The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Refuses To Work as a Team With Me (Hour 2)

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze discuss: When a spouse refuses to work with you on money, Taking a hardship withdraw from retirement, Getting ahead on a small business. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET 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 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 Moving and Storage Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author,

is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Abigail is in Topeka, Kansas. Hi, Abigail. How are you? Well, hello there. Thank you for taking my call, Dave and Rachel. Sure. What's up? Well, you both say that that's not a money problem. That's a marriage problem. And I know that's what I have. I've been married 40 years and I'm staying in the marriage, but I'm scared. I have no retirement to speak of. We have no retirement to speak of and we're getting old. How old are you guys? He's 69. I'm 62.

Yeah. And you have, you guys have no retirement. He has $40,000. I have $16,000. Are you both still working? Yes. He's had various and sundry businesses over the years. He sold his last one and then, quote, retired for two and a half years. And now he's back in the workforce. We make plenty of

money we just spend it all and what's his what's his hesitation of well you're saying we spend it all so I'm gonna go with that language is it mostly him or is it you as well that you're thinking, I don't have great money habits either? We don't have furs and jewels. We have nothing really to show for it. We've been doing a budget for four years after we did FPU. And yet, no matter how much money we bring in, out the door it goes. And last night he said to me, that gazelle intensity is BS. I'm not doing it. Well, we've completely paid off all the debt. Well, let me just say we did. And then I did again and again and again. And what's really got me scared right now is his health is failing. And even though I'm a late bloomer, I was a stay-at-home mom for years and years, I have the capacity to make a lot of money.

With all the stress, it's just wildly, like last year, it was 50 grand. This year, it's just wildly like last year was 50 grand. This year is 175 grand. The year before two years ago was 185. So it's back. It could be a low year. It could be a high year. I'm not putting anything away. What do you do? And now I need a new car. What do you do? And he wants to go into debt for the car. What do you do? Don't laugh. I'm an attorney and I have my own business, but it can fluctuate wildly. Oh, why would we laugh?

It's not funny. It's wonderful. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. That's pretty cool. And you have the ability to make really good money some years. Yeah. Everything we would tell you, short of fixing this in the marriage counselor's office is a poor substitute and at best a band-aid or at worst would cause more damage to the marriage marriage counseling i'm i'm tempted

not this guy i mean i get i get where you are i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm just saying if i tell you to do something else the part of the problem is i got 20 million people listening you might give one of them permission to do something else, and I don't want them to do it. I want to get them to the root of this and to fix it. But if you're going to stay married, maybe you need to act like you're divorced. Second account. Yep.

He doesn't have access to your income anymore. Yeah. account yep he doesn't have access to your income anymore yeah and you make 185 000 you can go buy a car pay cash for it a car that fits you know within your cash budget and you just operate your little life there and um um it's but i gotta tell you it's not it's, that's not a good way to live. Is that because of her age? No, it's just not a good way relationally. No, I'm saying. You're going to be living in a house with a roommate now. I know, and that's where for me, Abigail, I'm like, I, you know, yes,

because we say that it's more of a marriage issue than a money issue. It's coming out as a money issue, but there's something about him that isn't willing or doesn't want to be on the same page with you and be a team with you for the rest of your marriage. You guys can still have another 20 years of this life together.

And so I would want to get to the root of his pushback so much. You know, what is it? Because he's smart. I mean, he can look at numbers and know we don't have money to retire. And is it a pride thing? Is it a fear thing?

Like, what is it in him that refuses to say, I'm going to stop spending everything I make and put it away for the good of my future and my wife's future and all of that? Like, I want to know more of what's going on in him and all of that. Yeah, I agree. I can't believe you said separate accounts. Well, I'm, you know, I said it was 73 caveats, but the...

