The Ramsey Show - App - Past Performance Is How You Predict Future Results (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,casting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. As we talk about your life and your money. Corey starts off this hour in Salt Lake City. Hi, Corey. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you today?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. Thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. I really appreciate it. So, Dave, my question is, well, a little bit of background. So my wife and I combined income, we take home about $86,000 a year. And me and my wife, we're new to your baby steps. We have about $12,900 in student loan debt. And I have recently taken an interest in software coding. My current job, I'm kind of capped out in my income, and I'd like to make more, but I need to go back to school. I found a software boot camp here in Salt Lake City that is about $14,900 for a three-month course

to learn coding. My question is, should I pay off my student loans first and then save up money to pay for the software boot camp or put my loans on hold, save up money, and pay for this boot camp and do that? You make $86,000 a year household income? Yeah. loans on hold, save up money, and pay for this boot camp and do that. You make $86,000 a year household income? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Why can't you do both in a year? Yeah, we can. Okay. We can. More or less, my question is, what should I do first? Should I pay off my student loans first and then save up and do the boot camp? Well, I would pay off because it's not delaying you. If it was five years delaying you to get to do your thing, but it's delaying you six months. Okay.

Yeah, go get your student loans knocked out, then save up the money and go to school. Now, the code school, is it night or day? It is a full-time day course. It's from 9 a.m. to 6 p p.m and you're going to quit your job um well that that was another thing is yeah i'd have to save up some money or work um work nights or what do you make what do you make at your job what portion of the 86 is you uh 68 yeah yeah okay so i'm a i'm a technical writer and um there's just not a lot of job growth here Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'm a technical writer, and there's just not a lot of job growth here in Utah for that.

There's about seven or eight open positions right now, and I've actually interviewed for a couple. How much of that can you do freelance? I've done a little bit of freelance. I made about $4,000 last year freelance But that dried up I'd have to find another contract That's an option too I think I would find three contracts To do while you're in school

Okay Before you quit your job and go to school Okay The most disturbing math part Of this whole discussion is 68 70,000 of your 86 is going away. That sounds like starvation. Yeah. You've got to have that covered.

Okay. Some way or another. How's your family going to eat during this time? Unless somebody wants to hire you before you have finished code school and pay you while you're in code school. That's a detail I didn't think about. I'd have to worry about that. Yeah, somehow we've got to cover that three months of food. Okay.

And, yeah, it could be three contracts are laying there and you're doing your technical writing weekends and nights while you go to school during the day. I think you'll get employed very quickly coming out of code school is my guess. There's pretty much a shortage out there. And, I mean, which language are you thinking of learning? Well, this code school, they teach JavaScript, and I believe it's Node.js. Yeah. Something else. All right.

JavaScript is pretty popular. I mean, we've got several of those folks on the team. We've got a bunch of Ruby folks on the team. And, you know, I think just based as an employer in the marketplace hiring people, that that should get you landed in a position very quickly once you come out of code school. I might want to have that lined up, though. Okay. I don't want to come out and then

start my job search okay um you know at least i have a about four warm leads of where i'm going to go to work upon completion all four of them expressing interest saying hey call us when you get out we think we'll put you on in the meantime you've got some technical writing gigs and again once you learn the code and it'll be better to get on with somebody it's going to be a little tough to do it freelance when you got no experience but exactly but i'm just trying to make sure your family eats at the end of this story before you land in the big javascript job okay from the time you quit your job until you land post-code school in that, that gap, that three months plus getting hired gap is scaring me. If you got that covered,

then yeah, I would pay off my debt, and then I'd save up my 14, and I would go do it. I think it's a good move. I like the overall move, and it's the direction I would go, but you've just got to think through the pieces of it so you don't leave a hole in there, and it derail your plan, turn your plan into a nightmare, your dream into a nightmare. Josh is in Indianapolis. Hi, Josh. How are you? I'm doing good, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have a lease truck that I want to get out of, and that was my dumb decision of the century. And me and my wife, we don't have the money saved up to get out of the lease except for that penalty that I would incur. So I was wondering what your advice might be, and I should move forward. Okay. You have to borrow the difference or save up the difference.

Okay. And it's not a penalty. It's the difference in what the buyout or the payoff on the lease is and what the car is worth. And so go on kellybluebookkbb.com and find out what the car is worth or truck's worth private sale. And so if you sell it to me for $20,000, but the fleece company says you still owe $27,000, you've got a $7,000 hole.

