The Ramsey Show - App - Living Paycheck to Paycheck Is Scary (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 10, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. Joining me this segment, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, the trusted voice of retirement, Chris Hogan. Hey, Chris, welcome back. Well, thank you, Dave. It's good to be with you. Back to school time.

And you guys hear me talk about the seven baby steps all the time, the proven plan that works. And that's why everybody talks about what baby steps are on these days. And you know why, Chris? I mean, it seems like it's so long ago in some ways, but in other ways the memory is still fresh. Because it was so emotional, I guess, it seems like it's so long ago in some ways, but in other ways, the memory's still fresh. Because it was so emotional, I guess, it can come back to me in a real poignant way. Living paycheck to paycheck, it was scary.

I remember being scared. You remember being scared? Yes, I do. Thinking, I got babies. I got a wife. I got sweat in the palm of my hands, across the top of your eyes, you know, right across the top of your lip. And all, you know, you sit down to do the checkbook and you missed an entry and you bounce a check and you just get this feeling in your stomach.

That gets old. And when people decide to change and not live that way anymore, it's a powerful thing in their lives. It really is. I mean, it changes things because you look at it and Dave, I can remember those times where you hope everything's going to work out. You hope you've done everything you needed to do because you know you're working hard, but you're not making any progress.

You're not going anywhere. Feel like a rat in a wheel. And you're looking at these babies and you're looking at your family and you know you want better. And it's one of those things where you've said the line before and i'll never forget the first time i heard you say it when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired and that's where you start to grab a hold of something that you know it's going to work there's no more wishing and hoping you're going to do the work and that's where change comes well i'm so excited about your new book, Everyday Millionaires, because it is

revealing this study that you and our team have done, the largest study of millionaires in North America ever done. And the thing that's so exciting about it is if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you can read about these guys and go, they were once there because almost all of them started from nothing, didn't they? They sure did. And a lot of people, Dave, think that it takes some kind of crazy investing knowledge, that you have to make a boatload of money, that you had to have gone and gotten this fancy

education to become a millionaire. And none of that is the truth. The reality is, and we've proved it, you all. Dave just told you, we interviewed over 10,000 net worth millionaires. And I've heard every excuse in the book. People that say, I don't make enough money. I didn't grow up in the right neighborhood. Chris, you just don't know my situation.

And you hear that enough. And I want people to understand that if you're willing to do the work and you're willing to follow a plan that actually works, which is the plan we lay out for you. You, too, can do this. We both grew up with good parents, but we didn't grow up on the silver spoon side of the tracks. No. I mean, we didn't have any social advantages. I mean, you grew up single mom, and, you know, we work. Ramsey's work, man.

I mean, we're hillbillies. We get after it. And it was real gratifying to me to just see that stuff works, that this idea that, you know, you live on less than you make, you get out of debt, you start investing. It changes everything. And these millionaires just gave voice to it. And they were waiting on someone to come along and tell their story. They really were. They were proud.

And, Dave, I've got a couple of them I want to tell you about. Fred, who's worth $3.3 million, said this, Becoming a millionaire is all about personal responsibility. To work hard on a fair day's pay, live on a budget, and live on less than you make so you can have financial freedom later in life. And then Richard, who has a net worth of $1.2 million, said, By being intentional with money through budgeting, saving, and investing, anyone can be a millionaire today. It's amazing.

So we've launched the pre-sale of Everyday Millionaires. This book that is Chris's book, outlining the study and the findings of the study, and showing you what these people have done. They did not inherit their money. And showing them what they've done and what you've got to do if you want to be there. And, of course, what we found was, like Fred said, you live on a budget, you work hard, you get out of debt, which is stuff we've taught in Financial Peace University for years. Yes.

So if you want to pre-order the book, the book actually comes out in January. But if you want to pre-order it now we'll sell it to you for 20 bucks and we'll throw in 50 worth of items now some of that you will get now some of these are dvds and extra special things we'll send it to you now some of it you will get in january but the best deal is what we did was we discounted financial peace university by enough to cover the cost of the book. So you can say you got the book free if you wanted to, or you can say you got a discount. I don't care what you say.

