The Ramsey Show - App - Nate Bargatze: From Applebee’s Specials to Netflix Specials (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss:  "Can I use my signing bonus to buy a new car?" Comedian Nate Bargatze stopped by to talk about comedy, managing money, helping Dave move houses decades ago, and making more money on comedy than waiting tables at Applebees; "How can we pay off our house early?" "Where is a second mortgage in the Baby Steps?" The difference between a mutual fund and ETF,  from the blog: ETF vs. Mutual Fund: What’s the Difference? Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS 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 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality. Number one best-selling author is my co-host, and we'll be talking about your life, your money, and of course your jobs and your careers, which is what Ken talks about every day.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. John starts this hour in Las Vegas. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, gentlemen. I'm doing well. Good. I just have a quick question.

If I can use a signing bonus to buy a new car? You can. The question is, should you? Yes, that's better said. Okay. is this a brand new car or new to you uh new to me potentially brand new we'll see and what would the payments be um i'm planning to cash flow it but my situation to give a little more background, is I am about to start dental school at the end of this month. However, I'm also married. We have no debt.

And I have a full scholarship for dental school. So I won't be paying out of pocket anything for that. Because you're going into the service. Correct. Army. Good. And all of this means you need to buy a car. Why?

So, no, I means you need to buy a car. Why? So, no, don't need to, but my wife and I are planning to have kids in the near future, and she's wanting a newer car that's more kid-friendly. Right now we have a 2014 Toyota Camry. Nothing super wrong, nothing wrong with it. It's just, I mean, it has 160,000 miles on it. So while you're in dental school, what will your income be? She's a nurse, and so we're currently in Vegas, but we're going to be moving to Boston.

So in Boston, her income will probably be around $100,000. Good. Cool. And do you get any kind of stipend from the military while you're in dental school? I do. I get about $2,800 a month for 10 1⁄2 months a year, and then it's a little bit more.

I think it's closer to like $3,600 for the other month and a half. So you have a household income of $130,000 at that point. How much was the signing bonus? $20,000. Okay. And it will be taxed. Here's a couple of rules of thumb on vehicles. All things with motors and wheels go down in value.

They are the largest thing that we buy that goes down in value. They help us burn money more than anything else we do. We set fire to dollar bills as we buy them and drive them. Me too. I like cars, okay? I like cars with loud mufflers, not batteries, but everybody's got their own thing, right? So here's the thing. In other words, we're not against vehicles or something like that.

That's not the point. But if you don't want to have vehicles totaled up that's more than half your annual income. So that would leave you at a $70,000 or so, $65,000 worth of vehicles. We're not doing that. So you're not going to be able to do that. I'm guessing the other car is worth what? You got two cars? No, we only have one car because we're moving to the East Coast. Okay.

So you're going to be fine if you buy one car under $65,000 on that rule. You're definitely going to do that. Rule number two is you pay cash for whatever you do. So whatever the little hoopty Toyota brings plus $20,000 is what you could spend max. Do you have any other money saved? We have about $40,000 saved and about $ and about 18 in a Roth IRA for retirement. Okay, so you've got a little money. You've got a little bit of an emergency fund. That's good news. And you've got to say 20 minus the taxes because you don't want to get in tax trouble, right?

So 20 minus the taxes plus whatever the Toyota brings is what she could buy, what you can buy. And here's the last bit of advice Toyota brings is what she could buy, what you can buy. And here's the last bit of advice. You guys are young. How old are you? 24. Okay. So this is old man day.

If you're ready, don't buy a car for a baby that's not even on the way yet. That's an excuse that I wanted a better car. It's okay to buy a better car just because i want a better car and i got the money but don't blame the baby that isn't even on the way it's not his fault okay yeah and listen here's the other way here's the other thing too um you can buy a nice car and one baby doesn't need a giant suv one baby baby doesn't need the nicest minivan out there it's a car seat babies are small that car seat will fit fine in that in that camry they take up they take up a lot of uh a lot of smell room but they're small yeah right that's exactly right oh my gosh hey this is great time

