The Ramsey Show - App - Quit Sitting on the Sidelines Waiting on Politicians To Change Your Life!

Episode Date: September 18, 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. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. George Camel, number one best-selling author, host of The George Camel Show, co-host of Smart Money Happy, our Ramsey personnel, and he's my co-host today. Elliot is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Elliot. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. How can we help? Hey, can you hear me? Absolutely. Okay, great. So, you know, my name is Elliot. I graduated from a top 20, you know, business school and college. After college, I sold triple net investment sales for about two years. And then for the last years, for the last year, I've been a whole life agent

that, you know, in Louisville, we partner with many different working class companies. For discussion purposes, you know, the average American retires at about $5,000 in their bank account. Personally, I tell my friends and family to cash out their whole life policies. And the way I pitch whole life, it's not necessarily as an investment vehicle, but more so as a savings or a savings account, but simply as insurance that accumulates cash value and a paid up coverage over time. In my eyes, I believe I'm leaving my members better off than before they talked to me, but why am I doing something so horrible in your eyes? Well, because the product is crap, not because you're a bad guy,

but the product that you're selling, you're trying to do a good thing, Elliot, and thank you for doing that, and I appreciate your heart. But basically, I mean, it's a math problem. So if you take a $200 whole life premium per month, I can buy the same amount of term insurance on that 30-year-old for about $10. So the other $190 would go towards cash value in the typical policy the top 10 stock companies out there okay that's the actual data that's out there in today's market and so if i'm paying 190 dollars extra for the life insurance in order to create a savings account that's not the end of the world but it's the rules of the savings account that are the cash value.

We'll call it savings. You said we're using it as a savings vehicle. That are the problem. The typical whole life policy accumulates zero cash value in the first three years. Have you noticed that? Yeah, I know that. Okay. So it's called what we would, you and I, people in the financial industry like you, me, and George,

we would call that front-loaded commission. Agreed? Yes. So I have a savings account that I'm putting $190, in my example, in per month, and the first three years I get zero. It 100% goes to the bank, goes to the life insurance company. Yes. Okay. goes to the bank, goes to the life insurance company. Okay? After that, the typical whole life policy accumulates at a 1.2% rate.

Some of them go as high as 3% or 4%. Some of the universal policies will go as high as 4% to 7%. Some of the indexed universal policies that are indexed to like an S&P, after fees, will go as high as 7% or 8% rate of return. Yeah. Okay? But the typical basic whole life policy, not a universal policy, is accumulating at under 2%.

So I have a savings account that for the first three years I put money in it. They keep my money. After that, when I finally start saving, it accumulates at 1% to 2%. And here's the thing, okay? Now, what would you say, Elliot, in your case, the typical size face value of policy that you sell is? What's a normal policy for you? You know, it's going to vary from someone who's 18 to, you know, 70.

Okay, but I mean, you're south they're selling who's your typical customer let's say you had a 30 year old yeah what would you the typical customer is joe he works construction and uh so he's probably not doing a 200 a month premium like i'm using as an example then no no for me i've never sold a $200 a month premium policy. So probably more like $100. On average, it would be more like between $50,000 and $70,000. Okay. And so these are $50,000 face value policies, right? Yeah, or less. Yeah, okay. So they're small policies.

Would you agree with me that a guy that makes $40,000 a year and dies, $50,000 is not enough to take care of his family? Correct. It's not enough to take care of his family. If you wanted to replace a $40,000 a year income, you would need north of $400,000 invested at 10%. Correct. But I would say it's better than nothing that's better than nothing

but for the same money he's spending he could have bought the right amount of insurance if he bought term right and and the funny thing about term too is i talked to these people when they hit the age of retirement and they're like yeah i paid in this life insurance my whole life but then i never used it and they're so upset with me about it yeah and no they're not upset with you you haven't been selling long enough to meet anybody that kept it till retirement you just started but that they were could be upset with the industry maybe but that I haven't had that problem because here's the thing if you take the ten dollars a month and you bought you know let's

drop it to five dollars a month and call it a seventy thousand dollar policy yeah after let's go back to our savings account i was using 190 a while ago now i've got to drop it down to about 95 because i'm a hundred dollar policy okay now if we're going to do that that five dollars is covering the insurance 95 is going into the savings program zero for the first three years after that it's accumulating at two percent and after that uh if it builds up a cash value of five or ten thousand dollars after 10 15 20 years right yeah okay right they die with a sixty thousand dollar whole life policy with a fifteen thousand dollar cash value that they've paid extra to build the cash value with a sixty thousand dollar whole life policy would you agree with me that the insurance company is going to send them a check for sixty thousand dollars only to sixty thousand exactly so you paid for a savings program

and when you die they keep your money yes yes nice parting gift that's why we think it sucks man it's zero a hundred percent is kept for the first three years after that it's accumulating at a lousy rate and when you when i die you keep my money i paid extra beyond term to get whole life to get a whole life policy that has a savings program in it and my savings program when I die doesn't go to my family. It goes to the insurance company. If I opened a bank with those terms, the bank would go broke. No one would put savings in there. So it's not enough to actually cover and replace income,

and you don't actually get the cash value when you die. I'm confused. The only thing that I will say, I think a problem that it is helping is that people do only retire with about $5,000 in their bank account. Well, that's because they bought this crap. They didn't have any money to invest

because they gave it to you. If you put the $95 in a Roth IRA, they would retire millionaires. Yeah, but I don't think I'm putting a policy in place where it's that uncomfortable where they didn't have enough money to invest on top of that. Why don't they use the money to invest wisely? If I showed them an investment calculator and I put the same amount in there, they would be flabbergasted and they would be running far away from this. If I bought term life insurance and wasted all that money for my whole life

and ended up a multimillionaire as opposed to an insurance company keeping my savings that I paid for. I don't think anybody's going to be mad about that, Elliot. It's like telling someone, Dave, the show is great. In season 12, it gets good. You can get through the first 12 seasons of this show, I promise. It'll be mediocre at best. I'm not binging that. No, thank you. Elliot, I think you're probably a good guy, but I think you're probably, if you keep doing the math on this, you're going to probably end up doing a different type of financial planning that's more beneficial to the folks you're trying to serve. This is the Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything.

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with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey Radio. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host open phones at 888-825-5225. So if you look in the skyline of the typical mid-sized city, the towers in the skylines, particularly 20 years ago and before, would be two things, banks and life insurance companies.

Santa Claus did not build those buildings. You did. You did. Your money went to them. You chose for it to go to them. They didn't steal it from you. But their products are so profitable to them, not to you, that they own the skylines. Don't you just wish you had the bank furniture?

They got the best furniture. So when we talk to a young man like Elliot who's selling whole life life insurance, or an old man or an old woman that's selling life insurance, whole life life insurance, we find the only people that believe that rhetoric, that line that we just covered with him, and honestly, to his credit, I think he truly believes he's doing good there's two types of whole life life insurance agents as far as i'm concerned the ones that understand they're screwing people and the ones that don't and he's one he doesn't he really thinks he's doing a good thing and so but i have done a lot of enthusiastically stupid things too uh by the way folks folks, I'll help you with this.

You get screwed way more often by enthusiastic ignoramuses than you do actual con men. There's not that many actual psychopaths out there like a Bernie Madoff. There's a few of them. But your friend who's trying to talk you into Bitcoin is an enthusiastic ignoramus. They're not con people. They're just passionate. Probably even the little fried kid that is going to jail or whatever.

Sam Bankman, free. He might not even be a real crook. I don't know. I haven't really looked at the details of that. He might just be a massively enthusiastic ignoramus. You know what I'm saying? And so really what you've got to do is you have to follow the money and, and, you know, be a fruit inspector. What's the fruit of the products. When we talk to, uh, multimillionaires and millionaires, we don't find them using payday lenders, rent to own, whole life life insurance. We don't find them using rip-off finance products,

financial products. They have avoided those things, and it's one of the secrets that causes them to be wealthy. And that's really where, you know, this stuff breaks down. And so, I mean, I have really good friends that used to sell whole life life insurance. And once they actually, because I just pound the crap out of them. But, I mean, they finally just like, I get it and I can't sell it anymore because I have a conscience. I, you know, if you have a good friend that is a payday lender and is ripping off poor people at 800% interest, that's called oppressing the poor. You do not want to read in the Bible what God does to people who oppress the poor.

When you mess with the poor on purpose, screwing them, and you mess with widows and orphans, you don't want to be on that list in the Bible. It's not a good list to be on. And so you don't want to be on the wrong side of a financial product and be justifying it well it's better than nothing no it's actually not you'd be better off putting your money in a fruit jar and so there we go now changing gears george uh i know some of you listen to this days weeks later whatever but we just got word a few moments ago surprise surprise 45 days from the election uh the fed dropped the interest rate by half a point 50 basis points to a range of 4.75 percent to five percent so that wasn't possible four months ago or eight months ago but right

before the election it's possible it's amazing the timing of that that's just sus yeah i'm good i'm using a good millennial word i'm impressed us i learned that from george he taught it to me so yeah i mean come on people can you not look at this and go are you is america that are you folks in america that stupid that you don't look at this and go, well, that's suspicious timing, boys and girls. Within the spitting distance of the election, and all of a sudden they go, all right, pull the lever. As if it's going to change anything between now and the election.

