead of a year or starting now uh let's say six months and by then but it believe me it going to be six months at least.

I don't think we're starting next week on this building. No, we're not. We've got some time. Builders aren't working as much right now, so you probably can find one that will give you some attention. Because of the rates? That's a good thing. Just slowed down a little bit? Very few specs going up.

Builders that are working are doing customs. And so very few home starts on specs because the market's really slow with the high interest rates um prices have held firm and have gone up in most cases and depending on the market but uh the build rate uh new home starts are down way down way down and specs have just about disappeared in most markets wow so which is not a bad thing it's okay except that the except there's no freaking inventory but for for brian it's a good thing because he's probably going to get some good attention yeah versus builder and builder builder and subs are going to be available going a million miles an hour you don't want someone

rushing through that home build well and you got 73 other clients instead of just you may be his prize client right now you know it's. Now, on the financing side, how would you suggest Brian goes through with this? Because there's different ways when you're working with a builder to finance it. Well, if it's 50,000, he probably can go over to the credit union and just get a loan. Simple. If it's going to be 100, 110, 150, then he's probably looking at a formal construction loan, and he'll have to get an appraisal on the plan. The builder, the general contractor, obviously, license will have to be shown to get the appraisal,

and then they'll do that to get, and you'll have to get approved for your permanent mortgage, and they give you a letter called a takeout letter, which means that they will be there to take out the construction loan at completion, the permanent mortgage will. It'll convert over to a conventional loan. And you can do all of that with Churchill Mortgage, every bit of that, if you want to. But if you've got a little small loan, like a $50,000 out of $400 or $50,000 out of $350,000,

you know, probably just your credit union, they'll just make you a loan, like a personal loan almost. They're not going to put a lot of regulation on that. They're not going to require the takeout letter. They're not going to require an appraisal. They're not going to put a lot of regulation on that. Not going to require the takeout letter, not going to require an appraisal, not going to usually. But if you get up there over a hundred, then you're going to have a construction loan. I just rewatched the big short over the weekend with this whole mortgage crisis. Man, it puts things in perspective. Yeah. How wild things were back in those days. Yeah. Well, there was just so the big short's

all about all the fraud that happened. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just people making up appraisals. And we got a whole new list of appraisal regulations in as a result of what happened in that movie. Yeah. A whole different world. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is our co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for being with us, America.

We're here to serve you. Our joy comes when we can show you what to do, and then you actually go do it, and it causes you to win. Bing, bing. That's how that works. That's what this has been about for 30 plus years now and it continues to be jody is with us in springfield illinois hi jody welcome to the ramsey show hi there hey what's up i well i'm kind of embarrassed to ask this question

but i am a 50 year old widow who has been widowed for 15 years. I have helped put my children through college, and I have no retirement. So I am ready to start retirement, and I don't even know where to begin and how much to put in. There's nothing embarrassing about any of that. It's good. You make me feel good It sounds like you're a wonderful person. We just need to get on the ball, right? Yes. So what do you make?

I make about, I was just sitting here figuring this out, I bring home about $36,000 take-home a year. Okay. So your income is somewhere around in the low 40s, maybe 45. about $36,000 take-home a year. Mm-hmm. Okay. So your income's somewhere around in the low 40s, maybe 45. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

What do you do? I am a social worker. Okay. All right. And do you have any debt? I do not. Your house is paid for? Yes.

Well, that's great news. That means most of your income can go toward investing. So you have zero saved right now, right? What do you have in the bank? Well, here's what I have. I have my emergency fund of $1,000. I have my three months. I have three months for my, you know, in case something happens.

But that's about all I have at this point. So I'm on the Dave Ramsey boat. I just, I'm scared. It's to a point where sometimes I cry because I'm like, what am I going to do? You know, because I don't know. Because when my husband passed away, you know, I used like life insurance and all that kind of stuff to pay my house off. So, you know, we had a roof over our head and all that kind of stuff because my kids were seven and 10 when all of

this happened. Wow. Well, you've had a lot of life happen. It's been hard. I totally understand. We're not here to beat you up. We want to give you some good next steps to take. And if you're following the baby steps now, that puts you at baby step four, because you have no debt, fully funded emergency fund, and really it's step seven because you have a paid for house. And so now the kids are, their school's paid for. We got to put our own mask now, put our own mask on. And that looks like investing for retirement as aggressively as possible do you have a retirement plan through your employer here's what i have and i i didn't know what route to go but there's a 403b okay i don't know much about that i kind of look you know do they have a match no okay i would not do that then i would first do

okay i mean i may do some there but we would first do a roth ira okay just a plain roth not a traditional a roth a roth so what i want you to do is go to ramsey solutions.com and click on smart vestor and get a smart vestor pro in your area to sit down with you, and they can help you run some calculations. Okay. Now, let me give you an example. You bring home $3,000 a month. You do not have any bills except survival bills. You have no debt, no rent, no nothing, okay?

