The Ramsey Show - App - My Friends Are Pressuring Me To Get a Credit Card (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

George Kamel & Ken Coleman discuss: Dealing with a work travel nightmare, When's the best time to sell your house, Athletes who lost money getting paid in bitcoin, How to handle friends who pressure you to get a credit card, Managing money after baby step 7.   Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

🎵 From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you get control of your money, get ahead in your career, and get on the path to living well. I'm George Campbell, your host, joined today by best-selling author and Ken Coleman. That's the same person. Do you know that, Ken?

That is true. Sometimes I don't believe it. I love it. Well, we're Coleman. That's the same person. Do you know that, Ken? That is true. Sometimes I don't believe it. I love it. Well, we're excited to take your call, folks. 888-825-5225. We're here to help you with your money, your work, your relationships, your life. It's all intertwined here on The Ramsey Show. Sarah's kicking us off in Denver.

Sarah, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Huge fan of yours. Of Ken's probably, right? You meant Ken. George. She laughed nervously like, sure I did. That's great. Sarah, how can we help today? Yeah, so I'm actually traveling on a business trip right now and I've been going through a day of baby steps. Don't have a credit card. I'm $1,800 away from being out of debt fully, so really excited about that. Awesome. On this work trip, I kind of had the worst nightmare flight situation last

night where everything was canceled, had to do a hotel and the connection flight was only two hours. It's a two hour drive away. So my boss was like, we're going to cancel that, grab a rental car, take it from there to that city, and then just drop it back off at the supposed-to-be-city-I'm-in airport. So we were going through that, and the rental car company was saying, because I had a debit card, they rejected me because the drop-off location was different. And my boss, who knows I don't have a credit card, was, like, very frustrated because I don't have a company card, which as of today I do through the situation. He couldn't authorize it. And it kind of, then I had to Uber from that city.

Like it turned out to be a very big fiasco. So I guess my question is, unfortunately now I have a company card and defended why I don't have a credit card to my boss. And he was like, this is work. You should give me this anyway, rather than expense it.

But has this been a personal situation just happening give me this anyway, rather than expense it. But has this been a personal situation just happening to me and I didn't have one? Is it worth it to get a card if this happens rather than have to pay more fees to Uber everywhere? Well, you're seeing it as a binary option of either I Uber everywhere or I have to get a credit card. I don't see it that way personally, and that's from personal experience. So I understand and I agree that it is not a fun situation for a lot of folks right now trying to rent a car with a debit card. There are some things you have to be prepared for. You got to be intentional about researching, hey, what are the company's debit card policies with who I'm booking with? So for example, I rented with Enterprise recently,

and they allow debit cards. There's just a 20% hold of your total amount that goes on the card. And so what I want you to do for the future is just do that research. Okay, I've normally done that because that's why I did it for this flight. It was actually with Enterprise as well. But they just said because the drop-off city was different, they didn't allow it. Oh, interesting. So with that specific policy. Yeah, I mean, I would start to research different

companies and see what their policies are on different drop-off locations, because normally you're probably dropping off at the same location, correct? Correct. Okay, so I don't want to make a decision based off a one-off weird fluke thing. And I mean, it sounds super frustrating. I'm sorry you went through that. But I also don't want you to go get a credit card just for this one instance and go, well, it didn't work this one time, so I'm going to go down this path. Sarah, look, it sucks, right? But this isn't going to happen very often.

When it does, you had an alternative, and you may not have liked it. You may have spent a little bit more money on the Uber. But again, this is a rare situation. And George is absolutely right. If you go get the credit card for this really rare situation, you're just creating a temptation to actually use it. And so you believe in the principles, remind yourself why you believe in the principles, and also be able to step back for this and go, yes, this was a really nightmarish situation, but the reality is it doesn't happen very often. It did happen, and two things that I can walk away with that convinced me I don't need a credit card. Number one, your boss gave you a company card, so now this isn't going to be an issue anymore, period. On a personal level,

could this scenario happen again? Yes, but what would you do? Well, you've got cash and you've got a debit card and you can't Uber. It's not the end of the world. You can get where you need to go. So don't convince yourself that you need to do something that you don't believe in for this rare situation. Yeah. And if you're going on a trip with friends, if that situation comes up, usually your friends are going, all right, I got the credit card. All right, sweet. You book it. I'll Venmo you the amount if you're splitting the booking in a situation like that.