for you man congratulations what a great way to go to dental school yeah instead of being four hundred thousand dollars in debt you're serving your country. Thank you for serving your country. Very well done. You're thinking about what to do with this. You didn't just impulse and drive by the car lot and go buy some bunch of crap you can't afford. You're very thoughtful. You're very wise. You guys are going to be great parents. You're going to do very well. And we're very proud of you, John. And again, thanks for serving your country. Stacked a good amount of cash too. They've shown some impulse control already. So that's a good base to, but this is natural, Dave. I don't know. You've been around on this. People start freaking out when you think, well, we're going to try having a baby, but here's the reality. And I

don't want to be a damper on anyone, but you have no control as to when baby shows up. And so stack cash. See, this is why you listen to this show. Getting information you would get no other way. That's genius. You have no control when babies come. That comes straight from Ken Coleman. Fresh insight, right off the presses. Nobody knew that.

Hey, Stacy and I struggled with infertility for seven years. I'm not trying to be a downer. The point is that stacking cash, and then you have time to buy the nice car, the nicer car. And I just think I want young couples to look at the long view because it never hurts to stack cash. By the way, as soon as you adopted, you got pregnant. Let's just keep that in mind. That is true.

That's the magic thing right there. Yeah, well, that comes with its own expenses. So there you go. Careful on that one. But yeah, you get the point is that we jump to conclusions because of the emotion, excitement oh it's exciting it is natural for people to do this and you're looking at the crappy car going i hate this car and so our little precious little baby needs a nice car not wait till they spit up all over it you know the first time that new carpet gets all stinky well the worst ones are the toddlers oh they Oh. They can turn a car into a nuclear waste zone.

Yeah. And by the way, it is my opinion that goldfish, they reproduce. When the kids drop them on the floor of the car, they reproduce. There's like 10% more every time you get in the car. Cheerios. In one segment, we get that babies can't be planned and goldfish reproduce. In one segment, we get this gold from you. Hey, Common Sense Ken, that's what you can call me.

Just dropping the depth today, dropping the bombs. He's everywhere, ladies and gentlemen. Watch out. He's everywhere. Don't let the Common Sense sneak up on you. Check out the podcast. Oh, you've got to love it. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

And by the way, we'll just go ahead and add one little extra serious note to that. If you have a car that's worth $8,000 that won't hold the car seats because you got now another car seat or something, go buy something that's worth $8,000, not $28,000 that'll hold the car seats. They make $8,000 used vans, too. You can move laterally. You don't have to move up $20,000 just to get bigger. See, that's where we know you're rationalizing. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. Ken Coleman is my co-host today, number one best-selling author, host of the Ken Coleman Show. Yeah, we hang out in Nashville, in case you guys forgot, and there's always these famous music people drop by and see us. That's not happening today. Instead, an extremely famous comedian from Nashville is dropping by, our friend friend nate bargatze hey nate how are you good how are y'all doing

great man hey the amazon special rocked uh thank you yeah it was great i uh it's very exciting to be here dave we've you know listened to you obviously my whole life uh with my parents would tell me to do stuff that you tell people to do never i didn't i wasn't great at it but they had all the ideas but i i kind of told you this party i also moved you when i was like 20 oh it'd been 20 years ago uh you're in a house i think going to a lake house yeah and i wear this little lake house down at estill springs and i uh so we were moving you like the company i worked for we went to your house and moved you and my one thing you were very nice everything's great i don't remember you had a tv this was back when tvs were big

yeah like take two guys to carry one of those yeah but this tv i don't remember it wasn't it was like i think what i remember is like a, it wasn't in like a, you know, if you had a big widescreen, but it was a smaller one. But then you go, hey, that TV's pretty heavy. And you know, I'm 20 and I'm like, I got it, Dave. Don't worry. Like this is, this is what I do is I move TVs. And I picked it up.

And if you kept concrete in that TV, I would believe that. It was the heaviest TV I've ever felt in my life. And then me and my buddy both had to carry it. And I remember not being so big because our faces were super close to each other because you're just like walking like one side on the other side. But I always think about that TV still to this day. I'm so glad that Dave Ramsey made an impression. Still the heaviest TV I've ever felt in my life.