Well, I'm saying, and I'm trying to get to why you said that. Is it because of her age and she's going to retire soon and she needs money to live off of? Like, or is it cause most, okay, what, what, what, what needs to happen is she needs to lay down the thing and say, if we're not going to do this together, we're not going to be together after 40 years. You know, eventually it's going to get down to that. Uh, because her level of respect for him is going to get down to that uh because her level

of respect for him is going down and down and down and down and down now she's being very careful to be very classy but in between all those words was a lot of anger and disrespect which i would feel the same way and most people would and um she's like you know i'm this guy's baggage and um you know i'm smart enough i'm an attorney at late in life i became an attorney and i can go do this and i don't i don't need this crap that's all in there and it's not going to get better if you separate the accounts it's going to get worse yep because you're going to watch him over there in this playing the sewage and you're over here playing with gold coins and so um it's just a problem so i've been sharing i've been married 40 years and i can tell you what

would happen in our house uh we would go and sit with a counselor and we would try to find common ground and if she bowed up and said i i absolutely refuse to be smart i am going to spend like i'm in congress and we are going to be on welfare as we go into our retirement years because i am prideful and i will not deal with this and I'm not going to face this and I'm not going to discuss it um then she's going to find her own way I guess be really sad I hate that but I because the alternative is actually worse yeah than divorce it's actually worse so um yeah I would put him in a corner uh but i mean i'll do it systematically kindly gently lovingly patiently yeah but i'm gonna put him in a corner and we're gonna solve

this because this ain't gonna work out yeah i'm not gonna look across the room at you and hate you 10 years from now i'm not gonna do it this is the Ramsey Show. One of the most common pieces of advice I give folks trying to get out of debt is to sell the car. And I get it. That's easier said than done. Selling a car takes a lot of time and hassle unless you use CarWiser. CarWiser is a free service that gets you the best offers instantly from dealers around the country. And it couldn't be simpler. Just enter your vehicle's information and boom, you've got offers to choose from. So go to carwiser.com slash Ramsey. That's carwiser.com, Ramsey Personality, and my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. If the economy has you looking over your shoulder these days, well, we understand. All of us are kind of giving it the side eye right now and going, Ugh, yuck, you people are messing this up. And that's why we're on the road doing Building Wealth live events. As a matter of fact, the night before last, we were with a sold-out crowd in Sacramento. A lot of fun over in California.

Thank you guys for turning out for that. Next week, we will be in Minneapolis. And the following week, we will be in San Antonio all sold out thank you guys very very much we appreciate that it's me and Rachel Cruz George Campbell Dr. John Deloney and Ken Coleman and so guess what we're adding the spring events to the list today adding to the spring events list today good stuff going on so we have already had Indianapolis on February the 16th up for sale and selling very rapidly thank you same with austin texas on february 23rd and anaheim on may the 2nd here's

a couple of new dates for you we will be in nashville doing this event on january the 12th looking forward to that and of course salt lake city uh on april the 24th a brand new date as of today don't wait to get your passes our spring building wealth live events are about uh all dates are already selling out of vip level passes general general admission is not yet sold out but the vips and platinum vips go, very quickly on all of these. And the general admission is only $39, and they go quickly as well. All of our fall events were sellouts. Thank you very much, America. We appreciate it.

We understand you're scared, and we want to try to give you some answers. And people responded well in California. Yeah, it was fun. It was a great crowd. Yeah, they were nice people, and we really enjoyed being with you guys a couple nights ago. So tickets start as low as $39 for the Building Wealth live events. Again, Nashville, Indianapolis, Austin, Texas, Salt Lake City, and Anaheim. If you want to come, tickets are on sale now for all of those.