It's not, by the way. But it sure is good PR because one of the things that the current administration is getting hammered on is the state of the economy it's really hard to keep a party in office republican or democrat when the economics are bad during the presidential election year and so right up on it there it is just drop best part is whoever takes office will then take credit for all of this and here's what's interesting in mortgage interest rates are the lowest they have been since february of 23 about 20 months ago in the last almost two years we have the lowest mortgage interest rates very quietly they're down and the market has not taken off and boomed the real estate market is not boomed and there's a lot of

reasons why Jade and I talked about this on yesterday's show, George, and you brought it up at the break that some of it might be that people have a 2% mortgage and they don't want to move to inventory 6% mortgage. So they're holding their home off the market and that's slowing down the speed, the veracity of the real estate market. I've got another theory. I brought it up yesterday, and I have no idea if there's any credence to this at all. It's just an idea. But some people might be waiting on the Harris administration or the Trump administration to fix their life, and they're going to wait until after the election to decide whether they're going to buy a house or not. So they're just kind of sitting on the bench waiting on the election to roll out,

because they made the mistake of believing that who's in the White House actually matters more than who's in their house. So it does matter. And some of these ideas that are being debated matter. None of these personality characteristics that are being debated matter. None of them. but the ideas should be debated and you should be upset not upset you should be none of you should be as upset as you are my god people calm down but anyway uh but but but the neither one of these people are going to change your life but you're some of you are sitting on the sidelines waiting because you still think that one of them's going to buy you a house and they're not neither one of them going to buy a house they don't

neither one of them have a buy house program as one of their policies we're going to buy dave a house i've been doing this a long long time i'm old none of them have ever sent me any money they've all asked me for money but none of them have ever sent me any money. Many of them have raised my taxes and raised my taxes under the idea that I'm not paying my fair share, which when I pay a whole lot and you pay nothing, I'm not sure how that's fair. But, okay, anyway, I'm convinced the fair is where cotton candy and the Tilt-A-Whirl are. But, so, anyway, all that to say, I think that's a hit in this market. What do you think? Well, I think the supply and demand issue still is there. There's not enough supply because no one's letting go of their two and a half, three percent mortgages. And therefore, until we see

some of that move, I don't think the housing market as a whole is going to shift. But I do think for those that have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a rate to go down, because it could save you a few hundred bucks with the rate cut like this. That could make it affordable for a lot of people who are ready to buy. They're out of debt. They have the emergency fund. They've got a healthy down payment. It won't buy the election, though, because the Fed rate is not a mortgage rate.

The Fed rate is what banks borrow from other banks at. It affects by extension and implication mortgage rates. But mortgage rates are formed by the bond market, not by the Fed. And so if the Fed lowering rates tends towards mortgage rates going down, which it usually does, it has to filter through the bond market. And then that will take another lag. That'll take another 30, 45 days. So that'll be post-election before you see any benefit from that. But it's all about perception is what this is. This is a PR move, pretty much like during the congressional elections, midterm stuff,

Biden came out and said he's going to forgive all student loans. Oh, that's right. That's good timing as well. And everybody knew he couldn't do it, and the Supreme Court ruled against him. He couldn't do it. You can't do that with an executive order. But he can say, well, I tried. And he goes, mean old Republicans.

But it was a political announcement. That's what we call strategery, Dave. Strategery. That's what the other party called it. That's a funny story. Anyway, George W. actually thought he invented that, and Saturday Night Live invented that. He told me that in an interview.

I miss those simpler times. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions,

NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. George Campbell, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan. It's called a budget.

Yes, I said the B word right here on the radio. You need a budget. You need a plan. You need to make every dollar behave. And every dollar is our budgeting app that will change your life because it's the best budgeting app in the market. And I'm telling you, we've got an entire team, a whole floor of people here that work on this all day long. Every month we launch new features and new items. It's continually getting better.

It was already robust when we launched it years ago, but it's, you know, tens of millions of people have downloaded and are using every dollar. You can download every dollar for free in the app store and at Google Play, and you really ought to. Here's the worst thing. Go get on a budget, budget lean into it especially if you're married do it for 90 days and if you hate it quit but after but what i've been doing this for 30 years when i get people to do a budget for 30 days they feel like they got a raise it increases the quality and the depth of the communication in their marriage they feel like they got a raise. It increases the quality and the depth of the communication in their marriage. They feel like they got traction towards their goals.

They feel in control. Their anxiety goes down over money. I mean, all because of a budget. Well, before you think there's like the boogeyman existing with your money. Like, where is it going? And I don't want to look. And then you just finally look and you go, okay, we can solve this problem now that we actually looked at it. Well, I mean, like, where's all our money going oh wait there it is it's going out to eat there

you can't complain about feeling that way if you haven't actually done a budget try it worst thing can happen is you hate it because where you are sucks so you might as well change where you are it's the old political thing to say are you better off than you were four years ago try that with a budget are you better off than you were 90 days ago when you had no clue what was happening with your money? No, you're still sitting there like a hamster in a wheel. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, get nowhere. Kim is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Kim.

How are you? Hi, good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah. Just my question is, my husband and I were missionaries, and we came back to the States to give birth, and wound up having a medical emergency while

we were out of state. So we had a state insurance, and we were visiting my husband's family. Wound up giving birth to my son early, and he was in the NICU for a month. I was in the hospital two weeks leading up to that. And because we were out of state, even though we had emergency insurance from my coverage, it was still denied for everything. And so right now we're facing somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 in medical debt. And we're in the snowball staging right now. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop. Just stop a second.

I've got to catch back up. Yeah. You had a baby that was in NICU, and you were a missionary overseas, but you came back to the States, and you were under whose insurance? Your husband's? A state. Just a normal state insurance. State? Yes. And because it was out of state, they wouldn't cover anything? Yeah, you know, we had the

emergency insurance. What state is the insurance in? It was a Florida insurance. Why did you not go to Florida to do the medical care? We were visiting my husband's family who lives in a different state. Oh, and there was a problem with the baby, and they took the baby and put it in NICU. Yeah. So it was an emergency, and you didn't have the option to go to Florida. Correct. I got you. Okay. the option to go to florida correct i got you okay and florida's state insurance does not have that as a contingency for an emergency to save the life of a child it does yeah it does for

whatever reason they're still denying all the coverage of it we've appealed multiple times well i think i think you need to get i think you need to get some professional representation then on that. Okay, yeah. Because I'm not going to set up two missionary kids with a kid in NICU to take care of a half million dollars worth of medical. Yeah. Because I'm guessing you're poor as church mice. Yeah. I mean, I never met rich missionaries, yeah they don't they don't that just hadn't

run into them so you're not probably not sitting on a half million in your mutual fund i'm guessing no okay all right so i think you got to solve this by throwing this back onto the florida system and so what you need to do is you need to get in touch with your state senators and state representatives and with the governor's office in Florida and start hassling your politicians. Okay. You remember the story that Jesus told of the woman who would not be denied? She just kept knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking on the door? Yeah, that's you.

Because you don't have a half million dollars, and you're not going to see a half million dollars anytime soon. So you've got to solve this through political pressure and or legal pressure, maybe an attorney, because if they pick up their part what they're supposed to pick up here it's going to change your whole life agreed yeah oh for sure for sure have you talked to the administration at the hospital they don't even do it yeah so they um they said that once the third because i guess there's a rule with insurance companies that

once you get three denials, it's like there's no possibility of getting it covered. But they won't let us apply for the financial aid until we get that third denial from the insurance. You're not going to get a third denial. You're going to get it covered. Yeah, exactly. You have to. That's why I've been really scared.

Yeah, you have to. I've been really scared to go through that third one. Don't worry about it. You don't have anything for them to take yeah so you're okay okay they don't repo babies so you're okay how is your baby how are they doing he's doing amazing now the lord definitely healed him good and while he was in the NICU and surprised all the doctors and how quickly he recovered. So he's definitely a little miracle. Are you all out of the hospital and everything now?

Is it all behind you? Yeah, it's all behind us. Everything but the bill. Yeah. So are you in North Carolina still? Yeah, we're in North Carolina now. We're about to launch back out to our country in a week that we serve in over in Southeast Asia. Okay.

All right. You have a new hobby. Yeah. It's the state of Florida. Okay. Really, I want you to become an expert on hassling politicians and insurance commissioners and getting an attorney. Are you serving with a missionary organization?

Yes, we are. Okay. Talk to the senior people in that organization and see if they have anybody on staff that does legal work. Okay. And see if you can get an on-staff attorney to start hassling Florida. Okay. Yeah.

I know we don't have that, so it would definitely be all on us. Let me try one more time, okay? You're serving with a missionary organization. How many people serve in the mission field with this organization? Around 300. Okay. Probably some of the host churches,

the support churches then, have an attorney who's hanging around that church, goes to church there, who would love to help a young missionary couple get rid of a half-million-dollar problem. Yeah, that's definitely a great idea. Yeah, and so let's talk to some of the senior pastors, church board members, whatever we want to call the leadership, the deacons, the leadership team of those particular churches and say, hey, got a young missionary couple serving in Southeast Asia. We got a NICU problem. We need some of the big boys to come in and help here. We need a legal SWAT team. And I think you can put, but that's your job is put all that together rather than sit and

watch this thing deteriorate before your eyes. And oh, it's third denial. And the third denial is the final denial. And nothing can happen after that. Oh, bull. Channel your inner Dave. Bull. Persistence.

Be resourceful. Cause problems. It's what Dave's been doing for 30 years. George. It's worked out. George. It's a spiritual gift. Leaveistence. Be resourceful. Cause problems. That's what Dave's been doing for 30 years. George. It's worked out. George. It's a spiritual gift. Leave me alone.

It gets the grease is all I'm saying. And Dave's been squeaky. You got to get squeaky to get this done. You just called me squeaky. You did. You've been called worse today. I'm going to be honest. You've been reading the comments again, haven't you?

George, I told you. Quit reading the comments. It's the only enjoyment I get out of life, Dave. The trolls. You know I don't try to please the masses because I'm well aware the M is silent. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies

and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family. The key is finding an independent broker who represents a ton of companies and works for you, not for the insurance company.

This is exactly what my friend Jeff Zander and his team at Zander Insurance are all about. They shop the term life companies to find you the best options, and they've been around for over 95 years. So you know they'll be there when you need them. Zander is the real deal, and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them, and you can too. Visit Zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch.

