The Ramsey Show - App - Meet the Millionaire Toilet Scrubber! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze interview millionaires to find out how they built wealth! Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. We are going to talk to real millionaires, not your broke brother-in-law with an opinion who votes wrong. Real millionaires. We're going to talk to people who really have money, got it, and kept it, and learn how they did it, what did they do, so that you can be like them.

See, the problem with this whole millionaire thing is all of this wealth thing is half of the information out there running around is mythology. Let me just help you with this. Rachel Cruz, by the way, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, my co-host for this Baby Steps Millionaire Theme Hour. If you are a millionaire, a net worth millionaire, which is the only kind of millionaire there is, that means your net worth is a million dollars or more. Net worth is defined as what you own minus what you owe equals one million or more.

Your assets minus your liabilities. When that is a million dollars or more, well, that's too much money. This is not a moral construct. It's a math thing. Well, no one should have a million dollars or more, well, that's too much money. This is not a moral construct. It's a math thing. Well, no one should have a million. Well, we're not asking your opinion about that. All we're saying is it's a math thing. Well, it doesn't feel like it's enough.

It's not a feeling. It's a math thing. If you have a $1 million net worth or more, by definition, you are a millionaire. I don't even care if you feel like it or not. You are. It's not a feeling. It's not a moral construct it's a math thing it's an accounting entry and so that's all it is and and it but it is a milestone and an indicator of becoming wealthy and rachel the greatest mythology spreading around our culture today and sadly it's taken root to the point that a lot of people who are

otherwise intelligent believe the lie and i think it's because they just choose to that all wealth today is inherited yeah i feel like that's a that's a mindset that's been around for a long time that if you're wealthy it just happens you just yeah because you were a trust fund baby, it was given to you somehow. And in the millionaire study, it's 79%. Received absolutely zero inheritance. Another 5% received an inheritance, but it was not enough mathematically to make them millionaires. In other words, grandma left them five grand. Okay, that doesn't make you a millionaire.

But yes, you did get an inheritance. Another 5% received substantial money, like a quarter of a million dollars, after they were already millionaires. So 5 and 5 and 79 would be called 89. That's 9 out of 10 millionaires mathematically are not millionaires because of an inheritance. And that's from the largest airtight piece of research largest study ever done on millionaires in north america that ramsey research did

and we had an outside research firm look over our shoulder to make sure we're right because we knew the communists wouldn't like the answers the wealth inequality people okay and so when it's not fair well fair is where the tilt of world and the cotton candy are okay fair is those guys got up left the cave killed something and drug at home they did not inherit it i'm sorry if you don't like that call the wambulance that's how it really works out here in the real world now that's who we want to talk to but if you inherited the million i'll talk to you if you hit the lottery yesterday god help you but i'll talk to you okay i don't care where your million came from we want to talk to you because

we want to find out your story and share it with people because it inspires people to let them know it really is happening in america today as best we can determine there's somewhere around 12 to 15 millionaire 15 million millionaires in america today it's pretty substantial and it's just a little over 3 000 billionaires in the world i read that stat exactly but a billionaire is way different than a millionaire if some billionaires listening right now call in please yeah please. Yeah. We'd love to talk to a billionaire. They're fun. But a billion is a thousand million. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a lot. Okay. So if you have $100,000, you're light years closer to being a millionaire than a millionaire is to being a billionaire. You're one-tenth of the way there. They're one-thousandth of the way there. Do you know what's funny about this mindset though around millionaires i don't know if you feel this way but just just

even on social media or like when i just uh hear conversations around millionaires i feel like i find it's either no one can do it the middle class can't get ahead there's nothing there's no possibility that you can live in today's world because of of the math that if you made you know x you know 70 80 90 is gone and i missed it and that yeah you like you just can't afford things anymore there's no way you can save mathematically what work it's either that or people are like a million dollars that's not a lot i need more and it's these people that are in like crazy real estate investing. And they're like, you can have $200 million.

And it's this like. Oh, you're talking about Tic Tac. And it's like inflated that it's that millionaire is just not. That's not enough. You need to be like a decamillionaire. And they keep going and going and going. So it's just so funny. The mindset.

