The Ramsey Show - App - My New Boss Told Me I Wasn’t His First Choice for the Job (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

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Thank you very much. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out and have a conversation about your life and your money and your mental health and your relationships and boundaries and all of the things that concern you and ail you. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, joined today by the wheezing Dr. John Deloney. That concern you and ail you. Yes. I'm like a 1920s innkeeper, John. Welcome to the 21st century. I'd like to introduce you to a microphone. I think we need to get back to the old times in some ways, John.

Our language, the kids these days, the slang words. My wife reminds me regularly that she believes I was born in the wrong century, but I don't think I've ever said, well, honey,

what ails you today? Jeez Louise. Oh, we're having a good time. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. John would love to take your call instead of listening to me,

but it is what it is, as the kids say. America, what ails you? Give us a shout. What ails you? We'll talk money, life. And Jeff was brave enough to call in. All the way from Phoenix, Arizona. Jeff, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, gentlemen. How are you doing? We are doing great. What ails you today? How can we help? I'm just kind of torn in between buying a piece of property, probably be a retirement property. It's about $60,000 just for the dirt. So I'm trying to figure out if it's really kind of the right thing to do, the right decision.

I don't have any bills. I don't have a mortgage. I don't have any student. I don't have a mortgage. I don't have any student debt. Cars are paid off. Good for you. The house is worth about $575,000. I've got a rental property that I would probably sell that's worth about $250,000. I've got about $425,000 and a 401k.

I've got about $35,000 liquid. What was the liquid amount? $35,000. So you would sell your rental house to buy this dirt? What's special about this dirt? You have a dream. What's your dream? To put a house on it, build a house on it. It's kind of where we want to retire. So there's not a whole lot of land left there in the subdivision. So the prices are going up. It's a for sale by owner. So the property is asking prices 60, but the prices around it for the properties are about 90, 92,000.

So for sale by owner, I can get a pretty good deal, I think. So what would this house cost that you want to build on top of the dirt? It's about $225 a square foot, so it would probably be around $400,000. Okay, and you have a paid-for primary residence that's worth $575,000? Yes. But you would keep the primary residence and use this as a secondary property for yourself? Probably not. Okay. Because you said you were going to sell the rental. Yeah, the rental we would sell. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I mean, with that kind of money, you've got the cash either way if you sell one of these properties, right?

Yes. How old are you, man? Or even if I don't. How old are you, Jeff? I'll be 62 in December. Yeah. So what's your timetable for building this house, your dream home and settling in? Probably two to three years.

Okay. I mean, yeah, you're debt-free. You've got a retirement. You don't have a ton of money in retirement, but you've, I mean, you're a millionaire. You've got a retirement. You don't have a ton of money in retirement, but you've – I mean, you're a millionaire. You've got a million bucks in assets out there and cash. And if you want to sell a house right now, the market's hot, and hang on to that cash and buy dirt in your dream community, I mean, that's what I would do if I'm being honest with you. That's what I would do. And you're still working, Jeff?

Yes. What's your household income? About $110, 110. All right. Well, you've done really well. Aside from the retirement account, which I think, like John's saying, if you sold that primary residence and kind of used that as part of the nest egg and started investing some of that, or just sell the rental and cash flow the property, could you do that? If you just sold the rental and cash flowed the rest? Yeah, we probably could. I mean, I like that plan because it sets you up for retirement.

I just don't want you to sink a whole bunch of money into this property and you've got nothing in retirement as you try to settle into retirement. Right. Right. Right. I think the property, I think my first plan would be to invest in this property, this dirt, and, you know, if I needed to sell it, then I could sell it and probably make some money off of it. Sure. But, you know, because the price of the dirt around it is significantly higher than what I would be buying the other property from.

One thing I would check on that is make sure it's been perked and all that. It may be a reason why it's 33% less expensive than the dirt around it. Yeah, dude, I don't have any problem with that. If that's where y'all want to end up, you've worked really hard, you're a millionaire, you're pretty close. Just don't leverage yourself on this decision. Yeah. Use cash. Do this thing in cash, man. You got this.

Way to go. All right. Amir joins us in Toronto, Canada. Amir, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. How are you? We're doing great. How can we help?