Give them a call at 800-356-4282. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Today's question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Why refi? 93% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed. So if that's you and your delinquent, your grandma, your uncle Joe is drowning with you when you don't pay your bill. You're taking them down with you. There is a way out, though. Why refi? Why refi refinances defaulted private student loans that other places won't touch.

And they give you a low fixed rate that's built for you. You can actually pay your bill. Go to why refi dot com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y. R E F Y dot com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Patrick in West Virginia. My wife and I will be debt free at the beginning of October. We have paid off $83,000 in student loans over the last 15 months. Our gross income is $250,000 per year. We should have our six-month

emergency fund and a 20% house down payment in the next 18 months or sooner. Would it be unwise to get a 30-year fixed rate mortgage and make extra payments for two years instead of waiting the extra two to three years to save the down payment needed for the 15-year fixed mortgage? If we did the 30-year, we would avoid potential housing price increases. In both cases, the mortgage payment would be 25% or less of our take-home pay. We could afford to pay an extra six grand a month during those two years of extra payments. I'm confused. Down payment requirements are the same for 15 years they are for a 30. Is he saying the payment? Because he said it'd be 25% or less of our take-home pay either way. He's acting like during the time he's saving up his down payment, he could have taken out a 30.

That's what this says. And the 30-year has the same down payment requirements the 15-year does. So, Patrick, I think you have some bad information. I think you have some incorrect information. A 30-year Fannie Mae mortgage, you can do a 95, 90, 80. An 80%, a 20% down payment avoids PMI, private mortgage insurance, on a 15-year or on a 30. So it's not, you know.

So when you have enough of a down payment to buy your first home, we do not tell you you have enough of a down payment to buy your first home, we do not tell you you have to put down 20% by our guidelines. We do tell you that you need to not take out more than a 15-year fixed rate where the payment is no more than a fourth-year take-home pay. But if you've got a 5% down payment and you want to close on a 15-year, you can do that. And I don't know why it would take two to three extra years just to do a 15 year instead there's no i think he thinks you have to have a larger down payment on a 15

that's the only way that this makes sense so i'm confused by the question patrick but yeah i think you're i think patrick's confused so that's the only way this question makes sense is if he's confused so um yeah the 30 year and the 15 year have the same down payment requirements if you want to put down five percent and eat the pmi um and then during that time i think he's thinking the 20 down i think that that that makes sense in this light of this that he has to do 20 down the 15 but he doesn't know a fifth 30 and so you can get rid of the PMI Patrick after you take out a 15 year with a 95% mortgage you're going to get PMI private mortgage insurance folks is foreclosure insurance it covers the mortgage company in the event they have to foreclose on you and they lose

money it's a risky borrower fee yeah it. It does not cover you for anything. You are buying them insurance on you. That's what they're doing when you don't put down at least 20%. And it's about $75 a month per 100,000 borrowed. So a $300,000 house, $225 a month is PMI, private mortgage insurance. Okay. If $300,000 loan. Now, so what you can do is if you take out like on a first time home, if you did a 15 year fixed and the payments no more than fourth year take home

pay and you put down 5%, then you chunk, chunk, chunk away and beat that mortgage down to where it's an 80% loan to value. You can apply to have the PMI dropped and they'll remove it. And then, and so you would pay PMI for a couple of years until you paid down. I think that addresses his question. Yeah. And making $250,000 a year in West Virginia with a 20% down payment, you should be able to buy plenty of house on that 15 year and be fine. Yeah, absolutely. You don't need to wait three years. Yeah. Again, that's the only thing that makes sense here. So cool question, man. Interesting. And the good news is you've done this right. You're the way you're going into it he's gotten out of debt he's going to have his down payment he's going to have his emergency fund then he's going to have his down payment

on top of that that's the right way to do it it's a peaceful way then you don't get pinched when something comes up on the house steven's with us in tampa florida hi steven how are you i'm i'm doing good babe thank you for asking. Sure. What's up? Yeah, I have a small business that's in the construction space in Florida, and all of my profits from my roofing business, I've funneled into real estate over the last 10 years that I've been in business. And sorry, I'm a little nervous, first-time caller. It's okay. We've never lost a patient.

So what's up? So basically my question is that over the last year, my roofing company, we had a hurricane came in two years ago, wiped out all the roofs that I was planning on doing over the next five years. And now every roof in the market is brand-new. I thought hurricanes caused people to need a roof. They did, and we did our fair share of them. But now, two years after the storm, everybody's roofs are brand-new.

Oh, I see. That's interesting. Other than new construction, anybody that had a questionable five-year roof or roof in the next five years all got blown up so you you did a bunch of the hurricane work other people did that so a lot of houses have a new roof oh that's interesting demand decrease yeah and that's right all right so new new construction's about it for you well i mean yeah we're still some, some replacements from a couple of realtor relationships, you know, cause people need a good roof to close and, but the market's

complete, you know, my business has slowed down by 75% in the last 12 months compared to the previous years. And so, um, you know, with my real estate portfolio, because I was, you know, doing really well for the first, you know, 10 years of my business, we have quite a big portfolio now. And so now my wife and I are in a position where our business is losing money every month and we're needing to come up with a solution. We've tried everything we can with our systems that are in place for marketing, for sales leads, new salesmen, and we're continuing to try those things to turn the business around into a profitable scenario. But the bottom line is that we're losing money. Actually losing money or have reduced profits?

Losing. You're having to feed it. So you've or have reduced profits? Losing. You're having to feed it. So you've kept your payroll intact? Yes, yes. We've kept our payroll intact for a large business. We've done some downsizing to the point where we pretty much just have the managers in place. I mean, I had a pretty large roofing business. So you don't have any more.

And you can't keep the staff. Well, yeah, we – No, I'm serious. No, you need to quit writing checks to keep this thing open. You need to get it down where it floats. Okay. Your lines have crossed, and you've got to get back down where the lines don't cross anymore, and you have at least a break- if not a tiny profit i don't mind if you don't make any money but you've got a downsize to fit the market because you're telling me you don't think this market's going

to recover back to where it was and yet you're keeping all the overhead and the payroll as if it's going to recover that's true yeah you're gonna it's let me tell you that's a hard thing hard decision to make. And the other question that I have is regarding my portfolio. You know, in order to fund the business to not continue to lose money. You don't fund a business that you don't have hope in. You only fund something you have hope in. And we do have hope. No, no, no, no, not vague hope.

Business hope. Well, let me tell you what I've done is I started. I'm up on the clock. I'm sorry. If your projections are for the next 24 months, this thing's not going to recover, you've got to stop the bleeding on the business. You don't feed that. If you don't think it's going to come back, I don't know if it's going to come back.

But when you have, Henry Cloud talks about this in his book, Necessary Endings, when you have lost hope that something's not going to change is when you end it. Now, I'm not saying you end the whole thing, but you've got to right-size this business down to where your current economic situation is and then re-staff if it ever comes back. But that's what I would do in this case. You don't feed this. I wouldn't sell property to keep funding this.

No, no. Not unless you think it's got a fairly quick turn. If you want to feed it for 12 months, fine. But if you think it's not going to come back for five years, no, don't do that. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, or click the link in the show notes. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes. 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 number one best-selling author co-host of the smart money happy hour on the ramsey networks ramsey

personality he's my co-host today and guess what we're doing this hour we're doing a baby steps millionaires theme hour and what that means boys girls, is we're going to talk to real millionaires, not your broke brother-in-law who has an opinion. Real millionaires, people who actually have money, and ask them, where did you get that? How did you do this? And what you will discover, as we've been doing this for several years, is that it will be a great encouragement to those of you that are not yet millionaires to show you that it can be done. That's why we do

this hour. It's about hope. Baby steps, millionaires. Now, I don't care how you became a millionaire, where your money came from. All I know is you're a millionaire and I want to talk to you. What is a millionaire, George? Someone with a net worth of a million dollars or more, which means they don't need a million dollars in the bank. They don't need a million dollar income. It just means their assets minus their liabilities, what they own minus what they owe, is a million dollars or more. That's not our opinion, by the way. That's an accounting definition. It's not a feeling. It's not a moral construct. i don't know if i agree with your inflation rate i don't give a crap what you agree with this is a math thing and i actually heard an idiot congressman

the other day say he's not a millionaire he doesn't make a million dollars oh my god you saw that clip oh dumber than a rock and got elected to congress which means the people that elected them are dumber than they are. But there you go. So here we go. A millionaire is not, you know, if it's in their house, it doesn't count. Yes, it does, bozo. You can have what you could call someone a cash millionaire.

That would mean they had a million dollars cash. But if they're a millionaire, the definition is assets minus liabilities, what you own minus what you owe, when that equals a million dollars, you'll discover when you get there it's not that much. Because millionaires don't have jets, billionaires do. Millionaires don't have seven homes, billionaires do. Millionaires don't have seven cars billionaires do there's a difference a billion is a thousand million it's a big gap a lot of difference in a billionaire and a millionaire

okay so you will discover that these people drive camrys and toyotas and they can afford to do more they just nobody told them matter of fact i'm going to tell some of them to get a new car during this hour probably. Can't wait. Because here we go. All right, George. So who's got a million dollars? Who wants to be a millionaire? Here we go.

Phone number 888-825-5225. Jenny is in Seattle. Jenny, what's your net worth? Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, George. It is 1.4. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category. How much real estate, how much

mutual funds in retirement, that kind of stuff. All right. My husband has a TSP that's 800. And then we have IRAs and a little miscellaneous cash that's 100. And our house is about five. Gotcha. Okay. Classic. All right all right cool how old are you guys i am 42 and my husband chad is 43 excellent excellent how much of the 1.4 million net worth did you inherit um we had about 10 000 from my husband's grandma when she passed okay so it's safe to say mathematically that you're not a millionaire because of inherited money. Yeah, no.

