The Ramsey Show - App - No One Accidentally Wanders Into the Land of Success (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Number one best-selling author of Breaking Free from Broke and co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, George Campbell. Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Lindsay starts off this hour in Denver. Hi, Lindsay. How are you? I'm doing good, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. I'm a huge fan.

We're on Baby Steps 4 and 5 and 6. We're going to be Baby Steps Millionaires. Thanks to you. Awesome. Good for you. Yes, and I was just calling because I wanted to know how to best manage my grandma's finances. I've been managing their bills since 2022 since my uncle passed away. He used to live in the home, and he's no longer there. But in the last two years, I my mom like spend down um their savings and

kind of um destroying them financially hold on i'm sorry i thought you were managing the money yeah how does your mom get the money if you're managing it she'll grab the debit card make purchases and she'll say that um my grandma let her buy certain things um they go out to so the first time that happened that's on her the second time that happened it's on you because you didn't take the debit card away yeah so this last time i actually made a fraud, and I told my mom if she uses her card again, I will actually make a police report because she is making too many charges without my grandma's knowledge. Because when I asked my grandma about this, she said, oh, no. Shut the account down.

Close the account. I already closed one bank account. Well, close it. It's an issue. Close it, and then she can't use the debit card it's out of business that's simple okay how much money are we talking about everything under my name well she has 18,000 in the savings and so I was thinking maybe I should bring that down and send the extra to principal and she also has a vehicle that um we could sell to like pay down her house but my mom's

also destroyed that, too. So not too long ago, she, like, had the truck, and there was a hailstorm. So I don't even know if the truck's worth $25,000 anymore. But my mom's just, like, ruining everything. Lindsay, it's your fault. It's my fault? Yeah, because you're letting her do this. I should take away the keys?

Take away everything. She should have zero access to grandma's assets. down any any door that your mother is going through physical or lock it proverbial close the debit card take the keys the dad gum truck move the truck to your garage stop her from having access yeah that's what i need to do because yeah you needed to do that like the first time it happened because your mother is not a good person and my daughter doesn't even drive so i've been wanting to okay sell the truck then do you have power of attorney not yet i've been working on that okay i'm not going to participate in this anymore unless you give me power of attorney, and I'm going to shut down all this bull crap.

Okay. This is an act of love for your grandmother, and it's an act of punishment towards your mother who's a criminal. Yeah. Good Lord, girl. And clearly the relationship with you and your mom and grandma and her daughter, it's over. Yeah. Y'all put the fun in dysfunction, man.

Yeah. your mom and grandma and her daughter it's over yeah y'all put the fun in dysfunction man yeah so the best thing you can do is protect everything and just get her out of your life yeah so the truck it's a 25 000 truck how old is your granny she's 80 years old okay and does she she doesn't drive anymore she doesn't and she wanted to keep the truck around because that was like the last memory of my uncle so she didn't want me to spell it oh well sorry my mom just joined me yeah sorry putting my is it paid for it is okay it's a 25 000 truck sitting in the garage and then got ailed damage because your mother's a doofus yeah she took she took it out that night, and she's been driving it around town. Okay. Is the truck back at your grandmother's?

Yes. Go pick it up and put it in your basement. Okay. Okay. And lock it up inside. Breaking and entering would have to be required to get the truck, all right? And then tell your grandmother that she needs to sell the truck. And tell your grandmother that we're cutting your mother off.

Part of the reason is your grandmother's allowing this, too, but she's 80 and she asked you to take care of everything. And you're going to have to be a little bit tougher, kiddo. You're getting walked all over. I know. I feel bad because it's my mom and then she gets mad at me. I don't give a crap about your mother's feelings. She's a crook.

She is. Yeah. You don't get to have feelings when you're a crook. She clearly doesn't care about yours. She truly doesn't care about anybody except herself. How old are you? 39. Okay.

All right. So your mom has done power plays her entire life over you and over everyone else. No one has ever told this woman no successfully, and you're getting ready to be the first one. Congratulations. You have to. It's your job. I do need to. Or you need to hand your grandmother the keys and all the debit cards,

and you need to turn your back and walk away and just let this whole thing explode. One of the two. That sounds good. But if you're going to have your name on this saying, I'm helping Granny, you've got to do it. You can't just sort of do it. And when I do sell the check, should I apply it to the principal?

