The Ramsey Show - App - Make Decisions With the Future in Mind (Not the Present) (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Building a Non-Anxious Life, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, PhD in Counseling, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jennifer is with us in Tampa. Hi, Jennifer, how are you? I'm great. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? First of all, I'm very grateful for you guys taking my call, and I have probably a lot to unpack here to fully understand the financial picture that I'm in. I've known your name for a long time, so I basically have a lot riding on this phone call where it will probably change my life and be one of the, just totally turn my life completely around. My dad is gone and I don't have him anymore to ask financial advice about.

And so I figured you would be the next best thing. Wow. That's a lot of responsibility. Yeah. You've set this up big, Jennifer. This is a big deal. Don't screw it up, John. Dave is probably going to give you bad advice, Jennifer,

but I'll bail him out. The funny thing is I'm pretty sure that I already know what you guys are going to say. Oh, okay. That makes it easier. Okay. It does. I'm 37.

I'm a single mom, recently single mom of four kids. I'm a nurse. I make a decent income, a pretty decent income. When my parents, I've actually lost both of my parents now. When my mom died, I inherited money from that split between me and my sister. My dad was very financially savvy and had things split all around with just different 401ks, Ross, life insurance, food insurance, gold, very, very smart man. And in the loss of my mother, I made a financial decision to sell my house and move to my childhood home that my parents

raised us in. And moving there meant that I sunk just about every dime of my inheritance into remodeling it and fixing the property up because when my dad died, my mom kind of just got swallowed up in this home. My question is, I am only, between mortgage and student loan credit card debt, I'm only $320,000 in debt, which sounds like a lot, but the house is worth $1.1 million. Why do you have a mortgage? My parents had a little bit less of a mortgage on the property because... Okay, how much is that?

It's $125,000. Okay, and then the rest of the rehab on the house was done in cash? Correct. Okay. What did you spend on the renovation? My sister, $125 125 000 as well because that was kind of like the buyout for me taking over the house so basically i have essentially like a 250 mortgage on the house if that makes any sense yeah i got you okay okay and then the

rest of that is student loan and credit card and what's your sister's expectation on when she gets her money? It has changed. So neither one of us knew what to do really when we lost our parents with the money and it has changed over time. Initially it was that I would pay her 50 grand a year until what I owed her was paid off. And then we realized, well, that puts me in a certain tax bracket, and then I'm going to be taxed on this income,

and it just kind of didn't really seem fair. So then the next plan that my sister and I have. You're not going to be taxed on the income. She is. But it's not income. I would be taxed on it because the money I would pay my sister came from the investment accounts that my parents had. Oh, you would pull it out of a return, an inherited IRA.

Okay, okay. Correct, yes. All right, I got you. So how much is in the inherited IRAs and that kind of stuff today? Today, right now, everything is essentially gone. It may as well be gone. Oh, you've used it all. You have cashed it out and paid the taxes after all and what do you make yes i have i make 45 an hour it changes

by year based off of what in florida we can get seasonal here with snowboards and urban such so my so you're making what is that 80 grand a year yeah it's usually that at least. Yeah, okay. And how old are your kiddos, four? 20, 17, five, and three. I started very, very young. Okay, all right. And so you have a $120,000 mortgage, $120,000 owed to your sister, and then you have other debt as well, right? Correct.

And that's on what? $58,000 in student loans and $10,000 in credit card. Okay. All right. Well, if you were not emotionally attached to the house, you would have already sold it, right? No. To be free. That's kind of what I figured you would say. To be free be free to be free around yeah if you were not emotionally attached to this house the house is like it's it's it's out of everything else in

this picture fits in the picture then there's this house over here it's way big you know in terms of value and if you didn't if you if it was not childhood home you'd not renovate it you weren't emotionally attached you would have already sold it and cleaned up the mess before you called me right i thought i was doing the right thing at the time i'm not i'm not picking on you i'm saying again let's pretend you this house was somebody else's house and you didn't care about it you're not emotionally attached if you woke up this morning in a house you did not care about in any way you would have already sold it today and you wouldn't have called me

to clean up all this right yes yeah but the only so the only thing that's keeping you there is all of the history and that's valid that's part of the story it's valid for that to hold you um the only question is what you know basically then you got the scales in front of you on one side of the scales is the history and the memories and the part of your childhood you're trying to recapture which was apparently a good family a good upbringing you know, huge respect to your dad several times. Your house kind of represents all that on one side of the scale. On the other side of the scale is the stress over money, the debt owed to your sister that

now you don't really have a way to pay unless you go get a mortgage, and the stress over this whole thing, and your future is on the other side of the scale. So it's almost like your past is on one side and your future is on the other side of the scale. It's almost like your past is on one side and your future is on the other. Exactly. That's how it feels just talking to you. So what are you going to do? So what are you going to do?