It's still $129, and you get the whole shebang. Financial Peace University, one-year membership, and you go to the nine classes at a local group, and you walk through the baby steps because they're the proven process that these millionaires outlined for us. And, yeah, we were real happy when we did the study to find out the stuff we're teaching is causing them to be millionaires. We always said it did. We always thought it did. But now we've got this slam-dunk proof.

Got the proof. And the $50 in bonus items. So you can get that at DaveRamsey.com, ChrisHogan360.com, or call our customer care team at 888-22-PIECE. This is the deal of deals. You can get started in Financial Peace University now. The book will come to you in January. You will have completed the nine lessons by then, and you're going to be on a roll, baby. You're really on.

You've got one-two punch here. You've got the beginning, the get out of debt, the tough part, and all that, but it's live like no one else, so later you can live and give like no one else. You really can. And this is the time for you if you are married for you and your spouse to get in sync. This is the time. Someday is not on the calendar. You've got to look at each other and say, we are going to do this.

This is a fantastic deal. It's a great opportunity for you to begin a legacy for you and your family. This is the day that the things change. This is the day that things change. This is the day you start to get serious about your financial future, and you realize this. The plan works, Dave. If you work it, it works. You know, classic Psych 101, one of the lessons you learn,

if you take psychology even in high school, one of the very first things you're taught is, you know, people are motivated by one of two things, pain or pleasure. And most of us are motivated by both at different stages, at different seasons. I know when Sharon and I were broke and bankrupt and starting over, we were motivated by pain avoidance, right, pain. But later on, we started seeing the pleasure of being generous.

We started seeing the pleasure of watching our family tree be changed by what wealth does in positive ways that way not in a greedy way not in a toxic way but just the joy that you have when you've got some options around you with money and so the pain is avoiding the down avoiding the fall avoiding a life of debt avoiding that pain the pleasure is you know you get to be the everyday millionaires, be one of the everyday millionaires that we studied. And it's pretty cool. It really is.

I mean, it's a game changing moment. I've got three boys running around my house and I can remember when my first one was coming, looking at him and get my hands on this baby and realizing this is something I'm responsible for. And every parent out there wants better for their kids. Well, the only way for your kids to have better is for you to do better. And Financial Peace University is a great opportunity for you to get plugged in and to get started. This is the time.

This is the time for you and your family to move forward. You know, this study proved what Condi Rice says. It doesn't matter where you're from. It matters where you're going. I love that line. And this study just completely proves it. Yes, it does. Absolutely so.

You've got to check this out. Every Day Millionaires. The new book. It comes out in January. You've got to check this out. Every Day Millionaires. The new book, it comes out in January. You can preorder it now and get all of the goodies. And, of course, also get Financial Peace University. It's a deal. Do not miss the deal. This is the time to do it for sure.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Guys, let's talk about that timeshare pitch that you fell for. They promised you exclusive access to travel anywhere you want. Tropical beaches, mountain getaways, or whatever. Oh, my gosh. They claimed it was the affordable way to travel anywhere you want tropical beaches mountain getaways or whatever oh my gosh they claimed it was the affordable way to travel and then they convinced you it was a good investment but here's the deal search any auction site for your exact timeshare and see what it's selling for it's listed for a dollar with no bids that's not a good investment now i know i'm just adding salt to a very old wound but look if you tried calling the resort and they won't take it back, if you tried selling it and no one will buy it, call Timeshare Exit Team. Timeshare Exit Team will get you out. You'll have to be patient. It can be a

long process and it costs money, but it works. They're so confident in their exit service that if they don't get you out, you get a 100% refund. Call 844-999-EXIT. It's free to talk. 844-999-EXIT. TimeshareExitTeam.com. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call anywhere in North America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Mike is with us in New York.

