The Ramsey Show - App - Radical Solutions to Your Money Problems (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us, America. You can call in and talk. It's a free call. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting us off this hour is David in Denver. Hey, David, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks, Dave.

I really appreciate you taking my call. My pleasure. What's up? My father passed in 2017, and he was a resident of Florida. We found out that he was the sole owner of a small residential parcel in Texas. And I helped my mother pay property tax for 2017, and we've since found out we've also got 2017 and 2018 HOA fees, additional taxes. My question is, is my mother or our family responsible for paying these fees and taxes? We don't want this property, and my other question is, what's the best way to dispose of this?

Well, can you just put it on the market and sell it? I'm not sure. We're not on the deed. My father was his whole name on the deed. And so I guess my understanding would be we'd have to get one of us on the deed in order to sell that property as well. No, you're just going to get the court's permission and probate when you probate his estate. Was his estate ever probated? No, we were able to handle all of his other assets without probate,

and we kind of found out about this property after the fact. Any idea who, I mean, so you never got any kind of a court rubber stamp on the estate at all. You just took the stuff and handed it out. He did leave a will, and the will was registered with the court. I have a certified copy of that. Okay. And the will left it? Did the will leave everything to your mother?

Yes. That may give you all you need to sign for your mom to sign the title at the time. You can check with a title company in Texas and ask them what they will require, and a copy of the will, and the will having been registered properly and a death certificate showing, you know, that sets her in the driver's seat as the owner of anything that was his. I assume that's what the will said, and then based on that, they ought to let her sign. If not, you may have to run before the judge there in Florida and get a particular resolution done with the court.

You know, I'm not an attorney, but it's one of those two things. I've transferred a lot of real estate in and out of estates. So usually that's what's going on. Any idea what this property might be worth? It's undeveloped. It's about $3,000, something like that. Oh, so it's not worth a lot of trouble here. But you kind of got to get it cleaned up one way or the other

because they'll turn around and come back after his estate. The HOA could sue his estate, and so the other things that he left to your mom could be in jeopardy. Okay, and so the estate would be liable for continuing taxes and HOA. Yeah, because the estate owns this property now. Okay. And so whether it's titled or not, the estate is responsible for this property. So, yeah, I'd get in touch with a good realtor over in that area.

You can jump online with one of our endorsed local providers and uh you know get the thing on the market and find out what texas what a what a uh title company in texas where the property is located is going to require for your mom to be authorized does the will do it or are they going to require a um you know a ruling by a judge in order for her to be able to do it hopefully not because it may cost you a couple hundred bucks or something and whole stupid thing's not worth fooling with, as you said. But I would go ahead and clean it up. Stuff like this, you know, it just kind of ends up growing mold on it if you don't deal with it, and it'll pop up in your life

at the worst possible time a decade from now or something. So I always like to just have the cleanliness of everything being handled and being done. Erin is with us in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Erin. How are you? Hi, Dave. Good.

How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. So my husband and I, we are currently in baby step two. We have about $9,000 left as debt. We recently found out, though, that we are finally coming into an inheritance that we've been expecting.

We're expecting to net about $75,000. We know we immediately are going to wipe out the debt. We want to set $20,000 to our emergency fund. But then from there, we're having a hard time deciding what the best way is to handle the rest of the money between steps four, five, and six, whether we should put the bulk of it either at the mortgage or save it for when we want to upgrade a house down the road or if we want to kind of spread it out and put some towards our, to fully fund our Roth or fully fund the HSA or put some towards our kids, 529. Okay.

Well, baby step four is all you need to be doing on retirement, and that hasn't got anything to do with this money. It's just 15% of your income going into retirement. So this money would be going to five and six and that is you're either going to beef up and do a big chunk towards your kids college or you're going to do a smaller chunk towards your kids college and some towards the mortgage but those are the only two options uh okay so you wouldn't use this opportunity to like try to fund the 2018 like ross no maximum no i think you got you're you don't use this opportunity to, like, try to fund the 2018, like, Roth maximum? No, no.