I feel like if I sell the house, then I'm 100% debt-free for the rest of my life. Yeah. And that, I feel, would be... And I think that's the daughter that your dad raised. Okay. Didn't he? I have a lot of guilt because I spent the money that they earned. You didn't spend it.

You invested it in renovating the house. It should have made the house more valuable. Oh, it certainly did. Yeah, so you're not, it wasn't consumed. You didn't take a cruise around the world. No. I mean, it wasn't, the money's not, you didn't burn the money. It's invested into the house.

You're going to get it back out. So I don't feel guilty at all um i think you were doing a very sweet thing an honoring thing to your wonderful childhood um and then i think the next step is to honor the legacy of your dad and mom by having an awesome future i think the future wins on the scales if i'm you. Don, what are you thinking? Yeah, I think in one fell swoop, she could honor her dad by setting herself up for the future. She could honor her mom and dad by healing up that relationship with her sister and getting that debt out from between the two of them and be good to go. And all this regret and guilt and stuff about the renovation and all, it's in the past then.

And it wasn't a net zero. It came out okay. That's right. I think you did pretty good. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets,

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Jerry's with us in Phoenix. Hi, Jerry. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm 58, my wife is 57. About three months ago we started the Baby Step program. Actually we start off

pretty well. We paid off 13k in credit card debt, 9k in $210K in parent plus student loans. Woo! Ouch. Yeah. So, you know, we make about $220 a year. So, fortunately, we do have some, we have an income stream. But, you know, so here's where we sit with our assets and also retirement. So we've got $45K in cash, $45K in Roth in Roth IRAs, 170 in long-term retirement accounts.

Our monthly expense is about $7,500. So outside of that, we've got about 3K that we can put towards debt. So where we're kind of struggling right now is this combination of, you know, we're getting, we're older, right? We're getting closer to retirement or retirement age. Where do we, do we, you know, we're kind of straddling baby step two and three. We've already obviously done baby step one. We've got cash in three. But obviously this debt we want to get out of, you know, my question is, should we look at that cash that we have, maybe split that in half? Because right now, 45K puts us right at six months of a safety fund. Light dispersed simply lights a room. Focused will do surgery or cut metal. You're trying to light the whole room and wondering why you're not getting progress.

You're going to have to get focused, and that's going to mean cutting your lifestyle. You're going to have to not act like you make a quarter of a million dollars a year because, oh, by the way, you owe a quarter of a million dollars. You're broke. And if you're worried about your age and you're approaching retirement, you should act like it and how austere, scorched earth your new lifestyle looks with your budget. And it's not $3,000 a month, then it's more going towards this. And we're going to pull out all the stops and clean up this mess while we can, because if we don't get this mess cleaned up, we're not going to have a good retirement. So the faster and the more on fire that your hair is, the deeper you sacrifice, the faster you'll get out. And that requires complete focus, not trying to rework the baby

steps. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I'm juggling with, my wife and I are actually on the same page. However, she's a little more risk-averse than I am. And so, you know, taking that cash that we have and really paying down the debt to her, she's really uneasy about that. Yeah, I'm pretty uneasy about you being broke people at retirement after you made a quarter million dollars a year. That's the risk I'm trying to avoid.

Okay. people at retirement after you made a quarter million dollars a year that's the risk i'm trying to avoid okay not your tiny little emergency world that the 45 000 won't even pee on what about uh what about the roth iris you think we should no you should leave your retirement alone but you should stop adding to it. Are you still adding to retirement? Yeah. I mean, doing it where, you know, a small percent do work. See, again, you're trying to light the whole room. You're trying to do everything for everybody on this page, and nobody's getting served. Dude, that's the differentiation between what we've been teaching and how we've been able to move people along all these years.