Correct. If you were to save, invest $1,000 a month for 15 years, at 65, you're going to have right around a half a million dollars. Right around $500,000. Really? Yeah. Okay. What this means is not that you're rich, and it's really not enough, but it's enough to make sure you're not cold and hungry right because it will produce then let's just get let's just reverse engineer this which

is very interesting okay let's pretend it produced 10 a year on the mutual funds after that and that you retired and had no retirement income and I suspect you probably have a retirement with your government agency, don't you? Did they furnish you a pension? Yeah, actually, my husband, I get a pension off of him. But do you get a pension from your work when you retire? No. Okay. It's just so security I pay into yeah yeah yeah absolutely which is nothing which is horrible but that's okay all right so if you had a half a million

at 65 or 67 or whatever and it was invested at 10 10 of 500 000 is 50 000 a year right without touching the nest egg, without touching the goose, it will lay 50,000 golden eggs a year. Wow. And so you'd actually be making more at retirement than you are now. No kidding. So you're going to be okay. That's the point.

You're not going to be rich, but even if my numbers are off a little bit and they might be one way or another, actually, they probably are off in this case because you probably will not be making $36,000 for the rest of your life. You'll probably be making more, and so you could invest probably more later. Agreed? Right. Yeah. So I did that based on $1,000 in your current income.

So I want you to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, and we don't know how the scenarios will compare to actual life, but you can run some scenarios like I just did just to get the idea that I don't have to cry. No. Because if you'll start now, Jody, and you'll start investing close to $1,000 or more than $1,000 a month, you get your budget tight and you do that, you're going to be okay.

Matter of fact, you're going to be better than okay. That makes me cry just being happy. Yeah. So I want you to sit down. But it also needs to make you get on the budget and do it. It also means you get on the phone and get on with those SmartVestor Pros and go sit down with them and learn. And let's get this stuff started. Not next week, not next year.

Now. Now. Okay. Right now. Because every day you put this off, it gets harder. If you put it off a year, it's going to take $1,200. Yeah. Don't put it off anymore.

You put it off as long as you can the fuse is burning so i want you scared enough that i scare you into action but i don't want you terrified anymore so you're paralyzed i got it i'm on it i'm doing it today i love you you're awesome call us back let us know how it's going okay okay thank you guys so much i appreciate it thank you sweet lady love that she just needed a little motivation that she's not doing as as bad as she thought she was and the time to start is today what's interesting about what we do for a living we're talking about getting out of debt or we're talking about building wealth numbers actually give you a result that gives you hope when you run math

okay you know got a hundred thousand dollars in debt i'm never going to get out what's 33 000 a year for three years i mean it's 2600 bucks a month and you make 150 000 shut your winding up you know all of a sudden the numbers give you give you hope right the math gives you hope in her case it's a thousand dollars a month and for for the next 15 years and not missing a month and getting started immediately and getting good returns and good mutual funds, which probably that 403B does not have. That's why I directed her away from that. You know, let's go first to the Roth IRA. With more control, more options. A lot better options, a lot better mutual fund options out there.

Now, I can be off. And if you all want to argue with my numbers, that's fine. Argue with my numbers. But here's the point. Get with it. You know, and, you know, know i might be if i'm half wrong she's still gonna have 25 26 000 a month coming in uh or 25 26 000 a year coming in uh versus nothing which your little plan you critique critic people out there creates nothing that's what

critics create nothing well the new one dave is, a million dollars isn't enough anymore, Dave. That means a half million dollars is half of not enough. But it's more than you got if you be broke and crying about it. Hello. Yeah, we'd love for you to have multiple millions. But, I mean, in this case, you could see 500,000 would still change your life. The only way she's going to get to over a million is she's going to raise her income substantially. So she could invest twice as much because 2 000 a month yeah for 15 years at 12 my mutual funds have averaged 12 for the last 30 years my personal portfolio and i'm

not a genius the market is averaged 11.8 percent in the s&p so by god shut up and go do it you know so could you could you end up with a million dollars in 15 years? Yeah, it's two grand a month. That's it, roughly. I mean, there it is. Ding, ding. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. So our team handed me this this is cool george in march andrew came and did a debt-free scream with me and uh dr john deloney was on the air and we celebrated him paying off 303 000 in 49 months wow his student loans car debt home improvement loan credit card and a house paid off his home and then we get an email from him that he had a chance to go back to his alma mater, his high school, to one of our foundations in personal finance classes, Warshaw High School. And he put this quote on Facebook, 2009 WHS grad. Oh, that's what they put on there.

