The Ramsey Show - App - My Plans Just Fell Apart (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "My post-college plans just fell apart", Making a side-hustle full-time, Splitting property taxes with family members, Using employee stock options to pay off a home, "We're millionaires but we're still renting" 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/3cEP4n6 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 we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225.

Alexis in Athens, Georgia starts this hour off. Hi, Alexis, how are you? Hi, Dave, I'm good. How are y'all?. Hi, Alexis. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are y'all? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I'm 22 years old, and I'll be graduating in May debt-free with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.

Awesome. For the last four years, thank you, for the last four years, I've been training to join the Air Force, and I was selected to be a pilot, but last week I was medically disqualified join the Air Force, and I was selected to be a pilot. But last week, I was medically disqualified from the Air Force. And now I don't know what to do with my life. What happened? Can you share? I don't want you to be too, of course, forthcoming. But what's going on?

Would this preclude you from flying any plane or just the Air Force? So I'm finding out more details as the weeks go on since it quite literally was a week ago, but basically some medical records from 2012 relating to mental health have disqualified me. Okay. Well, first thing I want to say is I'm sorry because we can hear that. When you were 11 years old yes sir i was 11 wow yeah are you okay now from a practical standpoint yes sir i am um it's been rough but i kind of looking at this is almost like a second chance since i pretty much i'm sorry i mean have you recovered from what happened when you were 11?

Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Actually, it was a false diagnosis. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so here's the deal, Dave. It's frustrating and maddening and disappointing, but the good news is you can still fly the friendly skies it may not be for our military because of who knows what government regulations and are involved here but you are not disqualified from flying planes true or false i don't know honestly well if it was a false diagnosis

well i guess my point on an 11 year old child yeah you're not i'll just tell you yeah you can get a pilot's license okay i don't know i mean and number one we need to go up and you need to go back and work clean up your medical records and um put some notations in there and so forth so that if somebody else sees this they understand the absurdity of it it sounds like right yes sir okay but yeah i don't i don't think i think you can be a pilot i think ken's right it's just a matter of now the path is a little more uh strenuous because now you're paying for flying lessons right um but i'm actually not sure if i i don't think i want to be a pilot okay so now So now I'm confused. Yeah, I am too. So my main goal with the Air Force was I wanted to be in the Air Force. The job wasn't necessarily the driving force factor. It was

being in the Air Force. And now that I've had time to think about, like, basically that dream has been destroyed and kind of think about my life. I don't think that flying is the end-all be-all. What did you want to do in the Air Force? Let's just pull the Air Force aside. What did you want to do? Let's assume that this didn't happen. You get in, you fly, and then you start to make your way up. I'm assuming you had a ladder in mind. What would you be doing in the Air Force, ideally? Yes. So some of the milestones that I wanted to hit along the way was I wanted to be an instructor at the Air Force Academy, and I wanted to teach mathematics.

One other goal that I had was to become an astronaut. And overall overall just... So let's just focus on what we can do. You can't be an astronaut because of the Air Force unless you somehow can appeal this and get this cleaned up. If I were me, I would look at all avenues to try to get this false diagnosis cleaned up, and I would try to appeal. That would be me.

I would fight until I cannot fight any longer. Unless you just decide you no longer really want to be in it. Yeah, if the Air Force was the goal to instruct in the Air Force, I'd fight. But if you just want to instruct mathematics, you've got all kinds of opportunity to do that, and you could teach at a very high level. You are not limited in your desire to teach, to instruct mathematics, and maybe be involvedoscience, but in the private sector. If that was the path, then I would be going as close to that as possible. If I can't be an astronaut, how could I support space and exploration and the science there? I think you have a bright path, and I don't think you're in any way limited to do that. I think the Air Force is obviously a

place you had in your mind as a great destination, but you shouldn't be stopped at all. I understand why you're discouraged, but let's get refocused. If you want to fight on the Air Force, great. If you don't, let's move forward. You've got the degree. You're debt-free. You're ready to go. Yeah, there's nothing holding you back here.

It's just a radical change of direction, which is emotional as it can be. And so, yeah, but i think ken's right i know i would go get the medical records disputed cleaned up whatever whatever the process is there um because that that may frustrate something else in the future who knows um but the uh and then just decide okay what is it i want to do what parts of what i was going to do in the air force are still appealing and how can i do those in the marketplace um i mean spacex we've got commercial applications of space exploration out there now that are open to mathematics majors i'm sure and so i'm not sure you'd be an astronaut on that kind of a thing but i mean you could work in the field for sure if that's what you want to be around and utilize your mathematics degree.