Two of those I just announced at the second. It's the first time anybody knew about it. All at ramseysolutions.com slash events. ramseysolutions.com slash events. And get your tickets before they are gone. We've also announced the Smart Conference, a very special edition, a two-day Smart Conference, Friday night, all day Saturday in the new Ramsey events center april 14th and 15th and that will be the inaugural event with commemorative passes and all kinds of special

things we're doing in the ramsey event center only holds 2400 people the typical smart conference is 68 000 people so that will be a very early sellout again if you don't have your tickets to that you'll want to get that that's of course here in nashville as well or franklin tennessee just south of nashville all right henry's with us in madison wisconsin hi henry welcome to the ramsey show hi dave long time listener thanks for taking my call certainly sir how can we help i'm in a bit of a bit i'm in a big mess and i just wanted to get your um advice on it okay so um i took fpu about 12 years ago i i know the system i had

every dollar plus um i've been engaged to my fiance for about seven years the only reason that we haven't gotten married i haven't gotten married as I can't afford to give her her day that she deserves. She wants to wait for that day. Um, and my concern is, is that, uh, she just lost her job due to medical reasons. And, um, we lost her insurance. She has Cobra, but it's $800 a month. There's just absolutely no way that I can get, I can put that $800 line item in the budget. Is it in this situation, is it ever appropriate to take a hardship withdrawal from traditional retirement products so that you have health insurance? Uh, do you have health insurance at your work i i i'm eligible for health insurance at my work but i'm a massively service-connected veteran so the va takes care of all my health care

okay so are you taking about let's pretend a theoretical thing happened and this was your wife could you not go to your work and get spousal insurance through your work cheaper than 800 i could good but you're getting married today congratulations i'm wanting her big days 40 toughies sorry welcome to grown-up girl land all right seven freaking years dude that's weird i understand don't you think it's weird i think it is a bit to be honest yeah yeah i would have married her five years ago yeah so you know now she don't have a choice her health's gone and she gets to be married so that she can get insurance and we'll call that the special day.

And then you guys can have a celebration because you don't have an $800 a month bill. Seriously, this is the results of this decision. This weird, poor decision to drag something out seven years has put you guys in this situation so you've got to fix it i mean it's the it's the fastest right way to fix this on so many levels on so many if henry if that's really i mean yeah it's one of those things like is she who you want to spend the rest of your life with i'm assuming so because it's been seven years but is there

a hesitation and you not wanting to fully commit as well? We've been going through a rough patch, and if we were married, I would want to be going to marital counseling, but the finances are what has brought on this really rough patch. So we need to get to the bottom of that first, but then, yes, this is the woman I love with all my heart. I've had multiple relationships.

This is definitely the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Okay, so if you know that for sure, you're going to go through hardships in marriage, right or wrong. So if she is it, and eventually that's where it's going to lead, then yes, I'm with Dave. It's like, go get married. Y'all are playing house. You basically are married without actually the legal documents. Exactly so.

We have shared finances and everything. We've been playing house for five years now. Yeah, so go get married, and then you guys as a married couple are going to realize, oh, wow, we've got to go figure out this money stuff and get on the same page. Or you say, all right, sweetie, you've got to go get another job and figure out your health insurance because, no, you don't need to take hardship withdrawal from retirement, or she doesn't either. What's wrong with her health? No, no, she would do it.

She would do it. She has diabetes and morbid obesity. from retirement or she doesn't either. What's wrong with her health? No, no, she, she would do it. Um, she would do it. Diabetes, diabetes and morbid obesity. Um, she's not, we're not sure if she's able to go back to work at this point. Okay. I mean,

if she's the one, Henry, you gotta, you gotta, yeah. So, um, I'm nervous though that the big,

I don't know. Yeah. The big day of the wedding. It's like, okay, let's like okay let's let me let me um take one step back not 10 steps back but one step back um how old are you guys i'm 34 and she's 31 okay all right do y'all have kids together? No, no kids. Okay. Okay.