10K, don't do it. It was sweet, but 10K didn't do it. All right. So, and your best year of income since you've been working, household income, and your worst year since you've been working? Okay, our best year is now, so it's 150. And our worst was probably right out of college, about $50,000. Okay, cool. What do you all do for a living? I am a homemaker and I've been a homemaker for almost 20 years.

Cool. And my husband works for the Bureau of Reclamation as a water manager. Okay, all right. TSP, so he's federal? Yep, Bureau of Reclamation, federal. Okay, all right. And what does he do? Is he's federal? Yep, Parareclamation Federal. Okay, all right. And what does he do? Is he an engineer?

No, he manages and distributes the water rights for the Washington, Oregon kind of area. Gotcha, okay, all right. Cool, all right, neat. And what is his degree in? Environmental studies. Ah, that makes sense, okay. And do you remember what his GPA waspa was yeah it was 3.5 okay cool all right cool all right so you guys have done this basically from nothing over a period of 20 years um while you were a homemaker and he was working in

the federal government working his way up through that career can this still be done if someone's listening today and they're 22 yes absolutely why do you think that um i think that if you educate yourself be your own advocate and are really intentional um distill down what you find value in and place it in that, then you can be budgeted, all those things. I think you can get there. Cool. So what do you drive?

Okay, I have the fancy car. What's the fancy car? I have a 2018 Nissan Armada. Okay. All right. Not a Ferrari, but an Armada. Okay. All right. Not a Ferrari, but an Armada. Okay. All right.

Good. Good. And my husband has the not-so-fancy car, a 2008 Toyota Corolla. There it is. Tell your husband he needs a better car. All right. That's what we're saving for right now. $1.4 million, you need a better car than a 2008 Toyota.

Okay. Time to move up. Yeah. Because I tell you, we get stuck. The young millionaires, I talk to you guys all the time. We get stuck emotionally and go, well, that car is what got me here. No, that car's not going to get you anywhere. You need to get another one.

I'm glad you're saving for him a better car. And your car is not that fancy. It's great. It's a nice car. I thought you were going to be like, it's a Rolls Royce, but it's modest. I've got a Bentley, Dave. No, you didn't. No, you don't. It's a six-year-old nissan suv yeah great car that's a great car good for you how many kids y'all got uh two cool how old are they 11 and 13 how much do

they know about all this um actually a lot we talk to them a lot good good so they're ready good yeah you guys are doing a great job. Congratulations, Hero. Honored to meet you. Very well done. Steve and Michelle are in Fort Wayne, Indiana. What's your guys' net worth? What's so funny? What?

Nothing. I'm just thrilled to be here. I can tell. All right. What's the net worth? $1.3 million. Cool. Give me a little breakdown by category. Retirement, roughly a million. House, $230K and about $70K in cash.

Good for you. All right. And how old are you guys? I'm 44. No, I'm 54. Okay, cool. And how much of this this 1.3 million did you guys inherit uh one of my grandmas passed away a few years back and we got 25 about 25 grand from that but uh as you said to the last caller that's not what took us over yeah obviously yeah 25K does not make 1.3. Okay. And your range of income, best year and worst year? Best year is 200K, which is this year. When we met, we were making about a combined 80K.

Okay. My worst year was when I started at my parents' store at 16. Ah, I understand. All right. I want to come back and get the rest of your details after this break, so hang with me, you two. And also, I definitely have to find out what's funny. This is The Ramsey Show.

This is a Baby Steps Millionaires Theme Hour. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. One of the reasons we start doing this Baby Steps Millionaires Theme Hour is we talk to real millionaires. By the way, if you're a real millionaire, you have a net worth of a million dollars or greater, call us at 888-825-5225. Right now, we'll put you on.

Now, because we want to know about you. The reason was, George, there's a lot of lies spread out there about where wealth comes from. And when you spread a lie about where wealth comes from, what you are doing is stealing someone's hope. You're a hope stealer. You should stop that. Don't be a hope stealer. Things like, well, you know, I can't play professional sports and I'm not going to be in a rock band or be an actor in Hollywood. So I won't be a millionaire one percent of millionaires are famous one percent 99 you will never meet you will walk past them on the used car lot and have no idea who they are

you'll walk past them at Costco and never have any idea who they are unless you know george and you would say george is a millionaire that happens so there you go because george spends way too much time at costco it's a hobby yeah but anyway there we go so that's true there's a lot of mythology out there people think well you got to inherit it you got to be a trust fund baby you had to do something illegal or scam people or run a run a company and so we just are out here trying to you know displace all of that when i was when i was a kid growing up in a uh middle class neighborhood those folks uh most of my parents and their contemporaries grew up on the farm and then moved into the suburbs and that's the suburb that i grew up in and uh in

the south they would say when someone's saying oh the little man can't get ahead and they never say it like that they say well the little man can't sounds like eeyore right you know it's bad we're all stuck you know that's how it sounds and we would call that in the south i don't know what you people call it up north but we called it poor mouthing oh i never heard that before yeah talking poor and mike todd said i've never been poor i've only been broke poor is a state of mind oh that's good so that's what we're fighting against by doing this hour now we're talking with we started the discussion before the break with steven and michelle they got a 1.3 million dollar net worth million in retirement 230 in house 70 in cash 54 and 44 years old they did not inherit inherit their money they had a little bit but not enough

to make them making uh 80 to 200 during their workingimes. Now, what do you guys do for a living? I'm a computer operations manager. Okay. And I'm a youth well-being coach. Cool. Okay. And so, degree in information management, Stephen? Computer science.

Computer science. Okay. Of course. And what was your GPA? Just enough to graduate. Right answer. He graduated. Thank you, Lordy.

It was a pass-fail. Yes, barely. No, I mean, really, like a two? I mean, what do you graduate with? I think it was like a 2.56. 2.56. You had to have a 2.5. Yeah, okay, gotcha.

And what about you, Michelle? What's your degree in? My degree is in elementary education, and my GPA was whatever it was to be on the dean's list. I don't remember. 3.0 probably, yeah. Okay. I'm guessing, but yeah, that usually is it. All right, good for you guys.

So you're talking to a 24-year-old version of you, 20, 30 years ago. In today's world in America, can they do what you have done? Bill Wealth. Yes. Well, yeah, you just have to not listen to the TV all day. God, that's for sure. So what's the dumbest thing you all have ever done with money uh bought a new car right out of college because i didn't know anybody yet there we go all right

what do you drive now i just got a mercedes ml 350 uh 2010 but i still have my o2 minicooper s that i've driven for 19 years you got a 2010 mercedes 350 ml yep it is 14 years old yeah but it it's it's pretty much mint and my friend works on yeah 90 of the people walking up beside that have no idea it's not new right because the body style hadn't changed that much that's a good car okay cool good for you that's neat what do you drive michelle i drive a 08 right steven yep an 08 honda fit what's the most either one of you spent on a pair of blue jeans maybe 50 okay probably 35 when i graduated from college i didn't know anybody. For those of you that live on Instagram, you just got a reality check. You're talking to a couple of millionaires here, and he just moved up to a 14-year-old car.

Woo! Living large. Okay. And so you guys are amazing. Way to go, heroes. I'm so proud of you. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Denise is in Denver.

Denise, what's your net worth 2.8 million give me a little breakdown by category real estate retirement and so forth okay 1.2 in my retirement 200 000 in liquid stocks mostly um and then 1.4 million equity in my house okay cool what's your house worth oh 1.9 maybe two okay she got about a half million dollar mortgage on it okay cool how old are you i just turned 60 good for you all right and how much of the 2.8 did you inherit 75 000 like 20 years ago so am I safe to say mathematically you're not a millionaire because of that? Correct. Okay cool and what's your best year working income and worst year working income? Best year oh 400 and worst year 50-h okay cool and uh what's your career um i've always been in a real estate

you know related business i started in the mortgage business did that for 25 years um took a little time off to raise my son and then went back selling real estate and then when i was doing that i learned how to um fix and flip houses which um i did that on a couple of them and that's proved to be uh you know very prosperous and that's what you're doing now. You have a degree? In psychology. Psychology, okay. And what was your GPA? Like 3.4-ish. Okay, cool, cool. Now, are you divorced, widowed, or always single?

Divorced. Okay, how long ago? Nine years ago. Okay. Okay. How much of this has happened since then probably half okay i would say that's hopeful for somebody out there that's 50 going through a divorce after 23 years of marriage i'm making this up but

you know i appreciate your story thank you for sharing that part of it you're you're amazing way to go oh thank you so do you think it'll still be done that girl that's out there listening that's 50 or 48 and her 23 year marriage just ended and she's getting a little bit out of that marriage could she still go do this yeah i would. I mean, most of my wealth has been a result of real estate and, you know, creating windfalls for myself along the way was really hard for me to always live on a salary, but, you know, or my commissions. But, you know, if you come up with a plan to, you know, buy a rental house, fix it up, sell it, you know, something where, you know, if you come up with a plan to, you know, buy a rental house, fix it up, sell it, you know, something where, you know, you can get two, $300,000 and then

roll it back in. Um, that's really been one of the secrets to my wealth. Yeah. Amen. Amen. You've done a great job. Congratulations. Thank you. Wow. I'm impressed impressed and this is this goes to show you dave i mean so far very little inheritance nothing that caused it these are people in their 40s 50s 60s so no one in there you know at 22 yet that did bitcoin a lot of basic stuff retirement accounts equity in the home a little bit in cash occasionally we talked to someone that inherited it occasionally we talked to a Occasionally, we talk to someone that inherited it. Occasionally, we talk to a lotto winner.

Occasionally, we talk to someone in Bitcoin. But they're less than 5% of the time. You and Farber. 95% of them sound just like these. That's so encouraging. It means like I could do it. Yeah. You did do it.