So you've got a lot of options. I'm sorry you got sucker punched. I mean, you're just kind of cruising along and boom! And so now you've just got to reset, rethink, and it's a normal human thing for that to take a minute. But it doesn't take a year. It takes a week. That's right.

And just re-okay. I'm not going that way. What way am I going? That's right. What's next? What's next? What's next? And this is your first opportunity to get back up after a fall, after a rejection.

And the way we get back up is by refocusing on that end result. Our good friend Henry Cloud calls it a desired future. And for you, remember, it was, I want to instruct in math, and then I want to be involved in the space program. So I've had some things dictated to me, but I can still do all of those things. Nothing is limiting you. And so begin to focus on the change you always wanted to make in that initial narrative. And so now the story is still whole.

It's still the exact same goal. It's just different way, different place, different path. And I think that will really snap you back. And you'll find that you'll be more resilient as a result of this disappointment. That's what I want people to hear that have been burned lately and disappointed. You're going to be more resilient. You're going to be tougher. You're going to be okay.

You still have a lot to give. Absolutely. Hey, hang on. We're going to sign you up for Ken's assessment, his career assessment. And you can go through that. It'll give you some insights, too, in the Get Clear assessment. It'll help you get clear on some of this new direction change. So a lot of opportunities for you.

You're going to do great. You're amazing. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. John is with us in Salt Lake City.

Hey, John, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how y'all doing? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm just trying to figure out when it makes sense to leave my six figure, uh, salary position to jump full-time into my side hustle. What's the side hustle?

Um, I, I started a company and we sell mobility vans to disabled people and companies. Oh, wow. How long have you been doing that, and how much income is it generating? So this is our fourth year. It's grown by 30% every single year. Last year it generated $375,000 in net income and $3 million in sales. Nice. What's your projection for this year? $475,000 and about $4 million. Nice. So if you have a net income of $475,000, why do you need to keep a six-figure job? Why do you even need to ask the question? You know what?

That's probably what I'm questioning myself. There's a lot of safety blanket things here, good health insurance, good retirement, security for my family. $475,000 will buy all of that. No, I don't disagree. Also, I think I feel a sense of loyalty to this organization to try to help where I can, but I find myself very distracted right now. Yeah, you think? How many employees do you have besides yourself?

It's just me. It's just you. What do you make in the full-time job working for somebody else? $114,000. Okay. So Dave's right, but the simple, let's just play this out practically. Can you pay yourself $115,000 out of this $475,000 based on all the other expenses from your side hustle? Without a doubt.

Yeah. So it's a no-brainer. There's a false narrative here that you have more security working for someone else than you do for yourself. That's a false narrative. Unless there's some facts that you can come up with. No, I think early in our marriage, you know, finances were hard. We struggled. It was paycheck to paycheck. So for us to start, we've, we've started other businesses that have failed and this one just really exploded. So I think I have some hesitation because of the fear of what I experienced in the past. I've run 48 months of financials. You know, the average income is $28,000 a month over 48

months. It's a good data set. So I think it's just a, it must be a personal battle I'm dealing with. Listen, you're absolutely terrified because of your past. And I love the courage to say that, but that's what's going on. But you've got analysis paralysis here and you're absolutely terrified because of your past, and I love the courage to say that, but that's what's going on. But you've got analysis paralysis here, and you're busy. You're holding down two jobs, and you're crushing it, my friend. How much more? I think the question you've got to focus on is how much more could you grow this company if you were full-time working for you? Let's stop a second.

Just pretend that you made $475,000 in the coming 12 months, starting from today, okay? That's four years of income at the other place. Yeah. So even if you blow it up at the end of the year, you've got three years to figure out what you want to do. Yeah. No, that's a good point. And that's only dedicating about 10 hours a week to the business. Yeah, okay.

You know what you need to do. Yeah. You need to quit the other job. I mean, give them reasonable notice, but you need to tell them today. You overstayed your welcome. You shouldn't be there. You shouldn't be there. Laura is in Boston.