Her health is, you guys need to sit down and see, you need to spend more than $800 on a counselor, and you guys need to sit down with a counselor, and you need to dig into what's going on with her and uh the special day stuff um and how is that tied is there any connection between that and her health issues um because i i i'm not a counselor but i'm smelling a rat and so um i i would want to get to the bottom of all of that before I rush off and get married. Because if she's not going to, and you guys aren't going to deal with your issues as a couple, and she's not going to deal with her issues that are underlying in all of this,

then that's causing this weird situation. There's something, she's hurting somewhere, and there's something that's causing this weird situation. There's something, she's hurting somewhere, and there's something that's causing this. I don't know what that stuff is. I don't have Dr. Deloney here to help me, but there's something causing all this stuff, and you don't need to get married until you figure out what that is, and we're working on it,

and then you can figure out the health insurance thing. But if everything else was glory glory but of course it's not glory because we're seven years around weight and pain or get off the ladder so um yeah you need to get to why these things are going on and if you can deal with the why then get married and that'll help her with her health insurance but no you don't need to have combined finances you're not married um we don't recommend that recommend combined finances. You're not married. We don't recommend that. We recommend combined finances for married couples because it puts you in this weird situation

where you're buying health insurance for someone that's your roommate. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions is quite a few folks. You can jump by anytime you'd like. We broadcast this show live every day from 1 to 4 Central, and it is free to watch. We don't guarantee it'd be entertaining, but it is free. And so you're welcome to come at any point and do that. And also, folks,

schedule with our team to do their debt-free screams in person live here on the official debt-free stage. They're with us, Sean and Nilda. Hi, guys. How are you? Pretty good. How are you? Wonderful. Thank you for having us.

We're honored to have you. Where do you live? Orlando, Florida. Very cool. And how much debt have you paid off? $114,000. Wow. How long did that take?

12 months. Whoa. And your range of income during that time? We started at $220,000, and then we're projected to be around $300,000 by the end of the year. Wow. What do you all do? I'm a registered nurse. Hero. Amen.

I do applications for a medical imaging company. Okay. All right. So both of you are working a lot. Yes. Yeah. A lot. A lot.

To get this income going. Yeah. And you work all you want and as little as you want right now.. Yeah, a lot. A lot. To get this income going. Yeah, you can. And you work all you want and as little as you want right now. I mean, it's crazy out there. Yeah. So congratulations. Okay.

What kind of debt was the $114,000? Our house. You paid off the house. Get the paid off house now. Okay. Oh, my gosh. How old are you two? I'm 29 or I'm 30 now.

Oh, my gosh. She was 29. She had to say it out loud on the radio. She was 29 at the time. I'm 31. Okay. And what's the house worth? Just check the little HomeBot thing we got from Deidre at Churchill.

It's $370. $370. And you're 30 years old, and it's paid for. You guys are so weird. I love it. Never been accused of being normal. I love it it i'm so proud of you how fun how long have you been married a year and a half yeah oh my god so you get married get a house and pay it off boom i had kind of bought the house a while ago it's kind of a long story but i had bought the house a while ago and we finally got married and just

got gazelle with it okay all right well tell us the story how did you what was the plan here well as part of the story too is she paid off six figures of consumer debt on her own before we got married so that's not even included in these figures super impressive um but a co-worker introduced me to the baby steps in like 2014 and uh it made sense to me i'd been raised to live below my means and had been shown an amortization schedule in high school and so all these things kind of made sense and i was like oh yeah that that tracks well but um i wasn't factoring in that it's 80 behavior and so i had all this knowledge but i was not acting on it i was doing davish for the longest time and uh just making her mad talking about it all the time, but not doing it myself.

So how could I lead that way? So anyways, what do you want to try? Yeah, well, he introduced me to you back when we met in 2014, and I was like, ah, no, we'll always have debt. That's just a normal thing. And he was like, no, just follow the plans, follow the plans. So when i graduated nursing school i started following it but i was doing dave ish because i got a car after i

graduated nursing school and then around 2019 i read your book rachel um love your life not theirs yeah and that one changed my life and then i became gazelle intense. I paid off my car, paid off my student loans. And then, uh, wow. Yeah. She's a rock star for sure. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah.

That's, that's hard work. That's hard work. So then when you guys came together, you had no debt going into the marriage a year ago. And you guys were like, the house. And then you guys said, okay, let's pay off the mortgage. And, and you went for it. Yeah. We said about it. It was, it was time for me to be gazelle intense, you said, okay, let's pay off the mortgage. And you went for it. Yeah, we set about it.