I did do it. All in the same steps. Just like that. Sitting next to a baby steps millionaire. That's what I'm doing right now. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever

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It'll feature a lot of the incredible parts from our Money and Marriage Getaway. They're going to be diving into real topics like goal setting, budgeting, and working through every season of life as a team. When it's John and Rachel, you can pretty much be guaranteed you will also be laughing. It's happening October 29 29th and you can attend from anywhere from the comfort of your home or whatever there will also be a q a so rachel and john can answer your questions live this is a virtual event october 29th money and marriage date night virtual event you don't want to miss this early bird tickets are only 39 that will go

up october 6th so go ahead and get them now. Your tickets today at ramseysolutions.com slash events. It's a millionaire theme hour. Now, some of you are not aware. You need to pick up the book Baby Steps Millionaires, which is my latest number one bestseller. I really didn't intend to do that book, but I got tired of people saying it couldn't be done

when I was meeting people everywhere that did it every time i go out at a break to take pictures on this show i meet a millionaire met two a while ago at the break and uh they go yeah i can do it i mean yeah and they look like regular people because they are um so we did the largest study of millionaires ever done. 10,167 of them studied here in North America. Tom Stanley, my friend who passed away several years ago in 1992, did a book called The Millionaire Next Door. He came to his conclusions with a sample size of 750 millionaires. That's what he studied.

He was a Georgia State University professor when he did that and sold enough of those books to become a millionaire next door. But it was a wonderful piece of work. But he got criticized because of the sample size by journalism students who had never had a statistics class. If you've ever had a statistics class, you would know that a sample size of 750 out of approximately at that time 10 million millionaires in North America is statistically significant, meaning that the sample size was large enough to get to draw conclusions from that are accurate

statistically. Okay, now if you're only a journalism student, you probably wouldn't know that, and so you would bitch, whine, and moan because you're a leftist that this study was inaccurate, but it was accurate. So we decided, all right, we're going to go ahead and put all that to bed, and we're not going to do 750. We're going to do 7,500, 10x what is needed to make proof and we're going to hire an outside firm to look over our shoulder and make sure there's no confirmation bias and all of our research and our uh uh processes and models are accurate and cannot be questioned so we ended up going crazy. We did about 7,000 from the public, and then we threw in another 2,000, 3,000 from our files that we talked to.

They were Ramsey millionaires, in other words, people that were in our tribe. But these were not Ramsey tribe members, the first 7,500. So there's 10,167 of them, and the sample size is 10x what it needs to be to be significant the research is airtight so if you disagree with the conclusions of this study you're what's known as wrong that's how this works okay this these are known as data called facts not your feelings from your communist college professor i couldn't care less what your communist college professor. I couldn't care less what your communist college professor thinks. Okay? This is the truth.

79% of America's millionaires inherited precisely nothing. Eight out of ten. Five percent inherited a small amount like people we have talked to this hour, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, but not enough to mathematically cause them to be millionaires. So they're not millionaires because of inheritance. Another 5% got substantial inheritances after they were already millionaires. So 5 and 5 and 79 is called 89. That means that 90%, 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires, there's approximately 24 million of them right now,

9 out of 10 of them are not millionaires because of inherited money. So the next time someone says that, you can be nice, you should be kind, but you can think to yourself, you're an idiot because they're that dumb. They are absolutely stone-cold wrong, okay? They've been watching too much youtube about wealth inequality and they're studying chinese tic-tac to try to figure out how the capitalistic economy works just dumb sources okay if your information on finance is coming from tic-tac you probably have a problem i mean we're the only ones on there making sense and the only reason we got on there so that

something on there made sense it's making me angry how much dumb stuff was on oh my favorite dave on my youtube comments now is dave a million dollars that's not even a lot of money in today's world and they're all broke yeah well it's more than you got bubba so you can't make these people happy because they're miserable yeah i'm i'm hell bent on being a victim so stop it okay that's the point of this guys it's called hope you can do this we have shown you how to i'm so dumb i had to do it twice i was a millionaire by the time i was 26 lost everything went bankrupt had to start over without even my hair. And I still did it again.

At least we know it wasn't a fluke. You do it two times. That's skill. All right. Andy is up next. Andy's in Atlanta. Andy, what's your net worth? It's just over $3.5 million.

Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category. All right. Retirement amongst all the different accounts is $1.5 million. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category. All right. Retirement amongst all the different accounts is $1.46. Okay. Non-retirement is $780. Mm-hmm. And then real estate would be $1.3.

Good for you. How old are you? I'm 56. Okay, cool. How much of this did you inherit? I inherited $60,000 when my mom passed 22 years ago and uh that's it that that allowed us to move up from the starter house to our house with kids okay all right and it helped a bunch of us 22 years ago mathematically it would have helped a

bunch but still not enough to be the cause of a three and a half million dollar net worth agreed oh totally i mean it it let us get into a bigger house that really didn't appreciate during the time at it so yeah had i put that in the market it'd been a different story gotcha okay cool so what is your best year working income your worst year working income worst year was right out of college, $19,500. And best year, probably last year, combined with my wife, probably about $450. Cool. What do y'all do? I own a small business that creates sensory rooms for kids with special needs, and my wife is a health coach. Okay, cool. What's your degree in? Industrial management.

Perfect. Yeah, okay. That's cool. What a great application for that. And what was your GPA? What was your GPA? 3.6. Good for you. Not bad.

Okay. And so you're 56 years old. What would you tell people, again, is that can this be done if they're 26 and they're listening and their friends are telling them they can't do it? I think they can do it. Do you? Yeah. My kids are around that age, and I tell them all the time, of course you can. Yeah.

What should they do if they want? What should they do? What do you think the key is? It's just save early and save often and just make it part of your life. Don't neglect putting that money away. I explained to my young employees, male employees, my wife saved $10,008 in her PERS account in Ohio. And then when she left that job over 20 years ago, it just stayed there because we can't move it. And that $10,000 is worth $173,000 today.

Wow. What's in the retirement account? Was it a single stock? Was it mutual funds? What got you there? It was a mutual fund, but I mean, this was before we knew anything about managing that. It's all large cap stocks. So you're not an investing prodigy, safe to say. Yes. Well, no, I am not. What do you drive? Well, most days I drive my 2009 Honda Odyssey minivan with 175,000 miles on it. Get a better car. Well, on the other days, I drive my 2023 mid-engine Corvette. Oh, there we go. You did it. All right.

He buried the lead. Boom. He set me up. What a trickster. It's not his daily driver, though. Okay. It's a garage queen. Good. I like it. You did it. All right. He buried the lead. Boom. He set me up. What a trickster. It's not his daily driver, though. Okay. It's a garage queen. Good.

I like it. I like it. That's fun. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home

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It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. We're talking with real millionaires this hour. How did they really do it? Jessica is in Mobile, Alabama. Hi, Jessica. What's your net worth? Hi, Josh.

Hi. 2.3. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category. 1.2 is in investments, and 1.1 is in real estate and tax liens. Okay, good for you. All right, and how old are you? 52. 52.

And how much of this did you inherit? $100,000 from my father's death in 91, and and 200,000 from my mother's in 21. Okay. So that took you a long way towards this goal. Um, I can't do the math fast enough in my head. You might've, that might've actually pushed you over the edge for sure. So you're, you're kind of borderline as to whether this was inherited money or not. Okay.

Is that right? I mean, 300,000 over a couple couple decades would turn into a million well i just got the 200 so um well you got 300 you got 100 and 200 the 200 was in the last three years that was what you're saying after you're already a millionaire okay oh i see oh i messed up okay 100 was back in 91 so that one did have the 200 was just the other day oh i missed that okay thank you thanks for catching that. All right, now your best year of working income and your worst year of working income. Best year was 80, worst was 12.

Okay. What do you do? I'm a chiropractor. Ah, okay. Good for you. And obviously a chiropractic degree, right? Yes, sir. What was your GPA? 4.6 out of high school, 3.9 out of

college. Wow. Smart cookie. Yeah, there she is. A dork up front, yep. I knew there was a smart one in here somewhere. Okay, and what do you attribute this net worth to at 52 years old? What would you say the secret sauce is? Being so scared to be poor again. I was poor till I was 40, and I didn't ever want to go back there. I don't want to rinse out my Ziploc bags anymore. I want to buy new ones. Wow. I mean, you're talking like poverty level for the first four decades of your life. Oh, yes, sir. And in 12 years, what happened? So when you're self-employed, there's a lot of variables. Some years we paid to go to work.

Some years BP stuff happened. Like there's so many variables. And I was always scared of spending money. So I literally live like a poor person. So once you started making money, you just lived on very little and saved and invested the rest. Totally. Okay.

So is there any part of that you regret? No, because I'm sitting and breathing now. Yeah, you're sitting in a sweet place. What do you drive? Well, that's my problem. I buy high-end new cars every two years. You do. Cars are your weakness.

It is. Okay. What are you driving i'm s porsche oh sweet good for you we got two and a half million dollars you can afford a porsche exactly it's fine it's paid off it's fine yeah absolutely it fits it fits the program love it way to go hero i'm proud of you good work richards in harrisburg pennsylvania richard your net worth. Hey, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you. My wife and I are at $3 million. Good for you.

And give me a little breakdown by category, please. Sure. $1.5 in a 401k, $600,000 in a 403b, $750,000 in real estate, $150,000 in an airplane, $50,000 in cash, 50 in cash and 35 in other vehicles. Okay, good for you. And how old are you? 61. All right, good. And how much of this did you inherit?

Well, I did inherit a bowling ball. But my grandfather was, well, his nickname was Shorty. So I'm six feet tall. My fingers don't fit in the holes. I'm not going to pay to have it re-drilled. Wow. You can't make that up. You've been working on that one a while.

No, it's really true. It's sitting out in the garage collecting dust. I mean, it was his. I don't want to throw it away. It's a great paperweight. So other than that, no money. I'm putting down bowling ball. I'm writing it down

it's dave's favorite item of inheritance this is great and your best year working income worst year working income uh best year was uh two and a quarter and worst year was my first year at three thousand what do you do or what did you do um in it system engineering management four-year degree my wife my wife actually works works as a customer service rep for a large health organization here in the state. Okay. What's your degree in? Don't have one. What's hers in?