Hey, Laura, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for having me. Sure, how can we help? Yeah, I just have a question regarding my parents' estate and me and my siblings' inheritance. My parents have asked me and my sibling if we wanted to inherit the house that we grew up in. In this moment in time,

my sibling doesn't necessarily want to take full ownership when that day comes. In this moment right now, I would love to. But so, you know, knowing that that's a potential that, you know, could change, my parents could sell it if, you know, later on in their life, if that's what they choose to do, they have obviously they should do what's best for them. But in the meantime, knowing that if that is an option someday,

I would like to have that be my home and keep that in the family. How should I go about managing my money with that in mind? Pretend like it's not going to happen. What was that? I said pretend like it's not going to happen. Go live your life. And then if you get the house, figure it out then okay because how old are your parents um my oldest parent is 72 okay are they ill um one of them is is they're in okay health

okay have they got 20 years, though? They probably do. Possibly. Yeah. 15 or 20. And you don't want to put your life on hold for a house you might or might not get 20 years from now. No. Rock on, kiddo. Got it.

Just rock on. Nope. And if you get the house later, if at that moment in time this still looks like it's something that's appealing, fine. If not, just sell it and turn it into money. Got it. Okay. And then if I currently have a mortgage, that's appealing, fine. If not, just sell it and turn it into money. Got it. Okay, and then if I currently have a mortgage, that's my only debt. Pay it off. But if I get to that point and I still have a mortgage, I would recommend. 15 years from now.

All right. You need to get rid of the mortgage. Quit letting this potential thing that happens way out there in the future dictate a change in good common sense and planning. Okay. Yeah, you should just say that's out there. It might or might not happen. It might or might not change some things. And if it does, it's just extra.

It's just gravy on the biscuit. It is not the biscuit. You take control of the controllables run your life and then then when this happens or doesn't happen it doesn't throw you all a skew because you haven't counted on the wrong thing so yeah it's perfect on that that's what i would do yeah focusing on the now and how i win now and not worrying about all these things that could happen in the next is the right strategy because now i'm i'm trying to win now as best as possible well and it's something that's out of your control and if it is affecting the next five years negatively yep because you might get this 15

years from now that's really dumb that's right you start waiting on it and then you wait to do anything else yeah that's that you know that's like yeah absolutely don't do that no go go be somebody go be great. Make things happen. Be awesome. Get the house paid off. Have your big old pile of wealth. And then if this comes along, well, we'll look at it then, and we'll decide. It may become less and less interesting the more and more successful you become.

That's a very good point. Yeah. So all of a sudden, you know, it's just a house. It has wonderful memories, and I hope, and nuances and things because it was your childhood home, as you said. And so that's kind of cool. But I honestly, and I feel nostalgic about my childhood homes, different ones we lived in, but I wouldn't care to own a single one of them. Yeah, just not worth it. Yeah, not in my world today. And it's not because I'm a snot.

It's just they don't fit in my world the way my world is now. But I'm old, so there you go. Seasoned. Seasoned. Experienced. There it is. That's it, yeah. Lots of experience.

Well, Financial Literacy Month here, the month of April. And this is from Forbes. Should high schools teach financial literacy? More states and more states and more states are saying yes, and of course, we think that's a great idea at Ramsey because we have a high school curriculum called Foundations in Personal Finance that's taught in about 48% of the high schools in America. About 6 million students have been through it, and we think that if you're going out there and walk around as an adult, you ought to know how to do it.

This article says, in April, Georgia enacted a law requiring high school students to take a half credit of financial literacy as a high school graduation requirement. Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, all have passed laws recently too. Texas has a law. I'm throwing that in. Other states, including South Carolina, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, have similar legislation making its way through the legislatures. Overall, 12 states require or soon will require a stand-alone financial literacy course as a prerequisite to graduation. Well, I mean, you're going to use that more than the Pythagorean theorem.

That's correct. So, hello. I mean, moms and dads, you ought to be all for this. It keeps them from wanting to live in your basement later because they know how to handle their own money, and they're not freaking out. I picked up an article a while ago. This kid bought Crocs instead of paying his bills during the pandemic,

20-something-year-old. Crocs, for God's sakes. Yeah, you need a financial literacy class, for sure. For sure. Crocs. Oh, my God a financial literacy class for sure. For sure. Crocs. Oh, my God. Even I know not to do that. That's true.

I know. They're back. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 well we just finished up an incredible smart conference last weekend in nashville our new ramsey event center full of people it was rocking a friday saturday night our friday all day saturday incredible incredible incredible and so this week we're announcing the fall smart conference will be in Chicago, September 15 and 16 with all the Ramsey personalities, me, Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, George Camel, and the greatest hits, the greatest new hit we've got, Jade Warshaw.