Andrew returned to his alma mater today to chat with the senior financial planning class about his financial journey and becoming debt-free he completed the dave ramsey class and paid off his debt this class is also completing the high school version of financial peace university thanks for coming andrew which is called foundations and personal finance very cool what a great poster child. These kids are going, oh, this, I got to watch another video. And then they're seeing this guy. Who was from their high school. Who graduated from the same, sat at the same desk they sat.

Who has no payments in the world. Yeah. At a very young age. 100% debt free. Wow. Ding, ding, ding, ding, house and everything. And go in and tell the high school seniors it can be done. That's how we do it.

That's some social proof. Yeah, we've got the Foundations in Personal Finance high school curriculum that now 6 million students have been through since we started it. It's been in 48% of the high schools. It's currently in like 40% of the high schools. And more and more states are now making personal finance mandatory. I love it and so we've been adopted by for instance the texas uh whatever the texas state school board or the adoption process to adopt the curriculum and we were just adopted in uh florida oh that's right a couple months ago

it's a big one so florida's got a big push brand new push it's texas has had it for a while and they've got their second push coming to get all the seniors before they graduate through our kids before they graduate at some point as a senior or junior whatever through a personal finance curriculum and we have the largest most successful one and florida just adopted ours as well now they've got other brands that they can do but so now each of the school local school boards are selecting whether they're going to use ramsey or whether they're going to use something else but really excited about it and um happy to be in florida thanks florida we appreciate you and actually i got to meet uh the state senator uh we were down there doing an event in orlando i remember that i got

to you were in the green he's in the green room it was incredible and that sponsored the bill that got passed in florida to make personal finance a mandatory event it's not elected a mandatory class for graduation at a certain date in florida high schools and that precipitates then the uh high school, our personal finance curriculum is getting adopted. And we're one of the high school approved adopted curriculums in Florida. So excited about that. So if you're around one of the, uh, Florida, uh, school boards or your teacher or whatever, um, and you want to push for our curriculum being in your school, we would appreciate it. And way to go, Andrew, thanks for going back to your school. And I don't know where Warshaw high school is, but it's not on this,

but it's pretty cool that a guy does that and goes back and speaks to the class. Well, everyone going, they don't teach this stuff in school. We do now. Yeah. We're in half the high schools. It is in a bunch of the states now. And that's obviously been doing it a very, very long time, very successfully. We meet all the benchmarks.

We've got a Ramsey's Education solutions department here that we've been running for i don't know almost 20 years now and the guys and gals in that department that that put this curriculum together that we use in the high schools uh are from the education world and so our stuff meets is the easiest for teachers to operate because it's the lesson plans are done. The testing is done right. It's all built out to where it's as low lift as possible. Former teachers going, I wish this is how it was created. I wish everything was created this way because our guys are putting it and it meets all the educational benchmarks and legalities and so forth that we have to meet in order to be in a public school system.

And so we do every bit of that. And, man, we're just thrilled. Thrilled so many people are getting able to do this, and this is cool that Andrew did that. That's a lot of fun. Isaac is with us. Isaac is in Huntsville, Alabama. Hi, Isaac.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thanks for having me. How are you all? Better than we deserve. What's up? So my wife and I are fixing to be going through our first divorce and she's going to keep the house that we currently have and thanks to a wonderful support system I'm going to be able to move back in with my parents while I get back on my feet and

at this point I'm just wondering know, kind of what's next. How do I start over from here? What should be the correct step I take? I'm sorry. I am 32 years old. How long were you all married? About five years or so, maybe. Do you have children? A five-year-old so, maybe. Do you have children?