It was time for me to be gazelle intense, you know, because I had been watching her do it. And so I was ready. And it just was all serendipitous, I guess. Yeah. In January of this year, we only lived off of one income. So 100% of my income, because I was able to work overtime, 100% of my income was going to the mortgage. So we were paying about like $15,000 a month since January. We were just slamming it.

It was amazing. Slam, slam, slam. I love it. You guys are amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Has it even settled in that you're like 30 years old and you don't have any payments at all, house or anything? No.

How whacked that is? I don't think so. No, it hasn't. You're going to be so rich. Yeah, we get to keep $15,000 a month. Oh, my gosh. What are we going to do with all this money now? Max retirement, number one.

What's your first big thing you want to do with money now that you're out? I don't know. We're still living way below our means that will always be the case of course yeah but um we have some trips planned and yeah we had we spent three weeks in montana for our honeymoon we waited a year after we got married to go on our honeymoon so we can save for it and you know pay for it all in cash and then um but i think the first we already started investing for our next house. Hopefully that will be our short-term goal and pay for it full in cash. We maxed out our retirement. Yeah, maxed out our retirement.

We have new charities. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome you guys. How much have you already got saved in your retirement nest egg? Oh, upwards of around $300. $100,000? Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right. So you're 31, and you got $650,000, $700,000 in net worth already. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to be millionaires by Christmas. Oh, my God. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. It's amazing.

That's weird. That's just so cool. I'm so proud of y'all. Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much. Very neat. So, so great i'm so proud of y'all thank you thank you so much so great so so both sets of parents came to cheer you on yeah it's really wonderful yeah i know and we're up in hendersonville for the week well they gotta be really proud there's no chance you're moving into their basement exactly i mean this is great yeah yeah did y'all have friends along the way that were curious about your journey like what you were doing were there

cheerleaders along the way were there people that were like y'all are friends along the way that were curious about your journey, like what you are doing? Were there cheerleaders along the way? Were there people that were like, y'all are nuts? Yeah. Most of my friends were like, you don't have to work so hard. Like, it's fine. Just, just stop working so much overtime. You're going to burn yourself out. And I was like, no, I have to do this.

I have to do it. I would call him in the bathroom at work crying because I was just like, just so burnt out. But then he was just like, you don't have to work so hard. I was like, I do. I have this goal. And I was like, I want to do it by 30. You weren't burnt out. You were just tired.

I was tired. That's what it was. Yeah. But you don't get burnt out when you got a goal. Yeah, that's true. Burning out is when you're just spinning. That's true. For nothing.

But when you're going towards something, you just get tired. Yeah. I knew there was a goal at the end. So that's why I nothing but when you when you're going towards something you just get tired yeah i knew there was a goal at the end so that's why i kept doing it but um yeah we had the amortization schedule on the fridge and we would be crossing it out with different colors each month and it was always a goal to smack as many lines as we could and you had to gamify it like you say all the time yeah exactly yeah wow no discipline so cool congratulations Congratulations, you guys. Love Your Life, Not Theirs was what lit you up. Yeah, we actually have that book, and then I had lent it out to somebody, and I just was like, you know what?

It changed my life so you can have it, so I gave it to her. We actually do, and I remember from the book you had talked about you had a couch that you were embarrassed of, and I was feeling the same way because if we had a couch, I didn't really like.

And I'm just like, you know what? People don't really think about that. You just need a place to sit. Yeah. So after that, I paid off my student loans and then I paid off my car

and my credit cards and all that stuff. It's amazing. Well done, you guys. Now you can get a couch. Thank you. We got a couch. I guess we did do that, yeah.

I love it. Hey, we've got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you. Baby Steps Millionaires, because you're going to be there in a heartbeat and celebrate that with you as well. And a one-year membership to Financial Peace University and a new copy of Love Your Life, Not Theirs. We're going to throw them all in just to say we're proud of you and congratulations. Very, very well done, you two.

