The Ramsey Show - App - Quit Looking for a Shortcut! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 15, 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. George Camel, Ramsey personality, host of the George Camel Show. Very popular on YouTube as my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Very important day for Mr. George Camel and all of us here at Ramsey in that this is the last day you can get the deal on his brand new book,

Breaking Free from Broke, because tomorrow is launch day. Woo! Here we go, baby. It's here. Game on. Yeah, and tomorrow's the Super Bowl, and today is the warm-up. If you guys want the deal, though, this is your Super Bowl, because the book Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress, Absolutely incredible new book. Comes out tomorrow. What

that means for you, if you're listening and hear this before Tuesday the 16th, up until midnight on the 15th, you can get the book and a whole bunch of goodies. Oh yeah, you get instant access to my talk, Show Me the Money. It's a video talk. We have an online private event happening next week with a Q&A. And this is the big one, the enhanced audiobook. You get completely for free with all the sound design and custom music. And the team did an amazing job. It's a very cool audiobook. Very cool.

And that's totally free when you pre-order the hardcover. And of course, the e-book as well for you digital readers out there. And no matter when you buy the book, you also get three months of every dollar premium. So I wanted people to have an actionable plan when they walk away and not just, huh, good book. I want you to actually go live out the principles and take control of your money and choose hope instead of cynicism this year as we head into an election, Dave.

That's hard to do in that setting. But anyway, so the deal is that you have done some in-depth, detailed research on the scams and schemes of the people that want to take your money from you boys and girls out there. And George exposes the mythology and the villains in the marketplace. Absolutely. The first two-thirds of the book unpacks the system designed to keep you broke. And I talk about credit scores and credit cards, which I believe are the gateway drug into all the other types of debt. I cover car loans and student loans and mortgage traps and investing traps and marketing and consumerism, which just exacerbates the whole problem. And I think once you get through of that,

you're going to want to take a shower. You're going to have enough ick that you go, okay, I need to opt out of this. I do need to break free from this kind of broke. I call them chains because I think most Americans, they work too hard to feel this broke. They're feeling the chains of payments in this world. They feel like they're on the hamster in the wheel, rat in the maze, an Uber ride from hell, and they just want something different. And I think this book is going to help you live counterculturally and give you hope that you can break free from those chains and have freedom with your money. So you'll get the knowledge, you'll get the confidence to break free, and all of the evidence is there with great detail. And you guys that are a little bit nerdy and like the research, George is a consumer advocate at heart, and he can't

resist digging up the dirt and proving to you how you're being screwed. There's 130 sources in this book. It was exhausting to do all the research, but I had to prove it, not just my opinion and our experience of, you know, you doing the show for 30 years, but actual data from, you know, the Federal Reserve and from MIT proving our plan works. So brand new book out on the 16th of January. If you hear this before then, up until midnight on the 15th, you can get the new book, Breaking Free from Broke, and instant access to George's newest talk, Show Me the Money, exclusive access to an online private event next week, a Q&A with George, the enhanced audiobook. And so what we decided to do was take all of our audiobooks from this point forward

and put a little jazz to them, make them little better make them a little sound effects some sounders coming in and out rather than just us reading the book so i was the guinea pig for this yeah you're the first one out i don't know if we're gonna want to be called a guinea pig or not but yeah but anyway you were the first one well you were a pioneer george well it's because you know i've hosted our podcast borrowed future the fine print and i've always loved that kind of narrative storytelling style that has some of those elements in it. And I even did some custom music, Dave. The intro and outro for each chapter is actually my playing. Even producer James got in there.

He played one of them. So that's a little Easter egg for you guys. Oh, there you go. Unless you hated the music, in which case it wasn't me, Dave. Well, until I see the bill for the royalty show. Oh, my gosh. Don't worry, Dave. That part is zero.

I like it. Breaking free from broke. Check it out at ramseysolutions.com. And, again, you get $100 worth of free bonus items if you get started on it early. We talked about this in our, uh, wildly successful, uh, live stream last week. Uh, thank you guys. There were 419,000 of you signed up literally to come aboard.

Not all of you came, but you signed up to come and, uh, hundreds of thousands of you did, and it was by far the biggest live stream Ramsey has ever done. Uh, it was number one on YouTube that night of anything. Wow. Wow. Yeah, we blew YouTube up. We just about broke the Internet with a number of people signing on our site to get onto every dollar and saying, hey, I'm going to break the cycle, which is what that's for. We're breaking a lot of stuff.