So there's ways around it if you're with other people. But I get it. If you're doing the Ramsey plan, Ken, this is one of those things where you go, oh gosh, how am I going to navigate this? But a lot of people don't realize that there's other ways around it. When you don't back yourself into a corner and go, well, there's only these two options. I actually have a question for you. Okay.

Have you done an analysis or are you just aware of the difference between a rental car? Because rental car costs have gone up, if I'm not mistaken, versus getting an Uber. So let's say I land in any city. What's the difference between Ubering versus... Certainly, it's going to be more. It depends on the city you're going to and where you're trying to head to. Is it a huge discrepancy? It can't be. So for example, me and my wife, we went to San Francisco. And transportation there,

we just decided to do Ubers instead of getting a rental car because I didn't want the hassle of driving around the city. And it was significantly cheaper than if we had rented a car. Right. And I actually prefer the Uber. I got to tell you. I don't want to add to the- I don't want to deal with the car. I want to relax on vacation.

I want someone else to drive me around. I don't like driving, period. Ken's got a chauffeur. Much less. No, I don't. It's me. It's me, guys. I'm kidding.

George picks me up every morning. It's fantastic. It just really builds our bond, and it's great for my blood pressure. The visual of that is making America very happy right now. I'm honking outside. The kids are waving. Well, you got the electric car. So it's a win for everybody. There's some gas savings there as well. I read the

old school newspaper in the backseat and George just plays cool hipster music. It's a wonderful experience. Thank you for that, Ken. Well, folks, a lot of people would rather spend their weekend doing yard work than talk about insurance. I know Ken Coleman's one of those people. That's absolutely true. I would rather talk about insurance than do yard work, so we are opposite in that regard. But here's the deal. If you don't take time to learn about

this stuff, you'll always feel like you're getting ripped off or making all the wrong choices about your insurance. Around here, we think learning about money should be simple and even fun. And so our new five-day guide to insurance, it's free. It's called Confidence in Your Coverage. It makes learning about insurance quick and practical, and you might even laugh out loud a time or two, and that's because I tried really hard to make the jokes funny, Ken. Yeah, you do.

In this series. I tried. You know, I like to add a little spice, if you will. You do. You make it bearable. Thank you. That's my goal. Well, it's insurance. Meaning no one's watching this for entertainment. We're doing this because we need to be educated. Agreed. So if you're going to do it, why not sign up for this guide? It's called Confidence in Your Coverage. Every day for five days, I'm going to walk you through a new insurance topic, unpacking everything you need to know to get the right coverage for you. These are short videos under three minutes. I get to the point, I make a joke, and I get out of there. That's how it should be. So at the end of the series, you're still going to have your yard work. I can't help you with that,

but at least you'll know your stuff when it comes to insurance. So go to ramseysolutions.com slash confidence to sign up and get started. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com slash confidence. Ken, I was just on the phone with Zander Insurance today. We've had as an advertiser here for many years. Had a great experience working on a homeowner's policy. And their level of knowledge in educating me on why they're making the decisions, saying, hey, here's what I think you should do, here's why. It gave me actual confidence that I was making the right decisions

with really big financial moves like your homeowners, your auto policy. So sign up for this. It's going to really help you get more confident. That's what we're here for. RamseySolutions.com slash confidence. Open phones this hour, 888-8 excited to tell you about the newest product from Ramsey. It's called Gazelle, and it's a digital banking experience that will help you spend and save the Ramsey way with banking services provided by Pathword NA. You'll get a single spending account with no monthly fees, and it's FDIC insured through Pathword NA. We're offering early access to our beta customers, so you can help us make it the best experience it can be. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash gazelle to sign up for the wait list today. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Ken Coleman. This is The Ramsey Show.