She'll be, we'll all be on stage for this two-day event and get you motivated and fired up to keep attacking your goals. You're going to leave with a plan to improve every area of your life, your money, mental health, relationships, career. Hey, it's all there. Listening to the radio shows one thing, but being live with thousands of other people that share your enthusiasm for a quality life. Oh, it's a pretty cool thing to do. And a part of it is you're going to get to be there for a live recording of smart money happy hour podcast with rachel and george and the fun

doesn't stop there we got surprises all day long it's a packed out thing tickets start at just 79 the vip and platinum type tickets go really really fast so you better get on these really quick uh we've got a ticket that actually includes dinner with me and the other ramsey personalities The VIP and platinum type tickets go really, really fast. So you better get on these really quick. We've got a ticket that actually includes dinner with me and the other Ramsey personalities after the event. There's only 60 of those, I guess, super platinum tickets or whatever they're called. So they're going to go really fast, but they're not $79, I promise. So not even close. So anyway, check it out.

Smart Conference, September 15 and 16 in Chicago. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash events and get signed up as fast as you can. We're really looking forward. That's going to be a great event. This last weekend was a lot of fun. Incredible energy. The crowd was absolutely on fire and obviously really fun to have everybody on our campus. A lot of fun.

Yeah, it really was. It was packed out. And, I mean, there was no drop-off. It just energy upon energy upon energy. The crowd had to leave exhausted. I know we did. But, I mean, they were – because there's just so much there. I mean, your segment with the whole thing was so emotional.

I mean, it was just, man mean it was just man i was back there crying and i knew what you're gonna do you didn't sneak up on me so i mean it still got me it's just really really good so check it out folks don't miss this george is going to be in los angeles hi george how are you doing well sir how about yourself better than i deserve what's up uh i had a quick question i guess it could be a little bit more complex, but basically, I have a dilemma about splitting property taxes or how to go about divvying up the money on our tax return from property taxes in a shared household. A shared household a shared household yeah so my i my wife and i we live in the same household as her parents we have our own side of the house but the property is one property who owns who owns the house uh my wife and her parents own it three ways three ways yeah so they purchased the home before we got married and

then i came into the home and my wife and i we have our side of the home okay so they the mom and dad own two-thirds your wife owns one-third yeah that's correct why would you not split it that way? Because basically when we spoke to our tax consultant, they told us that the best strategy for us would be to claim the house because the difference in our taxes for us claiming the house, my wife and I, would be a total of $1,500. For my in-laws, it was a $400 difference if they claim the house with the maximum benefit, and if we split the claim.

You don't claim a house. You mean if you take all of the property taxes? Yes. So you're going to pay all the property taxes to lower your tax bill? Yeah. That's dumber than a rock okay your tax consultant needs to be fired or an idiot because here's what's happening you're paying out ten dollars on taxes

to save 15 or 20 dollars are paying out property taxes of ten10 to save a dollar and a half to $2 on taxes. That's dumb. I think it was, but it might be the interest. I'm not a tax. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Okay. If you're actually having to pay the entire tax bill, property tax bill,

or interest bill in order to get the tax write-off, then you're putting out $100 in order to save $15. Because you don't save 100 cents on the dollar on a tax deduction, man. Yeah. It lowers your income that is taxable. Yeah. And your tax rate is the only actual savings. So, yeah, I bet it does save you,

but it also increases the out-of-pocket expenses by 10, 15x in order to save you $1,500. No thank you. You can't claim the interest if you didn't actually pay it. No, we paid the interest, and I guess because my wife is the owner of the home, we can either claim a percentage or the whole interest on our tax returns. Did you pay all of the interest? Yes, all of the interest was paid.

Why? I thought she's only one-third owner. Between her and her parents it was paid okay dude no kidding or they would have foreclosed obviously somebody paid it but my point is did her parents pay two thirds

of the interest and you all pay one third of the interest yes or no yes okay thenthird of the interest? Yes or no? Yes. Okay. Then you can't claim the part that they paid. You didn't pay it. Even if you wanted to, you can't. The only way you can claim it is for you to pay it.

Because you get audited, you have to prove you paid it. Again, your tax consultant is apparently a moron. So, yeah, you really need to move on. Number one, a tax consultant tells you to claim something you didn't actually pay, you're going to get hammered because you lied in an audit. Number two, if you did actually pay the whole thing in order to get the tax break, that's trading a dollar for a quarter. You never trade dollars for quarters.

And, people, that's what tax write-offs are. You're trading always. When you increase your expenses artificially just to have a tax savings, it only saves you a quarter on a dollar. So you don't do that. So no, no, no, no. Fire your consultant. Yeah, I mean, you know, Dave, you were pretty clear on that one. I don't think I can add any to that.