We're breaking free from broke. We're breaking the cycle. I think it's time. But you talked a little bit about some of this for your section on that live stream last week, and the feedback in the comments was really excellent. I mean, people are hungry to not be stuck anymore. Yeah, and I wanted to lead with empathy and go, listen, there's a lot of reasons. There's a lot of finger pointing we can do, a lot of things to blame this year as to why we're not going to get ahead

and why we have to stay true. You even blamed the baby boomers. I did not really appreciate that. Well, it wasn wasn't me blaming it was here's what i'm seeing out there you know people like you gen z millennials are going the boomers ruin the housing market dave this is why i can't afford a house and my dad is saying oh shut up you can do it you paid thirteen thousand dollars which by the way i've never lived in a house that i paid thirteen thousand dollars for i actually did buy one in the hood one time oh gosh but it was not a desirable it's not a home that i lived in not not quite chipping joanna nope nope not before or after but anyway the uh yeah

that but yeah so we were in the housing market for sure buying our our homes for a mere two hundred thousand dollars exactly mere whatever and then um actually the home before last, I paid $353,000 for. It's worth about a million. Wow. So we know. I mean, the appreciation of the housing market is real. And Daniel and Rachel were, Rachel was 10 years old when I bought that. So that's a classic boomer story.

But it's not 13,000, you goobers. But it's just one of the things, Dave, you know, that I talked about the Fed and Congress and the president and inflation. There's a lot of things you can blame it on. Yeah, and exactly. There's plenty of villains out there. The only person who can fix it is you. And the more we rely and complain, the less we're going to make progress. And so that was one piece of that talk I did. And I unpack more in the book. But the other piece is we all sort of fell into this trap. I tell people it's not all of your fault, but it's your responsibility. You weren't taught financial literacy. You were told the path to upward mobility is to take out unlimited student loans, and you got to have a nice car, and then

you got to get a house because renting is a sin and a waste of money. And we all just followed down this path and realized that instead of the American dream, we got delivered the American nightmare. And so I led with all of that empathy to go, I understand and I'm sorry, but I'm going to show you a way out in spite of all of that. And that was the heart behind this book. Here we go. Breaking Free from Broke comes out tomorrow. So order it by midnight tonight. This is January the 15th that we're recording this. So January 16th is launch day. We would love to have you purchase this. Go to ramseysolutions.com.

You're going to love it. Go to the store and get $100 worth of free goodies with the book for only $20. Breaking Free from Broke by George Campbell. Congratulations, George. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate you publishing it. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christopher is with us in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Christopher. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Dave, I am a fellow believer, so you are brother Dave to me. It is an honor to be on your show today, man. Oh, we're honored to have you, sir. How can we help? All right. I'm 28, married with 202. I work for a church making $43,000 a year take home. We are nearly done with baby step three, and we have enough for our bills, but things are tight. I have a friend and mentor twice my age who is a successful businessman.

He knows our financial situation and offered me a business opportunity that he has proved with someone else. He suggested trying it independently or taking a $10,000 investment from him for faster growth, of course, a share in profits. I hesitated because of our close relationship, seeing it as a personal loan, and the thought of trying to work hard and fast to make back his investment caused me great anxiety. When I expressed interest in starting the business without taking his money because of viewing it as a personal loan, he got very upset, claiming that it was a weak excuse for not wanting to admit that I could make more money on my own. He acted like I was trying to pull one over on him and that he was going to call my bluff, but my heart truly did prioritize the relationship

over potential business gains. So my question is, was I wrong to view the investment as debt? Did I miss out on an opportunity? Did I do the right thing following my gut and not adding anxiety to my life? Is this just a conflict of different ways to view money? No, this is a butthole. I mean, what kind of guy is a mentor

and then sets you up to get you into something he wants you into and then is mad because you won't do it? That's not a mentor. He violated mentor ethics. That's right. That's a manipulator. That's what that is. That's a manipulator. That's what that is. That's a manipulative move.

Yeah, big time. The relationship, by the way, isn't anywhere near what you think it is. And let me just say, as a guy who I still have older mentors in my life, and I talk with them regularly, a true mentor, as Dave said, would never react that way. That relationship isn't anywhere near what you think it is. And I hate to tell you that, but you need to be aware of that. Yeah, I would take his name off the mentor plaque.