I'm like, I just feel like I hear from both camps. Yeah. So frequently. And both of them are wrong. Yeah. Versus. And versus and again the people that actually believe it and are doing the steady investing they're paying off their house they're becoming wealthy over a slow period of time they're just not the ones commenting the stuff the stuff we teach will lead you to a one to a 10 million dollar net worth depending on your situation It will not cause you to be a billionaire. You cannot be a 401k billionaire.

It's not mathematically possible. Okay? It's impossible. But the vast majority of the millionaires we studied were a paid-off home, $500,000, $600,000, and $900,000 or $800,000 or $1.2 million in their 401k and mutual funds. And they're 40, 50 years old, and so they've got a million-and-a-half-dollar net worth, and it's a $500,000 paid for house and a million dollars in mutual funds.

And almost all of them fell in that category. I mean, very, very few hit the lottery, I'm this or that. Now, listen, if you want to be a billionaire, I mean, we're talking about most of the time you own or you grew and sold off a business, and that's Oprah is a billionaire, okay? But it has nothing to do with- Jay-Z.

Yeah, has nothing to do with being on the- Yeah. Beyonce is a billionaire, but has nothing to do, I spoke for 84 Lumber the other day, the lady that owns that, second generation, $1.4 billion net worth, 57 years old. But that's the value of 84 Lumber. It's a family business, and it's huge.

You know, 250 stores, okay? $9 billion in revenue. So, you know, but that's not your 401k but that's a billionaire which is way different i mean millionaires they don't have jets okay the one to five million dollars you don't need to spend six hundred thousand dollars on jet that's a bad idea so you got somebody got a jet that's a billionaire or hundreds of millions, right? They don't have eight cars. They got two, most millionaires.

Okay, so this is the difference in a millionaire and a billionaire. And when you adjust that in your mind, then you go, okay, yeah, I would like to do more than a million. Sure, I'd like to do more than 10 million, like your guys on Tic Tac that we're saying, right? But this idea that somehow you got to go crazy and do stupid butt stuff to get there, that's a bad idea. So we're going to talk to real millionaires this hour because we know it's not from an inheritance on average, and we do know it's basic investing on average, but I want to hear it from real people.

And regardless of your story, whether your story lines up with that or not, we want to talk to you. 888-825-5225. Guys, if you're coming around Nashville, stop by Ramsey Solutions. We've got a wonderful visitor center, an area you can walk through, bookstore, free cookies. Oh, they're good, and coffee. And you can walk through bookstore free cookies oh they're good and coffee and you can watch this show we do the show on the glass every day from one to four central time and we'd love to have you we always go out at the commercial breaks or some of the commercial breaks and sign books and

have pictures with folks and there's generally 50 to a couple hundred people depending on the season hanging out with us out there has talked to to a guy named Jim out there a minute ago, $2.7 million net worth, all in a paid-for house and in his retirement mutual funds. Yep, and as I was getting my coffee, he said, and he's like, tell your dad I'm wearing a pair of 10-year-old blue jeans. There you go. That's a classic millionaire right there. So good.

James and Katie are in Ocean City, New Jersey. What's your guys' net worth? Hey, Dave and Rachel. Our net worth is $1,030,000. Awesome. You did it. Cool. We did it.

Love it. How old are you guys? I'm 46. And I'm 41. Good. You're young millionaires. How much of the $1,030,000 was inherited? Zero. Zero.

Zero. Okay, cool. And what has been your range of income since you guys started working, got married? Best year household income, worst year household income? So in 2008, we made $30,000. And then in 2021, we made $548,000. There's that? What do you guys doing for a living? We're in real estate.

As brokers or investors? Brokers. Do you have four-year degrees? I do. I have a four-year degree. In what? In biblical studies. Okay. Yes.

All right, which always sets you up to be a real estate broker, right? Okay. Exactly, right. And you do not? I don't. What was your GPA in college, Katie? It was like 3.6. Good.