You've got to have that covered with saved money or borrowed money. And so you could talk to your local bank or credit union about borrowing a small, unsecured loan like that to get you out. That's done all the time. But if you've got really bad credit or a bunch of other debt, that'll be very hard to do. But I think you're on the right track, and that's definitely the direction I would go. So, hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Megan is on Instagram. If you really believe people shouldn't use credit cards, why does your web store take credit cards? Well, Megan, it doesn't. We have a very clear sign on there saying not to use a credit card in the store, to use a debit card only. So I know you'd like for me to be a hypocrite because that would make it where you didn't have to go do all the crap I'm telling you to do that's uncomfortable for you to win, but darling, I'm not a hypocrite. We don't suggest people borrow money to do anything we do here, and we do not take credit cards. We take debit cards on our site. So very clear signage there.

Very easy to find. Open discussion about it. You technically could run a credit card through there, but you would be disobeying what we told you to do. And then that would make you the hypocrite, not me. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We're all going through challenges and our lives have been impacted in ways we've never anticipated. If we learned anything, it's that change is constant and having a plan is crucial to our family's livelihood. This is why I talk about term life insurance every day. And for those of you that haven't taken care of this for your family,

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Better than I deserve. How are you? I'm good. I am a sophomore in high school and currently taking your Foundation of Personal Finance class. I have a question about investing. I'm a natural saver and haven't saved for college since I was five years old. I currently have $12,000 in the bank, which is my own money. And my dad is a financial advisor and is suggesting that I should invest $6,000 of it in the MSP 500. That'd be fine. I don't think that's a bad idea.

You've got some of it that way working a little harder because the bank's paying you nothing. The S&P on its worst year is going to make a little more than what the bank's paying you. Very seldom. I mean, it could have a down year. That's possible, but I don't think it could have a down year. That's possible. But I don't think it's going to keep you from going to college. I think your dad's probably giving you some good advice. So it would be a safe place to put my $6,000 in my college fund?

Safe is a relative term, okay? Is it safe to get in the car and drive to the mall? Yes, but you could have a wreck, right? But it's safe. So, you know when you put money in the s&p 500 what you can do and your dad can show you this since he's an advisor he can show you how many down how many years that the s&p actually lost money so if you put six thousand in what are the chances how many years out of the last 30 years has it been down year over year? Meaning is the $6,000 worth less than $6,000?

Not many. And so, you know, and given that we're not putting all your money in there, just half of your money, I think that's a good diversification plan. So it sounds to me like your dad's probably giving you some pretty good advice. But if you want to learn a little bit more about it, he can probably teach you. And what I always look at when I'm buying an investment is I look at the track record. And when I say safe, you buy a home. Home doesn't have a guarantee. It can go down in value. There's no federal guarantee on the value of your home, but it's a fairly safe investment because of the history of homes, the track record. And you

look back 20, 30, 40, 50 years, a single-family home in America has made money almost every time if you leave it alone a while. Same would be true of the S&P 500 index fund or other mutual funds, for that matter. You just look back and, you know, the conservative end of the mutual fund spectrum. I would not do an aggressive growth. I think that would be a mistake with the window you've got. But you're down on the lesser end of volatility with what you're talking about. And look at the track record. Look at the history. That's how you always gauge an investment. Everybody, whether you're in high school or whether you're 50, you know, how do you gauge

an investment? You look at the track record. And that's how we do it. So, hey, thanks for the call. As a matter of fact, have you ever heard some of the stupid butt stuff that the government makes people say in the investing world? Let me give you a stupid butt thing they say. Past history is no guarantee of future performance. It's not indicative of future performance. Well, it is indicative. That's actually a lie. It's not a guarantee.

But if you look at the certain neighborhood and you buy a house, it goes up in value. That neighborhood has been a, quote, good neighborhood, unquote. Put that in air quotes, good neighborhood, meaning not it's the rich end of town, but it's gone up in value. And it's relatively crime free, which also indicates that it's going to go up in value, right? It's a safe neighborhood. The schools are reasonable.

The shopping and the traffic is reasonable. It's a good neighborhood, right? And so it goes up in value. Of course that's indicative of its future. The only way to forecast is off of the past, unless you've got some kind of time machine. And so, you know, yes, an investment's past performance is by far, by far and away, the best way to predict its future. Is it a perfect prediction?

No, because things can change. But, you know, it is a very, you look at something that's got a, you look at a mutual fund that's got a 30-year track record, and the same management team or same management style is there, then that's a good, you know, you've got a good safe plan that you're looking at. You don't have a guaranteed plan. And by safe, you mean guarantee, then you're probably never going to do any investing and you're probably going to struggle to build wealth.