Did he offer pizza? I think people want to know. Pizza, bottled water? I don't remember if he offered. I think he offered that. My big one was he goes, that TV's heavy. You might need someone to help it. I go, I got it, Dave.

Don't worry about me. Then you're like, this is the heaviest TV I've ever felt in my life. So, changing gears, the Amazon special. We watched it the other night. me and then you're like oh this is the heaviest tv i've ever felt in my life so the uh changing gears the the amazon special we watched it the other night it is excellent you did an amazing job um the uh the the experience had to be so much better than the one the the thing you did during covid that that was like a root canal wasn't it it? Oh, yeah. Just outside, everybody had masks on. I couldn't hear them laugh. The first, so when you do shows, if you say you're going to do an hour, you know, of material or whatever, that can also depend on the crowd if it's going to be an hour.

So if the crowd, if you can't really hear them laugh and you're having to talk faster, it's like that hour becomes 40 minutes, 45, like that much. And if the crowd's laughing, great, that hour can be an hour and 40 minutes 45 like that much and if the crowd's laughing great that hour can be an hour and 15 minutes and uh the first when we did the covid one uh i got done taping and it was at like i want to say 43 minutes or something and they were like right when i got off they were like yeah we do not have it because you tape two shows when you tape a special and then you add it on to get like usually and usually it's all from one show but then you have maybe a couple jokes you said better and so when i got done uh they were like yeah we that was so short and i was like well i can't hear

anybody laughing you can't tell they had mask on so you can't even see their face if they're enjoying the role of the audience was just horrendous oh i mean it was painful yeah it's painful i need i mean as somebody who's also on stage obviously not a comedian but also does a lot of speaking and stuff it was painful to think about what you're experiencing but this one this one and the the setup the uh production values on this latest one the way the audience was coming around you and the way you were working them yeah it was really good well i wanted to after like uh this place where i taped this one uh the celebrity theater in phoenix it's one of my favorite venues uh carlin taped a special there louis ck taped a special there and uh it's it was such a cool like you could see the car and especially you could see the crowd a lot because it was just back it was like 70 something when he taped it and so it's just that's how it was but i wanted to show a

crowd and i wanted to show people having fun because after covet and all that stuff it's like i wanted it was like you just wanted the crowd to see like look it's all people are having fun and people are back out and people are doing that stuff so it's like we kind of lit up the crowd a little bit so you could see them and uh yeah it's that place is the best As a pastor's kid, when you started talking about the words that you were allowed to say and not allowed to say, that was absolutely hilarious. I've got to ask you this. This is a money show. We know that a lot of money issues in marriage. So I'm just curious, your own marriage, your wife's role with money, your role with money, what's that like for you? I have no role in it. So it's her uh I don't know

I mean I used to have jokes like I was like if my wife ever died like I would like I don't know what bank I would go to like well I don't know how to get my money out I'd have to call her mom and ask her to be like you know what is your maiden maiden name? I wouldn't know. I mean, I'm disconnected. You know, when you grow up, we didn't have money. And so even though I know the pressure on my parents for raising us and saving money and doing all that stuff, I was just fortunately, I guess, kind of oblivious.

I never really thought about it. And I kind of went in that with comedy. And so money, like, I've just never thought about it so so much it's just kind of like you're doing what you're doing like in comedy i would always have little check marks where i could realize uh you know i worked at applebee's i met my wife at applebee's on thompson lane and we worked yep we worked there together and so our flair yeah the flair yeah all the flair so i remember in comedy when i got to a point where i was making just as much as i'd be making an applebee's and some of them didn't go to college or anything i was like all right like i'm making as much as i would make as you know thirty thousand

dollars a year whatever it is and then you slowly just have little check marks where you can just be like all right i'm making this like i wouldn't make more than this at whatever job i have uh so but my wife is the one that does all of it how's it feel when someone says grammy nominated it's crazy that's that's it's one that you never i mean because you're like why would i have to get any of this stuff like you know as you say uh better than i deserve uh it's you you don't think i don't deserve any of this stuff and so it's and being just from here and old hickory and uh you know who am i like i'm nobody so it's it's all wild and it's hard to like take in but it's stuff i did want you know i have you have your goal you want to yeah you want to think about it you do want to be as big as you can be but it's uh yeah when it happens it's it's pretty