Thank you. All right, quickly, what's the secret to getting out of debt? Well, of course, number one, you have to do the budget. You have to. Follow the plan exactly. Don't do Davis. Come on, if you're doing Davis right now, I'm talking to you. Do the plan.

If you do the plan, you'll get the results. You say that all the time. And I would say thirdly, embrace the core concepts of capitalism, that's self-ownership and private property. These things attainable in today's world even here and now and despite of all the government intervention in your life you can still do it and i would say you owe it to yourself to do it and posterity as well wow amen amen and hallelujah sean for president. Do it. I like it. Good stuff. There are no collectivist systems raising. Good stuff. Sean and Nilda, Orlando, Florida, $114,000 paid off in 12 months. House and everything at 30 years old.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo! Woo! Woo-woo-woo! Well, in case you thought millennials and Gen Z had all lost their minds,

we get the best ones around here. I know. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Rachel's my co-host today. Jared is with us in Minneapolis. So we'll be up there next week to see you guys. Hey, Jared, how are you?

Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Hey, I got a question about a, I got a small business. I got two trucks and it seems like every time I get caught up, I got another big bill that I can't cover. So then I put it on a credit card and I just kind of feel like I'm stuck in a loop. Okay.

What kind of business are you in uh towing company say again i'm salvage cars towing towing okay so you have two tow trucks yep okay yep so you just um like most people maybe even like me got up uh and just decided I'm in business today I've been working in the business for like 12 years working it is different than running it yep and so now you now tote operating a tow truck is no longer your job your job now is running a business and you're really good at operating a tow truck and now you're having to learn how to run a business. Is that fair? Yep. Yeah.

Okay. So what kind of big bills are coming up unexpectedly? I got a higher mileage truck, so I just had a turbo come go out on me. It's about $8,900 with the intercooler. Uh-huh. And I'm hoping to put about $2,000 down, but I don't have enough to cover the rest of the bill. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Who's driving the other truck? It's just me. You have two trucks, and you just shoot? Yes. Park it until you make the money with the other truck. Okay. What's the other bills that have come up unexpectedly? It's just bigger repairs.

They just seem like you've got six or eight a year, it seems like. Okay. I would think that that's not really unexpected. That's predictable. Okay. I think you're going to have X number of thousands of dollars average per month, some months none, some months double, of repairs because you've got a fleet of trucks, two trucks on the road, and towing stuff's hard on trucks.

Okay. So you're going to have repairs as part of your business model. Okay. So you're going to have repairs as part of your business model. Okay. I guess what I'm afraid of is if a motor goes, you know, it's like 30 grand to get it rebuilt. Do I get rid of the truck or do I just expect it to be coming up and save up for it? Exactly. I don't think it's if a motor goes. I think it's when it goes.

Yep. It's going to go. It's part of your business. You're going to wear out these vehicles you're gonna have small repairs medium repairs and huge repairs and replacements these are part of your business model and setting money aside to keep all of that running like paying the rent for a restaurant or paying a worker that works there you got to set it aside out of your you've been just making the money taking it all home and maybe paying your taxes.

Well, I pay myself out of it, too. I pay myself about $40,000 a year. That's what I mean. You're taking all the money home. There's no money laying down at the office. Yes. So you're just making the money and taking it home. You're treating it like you have no expenses, hardly, other than fuel and insurance. You're paying some of that.