You know, Ken, we talk a lot about how your greatest wealth-building tool is your income. And you just got off doing The Ken Coleman Show, helping people increase their income through their career. That's right. Which is awesome. Well, yeah, so we want to take those calls today because, again, we are staring down the barrel of a recession and people are starting to freak out about it. So how can we help you recession-proof not just your career but just your income?

And there's a way to do that. And so, obviously, as a part of Ramsey Solutions, I'm the guy that's trying to help you with that bigger shovel. If that's getting out of debt or how do we plan for potential job layoffs, all these things that are legitimate concerns for people. I'm here today to help you in those areas. If you're in a toxic environment and you want to get out, we'll change your name, your location,

all that, so that we can help you out. So I'm here today, obviously, to chime in on all the money and life calls, but your work, your income, is a huge part of your life. And a lot of people have been, there's been a shakeup this year, last year with people going, I don't know if this is what I want to do. I don't think this is the right career field. I'm not making what I should be making in this market. And so a lot of people are shifting things with the remote works. They're going, I can live anywhere and do anything.

What would I do? And we've seen a lot of people take jobs to get a much bigger paycheck, which is obviously makes a lot of sense. But now they're like, oh, we changed it. And, yeah, that wore off. And I really want to enjoy my life. And if you think about how much time we spend at work versus anything else we do in our life, it is the largest percentage of what we do.

And you need to enjoy it. And we can help you do that, making more money and more impact. So we'll take some of those calls today. Any of those calls we can help out. Let's do it. 888-825-5225. Irina calls us from St. Louis. Irina, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, guys. Pleasure to speak to you both. You as well. How can we help?

So my husband and I, we have kind of a dilemma. We are living in St. Louis. We are debt-free, but our house, we do have six months of emergency funds set aside. We would like to move to Florida within the next year or so. The house that we currently live in, we love the house. We just finished doing the update. We absolutely love the house, but we came to a realization that we do not necessarily love the location. Not because it's a bad location. It's absolutely not a great location, but a little bit too far from where we like to be. The dilemma is kind of like, okay, do we need to, do we want to sell our house now and possibly go rent for that next year

while we're trying to get ready for that move? Do we sell and maybe reinvest into something smaller for the time being, still locally, but closer to where we would like to be? Or do we just don't need to do any of that and basically stay in the house until we are ready for that move out of state? A lot of options here. So you're wanting to move to Florida, but there's no real urgency around this move? No. Okay. Well, I mean, if I'm in your shoes, there's no real reason to sell right now and rent and do all of that unless you're actually moving.

I know you're saying you want to be closer to some things. I don't know if that's more of a, you know, a different district where there's more going on, restaurants and things. Are you kind of tucked away in the suburbs right now? Yeah, yeah, like pretty much furthest, you know. I mean, it's a great area and it's a great location. It's a great subdivision. Everything about it is good, but it's just far. And you just finished all these updates too.

Yes, yes. I mean, if I'm you guys, I'm just staying put and I'm going to use the fuel of wanting to get out of there to then move to Florida sooner. What do you think, Ken? Yeah, I want to dive a little deeper, Irina, in what's driving us to Florida. Why that destination? What's that future that we're looking forward to? Explain that to me.

Well, basically, we used to live there, and ideally we want to kind of grow. I mean, we have one son. We're planning a second kid. Ideally, that's where we want to end up. Also, my parents live in California, so it's not necessarily ideal for them to move to Missouri, but we want to be all closer, so we all agreed that Florida would be a great destination for all of us. Yeah, so what makes you feel ready to move to Florida? What would that look like or feel like? Okay, now we're ready.

Well, so I'm self-employed. I work in real estate, but I've been building my other side of business in real estate industry, but that would allow me to work remotely. So it's not necessarily at the point where like, okay, we're good to go. Income is completely a hundred percent guaranteed, but it's going well. I'm working on my clientele. So that's where we're kind of like, okay, we can do it right now. But ideally I want to be in a place where I can 100%, you know, pretty much, you know, as much as I can guarantee my income to continue flowing and being from a different, not being local, being, you know, working remotely essentially. Sure.