I think you're not going to maximize it anyway unless it's part of your 15%. You know, and your 15%, you just need to set that up monthly. Fifteen percent of your household income going into retirement. Yes, and we'll be doing that starting next month as soon as we get this. Okay, so then how do you what what's the best way to handle whether knowing to put so much towards the mortgage versus so much towards the kids college because we have a five-year-old who we have a small 529 but we also have a special needs son who's about to be one so we're not sure the best way to i guess split the funds between their future

but also setting aside it for for the house what What is the nature and severity of the special needs? So he was born with a rare brain disorder, but what's difficult about it is that he is functioning so high right now, and it's so rare that we're not exactly sure how high functioning he's going to continue to be. So we don't know yet if he's going to be dependent on us forever or if he's going to be able to live on his own in any sort of capacity and that's that's been the most difficult part of his disability right now sure well it's it's it's giving you a lot of hope that's not difficult

that's good definitely especially considering what he's facing so um yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't save anything for him right now uh you've got plenty of time to play catch upup. If he's going to go to college and you discover that, if he is going to be under your care, he doesn't need a fund in his name. You'll be taking care of him if he's going to be under your care for life. But if the high-functioning part continues to work and he may need some higher education, you can load him up a 529 a few years from now. So today while we're waiting or we're in a wait-and-see mode on, you know,

how some of this is going to play out for him, I'm just going to load the 5-year-old up. And, you know, you might put $10,000 into a 529 this year and next year, and that would take $20,000 of it. And then anything else, just go ahead and throw it towards a mortgage, something like that. I like just really throwing a bunch of it at the, you know, putting enough in college as quick as I can to kind of be done with it. And then just take baby step five off. There's no more college savings. I got enough in there.

You know, based on what's in there at five years old, it's going to grow to more than enough for the kid to go to school. I don't need to put anything else aside for college. I'm done. Check that box. And then I can just move on and do some of the other stuff. So, hey, good question. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Listen up, my friends at Churchill Mortgage. You want to put some cash back into your pocket.

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Redwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Anthony's in New York City. Hi, Anthony. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Okay. I have one question relating to two issues here. I have two credit cards that are in a charge-off stage. I was paying as much as I can, because we're currently in Baby Step 2. What do I do now that it's been processed into a charge-off? Doesn't matter.

You still got to pay them. I mean... What I'm saying is we can't afford the minimum payment, so we've been giving them, you know, as much as we can, like, from the bottom line. You know, so it's. Okay. So they're not going to get anything now. If they didn't want that,

they don't get anything until you get some other things paid off and can get yourself squared around. Sounds like you've got a lot of debt. Pretty much, yeah. We got about $55 thousand dollars in debt and uh those two cards alone were about fourteen thousand but uh i got sick for a while and i couldn't afford the minimum payments and it started adding up and i can't i was only could give him i can only give him fifty dollars each a month but do i now not do i stop doing that and just pay off the other

ones first yeah that's fine. Either way, you're still going to have to get to all of it. Right. What's your household income? Well, this year we got a little raise, so it's about, I would say, about $75,000. Okay.

And is it only because you got behind that you can't pay them? Because you should have room in this budget. $55,000 worth of debt and a $75,000 income. We finished financial peace in April, and we've been paying off small debts here and there, and then we fell behind on those. We could afford the minimum payments on the ones that we're currently paying off, but we couldn't afford the bigger, higher parts. So it makes a lot of time.

You're doing your written budget or your every dollar budget? Written budget. Okay. All right. Because, again, $55,000 worth of debt with a $75,000 income, unless you've got some kind of really huge payment on one of the other ones, you should have had room to have paid the payment, except for those months you were sick. I mean, but, you know, the regular monthly payment should be doable and more to work your way towards this debt.

So I'm kind of worried about what's in your budget now and what could be cut out of your budget. But either way, if you just put a hold on these, if they've charged them off and you don't pay them for a while while you knock out a few other things, that's an okay way to get at it. It's not okay to say, I'm just going to ignore it forever because that's not going to work. You do need to pay it. But to get the cash flowing and get the log jam and the math broken loose maybe this will do it candace is with us in dallas hi candace how are you hi dave i'm good how are you better than i deserve what's up okay so i have five credit cards um some with lower balances some with higher balances the ones with the higher balance 13 000 around 13 000 has a higher APR. What I want to do is apply the minimum payment of about $386 a month that I pay on the higher balance with the higher APR towards the lower balance, lower APR cards first,

so then I can snowball that money into the higher ones once I get rid of the lower ones. But I want to know if that's a good idea. I'm not looking to purchase anything major in the next couple years. I have a house. that's a good idea. I'm not looking to purchase anything major in the next couple of years. I have a house, cars are paid off, but we have three kids and we are trying to put two in daycare at once. And I just don't have the monthly income to do so. What's your household income? Our household income is roughly $109,000. And how much debt do you have, not counting your house? Not counting my house. My husband has a student loan of roughly $100,000.