He gets the mentor plaque beside his name. We have to take that plaque down. I like that. We have to put up a different plaque that just says, a guy who wants money plaque. No, that's not it. I mean, a mentor wants your best interest at heart and has absolutely zero conflict

on their part and so he was way too emotionally and otherwise invested in you doing this okay like you know if i if i'm mentoring someone which i don't do very often for this exact reason but uh and i i say hey go do this and they don't go do it they don't get anything from me but the next time i get ready to tell them something i might hesitate but i'm not going to go i told you not to do that you know um if they come back and go you told me not to do that and i screwed this up okay learning experience that's fine but i'm not you know i don't have to search someone down and defend my ego when i'm in the mentor seat that's that's wild man it's kind of heartbreaking because you you know you really depended on this guy deflating yeah yeah it was really deflating

and it seems like a really good it's like your dad talking down to you? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Like your dad yelling at you when you're a grown man. I mean, it's like, golly, that don't work. You know, you're confused about that too. I don't know, Ken. Yeah, I would say that a mentor needs nothing from you and should never need anything from you, other than if, you know, they call and it's relational hey pray for me or something like that but this is this is a manipulator the reaction really disgusts me if

i'm being honest uh it's almost like he's a little desperate it's it rings of some desperateness if he's trying to shove 10 grand down your throat so that he can make a profit something about it is yeah we're gonna share in the profits and'm going to put you to work over here. Yeah, something's off. Yeah, that's wrong. All right, Brian's in Salt Lake City. Hey, Brian, how are you? Doing great, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So, question, I've followed you for years, but I am in a situation where I'm starting again, and it is a little bit of a shame around student loans. So I'm 49 years old, and I've got about $20,000 in student loans, and I've been paying for about 19 years. What do you mean by starting again?

I have used your program and had success, but I always counted myself as debt-free, not including my home and not including my student loans. So you used your program and said it was mine. Okay. Well, yes. But I get motivated and then I don't. And I try to just ignore that this is out there. Okay, and obviously you're calling because that's not working. Yeah, I'm anxious about it, and I'd love to know kind of what your thoughts are. I know that there are some programs out there around forgiveness if you've been paying for 20 years. What's your household income, Brian?

I make about $90,000 a year. Okay. The program is cut your lifestyle and pay this off in 12 months. That's the program. Live on $70,000 minus taxes and pay this off in one year. That's about $1,800 a month, and that means you're not going out to eat, and it means you're not going on vacation, and it means you're not doing half the other crap you've been doing with your ninety thousand

dollars and you're going to finally address this head-on that's the program quit looking for a shortcut man it's not work for you you're going to hit it right straight in the nose. Hit the bully in the nose. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. It's very doable. You got no other debt but this, right? In the house.

I own my car. Oh, okay. So we went back to that, too. Okay, so how much do you own your car? About 15. Okay, that's not too bad. All right. So $35,000 out of 90. Yep.

So we're debt-free in under two years. Can we agree you could come up with $17,500 a year for two years, please? Please tell me you can do $1,500 a month, or you'll figure out a way to cut everything. But, I mean, that's what you've got to do. You've been trying to find a way to not do this and it still go away and and the problem with the whole thing is there's only really one solution and it's it's its name is not joe biden i mean there's only one solution and its name is brian because i'm not going to pay it off you are brian do you have any margin in your budget at the end of the month?

Yeah. How much? I haven't been good at budgeting, but I'm not. I wouldn't consider myself living paycheck to paycheck. I have a little bit of savings. Give me a round number, a given month. I understand you haven't been disciplined, but what's a round number each month that you know you've got margin on? I'm not sure if I fully understand your question.

All right, do you have $1,000 after all bills? How much can you scrape together in your mind right now a month to throw at this? Yeah, I could come up with, I think, between $700 and $1,000 a month. Okay, all right. And then when you start doing your budget, you're going to get that to $1,500 and you're going to be done in under two years. And that doesn't include you going out and making some extra money. A guy who makes $90,000 has got some skill set. This is about absolute, you talked about motivation. I get motivated and then I lose motivation. And you know, motivation is really about an end result. It's a real clear focus on a result that I want. And then the actions take place naturally. That's what real motivation is. What's my motive for getting up

early or eating right or saving money? What's the motive? And that's the end result. You've got to start looking at the end result and no anxiety over this debt anymore. You mentioned that. All the other things. If you get clearly focused on that, Dave, then the actions take care of themselves. Here's the way I look at it sometimes when I'm looking at this stuff. If I'm going, because I do that too. I guess we all do. We all do. I go, if someone that I dearly loved, one of my grandchildren's, life depended on it, could I? Well, yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. That's a clear motive. I mean, you know, so it's not a question of could I? It's a question of will I? Yeah, that's right. That's what it comes down to. This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host Al is in Fort Smith Arkansas hey Al how are you doing okay Al thank you so much for taking my call sure and just just to let you know I am a long