I'm just calling regarding a question. In a way, it's two-parter, but I'm currently in university. I'm 20 years old in my third year, and over the past year and a half, almost two years, I've been back at home because of COVID, and my classes will be in person and all five courses that I'm planning on taking will be in person. And I'm just trying to decide if it would be financially better for me to move to the other city where my university is or to continue to stay at home. What's the commute like right now? It's a drive and it's about an hour and a half to two hours. Whoa, and you're there like five days a week? I don't exactly know my schedule, but I think it would be somewhere around three or five days.

Can you cash flow the campus living? You won't take on any debt to do that? Yes, yes I can. I have savings and I have the money for it. It's just it's a high cost and the sort of degree or career that I'm pursuing is extremely expensive. So I'm trying to save and budget as much as I can. So here's what I'll tell you. If you have the cash, the research tells me that students who live on campus have higher academic, they do better on a host of metrics. Now that's not universal.

That's just, that's taking an average of the students who live on campus versus those who commute. There's something about meeting classmates. Y'all start businesses together. You form relationships together. You learn how to do this. You learn how to talk to your boss in the future.

All kinds of data that suggest if you live on campus, there's some significant benefits. I'll also say if you have to borrow to do that, it is absolutely not worth it because there's also psychology of debt challenges and getting out and the accelerated anxiety and depression around, I don't own my future, a bank does, right? So if you can cash flow this, I don't have any problem with that at all, man. Yeah.

You got a second question, man. I think it'd be a great experience for you. What was your second question? We're running up against a break. Yeah. The second part is if I continue to stay at home, I can pay off my debt. But if I move back to school, my debt paying off would be on pause. Yeah.

Well, listen, I don't want you to go into more debt. We can work on the debt as soon as you graduate, but it feels like moving on campus is still the best bet for you psychologically and financially right now. Cashflow Man, you got this. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Christi Wright. Do you ever feel lost, maybe a little alone? We have all had that feeling.

And I'll tell you what has helped me in these moments is listening to worship music. That's why I'm so excited'll tell you what has helped me in these moments is listening to worship music. That's why I'm so excited to tell you that we are partnering with the number one daily worship app called Glorify. This helps remind us that God is with us. And the best thing is Glorify is free to download. Just search for Glorify in your app store, or you can get 50% off their full library when you use the code RAMSEY by October 31st. So let me ask you a question. When you think of a millionaire, what kind of job do you picture them having?

Is it some kind of high-powered executive position like a VP or a CEO? Well, here's the thing. Only 15% of millionaires actually have jobs like that. The reality is that the top five careers for millionaires in America are engineer, accountant, teacher, manager, and attorney. That's just one of the surprising things our team found out when we conducted the largest study of millionaires ever done. They talked to thousands of millionaires about who they are and how they achieve that goal. And our study also made it clear that to become a millionaire, you've got to invest wisely.

And a big part of that is getting good investing advice. You need to work with an investing pro who can walk with you and teach you about the options that are right for you. Our team recommends trustworthy, vetted investing pros from all over the country that we call SmartVestor Pros. If you want to get in touch with one in your area, just text the word INVEST to 33789 and start building wealth today. That's INV invest to 33789. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls. 888-825-5225 is the number. Brian joins us in Toronto. Brian, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, guys. Thank you very much for having me.

Absolutely. We're doing great. How can we help? I'm a recent graduate. I'm 22 years old, and I graduated with my degree debt-free in April. Awesome. I decided to take the year off because I wanted to pursue a master's of public health next year, but I wanted to be able to cash flow, and I felt that I needed to develop my professional skills. Way to go, man. I got an internship in Toronto and I secured that internship

and when I got there at the community health center the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were you weren't my first choice management made me hire you my question for you guys it just happened like two or three days ago my question for you guys is

what can I do to salvage this relationship and make it to turn this experience into a mature one that will help me realize my goal of strengthening my cv and my professional development dude this is a this is a fun situation john this is your super bowl so uh i'm just saying i may have had that happen to me a few times just saying i think i've been the second or third choice most of they ran through like 40 different personalities where they were like, God, it was just hard to loan you then.