Good Lord. Yeah. And then our credit cards total to about $31,000. Okay. All right. You're not doing a written budget? I do do my written budget every month. There's enough money here to pay these bills.

$109,000 income. You can pay that student loan payment and you can pay $31,000 worth of credit card debt. It's doable. There's room in this budget. I don't know what you're spending your money on. So I am able to pay it. Yeah. I'm only paying the minimum on

all the cards right now that's what you need to do first first thing you do is you pay all your minimums and then after that you make a list of your debts smallest to largest while you're paying minimums on everything you pay all the extra you can on your smallest debt apr does not enter into this discussion okay good but you should get this debt reduced really, really fast. The other problem is we're looking to put our we have to put our youngest into daycare because the child care provider we have now can no

longer keep her. So we don't have any money to free up to put her in child care. And that's part of the problem. How much is your house payment? our house payments are two thousand dollars oh yeah you got a house you can't afford okay so i recently a lot of that was with my escrow account with my homeowner's insurance which i just recently changed

so that won't come into effect until the spring because they've already paid it out in full and i changed it like I guess a little too late pretty much so I won't see the benefit of that until next year yeah okay um here's the thing you have to get yourself in a position where your income versus your outgo leaves your room to clear up 130130,000 worth of debt. You have to. You cannot just say, oh, I have a daycare problem. Oh, I have a business problem.

Oh, I have that problem. You just can't do that. You're not at the mercy of this math. This math is at the mercy of you. And so if you cannot cut lifestyle and cut things out of your budget enough to be able to attack this ridiculous amount of debt you all have, then you're probably going to have to sell your house because you have a very high house payment. Okay.

Your house payment's more than a fourth of your take-home pay. Yeah. And a lot of that is our property taxes. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what's squeezing you. You've got to get the income up or the out go down somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what's squeezing you. You've got to get the income up or the out go down somewhere. Okay. Because you've got to find some margin in here. Otherwise, we're just

treading water. Right. And that's, you know, that's just a rat in a wheel. And mathematically, you don't want to just run, run, run, run, run, run, run, have a heart attack and die. I mean, that's not that's no life to be a rat in a wheel. So we've got again, it's kind of the mathematical log jam, these last two callers that you've got again it's kind of the mathematical log jam these last two callers that you've got to do something radical so hey thanks for the call we appreciate you joining us let's push pause just a second and talk that through because sometimes you do face that where you know you've you've squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and still there's no ability to throw chunks of money at the debt to make the debt leave.

Then you have a pretty desperate situation. The last two callers are facing that, both of them. And so desperate situations require desperate measures. Extreme situations require extreme adjustment. Now, in the old days, my great-grandfather, David L. Ramsey I, he owned a lumber operation in the hills of Kentucky. And they would go in and cut trees. And the way they got the trees to market was they put them in the river. And they'd push them down the river.

Big, big logs going down the river. When you get to a turn with all these logs in the river, they jam. And they won't make the turn. It's a congestion, like on the interstate in Houston, you know. And you get jammed up. And the way they got rid of the log jam, that's where the word log jam came from, or the phrase log jam, the way they got rid of that is they threw dynamite in the middle of it.

And it blasted those trees up in the air and threw them out onto the banks and everything else, and it blew them forward and blew them backward, and it created movement. They lost some of their production. They lost some of the logs in the process, but they were able to get the thing flowing again, and the log jam was broken loose. And that's what you've got to do when you're in one of these mathematical log jams. You have to throw dynamite in the middle of it. And so that means you might take a job working 80 hours a week.

It means you might sell your house. It means you might sell one of the kids. Oh, I'm kidding. But the dog, the dog could be gone for sure. No, I'm kidding. The cat, oh, definitely the cat. I mean, but, you know, something's got to happen here, right? Somebody's got to get radical.

If you're in a radical situation, the radical solution is the only thing that will do. And that's what you're facing. And it's tough. It's thing that will do. And that's what you're facing. And it's tough. It's very hard to do. And both those guys are facing it these last two calls. But, you know, it's something you just blow something up. And that's what I'm reaching for with some of my answers in those situations. Did you know, statistically, when it comes to life insurance and protecting your family, that women are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured than men?

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They shop the top term life companies to find the lowest rates available. You can compare rates online at zander.com or call 800-356-4282. This is something every family has to deal with. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Rusty and Laura are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, we're doing good. Welcome, welcome.