And my husband at that time would be able to get a good position that he's working toward also in Florida as well in the industry that he's working in. Yeah. So, I mean, I think George is right. I just think you get to decide. There's never an ideal time. I certainly understand what you mean. You know, we'd like this to be true and this to be true and this to be true, but life can sometimes throw us some curveballs. Isn't that true, Irina? So, you know, this is a good time to sell. But, you know, I will also tell you that... Right, yeah, that's where the dilemma came from. Well, but let me, that's what I thought might be there. So, George, we were talking about this earlier today. With real estate. With our real estate team. So, the concern is that because of a

impending recession, which may or may not happen, Some are predicting that it'll happen. Who knows? And that real estate rates, excuse me, interest rates have gone up, that all of a sudden housing is just going to drop precipitously. And six months from now, which might be ideal for you, you're going to be like, oh, it was a bad financial decision. And all the real estate experts in our building, plus I saw the Caldwell Banker, CEO on CNBC earlier this week, saying that right now we still see a huge demand. We have a gap of five to six million houses in this economy where that's what the supply would need to be to just get back to a normal area. So the point is the demand is still high. What you're hearing is, and maybe seeing in your area,

is that the listing price for some houses is scaling back a little bit. But that doesn't mean that housing and the gains that people are going to make are just all of a sudden dropping through the basement. Does that make sense? Yes. So don't panic. You're still going to make good money. Being a realtor, I know it's like I've been saying all along,

I don't think it's going to drop out, but it's basically kind of, we felt like, okay, this is a peak, and we potentially could get a lot. But also the whole aspect of like, well, shoot, we live so far from everything. We just live far, and we're no longer in love with this location. So that's where we need to do this move temporarily or not at all. If it's me,

if I had already determined what you just shared, that you don't love where you live, I'd make the move. Because you're already set up. So I think it's up to you. I think if you make the move, it will delay the Florida move further. Because you're not going to move to a different house. Yeah, and then you move a year

from then. I mean, there's a lot of costs involved with this. There's a lot of hassle involved. So I think if you move, you're probably planning to stay there for, you know, two, three, four, five years before Florida. And that's okay, but just paint a realistic picture so you're not frustrated if you do this. There's not really a wrong decision. It just really depends on your expectations of the future. That's right. And I think style and temperament work into this as well.

Yes. I'm a rip the band-aid guy off. I mean, I just am. Once I arrive at a decision, it's like, okay, I'm going to make it. Well, what happens is sometimes you spend a longer time just percolating on this decision than the actual time it would take to make it and do it. And act on it, yeah.

And act on it. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in that as well. But we are seeing some crazy things in the real estate market, Ken, and we're pumped to do this free live stream event coming up all around this. The response has been amazing. Tell these folks about it. Many, many thousands of you already signed up. So on July 14th, we are hosting a free live stream event called Real Estate Reality Check.

So myself, Rachel Cruz, Dave Ramsey, we're going to walk you through what's going on in the housing market today and explain how it works. And here's the deal. The housing market is not going to crash. And we're going to show you why. This is not just our opinion. We're not just out of touch here. So we want to make sure you join us for this. It's completely free. Maybe you're looking to buy or sell

a home. You're wondering if it's going to crash. What's causing all of this? July 14th is when you're going to find out. Go sign up. RamseySolutions.com slash reality check. And we just added this morning, I'm going to be doing a 20-minute pre-show with sock puppets. You know what, Ken? Someone's

going to sign up and be upset that that is not true. Okay, I'm jesting. That's a separate live stream if you're interested. No sock puppets. DM Ken Coleman on Instagram. Let him know. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman is my co-host today. I'm George Gamble. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. You know, Ken, we have co-host today. I'm George Gamble.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. You know, Ken, we have a Venn diagram, and my world is, you know, it's money stuff. In your world, it's career, but also you love sports. And so today, the Venn diagram finally meets in the middle. Because we have an article here that is connecting the sports world to the money world. Oh. You ready for this?

Oh, this is fascinating. I'm very excited about this. Here's the headline from FirstSports.com with a Z. Take that with a grain of salt. Again, folks, you be very gentle with George because he's entering into completely unknown territory right now. If I biff some sports names, please forgive me. I'm here for you.