You have to quit trying. The best way to get your retirement funded is to get your butt out of debt. The best way to get your emergency fund in place is to get your butt out of debt and quit screwing around trying to do seven things at once. You're not doing it. You suck at it. And it's what got you here. And so you've got to, you you know you guys have really got to stop

and look at this now you can do your plan if you want to do it but you called me and so that means i'm going to love you well and tell you the truth this is what you're doing has a low probability of getting you to a million dollar net worth by the time you're 70 what i'm telling you to do has a high probability of getting you there because i want all of this debt gone in the next 24 months i want you to act like your child's life depends on it for you to clean up this freaking mess then when you don't have anything hanging over your head you got a quarter million dollars to go build wealth with and you can turn all kinds of stuff into at that point and make things happen but the power of focus is tantamount to to the probability of success here john yeah it i won't add to that you're right it's just tough when you see somebody who's clearly um successful and smart in one area and unable to see it or hear it in another area.

It's just tough. Yeah. Well, what you are seeing correctly, Jerry, is all of these things are important. What you're seeing incorrectly is the fastest way to get them all addressed is not simultaneously. It's completely stop your retirement. Don't take anything out, but stop adding to it. Clean out your emergency fund and step on your lifestyle with a muddy boot.

Live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness in two years you could have your life back right think think of it take money aside because it it tends to light a fire think of getting your kid out the door you have 15 minutes to get them out into the car so you don't get to church on time if you try to put them in the shower and put clothes on them and brush their teeth and feed them breakfast at the same time you're never going to go anywhere get them in the shower get them out dry them off put clothes on them then get them and you'll get out you'll get out the door much quicker and you'll

get out the door in the right steps and you're not going to just have soggy cereal Wyatt is in Cedar Rapids Iowa hi Wyatt how are you good how are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I have a question. I had recently bought a car off Facebook Marketplace about two months ago because the car I had before that died on me, and I just got word. I had to have it in and out of the shop the past couple weeks. I just got word yesterday that it is going to need either like a full engine swap or they're going to have to pull the whole

engine in general yeah so you're going to sell it you're going to sell it for salvage what'd you pay for it uh 2800 all right and so you'll sell it for a grand or 1200 bucks like it sits and you got any money to add with it well i have i just recently started the baby steps so i have a thousand dollars saved up and i have so you're gonna go buy another two thousand dollar car then huh yeah what that's cool that's nothing wrong with that where am i yeah that's where my question is is do you recommend me to do that like Like go on Facebook or try to risk it again? Yeah, yeah. You're buying a throwaway car.

I don't want you to drive this car the rest of your life. They generally do fall apart. That's why they're cheap. Now, I will help you for this. Are you at home? Are you living at home? I live about 30 minutes away from home in town. I just graduated college.

Okay, good for you. Is your dad around graduated college. Okay, good for you. Is your dad around? Yeah. Okay. Start talking to him and ask him to help you with this car search. Here's what you're looking for. You're looking for an ugly automobile that you can't get a date because of the car.

You better be good looking because you ain't getting a date because of this car it's ugly okay but it's very reliable low miles and it's like a uh a 2000 model 25 1999 25 year old h Accord. Jesus said to get that. He said they're all in one Accord. So you just, it's a Jesus car, okay? We're going to get a Camry. We're going to get something with some age on it, but not 200,000 miles. And it does not look good. It may have hail damage.

Like we had two people in our parking lot right now that drive hail damaged cars that they they're like six seven thousand dollar cars but they paid like two grand for them because they look like they were shot in iran right yeah yeah i'm just and so that's what you're looking for all right you're looking for something that people make fun of and you have to give it a name. Old Bessie. Old Blue. Henrietta. Old Dave. Oh, what? Old John the Mule. Old John the Mule. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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and um yeah that's what you ought to do jackson's with us jackson's in montgomery alabama hey jackson what's going on hi dave uh first of, thank you for having me on the show. Super excited. So I am 21 years old, married with a three-month-old kid, or not three months anymore, excuse me, five-month-old, and recently separated from the military. And my wife and I are roughly $16,000, $17,000 in debt, and we have no idea which way is up. We're just kind of stuck. We don't really know how to get out of all this debt is our big issue.