Where do you guys live? Salt Lake City, Utah. Wow. And all the way to Nashville to Hey, we're doing good. Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Salt Lake City, Utah. Wow, and all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. Yes, sir. Fun stuff. Well, welcome. How much debt have you guys paid off? We've paid off about $500,000. $500,000? Yep. Okay, there's a story here. How long did this take? So it took about nine months and nine, sorry, nine years and nine months. And the first three years we spent paying off our unsecured debt and the next seven years paying off our house. So you are a house and everything out of debt. We are. Way to go. How old are you two? So I am 35. I'm 33. I'm looking at weird people. I love it. And what was your range of income during that nine years and nine months? So we started out about $55,000.

And then over the last nine, ten years, we've got over $400,000 now. Oh, my goodness. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a VP of sales for a mid-market division for a software company in Salt Lake. I work with a great team. And my wife stays at home and takes care of the kids. Okay. Much harder job.

I hear you. Absolutely. Very cool. Well, you've got a great income. What's your house worth? About $700,000. Okay. Much harder job. I hear you. Absolutely. Very cool. Well, you got a great income. What's your house worth? About $700,000. Okay. Way to go, you guys. Yeah. How fun. Ding, ding. So what started all this 10 years ago? Well, actually, it all started, Dave, because of some mistakes that I had made. So I was a pretty ambitious individual when I was 21 years old. I thought I could build a lot of wealth. I thought I could generate a great business.

At the time, this was 2006. Oh, good timing. Oh, great. I'll do it in real estate. Oh, yeah. There you go. So I started talking to a lot of broke people who were giving me advice around how to use other people's money in order to invest and build wealth. I didn't have a credit score, so I went about the business of playing kissy face with the bank, as you would say.

Right. And I started borrowing money and building up my credit score so I could borrow money. I never got to a point where I could buy a property, but I did figure out a way through personal loans to get about $80,000 to invest with some local neighborhood investor guys, and I actually ended up losing it. Oh, my gosh. In about three weeks. Whoa. Whoa. Just like it. Oh my gosh. In about three weeks. Whoa.

Whoa. Just like that. Just like that. Were you all married at the time? We were. Just after. So we had six months in our marriage. You married in just as he's doing all this stuff.

Yeah. That's great. I love it. I'm a sales guy, Dave. I love it. Well done. So then what happened? So what happened was I had just taken this sweet woman to be my wife and I had woken up six months into my marriage with $115,000 in unsecured debt, 22 years old. I know nothing about money and how things work. And I feel like I'd screwed up our life.

I feel like I had set us up for failure and I had to fix it. And I didn't really have to convince Laura to help. I mean... No, but I was raised, you know, live within your means. And I also had wonderful grandparents. One set of grandparents, they actually paid for 20 of their grandkids, two-thirds of their tuition. So I felt like I wanted to do that. And my other grandparents,

when I was little, I remember asking my grandpa what he did for a living. And he said, I collect interest. And he retired when he was 55. And he taught me about stocks as a little girl.

He opened up the newspaper, showed me the S&P 500. When I was in college, he told me that him and my grandma, they'd been paying cash for their cars. So I felt like when I grew up, I wanted to pay cash for my cars. I wanted to help my grandkids if I needed to.

So it wasn't a hard sell for me. That's what I wanted to be when I grew up. Yeah, we're going to clean this mess up so we can do the other stuff. Exactly. There we go. So then what happened? So what I started to do at that point was my wife was on board. I mean, she was telling me, you've got to fix this.

I started seeking out people who actually had money. I found people that were real millionaires. I started listening to your show, started learning from you and from those who have actually generated true wealth. And what it came down to is I had to pay off the debt, save and invest, build wealth. So we started the journey with you, Dave. So for 10 years, we followed your plan to the T. We went through, we were broke. I mean, we had figured out on our budget, we'd figured out how to eat really cheaply by emulating third world countries' main staple meals. So I'd figured out how to eat for 50 cents a meal, which was great. But we went

to the library for entertainment and I'd snuggle up to the wall to be able to do my internet with my neighbor so that I could actually go through college. But we were intense. And then once we paid off our unsecured debt, we bought our home and then now our forever home. And we've just continued on that path. And we've gone from negative six figures in net worth to positive seven figures net worth as of January. And we, following your plan, became millionaires, Steve. And you're not even 35 years old. No.