All right. Here's the headline. Okay. Quote, bad investment. Odell Beckham Jr.'s $750,000 contract just worth over $35,000 after Bitcoin plummets. So that tells me he had a contract that was Bitcoin infused. He signed a one-year deal with the Rams that can pay him up to $4.25 million, with the majority of the deal being heavily based upon incentives.

And it was ultimately a one-year $1.25 million deal with a $750,000 base salary. $750,000. How much of that was Bitcoin? It looks like the $750,000. Wow, that was a bad move, OBJ. Here's what it's saying. By the way, that's the same guy. OBJ.

People call him OBJ in this football world. This helps me out immensely. I didn't want to confuse you. By the way, that's the same guy. OBJ. People call him OBJ in this football world. This helps me out immensely. I didn't want to confuse you. But yeah, it says Beckham took his salary in Bitcoin. Oh, that's good. He took to Twitter to announce his bold move to take salary in crypto. Yeah, sure. He said, it's the start of a new era.

I'm looking forward to the future. However, OBJ's move just backfired because according to sports business analyst Darren Rovell, did I get that right? Yeah, very good. Very good, George. The Beckham contract is only worth $412,953. Here's the sad news. After factoring in the taxes, which is based on the original amount, OBJ will be left with

just over $35,000. So he only got a bit of that contract. Hey! I see what you did there. He'll be here all week, folks. The dad jokes come out of me every once in a while,000. So he only got a bit of that contract. Hey! I see what you did there. He'll be here all week, folks. Sorry. The dad jokes come out of me every once in a while, folks. I apologize. James is one more dad joke away from muting you, okay? Be nice.

James, I apologize. But it was kind of relevant. Bitcoin, bit of his contract. I loved it. Thank you very much. Now, this is happening across the board. We can pick on OBJ all we want. So you're a big crypto – you follow this. I follow the news. You're a bit of a – what would I call you?

You're a bit of a crypto – Cryptocurious? Yes. You're a Cryptocurious. Yes. Well, I get questions about this a lot from our fans, from our audience, going, hey, is this a good idea? I saw this. It's a horrible idea.

And so I've had to look into it. We did an episode on the fine print all about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. And here's the thing. I'm not mad at Bitcoin. Every time we talk about cryptocurrency, the crypto bros come at us. Oh, do they? And they're angry because we don't understand and it's the future and the blockchain is – the technology is amazing.

It seems like a scary bunch. They are very – The crypto bros – I will say this. They make the MLM folks look soft. And that is saying something. Wow. Multi-level marketing.

Yes. A shot. George is firing shots here today. I don't want your Tupperware, okay? I got plenty of it. So is it because – the reason that this is so scary is because it is so wildly speculative in that it's volatile, up, down. It's down 60%. It keeps crashing down. And listen, it'll probably go back up, but then it's going to crash immensely. And this roller coaster, it doesn't have the proven track record.

Can I tell you one of the problems, George? You got Matt Damon. You got Matt Damon telling me that I'm not brave if I don't jump into this. Be brave, Ken. I'm watching him, and he's talking about the fortune favors the brave, and I'm sitting there on the couch watching. I love Goodwill hunting as much as the next guy, but celebrities pitching crypto.

This is my point. And even the media outlets, Ken, have been going after the celebrities because there's no recourse for this. Celebrities are just blindly endorsing crypto for oodles of money, and then when crypto crashes, the celebrities aren't out there saying, sorry, I was wrong. So this is a big problem.

We're not anti-cryptocurrency. We're just saying this is not a smart financial move right now, given the fact that it is relatively brand new. I mean, this is still in its infancy, if you will, and regulations and the fact that it's not recognized across the board. A lot of stuff here. Be careful. Be very careful,

especially if you are a pro athlete listening, which I'm sure there's so many out there. Wow. I mean, if Dave said, hey, Ken, I'm going to start paying you in Bitcoin. Now, hell would have to freeze over for that to happen. But if that happened, I would go, no, I'll take money. I'll take real dollars in my bank account. I think my first reaction would be, what did OBJ do? No, I'm kidding. There we go.