Doesn't have one. Okay. Both of you high school? Yep. I've got about 40 technical certs, but they were all pass-fail, so I can't give you a GPA. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. And that sets you up to win in the IT field with a high school diploma. Excellent. certs but they were all pass fail so i can't give you a gpa yeah yeah that's exactly right okay

and that sets you up to win in the it field with a high school diploma excellent 30 30 certs is better than a four-year degree we know we've got them working for us good good work i agree good work good work good work in that field for sure yeah uh way to go. Congratulations, sir. Can this still be done? Oh, my goodness, yes. I know it can because I did so much of it wrong. What was the dumbest thing you've done? Oh, my God. Well, you mean besides buying the airplane? I guess.

Let me just give you a couple things. I bought eight brand-new cars before I was a millionaire. I've bought zero since I've been a millionaire. I did all the baby steps, and I did them completely out of order, right? So if I can do it all wrong and come out with some reasonable measure of success, then absolutely anybody who's willing to just follow your plan to the right. What do you think you did right? What was the saving grace? What'd you do right? The saving grace was at the age of 34, I started contributing to my 401K, and then every year that I got an increase, I just threw the increase in there.

And then my wife, who hates to spend money, never shops, does her own nails, and drives a 10-year-old car and loves it, was perfectly fine with us putting her entire salary into her 403B. And so you've got 2.1 in those two. Yeah, this just went on and on and we just you know if you don't ever have it you never miss it yep and we just committed ourselves to the systematic methodology of putting the money away every paycheck there's the real wealth hack marry a frugal saver and you'll be okay even if you mess it up. Yeah. What did we learn today, Dave? Well, we learned that the average GPA is 3.5, 3.0, 2.5, 3.4, 3.6,

one 4.6, caller before last, and one high school graduate. So the mythology that you have to be a genius and be the valedictorian is not true. These people are smart. I mean, they're not 1.6. You do need brain cells, but they're not genius level. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, which is, you know, I'm glad to hear that because I'm actually, I have a 2.97.

Wow. I'm still pissed about that 3.100. Couldn't hit the three. They didn't just give it to you? There was beer involved. I'm just saying. You can't round up. But, yeah, it was, and, you know, and I'm, anyway, it worked out. So I'll leave it at that.

And income. Here's what's interesting. Millionaire study found a third never made six figures in a working career. And here we got, we had one today. Making 80 grand was the max. Max. At $2.3 million net worth. So you don't have to make, you know, 150 or 200 like some of these callers.

Yeah, we had a 150, a 200, a 400 as a high, 450. That was the big one. 450 was the biggest income. So this idea that you have to make 800,000 a year or something like that to be, no, you don't. What we do know mathematically and culturally and demographically is the tortoise wins, not the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. Like the last guy, he consistently dumped money. His 401K, he's got 1.5 in there.

His wife consistently filled up her 403 she had 600 in that that's 2.1 million just in those two numbers of their 3 million and that's slow and steady wins the race he got a later start he didn't even start investing till 34 slow and steady wins the race slow and steady wins the race slow and steady wins the race and so we but we live in a culture where you look at instagram and the pretty people who are broke wearing 500 jeans driving cars they can't afford living in houses and going on vacations that they can't afford is who you're comparing yourself to instead of the people we've been talking to today and that is a mistake comparison is not only the thief of joy. The number of hours that you spend on social media

is directly correlated with how broke you are. Did you hear me? The more time you have with media in front of your face, the more they're telling you that your life sucks and you need to go spend money you don't have. Turn it off. You can turn this show off if you want, as long as you go save money. Go save money and invest money. This is The Ramsey Show. 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 Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, and host of the George Campbell Show on the Ramsey Networks is my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money at 888-825-5225. Jennifer is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Jennifer, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I'd like to talk through the pros and cons related to getting married now versus waiting for my scenario and how we get this all done in the right order. Okay. All right. So we're in our early fifties. I'm on baby step two. He's at baby step six. If we get married, we can't fit into either of our current spaces. We each have a kid at home, college age, who will be with us for a few more years. We each have the same size condo, duplicate condos, same layout, two bedroom, two bath, 1,100 square feet. We're looking at, so the problem becomes,

we would need to move. So we're looking at getting a three bedroombedroom, three-bath condo for around $400, $430 if we got married now. If we wait, it might be around three more years, but we could put more down. Okay, and the kids are in what year of college? Second year. Okay.

And so we're not wanting to. The two two-bedroom condos are worth what? About $290,000. Okay. So $600,000 out of those, and you're going to buy something for $400,000. It'll take care of your family. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm looking at being out of debt in about a year. I have 63,000 left in student loan debt. If you sold both condos and bought a 400,

you'd be out of debt instantly. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well I have 30,000 in equity. He has about, uh, 165,000 in equity. Okay. Now, you'd be out of debt, and then you'd put down a down payment on the $430,000. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's what we're thinking, but we— How long have you been dating? You know, just over a year and a half. Okay.

Mm-hmm. But, yeah, once you get into your 50s, you know you're— I have a backward philosophy on this from some people. So it affects the quality of the answer. So you need to know. All right. I don't let finances drive family. I let family drive finances.

Right. So I don't tell people to not get married until they're out of debt. I tell them get married if you got debt, as long as you're in agreement on it. I don't tell people to wait to get married so they can get a better alimony from the last deal or whatever. I let the family and the love of this relationship be the primary thing. So God first, your marriage marriage second all this other crap third fourth and fifth that's my way of coming at this which tells me if you guys are ready to get married we're not going to delay getting married over a financial issue yeah i've always heard you

answer it that way i've just never heard anyone ask about, you know, well, now we have to move as a result of it. So I was like, okay. Well, you may not. I mean, you could dump one of the kids into an apartment. We talked about that. Have they talked about it? Or have they said, hey, I might actually want to live off campus or on campus this next year? No, no, that's the adults talking.

I know. But I'm saying, you know. The kids have not. The kids have not. I'm sorry. You told me, but I know, but I'm saying, you know. The kids have not. I'm sorry, you told me, but I already forgot because I'm dumb. What year of college are they? Second year. Okay, so two years of rent might be a deal. If you got one of them you'd like to kick out that might be a plan we won't talk about that now but one of you gets voted off yeah yeah talk about bitterness towards the stepmom or stepdad yeah well they got married they kept

the other one threw me out or i got set free they might say i got set free. They might say I got set free. It might be a blessing. That's a possibility. So I'm either selling both. I'm going to get married, and I'm either selling both condos and buying one. I kind of hate to buy a condo for people that are going to be there 18 months. Right, right. Is this a stupid option? Dave, you can tell me. What if you just sold both, paid off your student loan debt, and then rented for a while until the kids were out and you knew what was next?

That would be okay, too. That would kind of solve some problems. Yeah, and I kind of think we are wanting three bedrooms when we get married anyway. When they're gone? Yeah, when they're gone. And you want a condo when they're gone? Yeah, because I work from home anyway. Okay, so this is a condo that you would buy if they were gone?

I would. I'm not as sure about him. Well, let's talk that through. But would we buy this? You've got to do that. You guys talk about that after you get off the call here. But if he's in agreement with what you're saying, then that does answer it. You sell both.

And if you want to keep the kids, then the kids are staying home because you got room for them. And yeah, that's exactly what I would do. And I would pay off your debt. And you two are on a budget together. And you're in agreement on every dollar that's coming into the house and where it's going together. Everything's unified. That's exactly what I would do. And I would pay off your debt, and you two are on a budget together, and you're in agreement on every dollar that's coming into the house and where it's going together. Everything's unified. And, you know, we're going to clear your debt,

and everything that's left over after an emergency fund in your debt is going as a down payment on the 430. Right. So I got 160, I got 30, I got 190, minus your 65, minus 35. Yeah, give or take, I got 100 to put down. And what I keep looking at, too, is combining our incomes. You know, it just looks powerful to me. Oh, yeah, especially with no payments. What will your household income be? So I make 138 plus a bonus that can be as much as $40,000 in restricted stocks.

So I should be out of debt in a year. What's he making? He's making $70,000, but he's so frugal. He's baby step six. How much money does he have in savings? Not retirement. Yeah, savings I think is around 10 000 but uh but i know he has 165 in his equity in his condo i know you told me that yeah yeah i know it's retirement funds yeah you're not gonna you guys do what you want to do but on

the surface a quick analysis on the radio and you don't want to make all your decisions based on that you guys need to talk it through but if i what i've heard is i'm selling both condos and i'm going to buy the four i'm gonna buy the three bedroom yeah and i'm gonna pay off all your debt i'm gonna have an emergency fund of three to six months and put the rest of it down on the 430 15 year fixed and you're making 250 at that point and then i'm gonna roll up my sleeves and try you're back in baby step six he is he remains in baby step six you leapfrog in baby step six. He is. He remains in baby step six. You leapfrog into baby step six in this marriage, and then you all attack that condo and pay it off.

Because you're only going to owe $330,000, and you're going to be making a quarter million. That'll be gone like that, two incomes. Well, plus or minus two tuitions coming out the bedrooms there. But, yeah, it'll be gone fast. Yeah. I like this plan. I would not delay to get married at that point.

Yeah. Again, if everybody's in agreement on how we're going to live, then we don't let money stuff dictate marriage timing. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Your kids don't have to accrue the biggest debt they'll ever carry before they even start their career. Jade Warshaw Ramsey personality just released her second book. It's the rework of our graduate survival guide.

Five mistakes you can'tord to Make in College. If you know a college student, they need this book, Five Mistakes You Can't Afford to Make in College, Jade Warshaw. Now, this is not your typical book. It's not a super thick, big, long-read book, and it's got, you know, it's like four-color, very nice graphics, and, you know, it's like four color, very nice graphics.