That was pretty good. Okay, so let's go back because people do this crap all the time, particularly you small business people out there. You're the worst, and I love you, but, man, you just kill me. So because your stupid CPA will say something like his tax consultant or whatever that is will say, you need to increase your expenses so you have some write-offs. Well, that's dumb. Right.

Okay? You don't increase your expenses. You know, so I'm going to go spend $10,000 that I don't need to spend. That ends up saving me $2,500 on taxes. Yeah. That's just dumb. Yeah. I mean, how do you get apa if you're that bad at math

how do you actually pass the test it's very interesting on me you never increase actual cash expenditures that on things you don't need now if you need them for your business anyway or if you're paying the interest anyway then for god God's sakes, take the write-off. But you're probably, you know, George, you're probably not taking the write-off anyway, because we've got such high standard deductions now that most people take the standard deduction. They don't do itemized. And if you don't do itemized, you're not writing off your property taxes and you're not writing off any interest. So only 12% of Americans, 88% took the standard deduction. Only 12% last year actually 88% took the standard deduction. Only 12% last year actually itemized.

So you're probably not even itemizing or shouldn't be, but not mathematically again. Because the deduction, your standard deduction is probably much larger than these other write-offs that we're talking about. So it makes more sense to take the standard deduction, married, filing jointly. This is The ramsey show hey guys we know a whole bunch of you new are out there if you want to know more about where you are how to move forward on the stuff we talk about here all the time check out the get started button at ramseySolutions.com. Go to RamseySolutions.com, click Get Started. It's completely free. We'll walk you through exactly where you are and then what your next steps are,

and you'll begin to learn the lingo around here. And, of course, if you're enjoying this show, please follow and subscribe and share the show. Tell people about it. Send a link or click the share button or whatever however it is you're doing this or if you're listening on talk radio just share the fact that you're doing that i'm listening these ramsey guys over there man and and they're on such and such a channel tell them where we are uh you're watching on tbn tell us tell them where we are whatever it is wherever you are share tell people we're here and uh that helps us guys leave

a five-star review that helps us uh one star is not necessary mama said if you hadn't anything nice to say don't say anything at all joe is with us joe is in akron ohio hi joe how are you good how are you doing dave better than i deserve what's up hi so uh i have a question i've been kind. I started listening to you a couple weeks ago, and I have a question big lump sum of like 130 K that'll vest over the next four years in the stock of this company that I worked for. And I don't know what to do with this. So I, we've kind of me and my wife, we, after we started listening to you, we, we just paid off all of our debts. So we're completely debt free except for our house way to go last year way to go and um we really are just thinking like we want to get this house paid off like we we just bought the house last september but we we see this money sitting here and i don't really like

it being an all-in-one stock good and i don't know whether we should put it in mutual funds or whether we should, as soon as it vests, it's going to vest every quarter for the next four years. I'd cash it and put it on the house. You want me to cash that out and put it right towards the house? Yes. Yes. That's exactly what I would do. And here's how I know I would do that. Reverse engineer it, and that's called a sunk cost analysis that'll help you.

Okay? Reverse engineer it, and that's called a sunk cost analysis that'll help you. Okay? Reverse engineer it. So if your house, let's just pretend the stock is, you know, you're able to vest and pull out $25,000 of it. Okay? And there's an example. Okay? And you were to throw that at the house and reduce your mortgage from, what is your current mortgage? We owe $480,000 on it.

Okay. So let's call it $30,000 you cashed out, and you drop your mortgage from $480,000 down to $450,000. Okay? Now, reverse engineer that. If I owed $450,000 on my house, would I go borrow $30,000 more to buy stock in this company? No. No. Okay? And so by reverse engineering it the answer becomes very clear what you would do and nor would you go borrow 30 000 to put it in mutual funds

so you know right so i'm putting it on the house i'm getting this house paid off as fast as i can congratulations on a great benefit big stock options like that when you get signed up is good yeah absolutely and then to be able to put it on the house and that creates a ton of momentum what man, congratulations on a great benefit. Big stock options like that when you get signed up is good. Yeah, absolutely. And then to be able to put it on the house, and that creates a ton of momentum. What does that do for someone when in one fell swoop you knock that much off your mortgage payment? That's $130,000 over the next year or a year and a half. Or I said three years, I think, for it to vest out.