That's all we got left. So, dude, I've been there a bunch, Brian. A couple of things I'd recommend you do. First thing is brush this off. Like Jay-Z said, brush your shoulders off, dude. You've got to move on from this, okay? In some ways, that was somebody trying to weaponize like radical honesty and they were trying to make a power play okay i'm not going to give that a second thought you know why

because you got the job who cares who made you hire you got it the second thing i'm going to do is i'm going to reach out not because i'm trying to make a move or this is a good political thing. No, because I'm a person of dignity. I'm going to say, hey, I'd love to take you to coffee or can we set up some time? And here's something I do with all of my bosses. Even at Ramsey Solutions, I've done this.

I did this with all of my other bosses is I would ask, how do you like to get information? Are you a lunch person, a coffee person? Do you not take lunches with different people? If there's a crisis, how do you want me to get information? Are you a lunch person, a coffee person? Do you not take lunches with different people? If there's a crisis, how do you want me to call you? I want to be as hospitable and I want to be the employee that helps them be successful in their job. And I take notes and then I say, great, I will go from there.

I've had bosses say, I don't do lunches, I don't do coffees with anybody who reports to me. And I said, great. And I've had somebody say, I don't do lunches, I don't do coffees with anybody who reports to me. And I said, great. And I've had somebody say, I like to do office in my office, so if you'll go pick it up, I'd love to meet with you once a month. I've had it all over the place. But you go first. And here's the third magic thing. Are you ready? This is going to be the brand new

news for you, so I want you to hang on to your seatbelts on this one, okay? Do incredible work. And be fun to be around the the gold standard is do your job real well and don't be an idiot right if you do those two things and they still don't like you then your boss has a problem that you can't solve man and you're still going to leave this year or the next year or whatever this ends up turning into for you with some great experience you're going to learn how to navigate some of these wild political systems and you're going to get some great leadership experience and you're not going to sacrifice your soul in the process man okay can you do that will you just go work real

hard and be a person of character absolutely that helps a lot uh like i said it just kind of caught me off guard the first words out of your mouth were me so think about it this way thank you two kids just showed up to the schoolyard and one of them was like hey man my name is is george and the other one just takes his shirt off and flexes real big and goes look at my muscles that's what just happened to you and dude i like it's like, bro. Can we go play on the slides? That's what happened. Don't give it a second thought. Just work really hard.

Be a person of character. And you go first with how can you serve your supervisor, man. Good for you. Congratulations. I love that out of a sea of analogies, you chose the shirt off flexing, John. There's so many. That may have happened to me as well. Well, Brian, I've been in your shoes too.

I started at Ramsey Solutions as an intern. And while the team was very loving, there were people who just went, ah, I don't buy it. Yeah. This guy's not for me, not my cup of tea. And I had to prove them wrong, not with a chip on my shoulder, but just going, hey, I'm happy to be here. I'm going to work my tail off. I want to be a guy that people like to be around. And here I am eight years later. Yeah. So that's the best advice I can give is prove them wrong and don't do it in a revengeful way, but just like, all right, that's cool, man. I'm 22. I get it. I'm a young buck. Don't have a lot of experience. I'm here to get experience. So three years from now, he's going to go, man,

that's my guy right there. Three years from now, his resume will be on your desk and then you can say, wow, good to see you. That then you can say, wow. Yeah. Good to see you. Yeah. That's how it is, man. Prove them wrong. I love it. All right.

Nancy's in Philadelphia. Nancy, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you so much. I have been trying to find the answer to this question. I'm hoping you guys can help me. My question is around the long-term care insurance portion of it. From my that that um world has changed quite drastically um my husband and i are in our late 50s and my husband was diagnosed with parkinson's about a year ago um we are current that's okay we're you know it's it's all good god is going to bring us

through all of that so i i feel super optimistic and super hopeful um Right. So my husband was laid off during coronavirus and COVID stuff. He still has not gotten another job. I was laid off from my job, but I'm looking for a new job. We have zero debt. The only thing we have left is our mortgage to pay off, which I'm going to do with, because I like intensity in three years to get back on. But we're about 1.5 million.