Because my grandma still owes 65 000 on the house how much other is that the only money she's got 18 000 and then she's got the truck and what else has she got oh that's all she has and what does she live on social security yeah okay uh it doesn't matter. You can set it in the emergency fund. I'd probably just set it in an emergency fund, but you've got to have the $18,000 plus the proceeds of the truck where your stinking mother doesn't get her hands on it.

Got it? Yeah. A bank account that you open up and the money goes in there, period. Okay. And no one has access to it period it's for the use of your grandmother to pay her house payment and uh help her supplement her monthly because social insecurity won't do it okay you are too sweet darling i'm trying to get you mean yeah i know i want to cry i'm gonna i'm gonna throw some grit down in your coffee and just stir it in there.

Get you some sand, okay? You're just a sweet little person, and I'm ready to go get your mom for you. My gosh, what a woman. You love your grandma, right, Lindsay? Everybody. You love her. Then love her enough to say no to mom and be mean because you're protecting grandma. You're not being mean.

When you tell someone they can't steal money, that is not mean. That is just like facts. That's facts and stuff. George, you can't steal my money. That's not mean. Criminals are difficult to deal with, Dave. They're very ornery. No, this is a boundaryless moron right here.

This woman, no one ever tells her no. She thinks everything is hers, even when it's not. This is the way thieves think. She's the queen and we're the sorry people. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. Unbelievable. I'm going to teach her a new word.

No. It's a new word for her. She can form it. No. Can you do that, Lindsay? Can you stand up to her and stop all this or not i will tell her no you gotta stop it you gotta set the structures in place where she no longer has access to any of this money she never gets another dime because you're so smart got it okay

and if your mama's mad so what get in line This is the Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. AJ's with us. AJ's in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, AJ. How are you? your life and your money. AJ's with us. AJ's in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, AJ. How are you? Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. Appreciate it. Sure. What's up? I need some help. We are just starting off on the baby steps and I'm trying to get my wife on board. She's 50 years old. I'm 40. We have zero in the savings and I am just worried that we will have nothing in retirement. She works at a local university in the Treasury Department making like less than two grand a month. I'm military, former military, so I get my disability. So I get about $4,400 a month, and we are about $48,000 in debt. We are just starting the baby steps. We're on baby step two, and we're just starting off. We have three kids that are all special needs,

and they might not leave the house, and I am just pulling my hair out, trying to figure out how we're going to survive into our golden years. Okay. And you're unable to work due to your disability no i can work i was a football coach at a college but um my mother-in-law her cancer came back and so i was taking her to her chemo five days a week for a few months and that just finished like a week and a half ago so right now with the kids being out of school I'm a stay-at-home dad taking care of them while she's working and all the jobs are kind of filled up right now so I'm still kind of looking around but I just signed up for a side hustle as being a football referee and i'm still looking around i'm going to start doing

door dash again just to try to bring in some extra income but right now with the is it fair to say that with you your wife being underemployed and you being unemployed that you all have an income problem well we make about 87 000 uh 87 000 you said she made 2 000 and you made 4 400 that's not 87 000 well i bring home 55 and her take uh her what happened to 4 400 did i not hear 4 400 yeah it's 4 400 plus her 2 000 that's 63 so yeah after it's 7200 72 000 which yeah 72 000 but with her taxes and all that, it's like $87,000. But yeah, that's why I'm trying to get some side jobs and stuff. You're clearly stressed about this.

This is a tough life and situation you're in. Does she have any sense of urgency or stress around this? A little bit, but she's more worried about having money in the savings account versus paying off all of our debt. Well, do you have money in savings? We have like $5,000 in savings. So you both have recognized that there's a problem. What we're having an alignment problem on is how to solve the problem. Is that right?

She wants to save her way through it. You want to get out of debt. That's correct. But she recognizes there's a problem. She recognizes your situation sucks, right? She wants to save her way through it. You want to get out of debt. That's correct. But she recognizes there's a problem. She recognizes your situation sucks, right? Yes. Okay.

That's a good step. Well, no, she doesn't. She thinks we're doing okay because we finally bought a house. We have the quote-unquote lifestyle where we have a car and a house and finally can have some stability for the kids. But I'm like, no, we're in mass amounts of debt. We need to get that stuff paid off. How much, how much debt do you have? 48,000 on what? Uh, two car payments, $2,400 in credit cards. Um, I bought her some jewelry for our 10-year anniversary and a couch. When did you buy jewelry?

About six months ago. Okay. So you weren't freaked out six months ago? I was working. You weren't freaked out six months ago? I wasn't until I stopped working and then realized we are completely screwed. Okay. All right.