long time listener and this is my first time ever to call. Well, we're honored. How can we help you today, sir? I'm honored, too. Okay, so question is, this is about paying off mortgage versus leaving the money in investment. The mortgage is about $188,000 at a 3.375 interest we owe about 26 more years on it and i am 65 years well i'll be 65 in may the investments are roughly 600 000 making about anywhere from say six to eight percent a whole bunch of mutual funds based on what you told me over the years.

So that's my question really is do I go ahead and pay off the mortgage, which would then bring the investments down after paying taxes in the range of, say, $360,000? What do you say? About $400,000, yeah. Well, the way I do these things is I reverse engineer it, and then I see how that feels. Let's pretend that you had a debt-free house and $400,000 in investments.

Okay. Would you go borrow $188,000 at said interest rate to put more in your investments? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't. That wakes me up when I look at it that way. And all that is is the exact same thing but backwards, right?

Right. Right. same thing but backwards right right right so uh the only thing that gives me a little bit of pause is if you told me you had 600 left over or 800 left over i'd go in a heartbeat go do it 400 is kind of like it's a lot and you've done really well but you're gonna have to be careful to not you know go go on a spending spree or something, which I don't think you're going to do. It doesn't sound like you. No, no. And I agree with you that $400 would be on that edge

because I've ran the retirement calculators, including yours, and it puts me on the edge. Yeah. With no house payment, I mean, I always use just on the high side, 8% of the nest egg um and so you know that's what 20 what was that come out 32 000 a year right you know 320 000 yeah 32 000 a year so you know you got 2 500 bucks a month coming in plus As a revenue stream, no. Okay.

Together we bring in about 118 gross per year right now. Working. You're still working. Yes, I'm still working. Yeah, okay. But, I mean, if you retired, you'd be on 8% of that max of your nest egg with no payments in the world plus social security right so you'd have but you'd have about half what you got now coming in but you'd have no house payment and you'd not be and you but but of course the longer you work the more we change that 400

that does change the equation that's correct yeah you know so change the social security yeah yeah now i'm not enough to worry about i wouldn't keep working for that but i i like working because i like accomplishing things i like helping people i like the sense of uh traction that it gives me and i don't mind making money i like doing that too so uh as long as you're doing that i think i'd keep going and i'd pay it off today i mean there's something to be said to not retire it everybody thinks you have to retire you don't have to retire no in fact you know retirement can look however you want it to you want to work 20 hours a week

25 hours a week doing something that keeps you mentally and emotionally i'm not talking about wood shop no you don't have to start talking about go do something in your career field in your discipline where you make some bank. Yeah, and you're doing something. You might do business coaching and make more in 20 hours than you're making now. Right. Yeah. I mean, something high, with a high level of sophistication.

I mean, when sometimes people say, you know, I'm going to be a fishing guy. That's not what I'm talking about. No, listen, I just read an article last week that hiring managers with the wave of Gen Z coming into the workforce, they are actively trying to hire older people. The ageism that has been in existence for a while is dissipating. If you're in your 60s, you've got some skill and experience. You're a great locker room presence for hiring managers. They'll hire you now. So to your point, you can stay active longer and work and do really well because companies are looking for that older, seasoned veteran,

if you want to use that football analogy or basketball analogy. I have not heard that, but I've got an instant theory that pops into my head. What's your thought? Well, the thing that I'm hearing all over the place in the leadership circles that I'm running in and where I'm doing entree leadership stuff is that Gen Z is highly skilled in their disciplines, but a lot of them have soft skill problems with relational skills. That's correct.

And putting that old dog in there that's very relational, almost to mentor and train just by their mere presence seems to make a lot of sense. It does. And it also squares with the data that Gen Z over, I want to say about 52% of Gen Z reports saying they want to actually work in the office because they want to be mentored. Keep in mind, one of the effects of this generation of the helicopter parents, Gen X and millennial parents, is that these kids have been guided in helicopter to the point that now when they get in the real world, they actually are craving the good ones with character, not the ones we see on TikTok. They're craving some older mentorship in the office. They want that older guy. The tough old coach. They do. Someone they feel safe with. Hey, this old guy is going to take care of me and show me the ropes. He loves me, but he's going to bust me.