Okay. So break the million down for me. How is that invested? What's it in? So between our Roth and SEP is about $200K, cash $325K, our home $425K, and then our vehicles, a little piece of land, and $529K. Okay. So it sounds like listening to your what i'm seeing in the numbers of your story that basically you just earned a big pile of money paid everything off and piled up a big pile of cash yeah in uh june of 2022 we did our debt free screen um so that 2021-22 in real estate, you know, the numbers really jumped up and

we had a couple of really strong years. That's so good. Was the debt-free screen the house and everything? Yes. So what would you say to someone that's like, they're on their journey, maybe they've paid off all their consumer debt, they're working on the house, how much like springboard is it for you guys of not having a house payment? And obviously you're making great income, but how much was paying off that house that really opened up some cash flow that you felt? Yeah, for sure. I mean, not having a mortgage changed everything. We listened to your podcast. It's just weird talking to you because I have like a side hustle business where I clean. And so I was scrubbing toilets, listening to the podcast, keeping my heart and my mind centered on why we were doing this and just working really hard to pay off debt and pay off our house. um yeah not having that mortgage is is huge

man it's amazing you guys i just i want to go on a soapbox rant right now the millionaire toilet scrubber meanwhile you have people sitting around in their mother's basement whining and saying that america is broken and they can't do anything. While Katie goes and makes some makes, you know, you guys bust your butts and clean, clean up literally and then clean up figuratively. That's just that's fabulous. I'm so proud of y'all. And now you don't do that anymore, right?

You hire other people to do it, right? I do. Yeah, I have a great. That's what I do. Yep. Yeah. God told me I don't have to cut any grass anymore i cut enough grass in the first 20 years of my life to have got i got my whole quota in for my whole life it was great yeah it's the same thing right so oh my gosh you guys are incredible i'm so proud of you okay i i know you guys are extra hustlers and i in a good way hustle ground hustle and grind uh

but talk to the people out there who think it can't be done anymore can it yeah absolutely um i did not go to college i barely made it out of high school. Um, but I did, we took FPU, we led for FPUs and I'm taking the financial coach master training right now. Um, so there's, there's definitely, it can be done. I never really planned on it or thought we would hit that mark. I just started doing the numbers and said to kate like oh we were there yeah you guys drunk all the kool-aid man i mean thank you thank you i like it well and look at what it got you that's what's cool so hey very proud of you guys congratulations heroes you did it i love talking to somebody who cleaned enough toilets that they never have to

clean another toilet yeah isn. Isn't that great? Well, it's just the hard work and the idea of, hey, I'm going to go do a side hustle while we're doing real estate as well. I mean, all of it together was just phenomenal. So well done, guys. Nathan in Norfield, Minnesota. What's your net worth? Well, Dave, my net worth is $1.3 million.

Cool. How old are you? 44, and my wife is 43. Very good. Another young millionaire. how much of this did you inherit um i inherited one thousand dollars last year when my grandmother died well that made a big difference yep okay we write down one thousand dollars all right so that's right what has been your household income best year and worst year since you all began working and began life?

Worst year was about $30,000. Best year was $240,000. Excellent. Excellent. Now give me a little breakdown on the 1.3. How's it broken up? All right. On the 1.3, our house is about $500,000.

We own a commercial lot that we have not put a building on yet at about $100,000. Retirement accounts, we have about $330,000. In business, we're in construction and landscaping, so we have quite a bit of trucks and equipment. We've got about $250,000 of paid-for equipment. And then we have $120,000 of cash, $520,000 in emergency fund, personal vehicles, that type of stuff. Way to go. Excellent. Excellent.

So you own a construction and landscape business? Yes. Yep. I run the construction side, and my wife runs the landscape side. Yep. Got it. Awesome. You got four-year degrees?