surreal how many years were you at the trade before things really started to move for you uh i've done i've done it 20 years and uh so i was at it i mean you know it's all gradually i always say you either make it at 20 or 40 and no one makes it in the middle so you either get lucky and get plucked or you have to go grind it out and uh so it was all kind of gradually always just kind of moving up and uh i would say after the netflix special the tennessee kid the stand-ups in the tennessee kid was when it really kind of we took a pretty big leap to where you go to theaters and people are there to see you like they know you know you gotta have new material you gotta have all this stuff like they're there to absolutely

see you but i'm not still get amazed by it every day i was just at the american century golf tournament and like just autographs and the fact that people know who you are and you're you know you're taking all these pictures i mean it's it's pretty insane were you on the course when steph hit the hole in one i was two holes over so you heard it it was yeah and so we didn't know who did it but the the roar was so loud that you're like all right well someone a you're like someone's god that has to be a hole in one and then it's so loud and long then you're like well i don't know who it is and then they someone radios over like one of the volunteers and they're like it was steph curry and you're like well i

mean that's that couldn't have worked out better for uh nbc and all that it was a very cool thing to see and to hear it just the roar yeah wow nate bargazzi uh grammy nominated comedian a neighbor of ours here in nashville's dropping by to hang out be sure and check out his new special on amazon hello world and of course he's on tour right now and how many cities you're doing oh it's uh all of them i think uh we go i'm leaving australia saturday this saturday oh that'll be in austral. Yeah. Never been out there. Doing it with doing the show with a little jet lag. Oh, yeah. I think we have a couple days.

You lose two days when you go out there. Never knew that. Tickets at natebargatze.com Yep. Yep. There you go. And social at natebargatze. Thanks for dropping by, man. Congratulations on all your success. Couldn't happen to a better guy. Honor, man. Honor to be here. We always loved you, and so it was very cool to be here.

We're honored. Hey, Nate Bargatze, check it out. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Erin is with us in Colorado Springs. Hey, Erin, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you.

Sure, what's up? So my husband and I are on baby steps four, five, and six, and I feel like we've been doing the Ramsey plan forever, and we're both ready to be done with the mortgage so we've been trying to come up with ways to pay it off and it just seems like it's going to take longer we want to be done in three years by the time we turn 40 and it's just how long is forever that you've been working on this well we've been doing it about 15 years, but five of those we were overseas. So, you know, we kind of had to stop.

We bought a house. We sold that. We moved overseas. And while we were overseas, their housing was paid. So we saved up money. Then we moved back right in 2020, and the housing prices had gone crazy. And the money we saved, we thought we could pay cash for a house. We ended up having to take out a mortgage.

And now we've got $120,000 left. What's your household income? $120,000. Okay, and you're going to be done in three years, and you're how old? We want to be done in three years. We're 36. Okay, before you're 40. Okay, I get it.

Okay, so what's the question then so we've run the numbers and we've already been putting about 50 percent of our take-home pay towards the house um but with all the other baby steps and just life um you know we still need about 20 grand more a year to be able to reach that goal. And so we've talked about either stopping doing some things, which I know isn't what is meant to happen in baby step four, five, and six, or my husband has to take a second job or I work more and all of those options are just, they're hard. And so we thought, well, do we change the goal? I mean, how intense do we need to be in this step? Cause for me, I want to be done tomorrow, but I also understand for three years we shouldn't be running like gazelle intense. So how do you balance that?

So $20,000 more per year. That's the number that gets it done in three years? In three years, yes. So why does it have to be so incredibly hard? It's not necessary. You guys are doing great. But if you really break it down to how do we, the two of us, come up with an additional $20,000 a year without making life absolutely too difficult?