How old are you? 21. Thanks for your service. Why were you separated from the military? Yeah, I was 10 days away from graduation of basic, and we found out that I had a medical condition that I'm not allowed to serve with, unfortunately, which really sucks because we kind of put us, you know, in the right direction. So now, you know, just got home probably roughly a month ago. I don't have a job working on getting one.

My wife started a job last week making $10 an hour, and we live with my parents. Okay. So what you have, I'm sorry you've gone through this. This is hurtful. It's scary. Yeah. What you've got is a career crisis. Yes.

Okay. All of your questions are answered when you have a steady, big income. If you got a job tomorrow making $60,000 a year, you wouldn't have called me. Yeah. So what you have is an income problem. Agreed? Yes, absolutely. And there's two parts to the equation to land that. One is you've been home a month.

Are you ill physically where you can't work? No, not at all. Okay, just a thing. They were just scared to put you on a stress at basic. Okay. All right. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I want you to get three jobs delivering stuff by nightfall today. All right.

It's called DoorDash, Uber, and pizzas. And you can just go sign up and start doing that right now. There's no excuse for you not to be engaged in doing something for a whole month in your mother's basement. Go get something going. So I currently, when I left for basic, left our only vehicle with my best friend in Texas. And because it's where we were living when I went. And he has, he's been working overtime, a bunch of stuff. He's been unable to get it to me. So it's kind of the big hindrance of why I don't. Okay. You've been in Alabama a month. Get your butt to texas and get your car he's driving it out tonight actually oh okay good

good okay he's got that soft all right so go ahead and get the three jobs in i want you doing something immediately so the immediate need this does a couple of things for you one is it starts throwing some cash on this mess uh two is the activity is good for your spirit and your soul. Hard work is good for you. It brings dignity. And three is you walk different when you go into the interview for a real job when you're not broke and scared. Your voice tone is different.

You have a little bit of swagger. You're not desperate. You don't have the stink of loser swagger. You're not desperate. You don't have the stink of loser on you. Right. But when you're broke, scared, all of us walk different, talk different, and don't interview well. Right. So it helps your confidence level when you walk in there.

So I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, What You're Wired to Do, which includes their long-term plan, okay? It's got the Get Clear Career Assessment. I'm going to give it to you as my gift. And I want you to take that assessment, and it's going to give you some guidelines on the types of long-term careers you should be plugging into. And then I'm also going to send you his other second bestseller, or his first bestseller, which is called The Proximity Principle, which is how to land a job in the career field

that this Get Clear Career Assessment lays out. But between now and the time you land that job, I want you working on something, making some kind of money, swinging a hammer on a deck, pushing a lawnmower, delivering something to somebody that needs it being delivered. I want your butt in gear every day. That'll stack cash for you, and that will give you dignity, and you will walk different into the other interviews.

So I do have a job interview coming up this Monday at like a local place installing emergency lights on vehicles. What's that going to pay? What's that going to pay? That's the problem. I don't know yet. It wasn't online. And when I went in and talked to the guy, he didn't tell me. And that is a worry of those.

It's not a worry. It's just one thing you're looking at you're going to look at 63 things before you land the big thing and by the way when you're done with this i want you to decide what it is you want to do not just something that drops in your lap what do you want to be what do you want to be doing when you're 31 let's get about the business of becoming that my i mean my goal it currently is uh federal law enforcement because I like the benefits and okay then let's start working towards that okay currently I'm not sure that's a good reason to go into federal law that's a terrible reason to go into federal that means to go into federal

benefits yeah benefits are you get shot at but the um no I'm going. Go to be a federal police officer if you are, just have a burning desire in your soul to go serve your community. Don't do it for the benefits. That's the worst kind of police officer. There's a lot of other places you can get benefits. It's collecting a check. The police officers that are there to serve and protect their communities, that's what we need more of.

But you need to do some soul searching, man. Yeah, you need to think about what it is you want to be from your heart and how you're going to do that in a way that provides for your family a level of prosperity in the next decade and uh and then what are the steps to get there and in the meantime go make some dadgum money because you'll feel different your confidence will change i promise you it's a big deal and john there's actual data uh he's not depressed but uh but he's having a he's in a downtime of his life i mean his dream just got taken away by the military he was going to do that and that rug got so he's trying to emotionally recover from that so it's not like i suspect it's not full on depression but the data on depression is physical exercise, sunlight, and activity. You've got to do some stuff.