Yeah. But they feel security in that someone's going to show me what to do. So there are some benefits. My point here to our greater audience is don't assume that your value drops in your feel security in that someone's going to show me what to do so there are some benefits my point here to our greater audience is don't assume that your value drops in your 60s the data says otherwise that's interesting and certainly that's true for how we don't we didn't stay with how long to find out what his actual career is but right but uh he's obviously making some money six figures coming into the house so i was also going to ask you, depending on how much his house has worked, does that change your advice there on that? No.

Because here's the thing. The largest line item, folks, in your budget at any time in your life, the most expensive item in your budget is housing. Your biggest expense, even if your house is paid for, is still your biggest expense with taxes, insurance, and maintenance, right? So it's still housing is your biggest expense. When you can do away with the payment part of that expense, it stabilizes your golden years.

I mean, when you go from 60 to 90, that 30-year period of time with no house payment, with that kind of stability, it changes your emotional state. And therefore, it actually affects your health because you're not, as Dr. John Loney says, you're not carrying around that stress between your shoulder blades, which debt is, stress between your shoulder blades. Whether you actually remember it's there or not, you don't. Right.

And I like that. And this is safe money, too, because as as they get older maybe they need to go into some assisted care that house is sitting there that's money waiting for them to cash out yeah and it's it's it just it it is one of the two things that we see with the people that have the first one to five million dollars of of net worth your first million dollars up to your first five million is a paid for house and a big old 401k and he's got both yep now or he's about to have both if he does that so al's done a really good job yeah he's in the top probably four or five percent of americans financially in his situation he's done excellent work um and even at that we're saying oh i wish

it was a little bit more sure you know but he's making 100 a year so you thought you start throwing load that 401k up load the iras up anything else you can load up for the next and work three more years four more years yeah that all of a sudden then that becomes a no-brainer right that changes everything if you had to retire today on that that's when it kind of gives you i want to take a little bit of a breath there. Right. Pretty crazy. But isn't that a wonderful thing, though, that that guy has been listening all those years to us and has gone and done the stuff and is in really, really good shape.

Congratulations, sir. Very proud of you. Very, very, very well done. And, you know, folks, you just don't want to get to retirement, and the only thing you have is the government, which is well known for its ability to handle money, is going to take care of me. That's a pretty dumb idea. That's the definition of insanity. This is The Ramsey Show.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Josh and Claire are with us in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, guys. How are you? We are good. Cool. How can we help? Well, we had a question if we should sell our house and move and rent or if we should stay put. And the reason we're asking is because we have some debt and we both drive about 40 minutes each way to our jobs.

Which wasn't how it was when we bought the house originally. Okay. How much debt do you have? Combined without the house is about $100,000. On what? $86,000 on student loans, about $10,000 on a car. Yeah, that's it. What's your household income? About $90,000 a year. Okay, cool. All right.

And what's the house worth? About $200,000. What do you owe on it? Say that again? What do you owe on it? About $175,000. Okay, so by the time you sell it, you don't have much equity, if any? No.

Okay, so it doesn't really pay off any debt. It just gets rid of the house, and you move closer. Mm-hmm. Okay, so it doesn't pay off of $100,000 in debt, right? Am I missing something? No, we're just wondering. You just want to move closer to work. Well, that and the cost of renting versus paying the mortgage, is it worth to be closer to work?

Well, that's what I want to know. So what's the difference? Give us the difference between what rent would be if you move closer versus your current mortgage. Our current mortgage is about $1,500, and rent will be about $1,500 to $1,700. Okay. So let's pretend it's $1,500. All you did was just trade a mortgage payment for a house payment, but you got considerable blocks of time back, which I would then use

to make extra money and work more and get this debt paid off. That would be the goal. I think just doing that and spinning your wheels, I would not do. Okay. We also just had a baby boy about three months ago congratulations thanks so we're still trying to figure that out too yeah well you're not sleeping now so that's it that's true i want to know what claire thinks claire would if all things were equal would you rather be closer to where you work or is it easier to change jobs as opposed to change the house situation?