Daniel is in Ames, Iowa. Hi, Daniel. How are you? Hey, not too bad, Dave. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up so um my question is based on the that money talk and life talk that i've just had with my new fiance and uh so we're we're just kind of getting

all our ducks in order and trying to you know feature plan and so we've got a few expenses coming up so obviously one is a marriage and a wedding. And then she just got into grad school, so she's going to be going back to school for her master's in social work. And then just so it turns out, I also got into the master's program that I was looking at, which is in human-computer interaction. And so I've got about $30,000 of debt. She's got like $2,000. And we kind of estimated our annual save rate would probably be around $40,000 per year with our income. And so we just kind of added it all up, and our plan is to eventually move back to be closer with our family in Los Angeles.

And so we're thinking it might take maybe you know, maybe two years just to save for down payment for a house or, you know, just moving expenses from there. So it looks like we're out about four to five years. And so is that, throughout that time, do I need to stop all my contributions to my 401k? Are we doing everything correctly? Okay. Well, yes, you need to stop contributions to contributions to my 401k um are we doing everything correctly okay well what yes you need to stop contributions 401k right now um and how are you going to pay for grad school uh cash fluid so good that's good i'm really really happy i found it and when is the uh when is the wedding

well we and we haven't really nailed down a date because of this. So we don't have a whole lot of money saved. Well, I've got about $18,000, and she has about $2,000. Okay. Well, you've definitely got enough to get married. Well, and so I have a little bit of padding there just because I am in outside sales, and I don't really own a personal car. So for whatever reason, if I were to leave my company, I'd be able to buy a car. Dude, we're talking about getting married.

Okay. That trumps buying a car that you don't need right now and may not need ever. So, you know, you get married. I mean, you don't have to spend the whole $18,000, but you get enough money to do a basic wedding. Because I don't want you to start paying her bills or her start paying your bills when you're not married that's a dangerous scenario any more than i would if you just had a roommate you said hey you know i'm gonna start paying some of his stuff you know no you don't do that that sets you up for failure in the relationship it sets you up for all kinds of problems of the relationship on what ravels you just don't want to do that so i'm

scheduling the marriage as one of my first priorities in thevels you just don't want to do that so i'm scheduling the marriage is one of my first priorities in the financials if i'm in your shoes okay now once i've done that you know budget a wedding we'll just make up a number 10 grand okay and we're gonna have a ten thousand dollar wedding we're gonna get married i'm gonna buy a ring for a thousand bucks or two thousand bucks or whatever and you just budget that out okay now then then i got a cash flow school and uh we've got to combine these households, which, by the way, is also going to lower your costs for operating the households if you combine them. And in a marriage scenario, the costs are even lowered even more than shacking up, by the way,

because insurance, all kinds of things you can combine when you're married that you can't do when you're shacking up. You have to keep individual everythings. And so it's just more costly. So anyway, that all lines up. We're married now. Then we're going to go through school debt free and we're going to build an emergency fund.

We're going to live on a budget. We're going to work the baby steps as much as we can. When you're both out of school, you should be able to build a down payment and restart your uh your retirement savings that your 401k savings and so forth at that point pretty easily and then decide to make your move and when you make the move to la there's nobody says you have to buy the first day you're there you could rent for a while there and establish yourselves in your careers there and then save up in that process. So saving up for the house in L.A., way down the list, but just prioritize these things. What's first?

What's second? What's third? Again, if I'm in your shoes, the wedding is first, the ring's first, then the wedding. And then I'm going to, you know, walk down these things in order, put together a plan, combine our finances and combine our goals, and then just prioritize. When are we going to get to each thing? This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, I love telling you about well-made, well-thought-out products. Today, I'm talking about Grip6 belts. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of traditional belts.

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That's GRIPSIX.com. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, giving you the same financial advice your grandmother would, only we keep our teeth in. Liz is with us in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Hi, Liz. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I'm wondering what we should focus our money on. My husband is in the military, and so our take-home pay is about $20,000 a year, and we have our housing paid for, so we're doing fine. But we're just about finished with Step 3, and we're looking at Step 3B.