A five-year-old son, yes. I'm sorry. Huh. What do you make? $33 an hour, about $4,000 take home a month. Okay. okay um well to answer your question you know you're you're just going to start laying out a game plan to build enough financial life that you move into the into this next chapter right i mean first goal would be to get on your feet enough that you had a little bit of money saved and you

go get an apartment right right i mean, obviously your parents are providing a safety net, not a hammock. Correct. And so you're just passing through. And like you said, that's a wonderful thing, and I'm not upset about that at all. But I would give myself a number of months, like three or six months or something, and say by then I'm going to have enough saved to have deposits

and get an apartment, get my own place, get some furniture, get restarted in terms of like almost as if you were moving out after high school or college, right? Right. And then once you've kind of got a standard of living set and a place to live, then you start doing the baby steps and you make sure you're you get out of debt you build an emergency fund and you know you start investing and you know

you're going to figure out that there's another chapter to this life after 32 years old right right yeah so this setback is going to be a comma not a coma so keep that in your mind this is temporary you're going to have a whole another life on the other side of this thing. This doesn't define you, but it will refine you. And so now is the time to make some choices that will set us up for the next 10 years. So do you know, as the dust settles, what the financial picture looks like as far as child support, alimony, the house debt so i will be taking the car that she's currently driving and she's going to take the car that i'm currently driving because it's paid off and the car that i will be getting is not i owe somewhere around 21 000 on it um the way we've worked everything out between us you

know everything's very amicable so we So it's going to be uncontested. So the way we have it worked out, no child support, no alimony or anything. It's all going to be, you know, we both put in everything we can for him. And she's keeping the house, and there's no, you're not getting any money out of this, out of the house deal? Correct. Okay. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not a lawyer in Huntsville, Alabama. I don't think a judge is going to approve a divorce decree

that does not include child support. Okay. You probably need some legal advice, not to create a stink, but I think you're going to be under the law in most states required to do something for the kid from a legal perspective i know you're going to from a moral perspective but um but i think i don't know i don't know what i'm talking about so you need to check that out because i i had fireworks go off in my head but i can't just be handshake agreements i don't i don't think it can be i you check me out i could be wrong okay so um the house what's the payment on the house uh 550 a month what does

she make um bring home is about two thousand a month she's gonna struggle with that and your name and your name still on the mortgage and if you try to have a new life five years from now and she hasn't paid the bills on time, then your credit is going to have been damaged. I'm not sure this is a great plan, brother. I know it sounds like it's all nice. It's all nice until it's not. And then when she gets in trouble, loses her job,

you're going to end up paying the house payment for somebody you ain't married to anymore because you're still on the mortgage paying the house payment for somebody you ain't married to anymore. Because you're still on the mortgage. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Johnny is with us in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Great. Well, I'm calling to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. I'm 22 years old. I fully support myself. I take home about $5,000 per month. I have zero debt. I have $60,000 in savings, a $3,000 emergency fund. And I've been listening for the past year or so. And some of my friends and mentors are into long term real estate investing. So I've been saving towards that for the past couple of years. Ideally, I'd like to start building some long term wealth. And so I just wanted to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes.

Wow. You are beyond ahead of the game. Well done. Very well done. Thank you. Well, I probably have a different view on real estate investing than your mentors. Sure. And I probably own more than they do given that i own about 600 million worth okay um but anyway the uh uh i i do not believe in borrowing money johnny because you and you've heard that listening to the show and i don't for my real estate investing i pay cash for it and so the first real estate investing I did, and I've always

loved real estate, that I did after going broke and starting completely over and with this new I don't borrow money thing as a part of the guidelines, was I didn't do real estate investing at first. I just started piling money in mutual funds. And when I got enough in an index fund is what I used, an S&P 500 index fund. It took me about five years to buy my first income-producing property. I paid cash for it. And then I took all of those rents, net of expenses, and any other money I could, and I threw it in an index fund until I had enough to buy another property. And then I took all the rents from the two properties

and any money I could scrape together from anywhere else, book royalties or whatever else, and I bought another property for cash. And every time I bought another property for cash, I had more cash flow to buy another property faster than I did the one before. Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. That is a very long-term play versus what you have been considering until this phone call. Sure.

Because you're thinking about getting up and down payment and going buying a nice little duplex in California. Exactly. Yeah, and I'm telling you to wait and pay cash for it, which your friends aren't going to like. And I don't really care. They're wrong. That's true. But you called knowing you were going to get a different take, which tells me you're actually interested in this take. I am, yeah.