We do not. We both went to the local technical school. I went for a one-year program in meat cutting and my wife went to the landscape program they had and that was a two-year program at that time in meat cutting yes i know it took a year were you gonna do were you gonna be a butcher what was the thing uh yes yeah i thought about doing that i worked that industry for about a year and then i decided i wanted to stick with construction yep i bet you can field dress a deer oh absolutely yep i actually slaughtered my own beef about two weeks ago at my own property here so yep i love it what was your gpa or her

gpa uh mine was 3.97 but again it's me cutting almost a 4.0 and then my wife i think like a 3.7 she said all right very good okay cool cool congratulations man when did you look up and realize gosh we're millionaires um so we did our we came to our debt-free screen when you were at the old building that was in 2018 um so so it was two years ago like 2020 we became millionaires we're 42 and and 41, and it was just kind of a progression. Let's be honest. After you pay your house off, it happens fast after that. Yeah, because you've got cash flow.

Yep, exactly. We always say that your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. Well, when you pay your freaking house off, you see that. Exactly. Yeah, it's really legitimate. So you guys are kind of baby steps millionaires. In a sense, you follow this stuff. Yes, very much so. Yeah, we took FPU originally in, I believe it was 2003, and then we taught FPU at our church from 2005 up to about 2020, just a couple of years ago.

We ran out of students, shall we say, at our church, and we decided that was enough for a little while. At least let it recoup for a few years and see if we pick it up again. Thank you. Thanks for leading the class. Hey, man, you're a hero. Congratulations, Nathan. Way to go. Dad gum. 44-year-old millionaires. I love this. So good. It's a Baby Steps

Millionaires Theme Hour. We're talking to real millionaires. Mike Rowe will love the meat cutter millionaire story. He will love it when I tell him that. This is The Ramsey Show. We talk about wealth here a lot, and it is about changing your family tree. It's about leaving a legacy, but it's also about giving like no one else.

And that's a big part of this money message that you want to be able to win with money, obviously for your presence and for your future self and family, but also to help others. So there was a fun story that we came across. And there was a waiter, Jordan, and at, I guess the restaurant is Charleston's in West Omaha and he came in for work and heard that he'd be serving a party of 18 people on his March 7th shift and he greeted it with a very upbeat attitude because he said he likes to wait on large parties because they usually like to have fun and he enjoys it. Well, the group turned out to have pop singer Jason Derulo. Derulo. Derulo.

I feel like a boomer. I don't know who he is. I feel so out of touch. I'm not sure who he is, but I'm sure. Rachel, you just have to give up your cool card now. He is great. He's amazing. He is amazing because he left a tip at the very end.

And he was a great, you know, the whole 18 of his friends and him were wonderful and pleasant because the waiter, Jordan, was talking about just how kind they were and great. And so at the end of the night, he went and saw that Jason, the pop singer, left a $5,000 tip to this college student, Jordan, their waiter. His tuition was due the next week. You just gave the best punchline. I'm sorry. You did the great job with the story.

I did a great job with the punchline. That was the sweetest part of the whole story. His tuition was due like the next day and the $5,000 covered it. So... There you go. Jeez. There you go there you go we're like the kid that's like oh i'll tell the punchline of the joke hey there you go uh

yeah i mean that's why we work that is awesome that's why we work that's why we work that's why you want to get here so that you can have that moment he posted about it and apparently um jason derulo posted back derulo oh yeah and um keep reading i threw my paper yeah so you have to find your paper you threw it on the floor but um finish it off but yeah he posted on tiktok i mean tikt toc um and that was um that's pretty cool that's pretty cool that's fun so you know the mythology is that all wealth is inherited the mythology is that rich people are all crooks have you heard that one the percentage of rich people that are crooks is about the same percentage of poor people that are crooks there's just some people that are crooks but it really same percentage of poor people that are crooks.

There's just some people that are crooks. But it really doesn't have anything to do with the money. You don't get money by being crooked and keep it long term. I mean, that's the dumbest set of assumptions. Because if you deal with someone and they're a thief, you deal with someone and they don't have integrity and they steal from you. You deal with someone, you go to the car mechanic, he doesn't fix your car and charges you and didn't change out any parts because he's a crook. You don't go back. So you don't get repeat business when you're a crook.