Hey, Mike, how are you? I'm wonderful. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? You know, a couple years ago, we received an inheritance, and we were smart enough not to go out and spend it all. And, you know, at first, some of the decisions were easy. The pay off student loan, you're paying them, they were going nowhere. So we paid them off, and we have an 8-year-old daughter and we started a college fund for her good decision we're dealing with our local

financial planners and we're trying to figure out that took about half of the money uh we have about half left and it's enough to pay off the rest of the debt we have but our local financial people say that we're a little behind on our retirement and that this is a one-time opportunity to kind of push ourselves forward. We took the money from the student loans and began investing in a Roth IRA for both my wife and myself. And we're kind of stuck. You know, we've just sat for two years with this money in the bank trying to figure out

how much money is involved. About $115,000. And that pays off everything but your home or everything including your home? We have two debts. We have our home, which would be $85,000, and then we have one car loan that would be $9,000. Okay. And what's your household income? We make just about $160,000. Well, too many in the financial planning community all follow each other and don't think for themselves.

Okay. And that community sometimes, not everybody, but sometimes falls prey to just doing what everybody else does. And they've all been taught borrow as much as you can on your home and invest it with them, which, of course, is how they get a commission. They don't get a commission by you paying off your home. They get a commission when you invest with them. Right. Now, they may or may not have taken that into consideration with this advice,

but it is woven into this cultural problem in the financial planning community that causes these people to do stupid stuff, like tell you to not pay off your home and instead invest with them. Okay. Let me tell you why I think that's stupid. Let me see how this sounds to you. Okay. If your home was paid for and they suggested you go take out a mortgage to invest with them would you consider doing that no it's the same thing okay you see what i'm saying yeah yeah i just did it backwards

right right but so do you think with our household income, like our monthly expenses are, like including investing, it's about $3,000. Do you think we would be able to get caught up to where we would be able to retire comfortably? How old are you? I'm 48. My wife is 44. If you invest a house payment until you retire, you'll retire comfortably. Okay. Just run the numbers out. I mean, if you invest $2,000 a month from now until retirement,

you're going to have a million dollars from that anyway, give or take. I mean, give or take. You've got to run the numbers out. I just did that in my head. But, I mean, you see what I'm saying. And so take your old house payment. If you don't have a payment in the world you max out all 401ks you max out all your roth iras and and then you do other investing too equal to your house

payment and all of that is going to be millions of dollars you're going to be just fine if you do all of that if you never get a raise and to assume you never get a raise in the next 20 years is to assume you're a loser. Okay. Right? Yeah, no, that's really great news. This is our opportunity to change our lives and to change our daughter's life, to get her out of school without debt. Yeah, the premise for me is simply this.

The shortest path to wealth is you having full control of every dollar of your income to use to be generous with and to invest that's the shortest path to wealth and so that's why i run people to debt free and why i became debt free as fast as possible because that does that okay now i just stuck it in the calculator while we were yakking. If you invest $2,000 a month for 20 years in a decent growth stock mutual fund, and it averages around 12%, you would have $2 million. $1,978,000. That would be incredible. So I was wrong by half.

I said a million. I missed it. Oh, well. A million in our favor, though. That would be amazing. Yeah, I know. That's. I missed it. Oh, well. A million in our favor, though. That would be amazing. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. So if I'm wrong now, you're still okay, right?

I don't agree with his assumptions on interest rates and rates of return. I don't give a crap if you agree with me or not. It's working for me and millions of people to invest in your 401K. And I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to those people out there who are mouthing back at me right now that i can just hear in my head so anyway um so yeah that's what i would do now that's not going to make your financial planner happy and if it doesn't fire them right it's not their money they work for you right yeah i had an attorney one time that I was paying $475 an hour, and he decided he was going to wag his finger at me in a meeting

because I was not doing what he said to do. I said, dude, you are so confused about who works for who. Right. And that's kind of what's going on here. Their job is to teach you. They gave you bad advice. I probably would fire them anyway. But aside from that, their job is to teach you. And if they can get on board with would fire them anyway, but aside from that, their job is to

teach you. And if they can get on board with your plan and you want to stick with them, that's fine. If not, you can find a SmartVestor Pro on our website. The people we endorse and they'll help you consistent with the plan that I give you if you want to follow our plan. That is. So, all that stuff you can do. Thanks for calling in.