But we're planning on making career military, and so we're not planning on buying a house for probably another 20 years. We're wondering where we should focus our money with 3B, 4, 5, 6, et cetera. Well, I'd start doing Baby Step 4 traditionally, which is 15% of your income into retirement and into Roths. You've got the Thrift Savings Plan, the TSP available, and you do Roth there. In addition to that, I would begin to invest for your home. Since you don't pay a house,

since you don't pay for a house, pay yourself a house payment, or maybe not a whole payment. You only make $20,000, so you've got a lot of room in this budget, but begin to pay yourself some kind of payment for housing, and just put that in a traditional mutual fund. You might even use just like an S&P 500, a very simple fund with no load because we don't know exactly when we're going to pull it out. And there's hardly any taxes on that as it grows because of the way they're set up, an S&P 500. And you'll pay some taxes on it when you pull it out because it's not in a retirement account. But the very purpose of it not being in a retirement account is you've got access to that lump of money for your house someday right so just name that mutual fund in your mind that's our house fund and pay yourself pay yourself a

payment and if you start out low and say you know right now we're going to put 15 into retirement and our budget's tight so we're going to put 100 bucks in there okay and later on as you make more money then you know we're going to put 300 bucks in there we're going to put 500 we're going to put a thousand in there and you look up and you you know, if you are career military, you end up playing out your goal here, you know, you'll end up with several hundred thousand dollars laying there someday that you just write a check and buy a house. Okay. And in relation with that, like how to make more room in our budget, we're wondering how

do we set up our taxes? Because we're getting a huge tax return because we have two kids, but it's way more than what we're paying into taxes. So I just didn't know how to set that. Well, you take as many dependents as you can take. There should be no income tax taken out of your check. Okay. You claim enough dependents and no income tax is taken out of your check

because you're not and no income tax is taking out your check because you're not paying any income tax you're actually receiving money from the government called the earned income tax credit and um it's you know it's basically because you have a low income and a family right and so is he on track to move on up through the ranks to get better income yes it just takes time yeah okay because i mean if you plan on 20 years at 20 grand that's gonna be that's gonna be a long no no that's gonna be it's about this for um probably another year or so and then it'll be like three or four thousand more per year and then he's planning on commissioning in about four or five years

when he's done with his degree and that will bump it up quite a bit. Yeah, get into officer training. Okay, cool. Which branch is he in? Air Force. Good, good, very cool, good. Well, thanks for your service to both of you. We appreciate you calling in, okay?

Yep, thank you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Keegan is in Knoxville. Hi, Keegan, how are you? Good, how about you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so when I turned 16, my grandpa put $5,000 into a mutual fund account. If I forward you today, I'm a sophomore at the University of Tennessee, and that account is now at $7,500. Very good. Thank you. And so I currently have $1,100 in a savings account.

Me and my parents are trying to determine whether I should invest half of it in mutual funds and then keep the other half for emergency purposes or leave all $1,100 in a savings account for emergencies. How are you paying for school? I'm blessed with a GI Bill. Good for you. Okay, good. And so that covers a stipend plus books and tuition, right? Yes, sir. Okay, so you've got everything covered. Yes, sir.

Okay, cool. What are you studying? Supply chain management. Oh, very good at University of Tennessee, one of the top logistic schools in the nation. Good for you. Go Vols. Go Vols. All right.

Yeah, you'll come out making bank. Well, with your very stable situation, I don't predict the government not following through on the GI Bill in the next three years while you finish school. So, you know, you've got a lot of money here. How's your car? We're looking at buying a new one, and that's year two. But, I mean, it's still running. Okay.

How are you going to pay for that? I haven't considered that. Okay. I would consider that in this move. Because if you move some of this money into the mutual fund, and the stock market goes down, and you want to use some of it to buy a car, you're going to wish you didn't move it over there. Right.

And so, other than the car situation, I think moving half of it over there is fine. The market might be down. Your $7,500 plus $500 you put in there, $8,000, could be worth $7,000 when you get ready to buy a car. Right. That could happen. I'm not saying it's going to. It could be worth $8,000. But that's the risk you're taking with this extra $500 as you're riding the market.

So we probably need to lay out a game plan for the car, and this money might need to go into that game plan more than that mutual fund. But if it doesn't, it's fine to stick it in there. You've got a really stable situation, and, man, you have got a great field of study. You've got a pretty impressive, I mean, where you're going to be able to go. And with the GI Bill, you're going through school debt free. You're set, man. And Grandpa will set you up with a mutual fund.

Everybody's doing smart things in your life, brother. Everybody, including you. Well done. Guys, if y'all don't know this, I'm amazed. The supply chain, which is what we used to call logistics back in the day, they've changed the name of it now, these guys are coming out with undergrad degrees in supply chain, making 80 grand. It is amazing.