You have to start over every time so being a crook is much more work than creating a good quality service people come back it's a lot more work to be a crook because you got to get all new clients all the time you got to get all new victims all the time so when you people out there when you hear people say all rich people are crooks see this all they are is their victim mentality and they're dealing with two evil spirits called jealousy and envy. Jealousy is I want what you have. Envy is I don't even want you to have it. I mean, not only do I want what you have,

but I don't even want you to have what you have. That's envy, and that's what's going around the culture right now that's out of control. All millionaires are entertainers. They'reason derulo yeah they're all uh pop stars they're all country music stars or basketball or football stars or whatever it's less than one percent of millionaires are household names celebrities sports oh i know who jason is i know who he is. I get my cool card back. Let me see it. Oh, yeah. Okay, he's an R&B guy.

Yep. Yeah. Okay, cool. I totally know who he is. All right. Oh, I feel better about my age and where I'm at. I was worried about you. I thought you were going downhill there. With current events.

And you lost the punchline? I mean, it's been a bad day for you, Rachel. You took the punchline from me. I didn't lose it. All right. It's a big difference. a bad day for you you took the punchline from me i didn't lose it all right and uh the other thing you the other uh mythology about millionaires is that they're all they're all geniuses they're all 4.2 oh yeah you know they're like rocket surgeons or something i mean uh you know this kind of stuff

they're they're not brain surgeons and they're not rocket scientists either one right they're neat they're none of this the vast majority of millionaires have a 3.0 to a 3.5 gpa very few of them have a one point something you can't be stupid and become a millionaire you have to actually have to have some brain cells working but you do not have to be genius level okay you don't have to be brilliant 4.2 i never saw a 4.2 except on my you know when i fill up my car that's the only time i seek 4.2 all right uh here we go let's go to uh crystal uh in olivia minnesota crystal what's your net worth hi um my net worth and my husband's net worth is 1.3 million okay cool how old are you guys i'm 36 my husband is Man, they're getting younger by

the call. Okay, cool. And how much of the 1.3 did you guys inherit? Zero. Okay. And give me a little breakdown on the 1.3. What's the categories of it? We have about $125,000 in cash, $755,000 in retirement accounts. Our house is worth $220,000 and we own that. And then $200,000 in retirement accounts. Our house is worth $220,000, and we own that. And then $200,000 in other assets. Let me just make sure everybody in America heard that you live as a millionaire in a $220,000 house. I do, yes. We actually bought it for $78,000. Yeah, that's pretty typical, by the way. But this idea that, oh, my God, if I don't have a $400,000, $800,000, $900,000 house, oh, my God.

That's not you. No, no. So what was your all's best year household income since you've been working and worst year? Worst year, when we first got married, combined income was about $90,000. Our highest year was about $90,000. Our highest year was about $250,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? My husband is a network administrator for a local co-op,

and I am a family nurse practitioner who just quit corporate America, and I'm going to start my own clinic. I like it. Oh, good for you. Love it. Love it. All right. What was your – you obviously have a nursing degree. What was your, you obviously have a nursing degree. What was your GPA? So my undergrad was 3.2 and my graduate degree was 4.0.

Okay. Nice. And your network engineer husband, did he get a four-year degree? He got a two-year degree and he had a 3.0 GPA. Okay. There we go. All right. You guys have done this very young.

How did you do it? What's the key? We actually followed all of your steps. To put it into perspective, in 2015, we had a negative net worth of $125,000. We became everyday millionaires in June of 2021. Wow. We paid off $147,00017 a month. That included our house. We taught FPU twice. It's just really just looking by your principles. It makes it pretty easy, actually.

Wow. I'm going to pay you for the commercial. Well done. Well done. Thank you. FPU, Baby Steps Millionaires. I love it. And that's a long road. I mean, we talk about it, too. It doesn't happen overnight. Yeah, but you flipped this in about eight years from a negative net worth to 1.3. But the diligence throughout that eight years, I'm like, it didn't happen in 24 months. So the long game that you guys continue to play, and we're diligent with the steps, diligent with your money, gets this result, which is incredible. Absolutely incredible. And as soon as we could, I mean, as soon as we got out of debt,

we tried to max out all of our retirement accounts as much as possible. I got my Rachel Cruz wallet sitting right next to me. Yeah, girl. So glad. Yeah. And it was always just kind of like a little goal, right? So our goal was debt free by 33, and we paid off our house three days before my husband's 33rd birthday. And then I said, we're going to be millionaires by 35. And he's like, no, we're not going to be able to make it. And I was like, no, we're going to. And by the time I turned 35, we were millionaires. Love it.