Open phones at 888-825- 5225. You need to understand when it comes to personal finance, you know what most people feel? Inept. Most people don't feel confident about handling their money.

You know what else most people feel? Ashamed that they've messed up. You know what else most people feel? They are a suspect of people in the financial world. Cynical. I have the spiritual gift of cynicism. I mean, most of the time you're like,

I don't know if I trust this insurance guy. I don't know if I trust this investment guy. I don't know if I trust this insurance guy. I don't know if I trust this investment guy. I don't know if I trust my real estate guy. You know, that cynicism, that shame, and that lack of confidence causes a lot of people to make bad decisions because they go with other people's advice that they don't understand. Or it causes you to do nothing because you're paralyzed by those negative emotions. You get paralysis of the analysis. So here's the thing.

Everybody's messed up, even rich people messed up, and they got rich anyway. So don't be ashamed. I've got a PhD in DUMB. I've lost more money than any three of you put together doing stupid stuff. So I can completely relate with you doing something stupid. I get it. But you just got to stop doing stupid because stupid will kill you. You know, I mean, that's what I came to the conclusion of about 25 years ago,

and it's worked for me. So I use common sense, biblical financial principles. I don't like Dave Ramsey's religious stuff. I don't really care. If you don't like it, get your own show. This is the Dave Ramsey show. And it works. So I really wasn't taking a poll.

So, you know, here's the thing. If you're sitting with a financial person and they are activating your shame or activating your lack of confidence by being a condescending twerp, and a lot of them in the business are taught, they take a class. The class is called Be a Condescending twerp and a lot of them in the business are taught they take a class the class is called be a condescending twerp and take a class on how to do that how to drop their glasses down on the end of their nose and roll their eyes at you and oh you poor little people you don't

understand finance and see you felt inept already but then when they're a condescending twerp you feel like an ant you You feel like a worm. If you've got one of those people in your life, here's two words for you. Use these. You're fired. Get away from them. Because it's your money. I meet people who have $10 million, and their financial person is a condescending twerp.

Who's broke, by the way. Financial person came to work in a $100 Toyota. This guy's got $10 million, and you talk down to him. You're a condescending little twerp is what you are. And if you've got $10 million, fire their butt. You know more about it than they do. And get someone that has the heart of a teacher and that isn't trying to activate your lack of confidence. I'm not saying that's what was going on with that guy.

That's what goes on with a lot of folk, isn't it? Most of us have felt those feelings. Cynicism, shame, and this sense of being inept. If anybody's activating any of that to sell you financial products, get away from them. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Can you believe this real estate market? Home shopping has become so competitive. There's a ton of new buyers in the market, and bidding wars are the new normal. Folks are under a lot of pressure to offer more money to get into that house.

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budget. Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Keith and Teresa are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? Welcome. Where are you guys from? Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Wow, that's a bit of a trip to Nashville. Yes, it was.

Oh, my goodness. And all the way here in the south to do your debt-free scream. Yes, we are. Cool. How much have you paid off? $192,000. Wow. How long did that take? Five years and eight months. Wow. $150,000 was in the last two years and eight months.

Whoa, that was quick. Yes. And your range of income during that time? We started at $55,000 and ended around $95,000. Good. And what do you guys do for a living? I'm a plant manager at a woodworking shop and also work two other jobs on the side. And I'm a stay-at-home

homeschool mom. Oh, cool. Very cool. Good for you guys. So what kind of debt was this $192,000? That was just our house, Dave. The what? Just our house. Just your house? Yes. You paid off your house? Yes, we did. I'm looking at weird people.

Way to go, guys. How old are you two? I'm 31. I'm looking at weird people. Way to go, guys. How old are you two? I'm 31. I'm 30. And you have a paid-for house. Yes, we do, Dave. That is wicked awesome. Oh, it's so awesome.