You know what I'm saying? And I think that's what you've got to figure out. It doesn't require such a drastic choice. And it feels like the way you're setting it up to us it feels really big and heavy and i'm not sure it needs to be big and heavy i think it's a good goal to go for but it could also be managed twenty thousand dollars not that much all of your projections assume no raises too yeah but the raises haven't been you know the projection for that isn't fabulous. Why? Why? So just because of the, my husband works in a ministry. So, you know, over time, the raises haven't been great.

That's fair. I mean, they're good. That's fair. They pay good. And it's a great job. But, you know, what do you do? You could be making more. I homeschool my kids and stay home.

I do a little side work, making a couple thousand a year. And we've talked about me working more, but, you know, our focus right now is our kids and the home needs to be peaceful environment. And that allows my husband to do his work. And if I'm busy and stressed, then that just kind of, I think, breaks down a lot of that. So I feel like my time is maxed out really at this point okay i i would without the level of pressure that you're putting on yourself i would move from

uh i would not move too intense i would stay at intentional and i would dial back the pressure these are really good goals they are not worth, or that's not the right word. You can be intentional and get there almost as fast as you get there if you worry and fret and wring your hands over it. So if you don't get there in three years and it takes four, oh, well. You're still very weird in such a good way. You've done such a great job. You'll be 41 with a paid for house, for goodness sakes.

And your husband's in ministry. Oh, my goodness. How wonderful are you guys? So give yourself a little grace. Hey, there's a word. And, you know, just give yourself a little bit of breathing room here. And then just make it a game and it's a monopoly game and we want to lean into it but the the level of pressure that i hear in

your voice i i don't want that for you or for your husband i want you guys to just enjoy your run and just enjoy this ride i'm done am i done people money. I want all our money coming in. You know what? I completely agree with you. And so I'd make it a matter of prayer. God, send us some extra money because we want to be done with this. We don't want any masters in our life but you. And just begin to pray that each morning.

And then, you know, with that prayer, let's look at what we can do. I mean, can you pick up a little tutoring? Is there a thing over here you guys can turn down a little bit? And Ken's right. You might find the other 20,000 as you go along here. And then even then, if you're 41 and you're debt-free, you are so far ahead of the game in America today. You're so far over in the smart column. When we look up wise in the dictionary, we're going to see your picture.

Oh, my gosh, you're doing great. Breathe a little. I'm with you. I'm done owing money. I'm never going back, and I can get fired up about that. I can get wired up about that, and there's no chance I'm going to do it. And if I were in your shoes, I'd want to be out just as bad as you want to be out, but not enough to completely destroy our lives for the next three years.

Gazelle intensity of that level is necessary when you're in baby step two. It is not what you should be doing in baby steps four, five, and six. You should be intentional, not intense. And there is a difference. Intentional is I'm an adult and I make every dollar behave. I'm not an immature child throwing a fit and says, I deserve it because I work so hard. You're not having any of those stupid conversations, and you're not that person. You're doing good. I think you're doing good. You're doing so much better than you feel like you're doing. We think you're better than you think you are.

Yeah, I think that's right, Dave. And I love the intentional here because, listen, she's homeschooling multiple kids. That three years is going to go by pretty quick. So enjoy the season that you're in. Be blessed because you've done the hard work to be in this moment. Joshua's in Dallas. Hey, Joshua, what's up? Hey, Dave, I have a quick question for you. I am almost done with baby step three and then just got divorced.

So I have a second mortgage on this house and i'm trying to figure out am i treating it like the first one and sticking to step three or do i treat it like that and i'm technically back to step two if it's under half your annual income it's a baby step two let's see how much do you owe how much do you own the second uh 50 uh 45 and what's. And what's your income? About $81,000. That's right on the bubble. Okay.

I would throw it to Baby Step 6. And what's your interest rate on your first mortgage? It's only like $3.125,000. Well, make sure you've got really good terms on this, and let's get it. You know, I... Yeah. Because it's only a 10-year. Yeah, but I don't want you being in debt on either one of them for 10 years. I want to go ahead and clear them. Right.

Exactly. But, yeah, you don't have anything else to do. You might as well just lean in on it, but you don't have to lean in. Again, lean in on it with intentionality. When you're paying extra on a mortgage right now it's on that it's not the first right and so any money you scrape together in your budget beyond 15 going into retirement after baby in baby steps four is that baby step six is going to go on the mortgage and in your situation today um you you know you you're probably, you just have to manage you now, right? Exactly.