So, well, I think that, number one, we need to back it. You don't come at somebody in this situation with the what. You come at them with the why. Okay? What we are doing is not working. We are deeply in debt, and we are broke, and I am freaking out. This is your discussion with your wife. Okay?

I'm not okay. I think we're going to retire and have to eat Alpo. I don't like this plan. This is freaking me out. You seem to think we're okay. I, I, I get that, but I'm not okay. And you need to hear me that as your husband, I am freaking out. This is terrorizing me. I see these numbers and I can't sleep. I see these numbers and I have, you know, increased anxiety. My heart rate goes up. This is scaring me to death, honey. I think we have a real problem, and we need to do something about it.

And what would it be like if we had no payments? What would it be like if we had two strong incomes and no payments of any kind? How much could we save and invest then? What traveling could we do? What cars would we purchase? What would life look like if we didn't have any payments? I'm freaking out. I want us to sit down and determine where we want to be in 10 years

and how we're going to get there. How would you like to be completely free? I think it would mean the world to me and just no kids kids are asleep in bed you're sitting out and the tv's not on where you know we have a scheduled appointment to sit down and talk about this and don't talk about what to do talk about why to do it the why is i want to retire with dignity the why is i want us to have choices and the things we get to do as a family the why is i want us to have choices in the things we get to do as a family. The why is I want to change our family tree.

We've got three special needs kids here. Broke people can't take care of special needs kids into adulthood, and we're broke. We've taken on this responsibility. We've got to do something. Help me. Talk to me. Let's talk about this. And then ask her what she thinks we ought to do

once you get alignment on that but and don't talk about freaking dave ramsey i i don't good you just turned me into a cuss word twice but then i stopped yeah completely because i know honey we need to sell your car dave ramsey said this is a real real way to get your spouse on board, you know? No. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. It's got to be her idea. Yeah, the two of you.

And then I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll have Christian pick up, our associate producer in here, and get you guys signed up for Financial Peace University if your wife will agree to go with you. Okay. I'll give it to you free, okay, and get on the EveryDollarBudgeting app. We'll give you both of them, okay, as our gift. But if you try to do this by yourself, it's going to make your marriage and your relationship

worse. It's going to drive a wedge. So don't do it by yourself. Talk to her. Hey, would you try this with me? It was free. I gave it to Hey, would you try this with me? It was free. I gave it to me. Would you try it with me?

Would you look at this? Would you think about this? It would mean the world to me. And she will do it if nothing else as an act of love towards you once she hears your heart on the why we need to do this, not what we need to do. You can't talk about the what until you are in agreement about what the future needs to look like. And then together we can discuss, okay, we need to sell this. We need to increase this piece of income. We need to, you know,

we need to admit that that was a mistake and never do that again. Whatever it is, you start putting those things together, George. Yeah. You know, AJ, I think we also need to look at what does a career look like for you? You're 40. You're a spry 40. I want you to really sink your teeth into something you love and make great money doing it. And I'm going to send you Ken's new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It comes with a get clear career assessment. I want you to also step into that and have some mojo because I think you've lost some of that as you've stepped into unemployment. Yeah, agreed. Okay, we'll give you all that. We want to help you, man. We want to help you, but you've got an income problem and you've got an alignment with your spouse problem.

You know, what I'm saying is have a dream date. Dream again together about what a wonderful future would look like and then what are the difficult sacrificial steps that must be taken to get to that wonderful future. Because no one gets to a wonderful future accidentally or easily. It's both hard and intentional. That's where good things come from. Hard things and intentional things create good things. No one wanders accidentally into the land of success. You've got dirt under your fingernails. You're scratching, you're clawing, and you're fighting. And the only way to do it

is together when you're married. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. I'm Dave Ramsey. This is The Ramsey Show in the lobby of Ramsey personality is my co-host I'm Dave Ramsey this is the Ramsey show in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage Tyler and Sarah are with us hey guys how are you doing great welcome where do you live Omaha Nebraska all right fun and all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream yes sir, sir. How much debt have you guys paid off? $200,000. $200,000. And how long did that take?

Four years and nine months. Yeah, good. All right. Making what kind of income range during that time? $171,000 to $230,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I'm a security consultant.