I love it. Man, way to go. Way to go. So tell me the story. What happened five years and eight months ago that put you on this journey that made you believe at 25 years old you could do this? Well, some old guy on the radio. I guess he wasn't as old back then.

But it was about seven years ago I heard you on the radio, started listening on my way to work, left it on, and then she's like, who's this guy and what is he talking about? It was over my head. So she wants to turn him off, and then I said, well, no, I just want to listen to it. And so eventually to the point where she would drop me off most days and then she just happened to leave the radio on instead of turning it off. So it took some time, I guess five years ago, we had then moved and we took FPU. I don't know how many times it was available in Canada,

but we were able to get in while it was in Canada. And that was about five years ago. And we kind of just started on that journey. And I suppose the first three years didn't look so good on paper based on what we were doing. But I guess a lot of little things happened in there. We did a lot of renovations on the house in the beginning. And yeah, I don't know what it was at the middle point but for some reason when we hit 150 000 at year at the end of year three is when it kind of just i don't know it was that point where you say there's that we didn't have a debt snowball right

so we're moving along and all i see is this big mountain. And for me, I didn't know how, like I could hear the debt-free screams and I knew that's what I wanted for our family. And once, you know, my wife was on board and we kind of got together on it, it was, you know, every dollar was in there kind of through the years. I had my own budget plan. And so, yeah, it was just all of that combined just started rolling downhill theresa what do you think happened two years ago when the intensity cranked up um i'm not entirely sure but for me it was seeing his face and his excitement i wanted it for him very cool very cool so how does it feel to not even have a house payment?

It's exciting. It's very exciting. You can't really explain it. I think that's the hard part when you try to talk to people about it because you want to jump up for joy. You want to explain to them that this is everything that it was meant to be kind of thing. And you want to help those people that are struggling. But it's so tough to kind kind of thing. And you want to help those people that are struggling, but it's, it's so tough to kind of explain that. And again,

that's part of the reason why we took this journey because we wanted to share with our friends, our family, that, that it's just amazing feeling to be debt free. And it's possible. Well, you proved it.

I mean, you're 30 years old. Your house is paid for. Wow. What do you tell people? The key to getting out of debt is? Contentment, really. For me, I had to learn to love the adventure. And as a homeschool mom, a stay-at-home mom, I couldn't go out to work. So I had to find creative ways, but I saved money. For me, it wasn't so much about

making the big dollars. It was saving those little amounts that... Home economists. What were some of the things you did to save money? Coupons. So we did a lot of couponing. And not extreme, but just what we were going to buy anyway. I also signed up to send my junk email or also my junk mail to a company, and I was able to then get money back from them.

Signed up for different cashback websites. If you go and you buy, purchase groceries, then you go to their website, you show them your receipt, and then they give you cashback for that particular item. So just things like that, or 50% off sales. This is thousands and thousands of dollars a year. I tracked in one year, so 2016, I was able to save $1,800 of stuff

I would have bought anyway. But that's $1,800 I saved. That's huge. Very, very well done. Awesome. And it's basically for the last six months, what I would say is how it's done, the what and the how is all there.

Everybody has access to that. The budget, you talk about doing those things. But for us, at least with just the mortgage, the first three years, what I noticed was we weren't actually doing anything too much, like the double-up payments and all the different options you have. And that's the what of it and the how it's done. But if you don't have a why, then it's just another diet plan kind of thing.

It might work, but maybe not long lasting. And so for us, it was bigger reasons of why. What's your big why? Probably the kids. We wanted to leave that legacy. Change your family tree. Yeah, we wanted the change for our family. And more than anything, we wanted to say,

you know what, when the lesson in, I'm not sure which one it was, but the part where you understand that all of this is God's money and I'm in control of it and God has given me all these things to enjoy. He's given me all these things richly to enjoy and they're not in control of it. And God has given me all these things to enjoy. He's given all these things richly to enjoy. And they're not in control of me.