And my question is, do I need long-term care? Because that's what I'm looking at for him. And I don't know what to do at this point. Have you looked into what it would cost? For long-term care, yes. It's like $15,000 a day if we can't take care of him at all anymore. You're saying that's what it would pay out? What does it cost you? What are the premiums every year? Oh, right. Okay. So from what we've been through, the medical things, we haven't gotten it back whether, first of all, if they will even cover him. There is nothing that I can find long-term care that will take us at the moment.

There's the hybrid plans, which I know Dave is like a big node for the whole term life and the hybrid plans are super expensive. Like it's 20 for just for me, it would be $20,000 a year. And that would be for like 10 years, but I'm not doing that. I'd rather take that 20,000 and put it into investments and let that grow. So I just didn't know on his side what I would do, what I need to do for him. I'll let George answer where to get it and what age and all that. I think you're going to have some trouble getting long-term care with that diagnosis, would be my guess, unless you

found somebody, and it would be incredibly expensive if you do find it. Yeah. There's two options here. You either self-insure and use your own money or you pay for this exorbitant premium. And the only time that we would consider buying that hybrid policy is if you don't qualify for the traditional long-term care. So while it's not ideal, if it's what you can get, and that makes more sense than you having to foot the bill and wipe your retirement account out, I think it's worth looking into. So if I'm you, I'm jumping on to ramseysolutions.com.

Click on Trusted Pros and talk to one of our long-term care insurance trusted pros out there in your area. They can walk you through all of your options and help you make an educated decision. But I'm so sorry you're walking through this. That's such a tough thing, John. Dude, man, he is lucky to have you running point for the rest of y'all's time together. Good for you. Well, Nancy, thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, Ramsey personality, host of the Fine Print and Entree Leadership Podcast, both podcasts you can find on The Ramsey Network. I'm joined today by Dr. John Deloney. You can also find his show, The Dr. John Deloney Show, on the Ramsey Network,

and you have been cranking out some shows, John. I see you in the studio next door taking people's calls, helping people, and then we put it out there for the world to consume, and hopefully they get something out of it. Yeah, it's been wild, man. And what about yours? You're the fine prince crushing, dude.

Thank you. It's been fun. We're trying to uncover all of the money traps out there, and it turns out there's a lot. We're like, we'll have to save that one for season two. We got too much on the plate to try to uncover now. We just released an episode all about bankruptcy. Is bankruptcy a quick fix for struggling Americans? Is there a bankruptcy tsunami on the way? I talked to some experts in this field. We hear some real stories of people who are on the brink. It was fascinating stuff. I learned so much. So you can go check that out on the Fine Print podcast feed. Some really good stuff there, some things that are

hard to hear, and we try to bring some levity to it. I did my best Michael Scott impression in the office where he declares bankruptcy. It's one of my favorite TV moments of my entire life. It's gold. I try to keep track of the hardest I've ever laughed, and that's in the top 10. Wow. So go listen just for that. There's also a Dashboard Confessional reference in the podcast. So I sneak a lot of things in there just to make it fun for me, John. But we're having a great time. But you cover – I mean, I'm just looking at these topics, man.

You cover hard stuff like tax stuff, the true cost of credit card rewards. I only use them for the points, George. It makes me feel so good. Don't rile me up, John. Not now. Bulletproof your money for the next pandemic. There will be a next pin there for sure will be sorry guys man buy now pay later you know what's super cool buying a 20 t-shirt on payments john they now you can do buy now pay later i'm not joking on pizza you can put a pizza on payments

well it's just like putting it on a credit card, right? Yeah, but this is worse. It's because of the mentality around it of, you know what, why pay $15 for pizza today when I can pay $4 for the next four months? What are we doing here, man? Wow. It's crazy stuff. Bitcoin solves all of our problems. Credit scores, oh, so good.

Student loans are back and bankruptcy. Yikes. Yeah. Man, you're getting into it. And we're not even done. We're not even done. In fact, you are on our next episode on holiday spending. And if you've been seeing the headlines, the supply chain is basically saying like, hey, you're too late for holiday shopping. It's too late.