I know you guys have thought through this. Yeah. So the original thought was that when we bought the house, I was like 15 minutes from my job and Josh was like 40 minutes from his, which we knew was a sacrifice being in the Metro. We knew somebody would have to drive. But right now, Josh just finished his master's in educational leadership. And so we're not even really sure how long we're going to stay in Des Moines, but it feels like he leaves at 630 and doesn't get home till 530. I'm an occupational therapist, so my schedule is just flexible everywhere. And so it feels like, yeah, the time, it's hard to figure out, like, is it worth the same cost and the effort to sell a house to versus rent but

like we would get some time back and especially with a newborn it feels like time is more important than everything right now so yeah I don't know we're just trying to balance that out what's your gut telling you before we wait in where were you leaning I was leaning towards selling to get time back but I that's the call would make. So as a parent, I'm thinking through that. And I'm also thinking about the fact that with hubs here, Josh getting the master's, we don't know we're going to be in Des Moines long-term. I like the flexibility and it looks like the rent is a wash, basically. You said it's about $200 maybe difference. And to get that time back, as Dave said, we got that time to hustle a little bit pay some debt but i think renting at this point gives us options if we're moving i i kind of like that as a bridge

it was what do you think dave is that i feel like options right now are better since they don't know they're there long term yes um i what my fear is and i you just if i and I always try to figure out, if it's me and Sharon doing something, I'm like, how can we screw this up? Right. And we go, okay, if we do this part of that, then it's bad. And if we do the whole thing, then it's good, right, kind of thing. And so sometimes we even write that down at our house. We type it out and go, this is the whole plan, okay? Simply moving and getting time back and becoming a renter, no.

Not a good trade. If that's all you do. But if there's a move out of town and up on his career in the future, good play. If you take some of the time you've redeemed for the newborn and some of the time to make some money and clear up this $100,000 in debt, good play because you've got the flexibility i mean if josh is going to be home more maybe claire picks up more hours on some nights and maybe josh picks up some stuff saturday mornings um and he continues to look for a different permanent solution with his masters

it's a much higher paying thing as well so all of that to say three years from today as a result of this and some extra hustle and maybe a move i want you guys debt free and owning a house yeah it can't be you get over there and you go well we've got a lot of time with the little boy now and we are renters for the next 10 years because we spin our wheels no no no no no no no that would be a bad plan i agree and that's that's how i could screw it up if i were in your shoes because so you got to be careful because what's driving this is the newborn and um if the newborn gets all of this uh not going to be good for the newborn's long term not going to be good for anybody's long term if they gets all of the the juice from this move uh so yeah that that's um a similar thing but just similar but similar sharon and i sold our home

and but we had made about three different changes at the same time we had our children in a private school we were they were 45 minutes away so an hour and a half each way 45 over 45 back twice a day yeah to go get them and pick them up so we got rid of that we got rid of the private school because we moved into a county this county which is the number one county for education in the state and we moved into that county and uh and we rent it and we sold the house and we cleaned up a little bit of last little bit of debt that survived the bankruptcy from irs stuff so we cleaned up debt we got rid of the commute we uh got rid of the private school and all three of those things so that we could rent for two years so that we could move up and that was a move we made almost 30 years ago so that was a good move

but if we had just consumed the difference in time and consumed the difference in money and stayed a renter that would not have been a good move you see what that that's makes sense but we talked about those exact things at that exact time yeah very clearly it's real i mean stuck in my head and you could ask sharon remsey to this day she hated that freaking rental house she hated that kitchen she can describe that kitchen with anger in her eyes to this day she wanted out of there yeah which is great it's a great motivator for you we were not supposed to be there for a while but for a little bit it was camping right so chill out it's camping it's a camp stove leave the stove alone right so

it's a rental house for god's sakes you know that kind of stuff so that but that's the kind of stuff you want to fight against josh and claire you guys are awesome you're awesome parents you're obviously thinkers you're and you're working together to make these decisions all of these things say you're going to make the right decision yeah and i think you sell it and move i do too and i i echo everything dave said josh and claire here's what i'd like you all to do. I think you have to have a dream conversation tonight about what Josh's next move or moves could be,

and let's figure that out. That will determine the rest of this. That's what Dave just laid out so beautifully. Where are we headed? What's the 20-year, 25-year play? And what's the next move? And if a move out of Des Moines for Josh is the next right move, then everything else falls in place.

So make that decision first. The baby's fine. Baby has no concept of time. You're tired. I get it. Your heart hurts. You want to be with him. You can hang on a little bit longer.

There's nothing cuter than a brand-new baby. No. So you've got to make that big decision first. John Maxwell, our friend, once said, make the big decisions early and manage them for years. This is one of those decisions. Big rocks in the glass first, then the next little, then they put the sand in last, it'll hold a lot more.

That's right. Put the big rocks in. That old analogy or metaphor that people use. It's a good object lesson for the youth group, right? It is, it is. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you.