I've just been curious what to do because I feel like I've been saving decently and I'd like to continue that. But, you know, once you get a certain amount of money, I feel like it burns a little bit of a hole in your pocket. You're ready to jump into it. Yeah. And you've done really well, Johnny. I mean, let's face it, you're 22 years old, you have 60,000 bucks in the bank and no debt at all. And you're making 5K a month. You're killing it. Ding, ding. Very impressive. And it doesn't sound like you lead a super luxurious lifestyle you're a saver i i try to be for sure there's a balance so the key is to keep living on less than you make what would be interesting if you want to be really nerdy i don't know how nerdy you are i'm real

nerdy is and i've done this a couple of times it's and it always it always works that's why i'm putting you up to it is if you say all right all right, when I'm 42, would I rather own $10 million worth of real estate with $8 million worth of debt? Or would I rather own $3 million worth of paid-for real estate? Yeah, I think the clear answer is the $3 million. Yeah. And then here's what's into here's the here's the exercise run out the the purchase snowball which is not a debt snowball but the way i talked about a while ago rents buy more buy more buy more buy more everything's folded back into the next deal and the slower start ends up with

a faster end the faster start ends up with a slower end. My way is slower start, but has a big time payoff at the end because it hockey sticks from an exponential mathematical equation perspective. Does any of that make sense? Yeah, definitely. It does. Because when you get all this property that's sitting there paid for, you are buying more property faster than you would have if you had a whole bunch of property that's not even close to paid for, and it's not cash flowing nearly as generously. So the math says I can buy more property faster now. It's ridiculous what my real estate fund now looks like from my real estate income. Now, because I'm at the back of the story, right? But I can't get people to think long term.

And I might have just got one 22-year-old to do it, though. I'm impressed. He sounded interested. Yeah. If we could just get off TikTok, we'll get there. For real. Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jake. How are you? Hey, guys. It's an honor to speak with you. Thanks for having there. For real. Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jake. How are you?

Hey, guys. It's an honor to speak with you. Thanks for having me. Our pleasure. How can we help, sir? Yeah, so I'm 35 years old, have no debt, and am about to step into Baby Step 6. And my question is, you talk about Baby Step 7, living and giving like no one else. I have no problem with the giving aspect of things. The part that is a little tricky for me to wrap my mind around is the living like no one else because I am a pastor. And so to be stepping into baby step seven, hopefully here in the next five or six years, I'm trying to imagine life in my 40s, living like no one else while being a pastor and living in the community of people

who have paid for my financial success, you could say. I don't know how else you would put it, but how should I think through that as I look forward to the next five or 10 years? Yeah. over to the next five or ten years yeah well um don't muzzle the ox as he treads out the grain you probably read that scripture right yeah and a worker is worthy of his hire you probably read that scripture right so are you a good pastor and you're worth what they pay you? I sure hope so. Then if you use that money wisely, in Christianity we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we?

I think you're modeling for those people what the results of good stewardship are, that it ends up with wealth. But we're taught by Karl Marx, not by jesus that wealth is evil wealth is not evil people are evil particularly some of them in your church i'm kidding no but uh not much but yeah anyway but yeah but but so you're always going to have a hater whether you win or you lose if you do it at scale. Yeah. If you lose, you aren't a good steward, and you're horrible, and you worked your whole life, and you have nothing to show for it, and we call that being a good steward. That's not a good steward.

That means you did a bad job handling your money. So you're supposed to model for your congregation how to be a good steward. That's not a good steward. That means you did a bad job handling your money. So you're supposed to model for your congregation how to be a good husband, how to be a good dad, right? How to be a great leader. We're supposed to model in Christianity. It's called a witness. And yet, my friend Craig Groeschel says, why is it that wealth is the only blessing from god we're supposed to apologize for and i've got several friends that are pastors that are uh a decade and a half ahead of you

and they're facing the exact same thing because they have systematically carefully invested in uh in their 401ks and in their roth iras and in their retirement programs and some of them bought real estate carefully and they don't have jet airplanes they're not on tv you know that it's none of that junk they're just good guys as a pastor and they've been careful with their income and most of them are millionaires because they did the stuff i teach but now there's always some duper this is well a pastor should never be a millionaire yeah that's what i want i want my pastor to be broke and stupid. No, I don't either.

I want my pastor, I don't want, I want, you know, pastors should never, listen, I want my pastor, I want his marriage to be something I can look up to. I want his kids to be something I can look up to. I want the way he handles money to be something I can look up to. Because obviously the book he is reading has having an effect on his life, and I want to know more about what that book called the Bible says then. But not if you're out, you know. But you're always going to be criticized, Jake.

Whether it's about your message or the car you drive. Exactly. There's going to be someone out there. And, you know, you have to get, if you're a Christian, you have to drive a used Accord, because that's what Jesus said. They were all in one Accord. Oh, that one still gets me. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, George Camel here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.