So this sounds harsh, but in his situation, because of the totality of it, he's got a five-month-old. I've got to put food in that baby's mouth. I have a brand-new wife, and she just got a job, but she only found a job making $10 an hour. I'm in my mama's basement again in their mama's basement if he was my friend he was somebody that came and sat with me i would say do you get 48 hours to have your heart broken to be sad and walk around your neighborhood and then you are throwing boxes at the night shift at walmart for 27 an hour whatever they're paying 20 bucks an hour you have to get out there and start doing it we're going to figure it out go on your lunch break and go to this other job interview by the way this job interview is going to be about ego it's going to be inside it's going to be cool and it's not going to pay

what throwing boxes is it's not going to pay what being assistant manager at a local mcdonald's is and he's not in a place where ego can drive right now he's got to make some money to feed a baby and in the evenings he can begin planning applying sitting at the inner at the computer trying to research some of these jobs um take that are the long-term plans long-term plans right now he's got to put food in that baby's mouth and yes he'll start walking taller he'll start acting his life will clarify for him what he does and doesn't want to be doing yeah you get knocked out of the saddle you can sit and study horses or you can get back on the saddle get in the saddle study horses while you're riding but of the saddle, you can sit and study horses or you can get back on the saddle. Get in the saddle. Study horses while you're riding.

But you've got to start riding. You'll learn more about them. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Today's question comes from James in Montana. James writes, you've done a wonderful job teaching about how to build wealth and what buckets to use in order to invest. I know match beats Roth and Roth beats traditional and traditional beats brokers accounts. My question is, what is the best way to do the reverse?

Where do you pull from first for spending when you retire? In the reverse. Traditional is taxable and has RMD required minimum distributions at 72 and a half. They require you to start pulling some of it at 72 and a half if you haven't pulled it. And so I'm going to begin to pull off and pay the taxes on that money as I use it. And that's basically for two reasons. One is that account is continuing to grow and every bit of growth is taxable. The Roth account continues to grow and none of it is taxable. Reason number two, the traditional account grows and is taxable to your heirs. If you get an inherited IRA that is traditional or an inherited 401k that is traditional, you have to pay taxes on it that your dad or mom left you and didn't pay.

If you get an inherited Roth, there's no taxes on it. And so I'm going to clean out that traditional and get that tax mess cleaned up before I start messing with stuff that not only grows tax-free but passes to the next generation tax-free. Can you pull that money and immediately open another brokerage account and start the growth over again? Yeah, yeah. I guess after you pay the taxes, you could never catch back up to your original number, though.

No, because you're down 30% or whatever. I mean, you pull $100,000 out, you lose $30,000. So, you know, welcome to America. but there you go i mean that's just how it works all right amy's with us amy is in huntsville hi amy how are you hello hey how are you better than i deserve what's up me too okay um hey i i've been following you for over 20 years, okay? I have met my husband since then, had three beautiful children. I have the best blessed life in the world, okay?

Cool. We have $1.5 million in retirement accounts. Way to go, millionaire. Only because of you, Dave. I didn't put any of it in there. You did it no because they got your book in 2003 um really i've been listening to you forever well thank you i'm glad you did it i'm glad you want it worked all right amy you already know the answer to the question you're about to ask then don't you no i don't oh wow okay the question i want to ask the question i want to ask is we

have 1.5 million in retirement accounts we have a pension that we are going to be looking forward to in retirement and we have we owe 145 000 dollars on the house we are a little bit pinched for money because of the inflation right now um but we can survive without it i want to take out money for money okay we really got that pinch for money but i want to have more money per month okay all right i got you okay i'm with you on that now so how old are y'all uh i am 49 my husband is 43 okay um so we still have quite what's your household income he makes 135 a year so that's like and you i'm stay at home mom okay okay so your household income is 135

all right you owe 145 and you're in your 40s. Yes. Okay. All right, cool. I want to know if we can pay off the house and take the hit on the taxes. I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. You're not only going to get the taxes, you're going to get a 10% penalty.

So what's going to happen at $135,000? You're going to lose 40%. That's like borrowing money at 40% interest. Yes. No. But I've made, I am actually an active trader in our brokerage account, and I've made like $700,000 in the last five years. Inside the retirement? Yes.