But, yeah, so my guess is you're probably not charging enough okay they are set rates for the most part which is kind of sucks to set rates by who um they're mostly insurance cars oh okay insurance company setting the rate yes sometimes you bid on them but for the most part they're set okay i'd be looking at my business model because fuel's gone up repairs have gone up everything's gone up and if the insurance rate set rate didn't go up that might not be the business i want to be in i may want to be in a non-insurance towing business or something. I don't know, but you got to be looking at all of that all the time. Bottom line is though, you need to be running a profit and loss statement. I'd have you sit down, go to ramseysolutions.com, click on tax

ELP and find someone that's in the bookkeeping and accounting business in your area that we recommend. Have them start to help you build an accounting system. It's really not rocket science. It sounds intimidating, but it's not. It's what you've got coming in minus money set aside for repairs, minus money set aside for fuel, minus money set aside for insurance, and help you look at the pricing and seeing, you know, can I afford to do this? You might be losing money on every toe if if uh repair costs and insurance costs and fuel costs have gone up so much that by the time you go over there you're losing money every time that could happen in the world we live in today with this inflationary

market and this fuel and diesel has gone nuts too so and factoring in the repairs like if you do all of that and do your budget for the month to see yeah the actual repairs because um you don't want to live behind the eight ball which is where you are you're always behind you're you're always waiting on the next thing to happen instead of planning for it to happen and so uh jared in the real estate business uh back in the day when i was a young guy, they taught us, if you own an apartment complex, to say, okay, the roof has five years of life left on it before it starts leaking. And so I need to figure out what a roof costs, and I need to put one-fifth of the roof cost away for the next five years to replace the roof, plan to replace the roof. And we call those a sinking fund. That's what it's called in that world.

But in your sense, you need a sinking fund to replace trucks and to do big repairs to trucks, and you need a budget line item for minor repairs to trucks and a budget line item for fuel and a budget line item for these things. And you need to put all this stuff together, and then that helps you calculate what each trip costs and whether or not it makes sense to do some of these trips and um and it helps you save up and fix this one turbo right here as fast as you can because you're going to put a big old line item in there and um you know you're

going to you're going to work extra you're going to do everything you can to get extra money coming in to cover this right now but no i'm not going to tell you. You're going to do everything you can to get extra money coming in to cover this right now. But, no, I'm not going to tell you to go into debt to do that. I'm going to park that truck and run the other truck until I can do it. It's what I would do if I owned the business. And it's how I've run this business, too. I started it on a card table in my living room, and we've never borrowed a dime all the way out. Hang on.

I'm going to send you a copy of our book, Entree Leadership, which will help you run your business. It's how we teach small business people to run their business. You're doing a good job. You're doing better than you think you're doing but you've got to get around in front of this because this is causing a ton of stress for you that is that doesn't have to be there doesn't have to be there but um so folks what happens is what happened with jared and what i was accusing him of um not in a derogatory way but just reading his mail is a lot of people become good at a trade i'm a good plumber i'm a good heating and air guy i'm a good carpenter i'm good at cooking uh i'm good at being a chef i'm good at whatever and then they open a business I'm a good real estate agent and then they open a

business I'm going to own a real estate company with agents working for me I'm going to open heating and air company with heating and air techs working for me and I'm going to have trucks I'm going to open a towing company and you become an accidental leader, an accidental entrepreneur. But what we always, the mistake all of us make, and I've made the mistake too, even inside of the Ramsey business, I've made the mistake. Just because someone's good at a certain discipline or a certain thing, that does not necessarily mean they're good at leading a business to do that thing. Business leadership and business entrepreneurship is a different skill set than working on heat and air or than working or than doing computer programming or then whatever so if i've got a computer programmer that's an excellent computer

programmer it doesn't necessarily mean they may be the best in the building but it doesn't necessarily mean they're a leader yeah of that area because leadership is a different skill set than computer programming and so anytime you're in the small business setting one of the moves you make is from practitioner to owner you move from your hands doing the work to also your brain has to be controlling the numbers around your hands doing the work and the people that use their hands doing the work and so you got to get up on top of it and my friend michael gerber who wrote the book e-myth which is a wonderful book on this subject says to work on your business not just in your business yeah that's his phrase and it is an absolutely

fabulous phrase and uh it's a good way to look at this stuff entree leadership will help you with all of that. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to Austin, Ben, Zach, Andrew, and James in the booth, the booth dudes. I'm Dave Ramsey, and we'll be back. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.