And so when that became a part of our lives and we understood that fully, it really changed us. And stuff doesn't matter anymore. Things don't matter. And so six months ago, we had, or sorry, eight months ago, that's when our youngest daughter was born. Ten months ago. Ten months. Well, hey, time gets away. Eight months ago, or when we had paid off the debt, which was two months ago.

So she was eight months old at the time when we paid off the debt. But when she was first born, that's when I made the decision to sell off my first truck that I ever owned. The baby. Yeah. Yeah, this was an incredible step that he took. Because no one would have ever thought that he would have ever sold his first vehicle. He owned it for 16 years. Wow.

And it's just, yeah. I think that's when, for him, he was just ready. And, like, I never thought he would ever sell it, but he just came home and said, Teresa, I'm ready. And it was to sell his truck. Wow. What did he sell for?

Just over $4,000. Wow. But it had a lot of work to do on it, but that's... Everything, everything, everything, all hands on deck, we're doing this. Wow, that's commitment. Well done. Was it all worth it? Oh, absolutely. Definitely. It was more than worth it. When you understand everything, just understanding how God wants you to live and how

these things interact in your life with your family and how, like I said, when you are in control of your things and those things are not in control of you. It changes everything. How old are the kids and what are their names? And have they been practicing their debt-free screen?

Yes. The youngest boy, here he comes. This is Dean. He's three. This is Dale. He is five. This is Dean. He's three. This is Dale. He is five. This is May. She is seven.

And this is Mercedes. She's ten months. All right. Very cool. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you. Awesome. Thank you. That'll be the next chapter in your story.

You will easily be millionaires, not even have a house payment at 30. You're on your way. Big time. Congratulations. Keith and Teresa, May, Dale, Dean, and Mercedes, $192,000 paid off in five years and eight months, making $55,000 to $95,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're dead free! Wow. Did you hear that sound? Oh, that's what it sounds like to change a family tree. You just heard the sound. Wow. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

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Hey, Navin S., how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so real quick, a little bit about myself would be that my husband and I are currently sitting on about 30 grand of debt. And we were doing really good last year with paying it off. But instead, I decided to pursue real estate. So now that I have my real estate license, instead of taking that extra cash that we were paying off our debt last year,

we're putting it towards my son's daycare. But with real estate, you know, at the beginning, especially if it's really tough, you end up paying in a lot more than what comes out. So I'm feeling the pressure. I'm feeling the stress because we're living paycheck to paycheck. We're so tight. And so my question would be, should I hang up my license and take my son out of daycare so we can pay off our debt faster, or what should I do?

Because my limiting beliefs are definitely getting to me right now, and I'm stressed. Why have you not made any money in the real estate business in a year no we paid no i said i'm sorry we paid off our sum debt last year but i just got are you making money in the real estate business no i'm in my second month second month oh so this has only been going on for two months the real estate yeah okay but you were working before then right no i was a stay-at-home mother oh okay so you've taken on the expense of daycare for the last two months and have not yet made money in the real estate business no okay do you have some deals working no that's why he's in daycare because i'm putting my full time into this so i'm looking and you know lead generating but for right now no okay so you don't have a listing or sale pending at all after two

months no okay um okay and does your husband work a normal 40 hour uh yes he's a director of operations okay what would be wrong with you working real estate in the evenings and weekends that's when most people look at houses by the way well nothing but i was just trying to put my all into it and from morning to night with all the classes that i needed to take i I was door knocking and taking classes. Okay. Oh, you've got some post-testing, post-license graduation requirements or education requirements? Mm-hmm.

Okay. And how much of that is left? I just finished. Oh, good. So that's done. All right. Well, what does your husband make a year? $75. Okay.

And you guys can't live on that? All our debt, no. I'm sorry. How much debt do you have? About $30 to $40. What's your house payment? $13.25. What's the debt on, on $30 to $40?

On car. How much is car? We only have one car, so it's $3.53. What's the balance on the car? It's brand new. What's the balance on the car? $15. $1,000.