And I'm an attorney. I work in-house for a financial services company in omaha excellent excellent oh i wonder who that is good way to go guys good and i love the t-shirts weird people you're looking at weird people what's the bottom line i can't quite make it out that for reasons 2024 all right all right it's the uh the new university shirt okay got it okay so um 200 000 if you're saying weird people that must mean you paid off your house that's the house i love it way to go you guys what's the house worth um about 410 okay and it's a paid for house yeah wow i'm so happy for y'all thank you how does it

feel that i have a payment in the world it feels amazing amazing. Yeah. Wow. How old are you two? 37. And I'm 36. And the house is worth about what? Oh, 410. Oh, you said that. I'm sorry. And how much in your nest egg?

A little over 405. Okay. So you're approaching a millionaire. Yeah. A baby steps millionaires in your mid 40s. Yeah. Way to go. That's the goal.

Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. That's incredible. So were you long-term Ramsey followers or was this a new thing oh for our whole marriage yes um i had a roommate where i got the fpu cds from and so we put them on road trips we made several road trips back to her family and my family and so we would listen to those and we kind of did it on our on our own, yeah, when we started out, we've been married for about 11 years. When we started out, we had baby step two debt to get through. Tyler had a small truck loan, and I graduated from law school with nearly $100,000 in student loan debt.

Okay, so you cleared all that off. Yes. And that's not in this 200. That's not in this. Okay, so then you attack the mortgage beginning four years ago yes right yeah okay yeah it kind of um like with my truck i graduated college debt free but then i rewarded myself with a brand new pickup truck with a new payment yeah and we both kind of thought that each other's debt was stupid and irresponsible

so we had to deal with that as one of our first marriage financial issues. So I- Your truck's dumb. Your student loan's dumber. Whose debt is dumber? It's a new game show. So my plan was just to pay off my truck as I was, because I got a new job,

income was coming in. And when we were talking about getting married, we thought, we don't want to have this hanging around. We just want to kind of fly through it. And so that's what we did is we made a lot of extra payments we lived off my income and her income went to just paying off her student loans okay and it got it all clear real fast it did yep and then four years and nine months ago so really the start of this is just the start of paying off the house is just the continuation of the baby steps

it was yep we took a little break in the middle there to get the other baby steps going, build up some savings. In fact, one of the things that we had saved up for was to go on the last Ramsey cruise in March of 2020. Yeah, I heard about that. It didn't matter that the coronavirus was coming. We were going to go. Dave, too. So was I. And so during that time, we got all that money back and then um since we were

already in a good financial position and had good solid jobs we were really able to make a lot of progress uh on the mortgage and just decided you're gonna go on the one in 25 unfortunately not we have some other financial goals that are in line before that this time around okay we wish we could how you did me okay yeah so that's cool that's fun it's a huge lump sum we put on there and i printed off our amateur station schedule on the back of a door and when you could see how much progress you're getting because you just get frustrated with how much money is not going to pay off the principal it's all going to interest the the more we were able to move that line you just you could see how many months you were skipping you're just dropping down in the schedule yeah it just drops down yeah so we refinanced in

2020 to a really low interest rate which just moved the line even further and so that allowed us to keep on moving on it you know if you about it, we're sitting here talking to people that paid off their house in four years and nine months. That's just weird. That's very weird. I'm proud of y'all. Most of culture says, I'll hang on to it for 30 years, then I'll probably refinance. I'll do a HELOC.

We'll pull the equity out. We'll do some other dumb stuff. And you guys went, no, we just want to be done with payments. Yep. Okay. So you're 100% debt free. You're at about 800K net worth. You're 47 years old you're making i'm sorry 37 37 years old i'm sorry and uh you're making 230 and you're not going on the cruise what are you going to do that's fun you

got to do something fun this nashville trip was was was one of it ahead. And then we're going to buy a minivan. Oh, okay. Cool. A mom car. You got to fit all those kiddos. Very good. I like it. Good for y'all. Well done.

Thank you. Well done. Did you have people cheering you on or was this just a private party? It was mostly private. People around us knew that we were doing it because just the way we lived, we weren't frivolous.

We said no to a lot of things. And then when we we led a couple of fpu classes and so they were able to help cheer us on as well so yeah when you lead the class you got to do it yeah yeah there's no hypocrite right you got your game on built-in accountability partner that's right that's the worst yeah you gotta be hardcore then yeah good stuff all right then if you've been leading a class do this uh talk to the people out there because even though there are literally thousands of debt free screams posted on youtube thousands with an s even though that sometimes people still believe don't believe it can work um talk to tell you know, what advice would you give to somebody out there right now that doesn't think it'll work? Well, we've, we talked about, it really is all attitude.