Yeah. So, I mean, in that sense, your expenses went down or can if you choose for them to. You don't have to convince anybody to do this but you. And so whatever you choose to do, however fast you want to clear that. So it's going to end up, other than the fact you're putting money into retirement, it's going to end up having the same effect as almost as being in baby step two. If I'm in your shoes, I'm just going to attack it. But go at it at whatever speed you want there.

But I'm going to put it at baby step six. It's over half your annual income. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Debra is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Debra. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks so much. I've been listening to you guys for years and appreciate all you do.

Well, thank you. You're very welcome. I have a question for you. I've been listening for a long time. And yesterday, I went in to adjust my own investments because we've been focused on other things. I wanted to get everything set up in the four different types of mutual funds you mentioned. And the guy who is not a Ramsey certified financial pro, but he mentioned a term that I'd never heard before. When I brought up mutual funds, he asked me if I'd considered ETFs, and I have no idea or I hadn't heard what that was.

He explained it to me, and it sounds very similar to a mutual fund, so I was just wondering if you could clarify what the difference is and why a mutual fund is better than an ETF. I don't know that a mutual fund is better than an etf etf just means exchange traded fund and for purposes you would use it for uh they're very very similar they're almost identical uh it's a group of um you know a group of stocks and if you're buying an exchange you know typically what people will do for an etf is something like an index fund like an s&p 500 and so it'd just be a group of stocks in there now sometimes uh brokers will try to get you to buy and sell in your portfolio a lot and they like an exchange traded fund for that better um and so if you're setting it up to do like you'd set up a brokerage

account to buy and sell stocks in, I would not use it for that. But if you're using it like a mutual fund just to buy and hold, you're going to find it's almost identical that you didn't really, you're not going to notice any difference in the practical use of it. So sometimes I hear things like, well, Dave Ramsey's against ETFs. I'm not against ETFs. I don't mind. What I want you to have is a diversified portfolio and mutual funds. ETF is either one of those. I give it to you. What I don't want you to do with an ETF is start buying and selling all the time. And I don't want you to use any vehicle of investing that prompts you to constantly be jumping in and out, jumping in and out, jumping in and out.

Because every time the news is good, by the time the news is good on the stock market, you're late. You should have already been in. By the time the news is bad, it's already too late for you to get out. And so people that try to jump in and out based on the news and you're not saying that deborah i'm just saying but in general if you're trying to use an etf to time the market we call it then then that use is not something that you know that we would tell people to do ever because i don't time the market i just buy and hold

i never sell it let's buy and keep it. Well, the stock market went down. Yeah, I know. The stock market went up. Yeah, I know. And if I just sit there, then I'm fine. But for your purposes, Deborah, I think he's fine as long as you're going to stick with it and as long as he's not, your planner is not recommending the ETF for purposes of timing the market or buying and selling or constantly trading on your funds.

I don't be trading on my funds all the time. I buy them and hold them. The only time I sell a fund is if it's just completely under performance category over a long period of time. And I don't remember the last time I sold one. It's been a long, long time because I just, I play long ball all the time, play long ball. I'm always thinking, what's this going to be 10 years from now? What's it going to be 20 years from now?

Not 10 days from now, not 10 months from now. The emotions don't drive it. And again, Debra, you're not being accused of any of that, but I'm trying to couch my ETF answer here so I don't get misunderstood again. Because I'm not anti-ETF, I'm anti-timing, and I'm anti-constantly trading. Because it's effectively gambling. If you try to play the market, you can really get burned quickly. You're no longer investing.

You're speculating. That's correct. Yep. And you are, you know, from a statistical standpoint, not a spiritual standpoint, you are gambling. Right. You know, and sometimes I hear people say in the Christian world that I'm in, you know, they'll say stuff like, well, all stock market is gambling,

and you shouldn't be doing that. Well, you don't understand what gambling is. Gambling is based on it's a game of chance, meaning you don't have any control or any insight over the output. Investing is you buy a piece of real estate. Why? Because real estate's always gone up, and real estate in that neighborhood's a great neighborhood.