Yeah, so it is about $30,000, $40,000 a year they're coming out. That's pretty cool. And maybe it's going to continue. Maybe he'll get some more. I mean, that's great. So it's just found money. And we're just all found money. You're on baby step six, goes at the house, goes at the house, goes at the house.

That is the right way to go. Ken, how much of that kind of thing, stock options, are you seeing in the hiring world? Certainly in public companies. If you're on an executive level, junior executive level, and even sometimes on the very large companies. Has it increased in the last 24, 36 months with the weirdness in the labor market? I don't see any data that says it's increased. I think it's probably pretty much standard practice.

What you might see is a slight decrease when you've got major public companies that are laying people off, which is very interesting, Dave, because we've seen a lot of news about layoffs, but they're largely tech companies, Salesforce, Meta, which is the Facebook parent company, Google, and they just overhired. And so we're still seeing that people that are getting laid off are getting replaced on average. They're replacing their job within a month. So we still have a very low unemployment rate. March job numbers just came out. We're at 3.5% unemployment. We don't even have that. No. Because we actually have way more jobs available than we do. By the millions. So it's a negative unemployment rate. It really is. Technically, if the unemployment rate was properly calculated. That's correct. It's an arcane,

archaic process that sucks. Yeah. We have about one and a half jobs available for every person who is filed for unemployment. To your point, the number there. Exactly. So, yeah, there's plenty, plenty of work. There's a shortage of labor. America's Labor Crisis, an event you and I are doing with Mike Rowe and with a few other thought leaders, John Deloney, Michael Easter, that did the Comfort Crisis book. We're doing that on May the 4th.

You guys need to sign up for that. There's a free live stream on that. And you can get tickets if you want to come sit in the auditorium. Mike's coming in from L.A. with me the day before. And I'm picking him up while I'm out there. And he's going to come in. And so he'll be on the Ramsey event center stage. And, you know, then we're going to get the rest of these guys to join us

and talk through this America's labor crisis because hiring for small businesses right now is at a crisis point. That's right. So that's a way to do that for sure. Adam is in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Adam. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my wife and I are babysat millionaires. Good. And yeah, so we have a million dollars, but we're renting right now and we're trying to decide where to buy and how much house to buy. We recently moved to the Charleston area in the high rent district. We never thought we'd buy a half million dollar house in our life, but now we're contemplating that. So wanted your advice on, you know, if I sell some of the investments we have, I'll probably have to

pay the capital gains tax on it. What do you think about what, you know what kind of how to finance a house purchase uh for someone in our situation how old are you 37 cool what's your household income 200 000 wow and how much of the million dollars is one million dollars exactly and how much of it is a non-retirement about half of it is in um 401ks and you know stuff that i'd have to pay a penalty to get it out we're not touching that yeah i'd cash out the rest of it though pay cash for this house even though i'd have to pay i think i'd have to pay 15 right right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's not on half a million dollars.

That's just on the gain. Sure. Yeah. So if you had $100,000 gain, it's 15 grand. If you've got 400 basis and 500,000 worth of investments, you got 100 grand gain, you got 15,000 bucks. So what? Whoop-de-doop-dee. Pay cash for your house, dude. Yeah. Yeah. you know what it's weird when people say capital gains like you and i are having this discussion my buddies do this too i catch them all the time that there's a drama it's capital

gains you know inside your head i say it does that to me when i say i got capital gains yeah like it like like acid just got thrown in the thing because it's un-american that's why it feels it's just wrong but yeah but the uh but i mean the but then when i do the math it's like it's 15 grand man i mean shut up just buy your buy your buyer to have a half million dollar in your hand paid for yeah and if you're sitting there with a half million dollar paid for house and a half million dollars in your 401ks and you make 200k and you're sitting there with a half-million-dollar paid-for house and a half-million-dollar in your 401Ks and you make 200K and you're 37, you understand that at 67 your net worth is probably going to be between 15 and 20 million. Yeah, yeah.

Because you've got pure cash flow when you don't have a stupid house payment. And a half-million-dollar house in Charleston, South Carolina, is going to go up. No question. Oh, my gosh, What a wonderful market. Yeah. You feel like there's still room for the market to go up here? Dude, you're asking a 62-year-old guy that used to see houses sell for $12,000 that question. That's so true. That's beautiful. Yeah, absolutely.

I buy real estate every day, man. I love real estate. I just love it. And certainly your personal residence. Yeah. Yeah, Charleston's a sweet, great market. I'd be in there in a heartbeat. Hey, man, thanks for calling in.

You're a good guy. You got your act together. Way to go. Proud of you. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps,

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