Hey, this is very exciting. We got to talk about Bitcoin, and you learned who Odell Beckham Jr. is, which is fantastic. Big day for me. Usually, I learn something, you learn something. This is great. All of my sports knowledge comes from the original Space Jam movie, Ken, as you know. So in my mind, Patrick Ewing is still hot on the courts. Yeah. We were actually

talking about this pre-show today, and we said we were going to talk about this. And George says, well, Ken, I need you to pipe in because I don't know much about sports players. I want to leave that with the audience. That's what they're called. Not all of them are athletes. I mean, have you seen soccer?

Sports players. They're actors, not athletes. I went to my first soccer game, National Soccer Club. You're going to offend a lot of people. Soccer is a worldwide sport. That's true. Careful, George. I'm just saying, I went to the Nashville Soccer Club game, and there was a lot of action. Did you sing and yell with the group the whole time?

They were all yelling different things. Profanities and such. I'm not going to be involved in that. I have class. I do love the vuvuzela. Is that how you say it? Yeah, I think it's called a vuvuzela if I'm saying that correctly. Yeah, that noise alone.

Oh, I love a vuvuzela. That's reason to never go to a soccer game. I just said it three times in ten seconds. I'm hearing vuvuzela. Is it vuvuzela? All right, we'll look it up. We'll get to the calls. We'll come back with that.

For the three people who are still listening to the show, thank you for joining us. We're going to take a call now from Joseph in Henderson, Nevada. Let's do it. Nevada? Nevada? Are you a Nevada guy? I think it's Nevada.

Let's ask Joseph what he thinks about this. Joseph, are you team Nevada or Nevada? How's it going? I am in Henderson, Nevada, yes. Very close to Los Angeles. Nevada? Maybe five to ten minutes, yeah close to Los Angeles. Nevada. Maybe five to 10 minutes. Yeah. There we go. All right. All right. What's your question, Joseph?

Hi. So I'm 17 years old. I'm just starting my life. Hey, speak directly on your phone for me, Joseph. You got a little squirrely. Can you hear me? There we go. Can you hear me? Yes. So I'm 17 years old and I just got out of high school, graduated, and I have a total of $3,000 saved up. And my friends are pressuring me now to get a credit card. And my uncle's a huge Dave Ramsey fan, and I started listening to Dave Ramsey behind that. And then when I get off track, I listen. But everyone's pressuring me now to apply for that Nevada State Bank city double cash card or whatever it is. And I'm very strict on no, I don't want to do that. Even my own mom has been trying to convince me of, you know, you should apply for

a credit card. And they don't have a very good, I mean, 10 years ago, now they're much better. I mean, granted, we're in a way better place than we were 10 years ago. We were in so much credit card debt. We didn't go on vacation for seven years. We paid it all off. And now all we owe is our house mortgage. And that's all the debt that we have left. But yeah, they're all pressuring me and I just don't know how to respond to them. And then another thing is, you know, I want to be on the path toward not having to waste 10 years of my life being stuck in this miserable desert, not going on vacation. So I want to be able to be wealthy.

All right. So, Joseph, let me make sure I'm understanding. You're convicted and convinced because of that conviction that you're not going to get the car. You just want our advice on how to tell them to shut up? Pretty much and how to stay on track. Yeah. Well, number one, sell the friends. That's an easy start right there. You know, Dave's always saying sell the car. I think we've got to sell on track. Well, number one, sell the friends. That's an easy start right there.

You know, Dave's always saying sell the car. I think we've got to sell the friends. Oh, my gosh, George. You can't sell people. Well, in the words of Ken Coleman, you tell them to pound sand and kick rocks. Yeah, so here's what I would say, Joseph. So, Joseph, is there anything in their pitch to you that is tempting you? Anything about this?

Tell me, because that's what I think you're getting at. You're like, I need to tell them, but then I need to stay on track. So what is tempting you anything about this tell me because that's what i think you're getting at you're like i need to tell them but then i need to stay on track so what's tempting you tell me about this double points credit card whatever what is what's tempting you well the biggest thing that tempts me out of everything is the fact that you know the whole issue with the credit score because my brother brought up the fact that you know when you buy a house or when you're very young. All right, so Joseph, I'm interrupting you because we only have a few seconds left. George, tell them about the credit score. So I'll just steer you to this podcast episode we did on The Fine Print called The Dirty Truth Behind Your Credit Score. I want you and all your friends and your brother and your mom all sit down and listen to this because I'm telling you I've lived without a score for many, many years.