It's got nice trees, and it's going to be good, and whatever. Or if you're in Arizona, nice cactuses. I mean, whatever it is, right? And so we're going to – but we have actual outputs that we're measuring, and we can look at the probabilities, and it's not just a deck of cards. It's not a slot machine. There's a complete difference, and there's a difference in the spirit by which you go at those things. So none of that has to do with Deborah, but Deborah, thanks for the question.

Jessica's with us in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for having me on. Great. How can we help? So my question is, I had received some money when my dad passed away. We used that money to pay off vehicles and use it as a down payment on our house.

And all we had for debt then was a mortgage. Since then, we've bought a tractor and built a barn. We were told to just let the money ride in the market. We were never going to touch it. That was, that was retirement money. As I've been listening to your show the last couple of weeks, I'm wondering if that was the best advice we were given and if we should pull

the money from, you know, the stocks and pay off our debt. And then, yeah. And then you need to quit buying crap. You can't afford like barns and tractors. It's stuff needed for our business.

Oh, bull. You're buying stuff you can't afford. Okay? You know how I know you did that? You borrowed on it instead of paying for it. If it was such a dadgum good investment, you would have already used daddy's stock money on that. Hello? Yep, I'm here.

Yeah. My question is, do we pull the money from the stocks? No, you don't, unless you're going to quit borrowing money on the next thing that you rationalize and justify. But if you stop rationalizing and justifying your purchases on debt because you're going to eventually run out of this if you keep this behavior pattern going but if you stop the behavior pattern and say i'm never borrowing again we're going to pay cash for everything we do from this point forward then yes we did this but the last time you paid off all your debts what'd you do the next time thing that came up you went back in debt and so if i tell you to pay off this debt

next thing that comes up you're going to go back in debt i don't want that for you that's not a that's not a method to prosperity that's a method to bankruptcy and so you've got to put your you know you got a spit shake and uh pinky swear with your husband we're not borrowing money anymore if you're going to do that then yeah i'll take the money out and pay off the debt but otherwise you're destined to live a life of put and take we're going to do that, then yeah, take the money out and pay off the debt. But otherwise, you're destined to live a life of put and take. We're going to pay it off, then we're going to go back in debt. We're going to pay it off, then we're going to go back in debt. And eventually, we don't have any money to pay it off.

Eventually, you run out of the nest egg doing that. So you've got to break this pattern. And you were very clear. We used some of the money, cleared off all the debt. How did we celebrate? We bought a tractor and a barn and went back in debt. You got to break that cycle you can't do that again and again and again there's an end to it and the end ain't pretty so that's what i want for you um and there's no rationalization no justification you got to be done you'll be done you gotta decide we're done

you know it's an investment it's always an investment everybody says everything's an investment that they want to buy, but most things aren't. Yeah, and this is a key point about behavior. Tractors aren't investments. Or the barn. So what happens is when you feel the need to have something, you have to go, okay, what's the least amount of thing that I need to do what I want to do? Could we have done a shed that we could have paid cash for? What's behind these purchases?

Not prospective opportunities. I'm going to need this barn one day. If we don't need the barn now, then we don't need to buy the barn now. And I think that's where people have got to start looking at this and going, what do I really need? Do I need a big tractor or do I need an old used tractor that'll do the job? And that's what people have to do or else you justify debt. Almost every one of us buy a different thing when we buy it with debt than if we had bought it with cash. I agree with that 100%. Almost every one of us. Yeah. And you buy a different thing when we buy it with debt than if we had bought it with cash. I agree with that 100%. Almost every one of us.

Yeah. And you buy a bigger, badder, cooler. That's correct. Crazier. Yeah. Nuttier. Yeah. Dumber.

Right. Thing. You got to find a way to do it. Because it doesn't feel like it's real money when it's the bank's money. That's absolutely right. And that's the trap of this. It's a siren song. Yeah.

And, you know, you'll crash this puppy on the the rocks and that's what the sirens do to you look it up this is the ramsey show 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.