Wow. Well done. Very well done. Who was your biggest cheerleader? Definitely my wife. And I would say that my mentor, Perry Gigi, was a fantastic cheerleader for me. My boss, Bill Robinson, real smart southern guy, just like you. They helped mentor me. Very good. Good for you guys. Man, you have done very well. Very proud of y'all. How's

it feel? Oh, it's awesome. When you first pay off that debt, it feels great. And I recommend it to anyone to not have that. I mean, still, you still have your payments you have to make and you're paying your water bill and your utilities, but to have to have payments and not have to have payments, it feels great. Yeah, it's completely different. There's something that turns loose in the spiritual world when you don't have any payments. It's very real.

The borrower is slave to the lender. Well done, you guys. Well done. And you brought the kiddos with you to do the Dead Free Scream. We brought the kids, yeah. What are their names and their ages? So we have Rush. He's nine.

Noelle, she's seven. Eliana, four. And we have George, who he is, turns two in just a couple days. All right. And he's super happy to be here. Hi, bud. We're here. Love it.

Well, here we go. So Rusty and Laura, Rush, Noelle, Ilana, and George from Salt Lake City. $500,000 paid off in nine years and nine months. Millionaires at $35,000. House and everything is paid for, and there are not even $35,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right.

Three, two, one. We're not free! Well done, you guys. Well done. Love it, love it, love it. Thanks, guys. Man, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired. I want that to be the next chapter in your story, that you become millionaires, you're

there, and that you continue to grow that wealth, and of course, be outrageously generous as you go along. And the four kiddos there to feed in the process, there you go. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color, they will remake your window blinds for free.

Site-wide savings happening right now, plus take an additional 5% off at Blinds.com slash Ramsey. Today's question is from Alex in Nebraska. Which is the better alternative, buying a starter home that you know you'll move out of at some point or renting until you have enough for your forever home? Alex, I got bad news. There are no forever homes. Ta-da!

When you buy your dream home, you will find out your dreams change. Your life changes. You add kids, you take away kids. They leave, you're empty nesters. Then you get a little older, and you might not want stairs. All of these different things happen throughout the scope of your life, and there is no such thing as a forever home. The average home sells every 5.6 years in America. And some of that is mobility, but some of that is just life changes.

We're upsizing. We're downsizing. We're upgrading. We're moving into a condo because we don't want to cut grass anymore. We're moving to a big yard for the kids. Oh, we're sick of the big yard. We want to move back and forth and all around. It's just part of life.

So buy your starter home, dude. And then when you get ready to move to the next thing, move to the next thing and get them paid for. As quick as you can get it paid off. And obviously, if you can buy a home that will suffice for the next several years, that's a good thing. But there's nothing wrong with getting a starter home. Get your foot in the door on this wonderful real estate market

that we are experiencing now. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Diane is with us in Indianapolis. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Diane. Thank you. What a pleasure it is to meet you. You too. How can I help? Well, I have about $350,000 sitting in a savings account, and it doesn't make any money.

And I was thinking of buying rental properties or some kind of investment to put it in to make money, and I was wondering which would be the best way to go. Okay. Well, the only two things I do as investments is I buy real estate that I pay cash for, no debt, and I put money in good growth stock mutual funds. And so that's what I would do if i had that money sitting there the thing about real estate is you can make more money on real estate but there's more hassle because you deal with these things called tenants so you have to be willing to deal

with that and to work and work with your management company that's helping you or whoever. And nothing in real estate is automatic. You make less money with mutual funds most of the time than you do with a good real estate investment anyway. But it's a lot more automatic. And so it's up to you as to which one and what you want to deal with but uh if you don't mind the um the hassle of dealing with real estate then uh i love real estate and i probably would try to do some of both i do both i've got millions of dollars in both and so uh but just keep it very simple and don't use the money as a down payment in real estate.

Pay cash for whatever you're going to do. I would not recommend debt on that. So, hey, thanks for the call. Linda is in Fargo, North Dakota. Hi, Linda. How are you? Hi. I'm good.

My question is about my parents. They are in their 80s, and their overall worth is probably close to half a million. But a third of that is in the single company stock where my mom used to work. And I know that you recommend no more than 10% in that kind of thing, and their financial advisor is also steering them that direction. But my question is, the rest of their income would normally be in the 15% tax bracket. So at that rate, capital gains have a 0% tax. But if they sell, she's already sold 45,000 of it this year. And so if they sell more, they will have that 15% capital gains tax.