The pumpkins just came out and you're already too late for Christmas. So a lot of good stuff coming your way. We're doing one on DIY investing. This year you get high fives. Yep. High fives, kids. Well, I relate it to the Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad fighting over the Turbo Man action figure on Christmas Eve. And it's the best analogy I can think of.

I wish it was that fun. That's how dark the holiday season has come that we're back to Schwarzenegger and Sinbad. We're back, baby. 1996, Jingle All the Way. So it's a lot of fun. We're having a good time helping people understand that if you follow the trends, you will fall for the traps. Right. Do it old school. Do it grandma's way. That's what

this show's all about. And you can just operate outside of the system. Buck the trends, man. That's what I'm all about. And I know you are, too. You know what I love? I don't like bucking the system. I like sleeping at night. I like that my Christmas shopping is already done because they were telling us about supply chain issues a year ago. And so me and my wife were like, hey, why don't we go ahead and take care of some of that? Life hack.

Do Christmas a year ahead of time. It's not even a life hack. It's just like a math problem or a supply chain. I mean, yeah, some of this is like, wait, wait a minute. Halloween's five days. Well, John, people, they can't think that far ahead because they have so much going on in their life, so much anxiety, so much debt, payments, things

to keep up with, social things, and they can't even think about what's going on this weekend. Yeah. And so we've got to get people to think ahead. Just be intentional, man. And that's what we do is all about. So we're happy to take your call. It's a free one. 888-825-5225. And check out Dr. John Deloney on the next episode on holiday spending. You help us create some boundaries with family around the holidays. Oh, man. Super helpful stuff. That is one of the biggest things to face. So a lot of

good stuff happening around here at Ramsey Solutions. We're going to Tom in Miami, Florida. Tom, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. How you doing? Doing great. How can we help? So I know the father-husband side of me, what I want to do. I just need some guidance. Long story short, I have a 2021 Chevy Suburban that is, um, almost paid off. I owe probably about 10 grand on it. I could turn around and sell it given the used car market, um, for about 70 and given the financial situation of our family, it would really help with, um, I haven't done a very good job, uh, leading our family financially. Um, we're, we're getting better, but, um, you know, it would put us, and that's the only debt that we have is that it's the rest of the vehicle. Um, I've been talking to my wife about selling it and that'll give us a fully funded emergency fund.

I'm severely behind on retirement to the point of I haven't started yet. I'm 37 years old. And with the scope of the economy and everything and just with, you know, everything going on, I feel like, you know, it's my duty that I got to get this turned around somehow. My wife loves the car. Granted, I mean, it's a beautiful vehicle, but we have three kids, a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and a almost six-year-old. And I can imagine now I'm neurotic about it. It's causing me a lot of stress that the car is going to get destroyed and the value is not going to be in it and so i'm just i don't know what to do that's my question well number one dude um

i this is this is one of the this is this i've taken a few brave calls today. We recorded several episodes of my show earlier today, and I talked to a brave man, and you two are also brave. You're brave for looking at one scary place, and that's the mirror, and saying, I need to make some changes. I got three little ones, and I'm looking at the news, and the world's changing, and I got to do better. Dude, I want to high-five you. I'd hug you if you were here. I'm proud at the news, and the world's changing, and I've got to do better. Dude, I want to high-five you. I'd hug you if you were here.

I'm proud of you, man. That's a hard place to start is in the mirror, so good for you. Number two, it sounds like you've crushed a whole bunch of other debt. Is that right? Yeah, we've done well. We actually bought a house in 2015, and we were very fortunate to accrue a lot of equity in it. Hey, I want to stop you real quick. You know what you're really good at?

When things are bad, you take the blame. And when things go well, you say, we, or you say, we just got really lucky on this one. I suck, but we got lucky. I want you to own the good and the bad, okay? Yeah, yeah. Is that a fair trade? Yep. Okay, so let's start owning the good stuff.

So you bought a house in 2015, the market appreciated, you made a great purchase, and then what? We moved into a brand new home, which we're blessed beyond belief. And, yeah, I mean, we've done some upgrades. We had to put a fence around it so the kids wouldn't fly into neighbor's pond. But we depleted pretty much a lot of the equity with the down payment of the home and all the other stuff that we had to do to it. And you cash flowed all of this?