Yeah, but you don't have anything that's not inside retirement? No, besides the house, no. Yeah, so you're running a self-managed IRA. Okay. Yeah. But just because you can, that's all the more reason not to give the government 50 cents on the dollar. Okay. Because if you can make that kind of money, you can make that kind of money instead of giving it to the government 50 cents on the dollar. Okay. Because if you can make that kind of money,

you can make that kind of money instead of giving it to the government. Now, what I would do is this. What I would do is this. I would stop investing into your 401K. Well, we do put 10%. I would stop investing into your 401K. Well, we do that because there is a match. I would stop investing into your 401k and pay off

your stinking house if you want to get the match that's fine if you want to invest that's fine but you have no money except in this retirement account so you're seriously considering as smart as you are on everything else taking a 40 hit on your money no i want your house paid off too but i'm not giving the government 40 cents on the dollar you pull 100 grand out you send them 40 you got 60 left that stinks to high oven no no no no no no no no no no hundred times no wouldn't do that now i was hoping you're going to tell me you're 59 and a half and i would cash it out without the retirement without the 10 penalty i would but you're not there so anyway pay the mortgage down with other means between now and then and if you want to slow

or stop the 401k to apply the difference to your mortgage that would not be unwise at this stage of the game because your million and a half, if you just let it grow at a 10% rate, is going to be worth $3 million by the time you're 60. And by the time you're 67, it's going to be worth $6 million. And by the time you're 74, it's going to be worth $12 million. So you're going to be okay. it's going to be worth $12 million. So you're going to be okay.

You're going to be all right. And that's if you add nothing to it. Let me ask you this, Dave. So if my friend came to me and said, hey, I've been self-managing this mutual fund over the last five years, and I've made $700,000. If I look at all the data about self-managed funds they don't ever work long term right i would tell my friend take your money off the table you just you had a night you beat vegas and and dump it in is that bad advice in this situation because i feel like that's a person that's going to take

that 700 and he's going to end up losing it statistically over a long enough arc well i did not delve into what she's doing okay so if she's buying and selling single stocks yes i would take it off the table i agree i mean how else would you make 700 000 bucks in five years i don't know what she started with that's fair okay so um you know if you doubled it in five years that's only about a 15 16 percent rate of return okay so that could be done with mutual funds if you doubled it in five years, that's only about a 15%, 16% rate of return. Okay. So that could be done with mutual funds if you're very careful. Sure. Right.

So maybe she selected the best package of mutual funds possible in the last five years. That could be. But if you're buying and selling single stocks, I agree. I wouldn't do that. I don't do it. And I know a lot about it. And I don't do it. My retirement accounts are not self-managed.

They're just sitting in mutual funds cooking. Just cooking along yeah that's a good point i hadn't thought about that in her case so um you've done really really well be careful be careful and don't um you know let's not be giving the government half our money and let's not be taking big risk with a self-managed account. That would be the two tune-ups or answers to what we think we're hearing in your situation. And good question, Amy. We appreciate you joining us. The good news is what she said is right. If you do follow this stuff, you'll be a Baby Steps millionaire.

It works every time. Every time. And, you know, her family situation has changed during that decade. Her employment situation has changed during that decade. Everything has moved. And still we're sitting on a maid and a half in her 40s, plus a house that's almost paid for. We didn't ask what the house is worth,

so their net worth is presumably over $2 million. My guess is, you know, whenever you're traveling and you have to go to the bathroom and you finally find an exit that has a gas station and you exit, for some reason, right when you exit and you get to that stoplight and you see the gas station, your body's just like, all right, we're going to go right now.

You've got to go real bad. And I feel like she's got a million and a half bucks and she's right there at the edge to pay that house off and then all of a sudden it's like, I've got to pay this off right now, right now, right now. I had no idea where that metaphor was going. Hey, let's slow down. I had no idea where that metaphor was going.

That metaphor landed like a sweet airplane. That's a Rachel Cruz metaphor right there. Oh my gosh. Wow. Unbelievable. You've got to stay the course. Even though you're right there at the edge, just stay the course.

Okay. Don't pee in the car. That's it. That's the moral of the story. Don't pee in the car that's it that's the moral of the story don't pee in the car this is the ramsey show Thank you.