Incredible. 35 and 36 years old. You're a hero, girl. So proud of you for taking control of your life, improving to people all across America. 22 million people just heard you say this story. That's pretty cool. And by the way, her story's real

in case you're wondering. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. Our scripture of the day, James 2.18, but someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Dale Carnegie said, inaction breeds doubt and fear.

Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. Like it. It'll work for me. It's a millionaire, Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour. Paying off debt, saving, and investing is smart, but there's one key to winning with money that people overlook, and that's protecting your finances.

There's 10 kinds of insurance coverage you might need. If you want to take the coverage checkup tool and use it, it's completely free and we'll show you what you need by importance and connect you with a Ramsey trusted insurance provider to help you get this insurance in place if you want. It's all free. It takes about five minutes. So go to RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. Eric is in Augusta, Georgia. Eric, what's your net worth? My net worth is $1.8 million.

Cool. How old are you? I'm 32. My wife's 28. Every call they get younger. Okay, this is ridiculous. You're going to have an 18-year-old in a minute. Okay, and how much of the $1.8 million did you inherit?

So we didn't inherit any money. Zero, okay. Zero. And break your $1.8 million down by category. Give me a little of a breakdown on it. So $1.1 million is in real estate, primary home, as well as some rental real estate. About $600 is in mutual funds, Roth IRA, some company stock, as well as some I-bonds, and then $150,000 and $401,000. Good for you.

Give me your best year, household income, working lifetime, and worst year. So worst year, when we came out, we were together making about $150,000. We did do a few years of travel nursing, so we were up to about $450,000 at one point in time. So it was kind of drastic spread there. And you're back down to something now, about $300,000 or what? Right around the $300,000 range now. We just moved back home. We got a baby dude coming up, so we finally decided to come home and get settled down.

Are you both nurses? We are both nurses, yeah. Okay. Cool. So you got nursing degrees. What was your GPA and your nursing degrees? My GPA was around a 3.2, 3.3. My wife's was higher, 3.9.

Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. So travel nursing coming off of a pandemic, were you guys in the middle of that, travel nursing? We were doing travel nursing about a year before COVID hit, and then we traveled through it, and yeah, up until about a month or two ago.

Was that scary? It was, yeah, it was different. It was a very different world in the hospital during that period of time, for sure. Were you all scared? We were not personally, but I know a lot of people around us were. We've traveled all throughout the Southeast, so different areas respond very differently to COVID during that time. Well, thanks for y'all's work during that time. I know healthcare workers, it was a lot on you guys, so thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We went out, the Ramsey team one morning, and right in the middle of all of that, and went up to the local hospital. There was a gas station in front and pumped gas for all of them, bought everybody a tank of gas that had scrubs on. And, man, you could see the strain in their eyes.

Yeah. That period was a lot. During those few years, there was a lot of things seen that um a lot of people even in the field haven't experienced so it was hard during those periods yeah a couple years yeah it's like a vacation now compared yeah that's right yes definitely and a new baby on the way congratulations baby due two days from now oh my gosh friday enjoy your sleep tonight so what do you uh your sleep tonight. So what do you tell people?

Can they still do it today? Yes, definitely can still do it today. Things are a little bit more expensive, so I think it's a little bit harder to get there, but hard work pays off. So if you're motivated by it, you can definitely still get there today. Proud of you, Hero. In a bunch of different ways, you're heroes. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, Laura is in Tampa. Laura, your net worth? $34 million. Well, look at that. Good for you. How old are you, Laura? I am 49 years old. Good for you. Okay, give me a little breakdown. I'm curious. That's a great net worth. So I've got $14 million in real estate assets and then $20 million in my business asset if I sold my business today. Gotcha. What kind of business have you got? I'm a franchisor of a disaster restoration concept.