If you want to do it, you can do it. The framework is there. You've laid out a lot of very practical things that people can do. It's just, you have got to have a fire in your belly to be able to do it and uh the stamina to stick through it because for a lot of people it's a lot of years of having to say no to things um and making sacrifices y'all are gonna be millionaires by the time you're 40 that's the goal yeah i mean you will be you're the math says you are yeah way to go whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right that's right's right. Henry Ford. Yeah, that's it. All right.

And you brought the kiddos to do the debt-free scream with you, right? Yep. We did. So what are their names and ages? This is Silas. He's eight. Hadassah is six. And Iana is one. And they have been practicing and they've really been sticking with us these four years,

learning about being content and wanting our goal is to ultimately just be generous with our money and make a difference be good money managers of the the money that God's given us amen be good stewards well done with the matching shirts for the kiddos too yeah weird people weird people that's right well you changed your family tree we're very proud of you you're amazing people you are weird in a world where normal is broke you're weird so for those of you new to this you don't know weird is a huge compliment if normal sucks be weird right so that that's a huge thing around here and uh we're just you guys are amazing very well done all right tyler and sarah silas hadassah and an200,000 paid off, house and everything,

almost baby steps millionaires already, four years and nine months, making $171,000 to $230,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! Yeah, baby!

Wow, I think we shocked baby Anna out of tears. She was crying and then she was too freaked out. Then she's like, what is all this yelling? What is all these people yelling? Because we're free, and that's the sound you make when you're free. It's never a quiet sound. It's a loud sound. Freedom is a big deal.

Use your outdoor voice. You get to make choices. Yeah, you use your outdoor voice for freedom. You get to make choices, man. Mortgage means death pledge in French, and they just broke the death pledge. So they're living now, truly, in freedom. No lender gets to tell them what to do. Amen.

Preach it, George. This is The Ramsey Show. Years ago, the team came in and sat down in my office as the CEO and said, we want to build an app. I said, you want to build an app? For what? They said, we need a budgeting app. People need an app for their phone to know how to do budgeting. I'm like, why would you do that? I got a perfectly good yellow pad right here. You can just get your little pencil out, your little calculator,

and they're like, Dave, you're a freaking dinosaur. I said, I know, but I do own the place, so be respectful. I'm sure they didn't use those words. Actually, they did. Yeah, they did. Wow. So how did the Shark Tank meeting go when they pitched this to you? You know, we actually negotiated with a company that had built a budgeting app and thought about buying one.

And by the time we got into it, we realized the amount of work we would have to do to fix all the stuff they did wrong. It was easier to just build one. and so we just sat down with our guys and started building one and still it cost us more money to do it that way but it was easier because it reflects the ramsey plan that's from the beginning called every dollar because you know we tell you to have every dollar needs a name before the month begins and you need to agree on it with your spouse and so no one wins the super bowl accidentally it's a series of intentional acts and in the financial world it's called a budget every month you tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went every dollar needs a mission every dollar needs an assignment

every dollar so we named it every dollar because that's something i've been doing from stage and on the air for years at that point and so so turns out those little goobers in my office were right. That was over a decade ago now. It was over 50 million downloads ago. Woo! It's crazy how this thing has exploded. So this app is, and we've, of course, every minute are iterating it and fixing it and getting it better and better and better.

Now it walks you through the baby steps. Now it does paycheck planning. So if you get paid twice a month, you can divide up what paycheck goes to what bill, all that kind of stuff. And the thing is stinking amazing. So you can get it in the App Store because it's an app. There you go, baby. And I'm not talking about appetizers here.

Very different. Bad joke. But, yeah, download every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play, and you can put it on your phone your spouse's phone you put it on your desktop uh and get started for free and if you want to hook up to your bank you get a whole bunch of other different things and there's a small fee to do all that but man it's uh this thing's incredible it makes it simple to make your money behave too many people don't happen to their money. They go out on a Sunday afternoon drive and have no destination. Well, every time you leave the house, it's $100.

Yep. So you've got to have a plan for where the money is going ahead of time. You're pre-deciding when you make a budget. Game plan. Every dollar in the App Store, Google Play, or at everydollar.com. Marcel is with us in Chicago. Hi, Marcel. How are you?

Hello, George and Dave. Thank you. How are you? Hello, George and Dave. Thank you. How are you doing? Sure. What's up? So with me and my wife, we started the baby steps three months ago, and we managed to kind of clear $20,000 of credit card debt. Great.