I've met several of them. You know, they've graduated recently in the last three to five years. And even a few years later, making even more. It is a tremendous field of study because you can show by manipulating inventory orders and handling it properly and managing distribution and so forth with a company, you can show that, oh, you pay me 80 grand. I just saved you 400,000 with these five calculations I did. And so companies love these guys. I've got a couple of them on board here and I love them. I wish if every one of them that I made, I paid $100 to, and they saved me $300, how many of those

do you think we'd hire? As many as we could get, right? And that's... Cost justifies from a company standpoint. The value added is absolutely amazing. So, there you go. Something to think about. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Elizabeth is with us in Twin Cities, Minnesota. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you? Better than I deserve.

Mr. Ramsey, how are you? Just the same. How can I help? So I am graduating this May with a degree in early childhood education, but I will be student teaching up through June. As an early childhood educator, I absolutely love my job, but I'm aware that I'm probably not going to make a lot of money. I'll be comfortable, but I won't make a ton. I have a passion for giving, and I would like to do it on a huge scale, but I'm going to have a

tiny income, probably $50,000, $55,000 tops if I stay in Minnesota, what would you suggest I do to set myself up to really, really win and be able to give in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars range? Okay. Well, I think number one, I'm not necessarily going to assume that the standard method of career path, the standard career path that you've explored is the only way to go. There's always different ways to apply not only your education but your passions in the marketplace to make more money. I'll give you an example. A teacher in a public school or a private school makes X, right?

Guess what I do every day? I teach. in a public school or a private school makes X, right? Guess what I do every day? I teach. And I wasn't trained formally as a teacher, but I've done a lot of study about the concept of learning, and I'm a pretty well-paid teacher. That's true. That's the kind of thing I want you to think about first,

is there's some things to do there. Secondly, it's obvious math stuff. I mean, time will allow you to grow a nest egg that will allow you to give more. Don't be afraid to build wealth in order to create a giving machine. And then the second thing is, obviously, the more you keep your lifestyle down in ratio to your income, that's going to give you that margin to give on a daily basis, but also to build the wealth to give throughout your life with. So you can do it. It's just about choices of lifestyle. Hey, thanks for the call. Folks, since you're spending more time at home these days, why not make the most of it? Now, I know not everyone has the means to do a full renovation, but thanks to our friends at Blinds.com,

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Rules and restrictions apply. Andrew is in Los Angeles. Hey, Andrew, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? My wife and I just finished baby step 3B and ready for step 4, and our federal and state tax bill just came in about $3,000. So our CPA is recommending a $5,000 step contribution to reduce our tax bill. So if we were to do this and roll it into an IRA in the future, we'd be basically

paying this similar taxes. It's fine. So you have the ability to do a SEP, obviously. Yes. Okay. And you got the $5,000 over and above your emergency fund? Yes, we do. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm always going to move towards a Roth more than I am a traditional investment, a pre-tax investment, because the Roth is going to grow tax-free. And of course, if your business grows and you're hiring people, soon you won't be able

to do a SEP. It won't make sense to do a SEP. Right. Because any employees that have been with you more than three of the last five years have to have the same percentage put into theirs that you put in percentage of yours. But for this year, if you want to do that, that's fine. I did a SEP early in this business, and then I just rolled it to an IRA, a traditional IRA, and then I rolled all that traditional into Roth a few years ago as well

so that it was all growing from that point tax-free. And I just wrote a check separately for the tax bill, which has the same effect of having an additional investment is really what it is. But for this year, that's fine. The reason I'm stammering and stuttering around is this. I don't want you to long-term make your investment decisions to save on this year's tax bill. Right. And that's not our goal.

But, you know, because we have this opportunity, we thought it might be. Yeah, one-time hit. Yeah, I'm fine with that. But year in and year out, if your guys, if the way he decides how you invest is he's trying to save you on this year's tax bill, that's probably not going to take you where you want to go. Long-term, where you want to go is what's going to put me in the best position at net of taxes, and the Roth products are going to, or the Roth qualifications are going to

put you there in a lot better shape, and long-term. But for this one, I probably would do it. You know, I don't dispute this one move. James is with us in New York. Hi, James. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? I have a question. I know typically you say to save 20% for a down payment on a home, but I'm a prior service person, so I was thinking of using the VA home loan, and I've heard that it doesn't have PMI, and you can at least put down like 8%, and I was wondering what your take on that would be. Well, you can put down 5% on a Fannie Mae conventional.