Yeah, did you cash flow it at all? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So to get to your question, I don't have a love affair with cars. George, I know you do, so maybe you're – I'm just kidding. You don't either. Me and John both drive trash cars that are worth a tenth of what that suburban is worth.

So if it's me, i'm with you i'd sell that car i would go buy a great highlander or something that i could tote three kids around in that also i could grow with for the next decade and then i'm setting everybody up the other side of this conversation is less about my wife loves the car that that that's okay those disagreements happen throughout marriage at all time i'm more concerned that i don't know that she's heard your heart yet does she know that you are scared um yeah kind of okay here's what i want you to do i i have a tendency a lot of my friends have a tendency to

have these conversations and their math problems look at this we could sell this pay off this buy this and be done with this i want you to sit down i want you to take your wife out for a meal and i want you to look her across the table and say i'm scared about our financial situation i'm ashamed of how i've how i've led us here And I want you and me to be together in this, making the next step. And I want to sell this car and it's going to bring me peace. Will you join me with this? so so The housing market is hot, and your house could be worth a lot more today than it was when you bought it. That means your old insurance policy might not give you enough coverage anymore.

And what's the point of paying for insurance that won't swing the cost to repair or rebuild your home? Now, some policies will automatically raise your coverage to cover rising home prices or material costs, but not all of them. If your home's value has gone up, or it's been over a year since you checked your homeowner's policy, you need to talk to one of our endorsed local providers. These independent agents will compare multiple policies to find the best coverage for your home and your budget. That's why they are Ramsey Trusted, because they'll put you first, period. Text the word HOME to 33789 to talk with a trusted home insurance pro today. That's HOME to 33789. I'm George Camel, Ramsey Personality, joined today by Dr. John Deloney,

and it's a free call, 888-825-5225. Celeste joins us in Phoenix, Arizona. Celeste, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you so much. Absolutely. How can John and I help? So my husband and I recently crossed kind of a big financial milestone that we're excited about, but also now have a whole new set of questions that we're trying to figure out. In short, we're trying to determine whether it might make sense to press pause on our retirement savings for one year so that we can instead front load our daughter's 529

for college savings. So you got through baby step step three this fully funded emergency fund and then you went oh gosh our daughter's about to go to school and we haven't saved should we stop investing for retirement the situation i'm sorry to interrupt you the situation is a little different than that so first she's three so we have some time. Oh, good. I thought she was like 17. No. And we have been saving. We have about $25,000 in her 529 account.

You're doing great. Yeah. What makes you think you're not on track? I think when I started doing the math and looking at calculators, we got to the point that I kind of realized every dollar we put in now will be worth like two when she's in high school. And we're trying to think about whether, theoretically, you might be looking to retire around the same time that she starts college so we're trying to figure out if front loading you know putting putting more into her 529 now

so that we might not have to put as much in later would put us in a stronger position just from an expense perspective when she's in college. Well, I'll say I don't want you to pause investing. I think you guys are doing great. This is not a dire situation. I mean, she's got 15 years before she's even going to explore these college options. You already have $25,000 saved. It sounds like you're going to have well over six figures as this money grows over the next 15 years.

Is that right? We hope so. I think we're also concerned about these crazy inflation rates for college specifically. It looks like it's been well over 5% over the last few years, but it makes me feel calmer to hear you. Well, I don't want you losing sleep at night over inflation because your daughter is going to have a great head on her shoulders, and she's going to focus on what college she can afford 15 years from now. There's going to be options out there. I lived in that world. I am – I'll just tell you.

I have an 11-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I'm not front-loading mine. The year-over-year 5%, 7%, 3.5% tuition hikes that have been going on for the last 25 or 30 years cannot continue. This college will be a million dollars. It won't be a practical investment. I would not get

out over your skis. Don't overthink it. Have you guys been doing this for a long time? Have you all been running and running and running for a season? Yeah, pretty hard. And I mentioned at the beginning, we have sort of a milestone that we've crossed, which is we've kind of looked up and just realized we've got almost 1.2 million in our retirement account. Incredible. So that's part of what's driving it to, thank you. Yeah, we feel really good about that. And honestly, it just kind of happened without our even realizing.