Mm-hmm. Okay. $353,000? You got a high interest rate? Yeah. When did you buy the car? In March. When did you start the process of getting out of debt?

Last year. And you bought a new car? Well, we traded in but yes you traded in what a chevy which had about 25 000 oh so you tried to move down in car you moved down ten thousand dollars okay so at least heading the right direction okay trying to catch on here because I thought you bought a new car while you were getting out of debt. I was getting ready to smack you. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, my goodness. All right. So if you guys sit down and do your budget, the two of you, you can't pay the payments on the car, the house, and the other debts and eat on $75,000. I would think you could. I mean, we can, but it's paycheck to paycheck. Oh, so what? If you can break even for a couple months and get some real estate deals in the hopper,

you can start making some money. But you've got to give yourself a deadline on how long you're willing to work at real estate for no money and you know and the family is basically treading water making no progress is what we're saying but that's a price to be paid to get this moving okay so how long are you willing to do that i would say maybe six months would be the most okay okay you got six months to start making some serious bank at the real estate business otherwise you need to quit and go do something else and so um you know september october november december january february the end of february the end of march something like that if you're

not making some good money it's time for the family to quit treading water uh you need to do something different but i mean if you can't get real estate moving during that period of time, as hot as the real estate market is right now, you probably do need to do something different. Are you getting some help from your broker? Yeah, I have a mentor. That's showing you how to make money in the business? Not necessarily how to make money, but, you know. Well, that's why you're doing this, is to make money.

But how to... There's, you know, he's kind of coaching me on how to speak to people and what to do. You know, he's telling me, host open houses and go out and pass your card out. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, you probably need to get some training and some support to get the business going, but I think generally you know give the thing a run and just let your family tread water for a little bit and let's get

this going because if you can get it going fine but i don't want you doing this for two years and treading water no that wouldn't make sense it's a bad use of your time energy and efforts so give it a fair shot two months is not fair of which time you've spent a bunch of time in class so let's get up, get the thing rolling. But listen, if the kid's in daycare and you're paying for it, you need to be working your butt off while that's happening. You need to be really working to get some real estate deals going here and get some training on where you can get some clients in this market, how you can get some things

moving. What have you got to do to get in front of somebody that wants to buy or sell a house? And that's really what this comes down to. Andy's with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Andy. How are you? Andy? I mean, I didn't push the button good.

Let's try again. There's Andy. Hi, Andy. How are you? Hey, it's an honor to talk to you, Dave. You too. What's up? Just needed some career advice.

I kind of already know what you're going to say, but I've been in the job for 14 years, and we finally paid the house off, so praise the Lord on that. And we don't need a huge income now, so I was wondering, looking at going to another, you know, lower-paying job. You got so much invested in a job that you just hate. What do you do for, how much do you make? I make over a hundred now. Uh-huh.

And if you, and just. Why can't you find something to do that you like that makes over a hundred? Why does it automatically mean you have to make less if you do something you love? And that's, that's where I need some advice. It feels like I've got to start all the way over. And I don't want to go to, you know. What do you do? Entry-level painting.

I work in oil and gas, so it's pretty specialized. What do you do in oil and gas? Oh, I'm a product control coordinator, but i'm on call 24 7 so you manage projects right yes sir okay so learn about project management you can use project management skills in almost any um in almost any industry these days we we use project managers here and so take that skill set and by the way that that can pay up north of $100 if you get into the senior levels of that. You might have to start lower, but, you know, you don't have to start over at entry level and, you know, cut your pay in half to do this.

So what you need to do is think about a way that you can take some of your existing experience and transfer it into a different industry where you're not 24-7 call and where you get some of the benefits of all your experience. And that way you don't have to take this huge income cut. But you can find some projects to manage and use some of the same skills that you're using now and keep your income in a similar range. And that's what you need to do. Yeah, you need to do something different. You hate what you're doing. I don't have any doubt about that.

I'm with you on that. But it doesn't automatically mean you have to take a huge pay cut just because you can afford to. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer. Blake Thompson is our senior executive producer. Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. Hey guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show.

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