I bought a house without a score. I paid many years. I bought a house without a score. I paid cash for cars. You can live without a score. I want you to build wealth, not your credit score. That is going to be your long-term plan to success, my friend. Joseph, you just heard it from No Score George. That's what they call me in high school. That's what we call him.

Mostly because I did not score in any sport, Ken. We brought it back around. I'm glad you clarified that. Brought it around. Joseph, here's the deal. You know what you want to do. You know the life you want to live. Just say thanks, no thanks.

I don't want to talk about it. You're making me feel uncomfortable. Fake the snowflake move. Everybody takes care of the snowflake. This is the Ramsey Show. Open phones, 888-825-5225. Joshua joins us up next in San Diego, California. Joshua, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, guys. Absolutely. How can Ken and I help?

Hey, so I'm 37 years old, and I am getting near the millionaire mark. Woo! Working towards it. Should be there by the end of. Woo! I'm working towards it. Should be there by the end of this year. Way to go, man. And thanks. Hey, so my question is really on the baby steps, Devin. So, you know, my self-worth is mostly in real estate.

I moved from Texas to California. Some people say I reverse immigrated, for some people. And due to necessity, most of my self-worth is in real estate. And now I'm at the point where I want to... You mean your net worth, right? Yeah, you keep saying it's self-worth, but I'm like,

oh my goodness, Joshua, you're worth so much more. So, my parents, they're immigrants, and they um the way they do things is you know invest in cds and insurance they're more traditional and i want to talk to you guys to see you know when i was in texas i was more on retirement you know mutual funds 401k iras but from here you know building out the wealth from a different scale, I want to see are there different methods of approaching this? There's different methods and there are better methods. I'll tell you that much. CDs and insurance are not your path to wealth. So your parents got sold to by some salespeople at some point, and they now believe that. And so I'm glad you're open to something else because the way you're going to build wealth

is partially how you've been doing it, which is building up your real estate portfolio. And you got a paid-for house, or are you close? It's 60% equity. But my Texas house, I had it paid off back then, yeah. Cool. And then you moved to California, took on a mortgage,

and you're working on paying that off? I am. It's going to take a while, Yeah. Okay. So what's your net worth today? About $950. Awesome. Way to go, man. So you're asking us, how do I build wealth the best way, the right way? Yeah, I think California might be a little different than other states potentially well the way the path there isn't any different it may look different because of you know the housing but you're going to pay this house off you're going to invest just like every other american uh should invest and i want you investing 15 of your income into retirement accounts like a 401k and IRA. Do you have accounts like that available to you? I do, yes. Okay. So until you pay off the house, I want you investing 15%. Once you have the house paid off,

you're in baby step seven, then the world is our oyster. We can increase that investing. You can save up and pay cash for real estate. But either way, I want you investing in mutual funds and index funds. That's it. Got it. And real estate, obviously. So those are going to be your best paths to wealth, not CDs. They're talking about permanent life insurance and using that as an investment. We're not doing that.

Do you have a term life policy? I do, yes. Okay, great. That's all you need on the insurance side as far as life insurance goes. So as long as you're investing into good growth stock mutual funds, we recommend diversifying across four types, growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international. And if you do that over a long period of time, this is exactly how I invest, how Dave Ramsey himself invests, and you do that in your 401K. We love Roth. It's the best option. Do you have a Roth option at work?

Not at work, but personally, yes. So you have a Roth IRA? I do, yes. Okay, and you're not above the income limit to contribute to that? I might be. My salary increased quite a bit recently. Good for you, man. So that may not be an option.

You can do things like a backdoor Roth. And do you have a financial advisor you're working with currently? I do not. Okay. That is something I would recommend to have that kind of coach in your corner. I've got one. Dave has one. Rachel has one.