Ah, gotcha. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. How much of this did you inherit? Zero. Wow. Dug it out with your fingers, huh?

Literally, yeah. it zero wow dug it out with your fingers huh literally yeah i i started out as a twenty eight thousand dollar a year police officer um twenty some years ago and then decided uh poverty wasn't for me so i uh started my company when i was 31 years old dang i love that i just decided i don't poverty, so I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. That's really what it is. It's a choice. Yeah. Well, apparently. Yeah. All right. So the real estate came from the fact that you made so much money in the business. Yeah, correct. And then you made more money on the real estate after buying it. Yeah. And I kept a bunch of rentalsals i got about 13 or 14 rentals right now and uh if the business went down the tubes tomorrow i could live off the

rentals forever yeah 14 million i think you could yeah yeah yeah unless 12 million's your house i don't know but yeah what's your personal residence worth uh it's worth about $1.5, and I owe about $450,000 on it. Why? Pay it off. Okay. And the – Yeah.

And the – do you have another house? Do you have a toy house, a vacation or something, beach or mountain? No, I don't. All investment. No toy houses. Okay. You need to get one of those, too. Okay.

Yeah, I'm working on it. All right. So what's your dream on that? A mountain or a beach or a lake or what? A mountain. Mountain. I'm at the beach right now. So, you know, we're living in Florida.

So mountain would be the way to go for me. Yeah, it'd be perfect. Like Highlands of North Carolina or something. Yeah. Good for you. Yes, exactly. Exactly. How did you grow up, Laura?

Was poverty part of your story? A little bit. Middle class. But once I got to college, I was actually on food stamps just to get through college. My loans didn't cover enough to pay my living and my school, my books, all that stuff. So I had a couple jobs, and I was on food stamps for a while. So it's very surreal to be in the position I'm in now. I take it from the language you're using that you're single?

Yes. Okay. Always single? No, I'm divorced. Okay. How long ago? Four or five years. Oh, wow.

Fairly recent. Okay. All right. So this all survived that? Well, I have a great lawyer. Apparently. Yeah. Good.

Good prenups. Yeah. Good, yeah. And good prenups. Good, good. Okay. All right. Because you're a warrior. I mean, you're an Amazon woman for sure. That's amazing. You're impressive.

I love it. Thank you. Best net worth call in. Highest net worth in the last several of these shows. We had one that was $55 million one time. Oh, wow. You you know that kind of stuff but the uh guy owned a bunch of restaurants and uh we've had a few others but you you're a rock star i mean you're amazing you can't say rock star anymore after that dadgum super bowl commercial

but the uh but yeah you're amazing thank you you're you're incredible all right tell tell uh your 49 year old lady that's divorced and you're worth $34 million, tell a 24-year-old lady out there who's struggling and scared that she can do it. Oh, absolutely. In my opinion, I know other people probably disagree with me, I think it's easier now than it was back then just because of the Internet and all of the ability for affiliate marketing businesses. And there's just so much more opportunity now than there was when I was first starting.

I agree. It is probably the best time in the history of the world right now to start a business and run a business and take a service to market, a product to market that serves people. And the wealth that can be gotten because of that in the process of helping people. It's amazing. I mean, selling books on the Internet is a lot easier than selling them through bookstores. Oh, absolutely. You know, it's just it's a lot easier because sometimes bookstores are stupid, you know?

You know, it's just, you know, it's just it's exactly it's just it's a wonderful time. I agree. Love that advice. And I love that encouragement. Great job, Laura. Laura, you're amazing. Thank you for calling in. A Baby Steps Millionaire's Theme Hour.

That puts a little icing on the cake with Miss Laura. I know. That was a great call to end it. Well done. Any other questions out there? I think we just answered them all. You can do it. You can do it.

You're not a victim. Laura wasn't a victim. Never was that woman a victim. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramsesolutions.com

and click the get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramsesolutions.com and click get started.