And different loans. And $28,000 on a car, which I was having a stupid car loan, $950 a month. You cleared all of that in two or three months? Yes. Wow. We started pretty intense, and I was sick and tired of being in debt. Good. And not seeing the end of the tunnel, kind of.

I was getting more and more and too much in debt. Good job. So this is part of also we having a five-month-old baby. It's our first one, so I think this kind of woke something in me where I'm like, okay. I gotta be responsible for this. Yeah, you're a good

dad. You're a good dad. You care about the future of your family. Well done. Thank you. So I have a trucking business where I'm operating as well in it. I currently have two trucks and two trailers. And one truck is almost paid off with like $7,000 left. One trailer is fully paid off.

And then I have another truck, which is $170,000. And I'm kind of upside down on it because of the economy and trucking business and everything went down. It probably would be worth like $110,000 or $120,000 at the moment. And the other semi-trailer is worth $42,000. And if I would sell it, it will be like $70,000. So going through the baby steps, we also have another car loan, which is $20,000 on a Tesla, but it's going to be paid off in five months. So my question is, since I have also a business

and still that debt, I consider it being mine because I put the signature on it. I'm not sure how to plan on paying it then do i finish the baby steps on a personal level and move on to the business or how like i'm kind of like a bit lost how to maneuver the business good question very good question well there's two two parts to the answer one is you've already accurately identified that it's not technically business debt it's technically personal debt because they don't loan businesses your size

money they loan you money okay and so you have a bunch of debt but i would separate this and say um i would number one the seven thousand i just try to get that knocked out okay quick and just like the tesla knock the tesla and the seven grand out done and then that leaves us with the two big notes on the newer tractor trailer right yeah okay now what i would do you obviously run your business as a separate checking account a separate pnl yeah you keep everything over there you have a good hopefully a good accounting system on that right yes okay here's what we have a lot of depreciation so you have to keep everything in order exactly the maximum well and you have to do your tax you know you have to do your tax planning because you have to do some um uh quarterly estimates so what we teach

entree leaders in our small business coaching is a little bit of a different formula on their debt in the business it's we won't call it business debt we formula on their debt in the business. We won't call it business debt. We'll call it debt in the business. It's a completely separate operation over there, and what we teach them to do is to take a minimum living wage. What's it take to operate your household as your salary out of the business? Not big profits, okay? Not big checks, not windfall, no big bonus money for you, okay?

But just enough for your family to eat comes out of the business. Once you've done that, then calculate net profit after you have been paid, okay, for this month. And then we suggest you put 20% to 30% of that net profit into retained earnings for the business somewhere in there and the other 70% or 80% on the debt. Let the business cash flow build retained earnings a little bit while using the lion's share of the profits to knock the debt down while you make a living out of the business, okay?

Yes. You see how I did that formula? Yes, yes. I figured it would be something like this because I was, like, worried that if I pay all my money towards the debt, I'm like, what if something happens in the business? Your business has to have operating income. Correct, yes, yes. You've got to have more than just budgeted because you're in a, especially in a mechanical world like you're in where you've got equipment because stuff just blows up, you know?

Correct. And then you'll lose a contract if you don't get the load delivered and so on. So you've got to perform in business. And to do that, you have to keep a cash position. And so the good news is I started doing that. We started this business called Ramsey. It's about a $300 million business now on a card table in my living room 30 years ago. Somewhere along the line, my wife got tired of us whining

about not having any cash in the business because we were broke you know we weren't making much money in the early days and she said the reason you don't have any cash in the business is you all are hypocrites you tell people to have an emergency fund and you don't have any cash saved in the business for emergencies sharon burn yeah i, I got trashed. So I hate it when she says stuff like that. And I really hate it when she's right. Which is a lot of the time. So we called our retained earnings the Sharon Fund for a long time. It was nicknamed the Sharon Fund.

Today, saving a percentage of, and we've never had debt, but we always save a percentage every single month of our of our profits before we pay out bonuses or anything else to me or anybody else we put a percentage into uh the sharing fund into retained earnings consequently all these years later that's a big old fund now it adds a lot of money especially you don't need to use it yeah and we haven't hardly used it. We've used it to buy some things for the business and we've used it to

cover a few cash flow things here and there, but by and large, it's just built up. That's part of a healthy company. It's a great cash position is what it is. So that's how we did it, brother. And you're a good man. I'm glad you're thinking like that as a new dad. This is the ramsey show Bye.