Beautiful graphics. And, you know, high gloss paper, all that kind of stuff. So it's a very quick read for the social media mind. There you go. It's social media in a book. There you go. And I was just looking through it. I got hooked.

Jade makes it fun. Yeah. What are the five things? Student loan debt, credit cards, dumb choices, no plan, no fun yeah what are the five things student loan debt credit cards dumb choices no plan no money these are the five mistakes people make and how how to address the mistakes and what are the antidotes this is preventive medicine five mistakes you can't afford to make in college for the college student by jade washout teenagers know everything no they don't they know nothing they're getting

their financial advice from tiktok they knew they do know something but they don't know these five things and they need to know because this could i mean this could be this tiny little book save somebody hundreds of thousands of dollars what's the difference maker of actually building wealth while you're still young enough to enjoy it if you follow this kind of stuff yeah because you're not sending all your money does the wrong thing. Graduate Survival Guide, RamseySolutions.com slash store. Check it out. Tyler is in Grand Rapids.

Hey, Tyler, what's up? Hey, Dave and George. Thanks for taking my call, and thanks for all you do to help people with your ministry. Well, thank you, sir. How can we help? Sure. Well, speaking of mistakes, plugging Jade's new, uh, uh, new course, I messed up pretty bad this time and I'm not really sure where else to turn for help on this one. So I

thought I'd give you guys a call. Okay. Um, so I assume you're going to have follow-up questions, but basically my wife and I just bought our second home before getting our condo sold. Thinking we'll have zero issues selling it but here we are it's been on the market for 11 weeks now 23 showings no offers um we start paying our new mortgage here october 1st so we're about to be fumbling through two mortgages which you are now what we call a motivated seller you know i was wondering if you were going to call me one of those or a case study. Yes. No, I'm not going to make fun of you, man.

Yeah, very much a motivated seller. Yeah, this is the fruit of doing it in the wrong order. All right. So what is the condo on the market for? We're down to $279,000. We've dropped $36,000 in price. We started at $315,000, which I thought was too low. Why, after 23 showings, has it not gotten a single bite? Zero offers.

Why? The resounding feedback we've gotten has been one-stall garage, we can't do anything about, unfinished basement, we could, but I don't want to. I got two kids under two and my wife stays at home with the kids um and then lastly that it's a middle unit so we can't do anything about that either before they looked at it they knew all three of those things that's on the list i've been asking myself the same thing why even come look at it then. What is your agent saying? She's not sure. Can't believe it hasn't sold.

Points to the market. Ramsey trusted agent? She is not, no. Okay. All right. And how many other units are on the, what's the competitive landscape in the condom, in the condominium project? How many others are on the market one actually just went up on the market about a month ago and uh it sold within a few days now it's a smaller unit

ours is three bedrooms how many are on the market today oh um i don't know haven't checked um and probably a week no i mean what do you think well two weeks ago how many were on the market in my neighborhood in your condominium project your competitors oh oh um none this is the only condominium in the entire project that's for sale except for the one that sold two weeks ago i'm sorry i should clarify do you mean my association, my neighborhood? Okay. Honey, I'm trying to figure out the competition for your buyer. Okay, so you have a condominium, right?

Yeah. That's for sale for $279. It's in a condominium project, is it not? Yes. Okay. How many condos in the project in total? Okay. I don't know, probably about 20. So it's not a very large project no okay so there's a neighborhood i'm sorry does projects mean like condo neighborhood

no i mean like your hoa okay how many people how many how many condominiums of this type if i was going to go look for something like this unit, how many of them just like it are right there for sale? Yeah, no, just this one now. Okay. And in the whole thing, there's only 20 of them. Yeah. So you don't really have any competition.

That's not your problem. If you do, it's other condominium projects somewhere else that are similar. Yep, yep. There was one that just sold a few weeks ago in our neighborhood our project okay i'm just trying to figure out the competitive landscape here where are these buyers going if they're not taking yours that's what i was trying to figure out okay okay and your real estate agent should be cluing you in on that okay they should know they should say okay here's the problem all right my personal residence is on the market because i built a new house and moved into it in june it's been on the

market 60 70 days now something like that i'm in no way desperate both of them are paid for there's no issue at all but i'm looking at the exact same things that we're talking about here okay there's you know there was 32 homes on the market in our subdivision there's 700 homes in that subdivision and in that hoa and uh it's a high-end golf community right and i'm okay 32 are on the market you know 20 of those have sold and mine hasn't so i'm looking okay what's my problem and that i'm doing the exact same analysis you're doing and that's that's what i'm looking at only my agent is doing all that and sending it to me going here's what we need to do our per square foot is a little high and you know you were trying to max out the market and i'm like

yeah because i wasn't in a hurry okay we'll drop the price a little so we're trying to figure out what we're going to do and to be competitive and you are too so what have we got to do compete to be competitive we can't add a garage we can't not be a middle unit we don't want to screw with the other thing with the basement being finished out so it does probably come down to price and or coat of paint inside or something like that yeah so but i don't like an agent who has 23 pieces of feedback and no suggestions right and uh you know i i want this i want her or him to be flooding you with statistical evidence of your next step so uh who did the market analysis or the appraisal originally the agent uh that was all my agent. Okay. Do you, did you look at the comparative market analysis of CMA? Um, I think that she showed me some program on her computer that spits out, um, a number

based on comps in the area. I assume that's what you're talking about. Yes, that is. That's called a competitive market analysis of CMA. Okay. That's how I want to pray. 323, but I wasn't optimistic because there hasn't been anything in my project that has sold for above 300. And you put it on the market for three, over three to start with.

Yeah, 3.15, sir. Okay. All right. I think you need to change horses. Yeah. I think you take it off the market, put it back on the market with another agent. I would interview a Ramsey Trusted agent, but get a different agent, somebody that is moving some product in that general area,

not necessarily within the 20 units that you're in, but within a five-mile radius of there, whose name do you see all the time, and talk to them and also talk to a Ramsey Trusted in the area or two or three and interview two or three people. You're interviewing someone for a job to sell a $300,000 asset. So this is an in-depth interview. I understand. And they need to come to the interview prepared and show you what's going on.

You also need to tell them, here's exactly what we got. I got 23 pieces of feedback. I'm not fixing these three things they're talking about. So how are we going to fix it? Is it price? And then get it back on the market, a new MLS number, a new reset. It'll pop back up on everybody's radar again and do that in the next 24, 48 hours. Well, 72 hours.

This is The Ramsey show George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host George and I were talking at the break um one of the things I told a young man from Grand Rapids is to take the house off the market put it back on the market immediately um sometimes in the real estate business i got my real estate license in 1978 okay so um not my first ride on the cabbage truck but sometimes in the real estate business we get an effect on a piece of property a house it's for sale and sometimes a house won't sell just because it hasn't sold that We call that shop-worn. It's like if you've got a dress in a retail shop or a suit coat in a retail shop,

and it's just been hanging there, and people have been handling it, and they keep putting it up, and it kind of gets worn just from being handled. And then it doesn't sell just because it's sat there and hasn't sold. There's nothing wrong with it, but people start to go, well, there must be something wrong with it because it hasn't sold.

It must be this or that. It could be something wrong. And all it was was the timing and the price point or whatever it was, it got a bad start. And so sometimes if you'll just relist the property with a new price, you don't have to go super deep on the cut, but just a fresh price and a fresh look and a few little changes here or there, sometimes changing the real estate agent, and restart it, it'll sell in a week. It's a weird thing. I've seen it over 30 years. I've seen it happen a lot. But if you just keep driving by a house and you see a sign, see a sign, see a sign, see a sign,

it's been sitting there for four months and other houses around it are selling, you start to think it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm thinking of, you know, remember that Steve Urkel when he turned into Stefan Raquel? He just took off his glasses and had nicer clothes on, and now he was more desirable to women. That's how I feel about this housing dilemma. Sometimes you just gotta restage it. Give it a new fresh coat of paint.

Okay. I knew that analogy would not land, but America loves it. I love the reference. TGIF, baby. Thank you. That's it. The booth people like it. That's all that matters. But that's it. You just gotta refresh.'s all that matters but that's it you just kind of i actually know who you're talking about vaguely but no one has referenced urkel i think in the last decade yeah he's he's he's kind of had disappeared from culture you know i miss when

it's even too old to have a reference for dave it's like um well it's not old it's just kind of in between for me it's not old enough that i remember it but it's too old that i've forgotten it you know i mean it's kind of like napoleon dynamite right you're right falls right in that category okay wow like it was funny then sorta and now we've just forgotten it was a time and place yeah but i like that you gotta hit the refresh button your real estate you gotta go urkel to urkel urkel to urkel there you go i gotta chill use that i gotta chill that's why we have george tiffany is in canada hi tiffany how are you hi i'm so excited to be here today we're excited to talk to you what's up uh so i need a little bit of your advice in a kind of like complex financial situation

so my question is really uh should i move to a lower cost country to help pay for uh for my husband's debt or stay closer in case of emergency so it doesn't context originally from the philippines but i got married to my husband which is who is is from the U S and what happened is like, we don't have the, uh, we don't have the spouse of Lisa yet. So I kind of like have to wait for like over a year at the same. Uh, but, uh, so what, what I did, cause he has been sick, I moved to like a newer country, which was like Canada. I live by Washington state. So it's easy for me to kind of like be with him in a way, even if it's like in a different country. So I moved to Canada, which has really been cost of living.

Tiffany, how long have you been married? We got married in November of last year. Okay, and how long does it take to run your visa? Over a year, especially in philippines because there's some long waiting time okay and so you're currently living in vancouver british canada british columbia i'm sorry bc and you guys are and he's commuting over into vancouver washington well he couldn't go to canada for some weird reason. So we meet on the border every weekend. So basically we have like Fridays to Mondays that we stay by the peace arch.