So I'm wondering how the tax balances against the risk of having it in that single stock. Well, to start with, the 15% does not apply, as you know, to the entire amount that you sell because she doesn't have zero in it. In her case, though, her basis is very low, so it would apply to at least 90% of whatever she sells. So the question then becomes, during a given year, what's the probability of that single stock moving 15% down? Because if it moved more than 15% down, you'd wish you would have paid capital gains, right? Yep, yep. That's your risk assessment.

And so what you could do, I don't know what the stock is, but you could pull up the 52-week history, the last year history of the stock, or the last five-year history of the stock, and look at the highs and the lows. Okay. And go, how volatile is it? Is it moving more than 15%? Yeah, right now it is at quite a high. I know, but how volatile is it, the high versus the low?

And so how much, you know, has it only gone up for the last five years? You know, I mean, if so, then we're not going to worry about it much. But if it goes up, down, up, down, up, down, and it's got a variance of 22 percent in a given year from a high to a low then that tells me i want to pay the capital gains and get out okay you see how i'm doing that yeah but look at your look at your trend lines on the stock and think about the company itself and you know all you're doing is guessing you know against a 15% hit on it. Right. That's what we're dealing with. And so, you know, in your 80s, the risk scares me enough that I'm probably just going to pay the 15% and forget it.

I'm going to pay the taxes and get out because I don't like the risk. And so, you know, that's probably what I would do. But if you're that concerned about it, that's a way to analyze it. That's a way to do an analysis of it. Miguel is with us in Las Vegas. Hi, Miguel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I just turned 40 this year, and I'm a little concerned about my retirement.

I've only got about $30,000 on one account. That was probably four years ago with the company I left. Never rolled it to an IRA, just like you said. I'm a new listener, by the way. I just realized I made so many mistakes listening to you. And I'm just trying to focus on my retirement. My house is paid for. We have a rental property that we owe still about maybe $70,000 on it. But I do got about $80,000 on savings. What's your question, Miguel?

So it's a retirement part of, can I do that by myself, or do I have to go with an LP, or I just need to get a little bit more guidance on the retirement. Okay, cool. Well, I'll send you a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, which will show you some processes there. With the information that you gave me just now you're debt free except the rental property and you have enough in the bank to pay the rental

property off i'd pay off the rental property today be 100 debt free and then i would start maxing out what i can with 401ks and roth iras and good growth stock mutual funds a smart investor pro can help you do that i help you get all of that set up and help you look at it. I personally use one of our SmartVestor Pros, and I know a ton about it. I could do it myself, but I do not fool with investments every day. I don't work on my own cars anymore either. I don't pull my own teeth. I let someone else do all of those kinds of things that's a specialist and knows what they're doing. And so click smartvestor at DaveRamsey.com.

Put in your info. It'll drop down a list of the smartvestor pros in your area that we recommend. You sit down with one of them. They'll walk you through how to get your retirement stuff all maxed out. But yeah, I'd go ahead and pay off that rental property today. You've got the money to do it. Good question. Thank you for joining us.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for being with us. New tax law goes into effect. It's here. 2018. You familiar with all the changes? How will it affect your small business and taxes? Well, I started looking at mine.

I can tell you this. Your taxes are going to go down a lot in business. Most of you, your taxes are going to go down whether you're in business or not. And your standard deduction is going way up. So the amount of, that's one of the things that's going to cause your taxes to go down so business meals and entertainment though that deduction it's gone 2018 you can no longer deduct it at all so no such thing as taking a client dinner and writing it off ding ding there's other stuff lots of wonderful things that are offset that but see

you need to have somebody helping you with your taxes because some of you just went oh crap i have no idea about the new tax law yeah so go to dave ramsey.com slash elp and click on the endorsed local provider for taxes and they'll sit down particularly if you're in business but either way uh taxes are going to change they've changed a lot um i know democrats think the world's coming to an end because of the new tax law and that the rich are getting richer but let me just tell you everybody's getting richer everybody got a tax cut just about i mean it's pretty incredible so but you need to know how to use it and it and how to make sure that you get that portion of yours. So it's not a political thing.

It's a knowledge thing, baby. So go to DaveRamsey.com, click ELP, endorse local provider for taxes, get some help. You're going to see some pretty amazing stuff coming through. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. I think it's the James Childs, our our producer and Kelly Daniel, our associate producer. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we will be back. Hey, it's Blake, chief production officer for the show. And here's a little tip for 2018.

Go download our revamped Dave Ramsey Show app from the App Store. We're always listening to your feedback and adding new features to make it even better. Check it out.