You can get into a mortgage without putting down a full 20%. The beauty of putting down the 20% is to avoid the PMI. VA does have a funding fee, and basically it ends up net, net, net, being the most expensive kind of loan. Unless you're a disabled veteran. Are you disabled? No, I'm not disabled. Okay.

If you're not disabled, then they waive the funding fees and some of the other stuff. But they're not good loans. You're better off if you're going to put down 8% to do a traditional Fannie Mae, a conventional loan, and just put 8% down. You can get a 95% loan there and your other closing costs, and you're going to end up less interest rate, less fees all the way around than the VA loan. Between VA, FHA, and conventional, VA is the most expensive of the three. Nathan is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Nathan. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Hey, so I'm on Baby Step 4, and I really enjoy your show. A little bit about my situation. I moved to Utah back in June from California, and I studied exercise and wellness in my undergraduate education. Currently I work in a job that I'm not in my field right now, and here in Utah it's a very competitive market for what I want to go into, health coaching. So I don't like my job right now. It's just been very difficult to find work. But on the

other side, I have a personal training background and try to make sure I follow the baby steps. And I'm planning to get married. So my question is, what should I focus on in my job search, finding a health coach, or just try to start something on the side as a personal trainer? What takes you where you want to be 10 years from now? Well, I'd like to work as a health coach for an insurance company that has benefits and secure income, that I can be a great employee in the marketplace. And so that's what I'd like to be is have that secure job.

So how does being a personal trainer and building a book of clients on the side help you get that well it's something to get supplement income um you know i'm getting married in um june and i'm just trying to find ways to increase my income but the job i have right now is not paying enough. And so I'm just, you know, I have an emergency fund, but I'm just trying to find ways, what should I focus more? Supplementing your income is not a bad thing at all. But that wasn't what we started the conversation with. We started the conversation with you didn't like your job

and it was too competitive in the marketplace to land something in your degree field that you want right now, and so i'm going to go do this so if you want to do it to supplement your income that's fine i'm not sure and it is at least in the general field or the general category of your field which is not a bad thing um but but the thing i don't want you to do is to get sidetracked somewhere along the lines and not land the actual position that you're looking for. So what's the actual position I'm looking for, and what are some steps I can take to get that position nailed down?

And if that's a two-year plan to get that position nailed down, that's fine. In the meantime, you supplement your income doing some personal training, that's fine. I've got no issue with that. But let's not get sidetracked and end up with this super successful, big personal training operation. And then you look up and you go, gosh, I've been doing this 10 years and I'm stuck. I can't do it. I can't get out. I've got golden handcuffs now. And so you climb the ladder of success only to find it's leaning against the wrong wall.

That's what I'm talking about. So let's make sure that whatever steps you're taking are always taking you where you want to end up. If this is simply some part-time income, no troubles. Love it. Go be a personal trainer. Do that. Absolutely. No issue at all uh but i would not um uh i would just be careful that

you're with your career choices you're always looking on where you're going long term where am i going long term where am i going long term too many people accidentally fall into uh just a job and they work it for, and they look up and realize they're miserable, and you don't want to go that. Your job needs to be like your money. Your career needs to be like your money. It needs to be an intentional series of intentional acts. I'm going to take this action and this action and this action and this action, and that's

the direction to go. Deb is on Facebook. Do I need mortgage protection insurance if I already have life insurance? No, mortgage protection insurance is mortgage life. Mortgage life insurance is a rip off. It's 20 times more expensive than term. So you never buy mortgage life insurance unless you're uninsurable. If you're uninsurable, it's a way to get your mortgage at least paid off if you die. So if you've got health problems, have had health problems, and you can't get life insurance,

most mortgage life is what's called guaranteed issue, which means they're going to issue it regardless of your medical. But they charge you 20 times more than traditional term. So you've got a $200,000 mortgage, you're basically buying $200,000 worth of term insurance, and you're paying about 20 times more than you would pay for traditional term insurance of $200,000. But, again, it's a guaranteed issue,

so they're going to write it for sick people, they're going to write it for everybody, for people that have had illness in the past, that kind of thing. But otherwise, it's just a gimmick. There's no other use for it. Always just buy term insurance. Go to zanderinsurance.com and talk to Jeff Zander's team over there. They'll help you.

Absolutely incredible. They'll shop among a bunch of different companies, get you the best price. You need about 10 to 12 times your income on you on 15 to 20-year level term insurance, and that'll set you up hey good question thank you for joining us this is the dave ramsey show in the middle of these uncertain times ramsey solutions wants to give you some hope. For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.