And we meet there every time. I know it's insane, but like, you know, things you have to do for the marriage. So we go, we both go to the border and stay the whole day there. And then the next day, day every weekend that's what we do uh so yeah so now you want to move to another country with lower cost of living so that you have more margin to pay off his debt yeah because uh basically what happened is uh like where is where is his where is his job uh he's in was state. Okay how far away from your Canadian home is his job? So basically it's like he's an hour away from the border. That's what I thought.

So in Mexico he would be 20 hours away? Yes. That's a difference. The issue is he has like a huge... that would be like temporary. You're breaking up on us, Tiffany. Yeah, we're having trouble hearing you. So are you able to work in Canada in this current immigration situation? No, what I do is I actually have a business, like a marketing business. So I'm basically taking in like different, so I like, five full-time jobs in a way. Okay, so you're making money.

He's making money. You both live in Canada, and he commutes an hour to work. No, we don't live together. So basically, like, he lives in his house. I live in my house. He could not enter Canada. I could not enter the U.S. We just meet by the border, like on the Peace Arch, every weekend.

So that's what we do. The Canadian borders are not closed to U.S. citizens. Oh, it happened to me. He has a DUI from 15 years ago. And then when he tried to go to Canada, he got denied entry. Not to drive into Canada. Yeah, he could not go in Canada, so he could not go to the country because basically they considered the UI

as a felony in Canada. So he can never go to Canada? He can never go to Canada. Well, it sounds like a terrible place for you to be. I know. And, but you're allowed to cross into the U.S. border how often? Oh, no, I couldn't cross the U.S. border. That's like the complex thing for it. So we meet by the Peace Arch border. I got you. Now, now I'm slowly understanding. Okay. Because I don't know how this works. I'm sorry. I'm ignorant about it. All right. So, wow.

And, of course, this is the trip you all signed up for in this whole process. Short answer, I would not move to Mexico. Yeah, Mexico doesn't solve any of this. What I'm going to do is do anything I can to fast track the visa and solve the problem and get you into the U.S. legally. And that's what I'm going to spend my effort on. But no,

I think you're going to make everything worse being further away, even if it's a lower cost of living. Whatever you save on cost of living by moving, you would spend on travel coming back and forth. And I, you know, it sounds very disjointed and chaotic to me. I think I'll pass.

I think I'm going to sit right where you are, pile up money. Both of you work as much as you can possibly work and use any of that money in good ways, legal ways that you can to expedite the visa. If there's any process of doing that, I don't know anything about how to do that, but that would be the thing. That would be my first game plan in this situation. And if it takes longer for the debt to get paid off, that feels like a backseat right now to the other chaos that's happening. Yeah.

So I would wait until you guys are together and then we'll tackle this debt. And, you know, the other thing I'm going to look into is, um, uh, I grasp the idea, the concept about the DUI here, and I really don't know anything about that at all. But if I were in that situation, what I always do is always, I don't accept the, uh, initial ruling by anyone in authority because I'm a hillbilly. And so all authority must be challenged. So I'm going to...

15 years ago we had a DUI? 15 months ago, I understand. But the rest of his life he can never go to Canada? I mean, come on, Canada. I don't think so. But it could be true. Can he fly into Canada or just not drive? I don't know. We need to look into that. Parachute in? I don't know., but it could be true. Can he fly into Canada or just not drive? I don't know.

We need to look into that. Parachute in? I don't know. Might be a strategy. I'm going to try to figure out how that works, too, in this. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Our scripture of the day is Isaiah 29, 24. Those who are confused will gain understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction. Thomas Edison said, Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. We were almost there. Wow. Nicole is in Birmingham. Hi, Nicole. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, thanks so much for taking my call. We have kind of a sticky situation possibly coming.

We are a one-income household. I stay home with our babies, and it's about 90% certain my husband's going to be laid off at the end of the month. We were working through baby step three, so thankfully we do have about probably two months set aside just in case that does happen. And when we heard this might be coming down the pipe, we have started applying vigorously to different positions. But we're finding we're not getting really any calls back from anyone. And we're kind of getting nervous thinking we're going to have no job at the end of the month. I'm trying to figure out ways that we can maybe cut and then obviously dash as much as we can to get.

What does your husband do? Yeah, he's a supply chain and continuous improvement manager. Why do you think he's going to lose his job at the end of the month? They're talking about doing some restructuring, which would eliminate his position. And they've told him all of this yeah yeah we've known for maybe about a month and a half um and um so your husband is in logistics he's in supply chain yes that's correct okay which is a high demand positionand position. Yeah, yeah. That's the confusing part where we're not really sure what's happening.

I think you've got a Ken Coleman issue, which we'll dive into in a second. As far as the financial goes, yeah, what I would do is just stop everything and pile up cash as fast as I can. Hurricane's coming. We've got to get the boards on the windows. Yeah, okay. Now, that's one side of it. The second side of it, go ahead. I'm sorry I interrupted you. Yeah, okay. Now, that's one side of it. The second side of it, go ahead. I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

No, no, no, it's okay. One thing we were trying to figure out with that, stuff like, you know, we have a little bit extra on our car insurance. We have, like, a rental car in case something happens, and this and that. We're trying to figure out what all should we strip to their bones to do that. Well, you can't save your way through this problem. The savings is only going to give you an increased amount of savings is only to give you an extra month.

Yeah. Okay. It's not going to give you an extra year. Right. So 90% of the answer to your problem is getting him a job we'll come to that in a minute yeah so 10 is piling up cash you can't pile up enough cash in the amount of time you have to make it where he never needs to work again yeah okay so i mean really the big deal here so stop top you know the the ten dollars off your rental car thing or whatever that's not

going to answer your question but yeah we aren't going out to eat we're not going on vacation anything that's big that we can cancel i'd like to throw throw several thousand dollars if i can to give me a little bit more wiggle room now yeah i i most of the time that we run into this on the career side of things with ken coleman we find that people are applying aggressively and filling out applications like wildfire on the internet. Yeah. And that never gets you a job in America's world today. I'll give you an example. Okay. We hire about 10, 15 people a month. So somewhere around 200 people a year right now at our current higher rate at Ramsey. We get 15,000 applications.

Wow. The chances of you randomly falling out of the application heaven and dropping into one of our hands are very low unless you have a very specified skill that is very rare. Okay? Sure. very low unless you have a very specified skill that is very rare. Okay. Sure. And so logistics does almost fall into that. But instead, what we do find, and Ken has found this and proven it with his materials,

is that the fastest way to get a job is to actually know somebody or know somebody that knows somebody to at least get your application out of the stack and get it looked at but what he's doing right now is a complete waste of time gotcha filling out 500 applications or jumping on monster.com or zip recruiter or something and just doing it in mass is not it might land you a job but it's really it i'm not saying zip recruiters are a waste of time it's not what i'm saying but i am saying the these massive putting your applicant putting becoming one of the 15 000 in the stack for the 300 we hire you don't want to be that okay you want to be the guy that knows somebody at that that works here

and there's your kids play soccer with them and they go hey john you know my husband's in logistics i'm putting in an app over there would you have them look at it please okay they don't even have to they don't even have to give you like a professional recommendation you're just trying to get somebody inside the building where you're trying to talk to and target those and go okay who do we know that our kids play soccer with who do we know that i'm a room mom with her husband okay or whatever could be social media connections even it can be anything yeah and ken calls that the proximity principle that you're in proximity with someone that gets your name to the outside the stack now I actually personally do not do any interviewing at Ramsey.

I haven't in some time. Number one, I'm not good at it. Number two, I'm the CEO. It's not my job, okay? Right. But I occasionally have a friend, probably once a month, that will send me an email and say, hey, my granddaughter's friend is trying to get on in the social media team over at Ramsey.

Would you give her a look? And I always say, yes, we'll give them a look. That does not get them the job. Right. It gets them out of the stack to get an interview, and they have to get the job. Sure. But that's way different than just being in the stack of 15,000 still. Right. sure but that's way different than just being in the stack of 15 000 still right and so i think the biggest issue with that is you know we we had talked about that yeah he does have a lot of

contacts kind of in that field yes he does i have some friends um the only thing i think i think getting out of the mindset of that being weird for us to reach out to those people and it's not nearly as weird as being broke that's true that's true and there's no shame in that he didn't do anything wrong he's not a felon right yeah he's not trying to get it he's not trying to get into canada with a dui i mean there you go throwback that's it that's the way to do it oh man i mean you know yeah just go over there and say hey please i mean i need your help if there was a company i really wanted to work for i might go on linkedin see if there's employees there's reach out to someone who's in the field and i've had people walk in the front

door over here and just introduce themselves and at least get some out of the stack you know somebody will talk to them i'll have somebody from hr come out and talk to them yeah you know um for a minute it doesn't get you the job it might might keep you from getting the job because you might be identified as weird i don't know but at least you there's a window where you try something different right so don't don't be strange when you're doing this okay but yeah um so yeah hang on we'll get you a copy of Ken's book, Paycheck to Purpose and Proximity Principle, both. And work you're wired to do, all three of them. All three of Coleman's best-selling books.

We're going to load you up because you guys need a job. That's what you need. You need a new position. And then when they offer you severance pay, you can go, whoo-hoo, that's a signing bonus to the next gig. In the meantime, if he can't find something something he's got to go get part-time jobs get five of them to cover the bills until we get through the storm yeah to keep the proverbial wolf away from the door there we go there's no other way around it yeah yeah it's scary though

yeah it's it's kind of exciting though because you might if you think if you get the right mindset you might end up getting a lot more money than you're making now see i've seen that happen a lot they like the job more they're with other people and they go you know what that was actually a good thing that happened in hindsight yeah it often can be sometimes you get stuck in what's comfortable and well and you get scared and think you have to take less because you're scared you could be looking for great i mean logistics a great field right now. Good stuff. There we go.

George, good show today. Good times. Thank you, Dave. Good to have you back. Good to be back. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you.