Ken has one. And this is someone who's going to help you along the journey to help you understand what to do, what you're investing in. They're not going to make any decisions for you, but they're going to educate you so that you feel confident in those decisions. That'll be great. So you can jump on ramsaysolutions.com and click on Trusted Pros, and they're called SmartVestor Pros. We have them in your area. You can connect with one, and they're going to help you figure out what that looks like for you with your income and your state, all of those things. But, man, you're doing so well. 37 years old, almost a millionaire, Ken. I like this.

Yes. Very exciting stuff. I love it. Thanks for the call, Joshua. Dennis joins us up next in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. That might be my favorite city name yet. Dennis, welcome to the show. Thank you. How can we help? I'm 21 years old, and I'm looking at going into college paid mostly by work, and I was wondering if that's a good idea with recently just purchasing a vehicle and still having rent to pay for all my other bills. So what's the question in there?

Should you keep working while in school? No, the question is, do I push out of college later on after I've got money saved up for my life expenses? But you said they're paying for it. Correct. They're paying for it in full. So how does that increase any expenses you have? Because I would not be making any income during this. Oh, you'd have to stop working. So your company is going to pay for your tuition, but you would be a full-time student. So not any income, but they are paying tuition.

Correct. So what have you determined? How long will you be in school? Is it a traditional four-year path or shorter? It's a two-year path. Okay, so have you run the numbers on what your living expenses will be? Yep, it's going to be around $1,500 a month. And how much do you have saved towards that goal?

About $2,000. Okay, what's the total number? I guess, what's the total number over that two-year period that you need to save up? I have not done the math about that yet. Start there. So however many months, you're not going to be in school 12 months of year. True or false? False.

Okay. False? You're going to be in school 12 months a year? Oh, my bad, my bad. It's true, I'm not going to be in school 12 months a year? Oh, my bad, my bad. Okay. True, I'm not going to be in school that long. That's right. So let's just say you're in school for nine months. So you've got three months where you can work.

I don't know if that company that you're working for will pay you to work during that time, but you can go make money somewhere else because you're not in school. True or false? True. True. Excellent. So you start to take what my living expenses are but i'm going to be working during the three months you just got to play this all out so now you know the number that you need to save up um and uh what's the plan after you get the two-year education is it a promotion

with your current company correct i'll be a full-time diesel technician. Oh, fantastic. Now, are you on the strings for anything? You have to sign a contract saying you'll work there for a certain period of time? Two years, yeah. Good. Okay. And you're all in on that, right? You're not going to get one year into this to start resenting the fact that this is a joyful commitment because they're paying for your education. Yep. I'm loving this company, so I'm not too afraid of that. Fantastic. Okay. How much debt do you have?

About $6,000 on my truck, but that's about it. Okay. Because it sounds like you're concerned that you're not going to be able to afford your expenses, and that's partially due to your payment on the truck, right? Correct. What would the truck sell for today? I currently have a lien through the bank. So you can't sell it? Correct. Well, how long would it take you to pay off the truck? You went after with everything you got? Around this December.

I'm wondering, can you pay the truck off and then start school? Yeah, that's a possibility. I could just push school out later. I think that's going to take away some of the stress that you're feeling about losing this income while being in school. What's the truck payment? It's $500 a month. Yeah, but you still got to have income to pay for your living expenses, so you still got to run that exercise out, right, George? Yes. But I think that extra 500 bucks a month that you get to keep is going to help avoid a lot of stress and anxiety. Yep. So I'd talk to your company and say, hey,

here's the deal. I really appreciate you putting me through school. I want to wait until my truck's paid off so that I can afford my living expenses. Here's my plan. And just be clear about it with them. Yep. And double, triple check what you think you're going to need to live comfortably during that time you know what i mean you gotta really think through it you'll only be stuck eating ramen noodles that entire time no although i ate my fair share of ramen noodles during college oh boy and it shows it shows you're very frail thank you george well hey dennis thanks for the call man that puts this hour of the ramsay show in the books my thanks to ken coleman my co-host, all the folks in the booth, and you, America. Thanks for listening.

We'll be back with you before you know it. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show channel on YouTube. Ramsey Show.