Sure. Well, y'all are doing all the right things. So here's what I want to shift your perspective. You know, have you heard of Dave talk about gazelle intensity? Yeah. A gazelle is running from a lion for its life and that's how he wants people to attack that he wants people to get off that system like your life depends on it you can run into some

problems psychologically spiritually physically if you continue running like that for the rest of your life and you guys crossed a magic milestone. And it's not magic. You worked your butts off and you got here that way. I want y'all to stop for a minute. You're not running for your lives anymore. And I want you to breathe and have peace. And I want you to enjoy this little girl. I want you to do your regular investing. Y'all are millionaires. I want you to live your life debt free. And I want you to put the normal amount of money in this 529 understanding that either college is going to be a million dollars, and they're going to

have to figure something else out, or the colleges are going to have to re-regulate themselves, which I think is what's going to happen. Y'all guys are doing a great job. You're doing a great job, and you don't have to run for your life anymore. Thanks for that, Steve. Are you still there?

Okay, there you are. She's so taken aback. Yeah, I am. No, just processing. Some people, myself included, get so obsessed with sprinting and sprinting that we are going to get to the end of our lives and have a great retirement

and we're going to realize we missed it. And that's why Dave's so intentional about baby steps four, five, and six, which is make sure you live too, right? Be intentional about your life, but make sure you're living too. Y'all aren't running for your lives anymore. You're just not.

Celeste, how old are you two? 43. You're 43 and you are millionaires. You are doing amazing. Yeah, congratulations. And you have a three-year-old that you already have $25,000 saved for for college. We have people calling in that are way older,

with kids way older, who are a lot less freaked out than you are. So I just want to affirm that you guys are doing so, so well. And like John said, take a breather. When's the last time you guys did something fun for yourselves? Oh, I mean, we're pretty good about that. Good, good. I just want to make sure because I know it can be so hard when you're just running and gunning to go, no, no, no, this money could be used over here.

We could fund the college if we don't go on vacation this year. And this is a marathon. And you guys are doing great. You're going to retire with multiple millions of dollars if you just keep following the baby steps like you've been doing. Keep investing the 15%. Build up the 529. Do you guys have a paid-for property, or are you working on the mortgage after this?

No, we have not paid off our mortgage yet, so that'll be next. Great. So I want you to keep the other goals in mind too. It's not all about funding college. We love to say that there's a 100% chance you will retire. There's a 50-50 chance your daughter goes to college. And so we want to make sure that you're taken care of first. You've got the mask on before you help your daughter out.

And you're already doing that. You're going to pay off the mortgage probably in the next few years at this point based on how well you guys are doing. What's your household income? About – this year it will be about $250. $250. Oh, my gosh. I'm not worried about your daughter going to college debt-free. I mean, you could cash flow this at this point,

just out of your budget if you needed to. So you guys are doing great. And in 15 years, guess what? You're going to have a paid-for house, if you're doing it the Ramsey way. And you're not going to let your daughter go to college with student loans. And she's going to be raised up in that house with amazing parents who have worked so hard

to leave a different legacy for her. That's the plan. Fingers crossed. No, you don't need fingers crossed. You're there. That's what people do when they're hoping. You don't need to hope. Let me say this in a way hopefully you can understand.

You're a millionaire. A millionaire. understand you're a millionaire a millionaire and on average return which we know things are like shaking a snow globe every seven years it doubles so if you're at 1.2 then that's 2.4 and that's 4.8 million dollars and that's just when your daughter decides to go to college y'all are okay you're more than okay you're kicking but at that at 4.8 and a paid-for house, you'll be able to cash flow college and retire and do whatever you want to. Congratulations. You're crushing it. So proud of you. Way to go, Celeste. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to producer James Childs, Austin Selby handling all of the phone screening today, Kelly Daniels,

acting associate producer, I guess, in the back there. And Dr. John Deloney, thanks for being a great co-pilot on this wild ride in New America for listening in. We can't do this without you. We're thankful for you checking out the show today. It's a free call, 888-825-5225. We'll be back with you before you know it. Hey guys, this is James, senior producer for The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to theramseyshow.com.