The Ramsey Show - App - Robert and Allison Paid Off $260k! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

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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. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jason's with us in Detroit, Michigan.

Hey, Jason, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, just wanted to give you a little backstory. My wife and I just moved from Illinois to Michigan to kind of be closer to all her family up here. So, you know, feeling a little out of place, but kind of getting used to everything. But I'm currently unemployed. I was just let go in the past couple months, and I'm looking for a job now. I'm an accountant, and my wife is a teacher. She teaches special education. So she currently has a job now. I'm an accountant and my wife is a teacher. She teaches special education.

So she currently has a job. My question is, we're living with her parents for the time being until probably maybe next summer or so until we can buy our own house. We've got about $11,000 of student debt left between both of us. And we've got about that much in our bank account right now. I wasn't sure, obviously, once I find a job, if the best strategy would be to try to knock that debt out as soon as possible and then from there start to save for a house. What my wife kind of wants to do is just put everything we can toward a down payment to try to hopefully not pay PMI and get close to that 20% and so forth. So I didn't know what your take was.

I mean, it seems like we should still be able to have some sort of decent down payment. Either way, I just didn't know how you would feel about that. Okay. I don't recommend that people buy a home when they're broke because it will make you a broker. That's why they call them mortgage brokers. A home is not a blessing when you're broke. It's a curse. And when you have debt and do not have an emergency fund, you're broke by definition.

So my advice to folks has always been, and it's not real popular advice, and your wife's not going to like it, so you all may not do it, but my strong advice to you is to pay off the debt and save an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses above that save your down payment and then buy and when you buy a home and when you move in the house and there's ten thousand dollars still in your emergency fund after you move in and you have no payments but the house payment that house is a blessing when you buy a home you got eleven thousand dollars in debt and you have no money but the house payment, that house is a blessing. When you buy a home, you've got $11,000 in debt, and you have no money left in your savings account because you cleaned it out trying to beat PMI, and you move in a house broken in debt,

Murphy will move in your spare bedroom and bring his cousin, Sally May, and they will set up housekeeping and broke desperate and stupid, and your house will start looking like a country song. That's what happens and that's why the house is not a blessing it's a curse when you buy it is broke so you guys need to slow down and do this right because you've been through some hard times here dude i mean you've been unemployed you've had to move to a different city you're living with your in-laws for god's sakes this is is not pleasant, right? Yeah.

I actually moved up here in January, and I had to start living with them for a few months before my wife could come because she had to teach until April. Yeah. And then she gave birth to our third daughter in May. So we kind of have a lot of transition going on right now. Yeah. What does she make? She's $44,000. Okay.

I would just slow down and so and it might slowing down might mean you do some things differently in the process too because it might lengthen this calendar where it starts to not be fun to be living there so uh you know if it's sharon and i doing this we've got three kids and uh if you know they're all grown now thank you j, Jesus. But if it was me in your situation, and I've been in your situation, or pretty close anyway, I would write a check today and be debt-free. And then I would begin to build my emergency fund. And when I have my emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, then I would begin to build my down payment.

If it starts looking like that we need to rent for a year somewhere to have our sanity and not be living with the in-laws forever and ever i'm in um and take a break from that and get your own place and rent for a year while you save up your down payment there's no sin in that and so i honestly we probably would do that but we are people we sharon and i have figured out we're very generous in a lot of ways, but we're not generous with people living with us or us living with people. We just don't do that well. We've got friends who just move in the missionary with them.

They just move in so-and-so with them and all that. We can't do it. We're not wired that way. And we're generous other ways, but we don't have that ability. So, honestly, just us. I'm not saying you're bad for doing it. i'm not saying you i'm not saying you're bad for doing it i'm just saying we couldn't do what you're doing for very long it'd be for a very short window out of sheer freaking desperation and then we would go get some kind of little rental

and have our own little life until we could save up a down payment but you know maybe you can do that maybe you can hang out there that long but if if you're debt-free today and you land a job tomorrow, what do you think you're going to be making? Well, I'm hoping somewhere in the 50 to 60 range. Okay. So that puts you like at 100 household income. You don't have any rent if you're living with them, and you don't have any debt because I just paid it off. And then you need to save up, you know, $15,000 or so for an emergency fund and then start saving for your down payment. And then just run that math out, how quick can you do that,

and then ask yourself, do we want to rent a year and slow down our buying maybe by one year, which is not the end of the world. It's not, you know, it's not like we're renting the rest of our life. But just in order to have the dignity of having your own space for your kids and the conflict that, I mean, very few people can live with in-laws an extended period of time and not create relationship strain. Yeah, and it hasn't been bad living with them.

I mean, we get along. It's just after a while you kind of want to sort of be able to be on your own and kind of walk around the house and have it be quiet and not having people giving their advice all the time necessarily amen and i and i will tell you whoever's parents you're living with in with yours or hers it's not it's always harder for the the other the other one so if you're living with her folks it's harder for you because she's used to hanging out with them and listening to their advice and all that but you're like no i mean we make a hundred thousand dollars a year i think i'll do what i want to do thank you very much right now and uh yeah but so i'm probably

i'm going to land on a rental for a little while in your situation but again i'm not saying you have to do that but if you're asking me what to do financially for sure i'm writing a check today and i'm debt free for, I'm starting to build an emergency fund. And quickly as I do that, I'm for sure going to start saving my down payment. And even if you bought and didn't save the PMI because you didn't have a full 20%, that's okay with me too. As long as you're on a 15-year fixed and the payment is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay and you're debt-free with your emergency fund when you move in, after you make your down payment.

And the house will be a blessing then. But if you do it the other way, because you get all twisted up in a hurry, you're going to regret it. Sharon is with us in Florida. Hi, Sharon. How are you? I'm doing good, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have a question about my husband's life insurance um he's going to be 68 next month and he's been paying we've been paying his universal life insurance since we got married about 20 years ago oh lord and yeah um i know it's a terrible thing but we found out just how terrible a couple years ago they came to us and said that what we pay every month doesn't cover the cost of insurance. So now you have to even pay more.

That's right. So it's been decreasing. The cash value went, it was over $8,500. I'll tell you what, hold on. I'm going to give you a good solid answer after this commercial break. Commercial snuck up on me. Hang with me. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

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And 68 years old, 20 years ago, they bought a universal life policy, which is a type of cash value policy. A portion of your premium, folks, when you have a universal policy, goes to pay the insurance cost. And the insurance cost goes up every single year because it's based on annual renewable term rates. And so more and more is going to insurance cost as the policy gets older. Less and less is going to the investment. To the point that they crossed the line a few years ago and contacted Sharon and her husband and said, oh, now the premium that you're paying, 100% of it won't cover the insurance cost. So now if you want to keep the insurance, not only is zero going to investments, but now even more has to be paid to keep the insurance active.

And that's how far we got in the discussion. Is what I just said all correct, Sharon? Yes. Yes. Okay. And what is the face amount of this policy? $80,000.

$80,000. And how much money do you all have? How much money do we have? How much are you in your 401ks and your nest eggs? We do have retirement accounts. How much? They total $84,000. We have a $10,000 emergency fund.

We are debt-free. Our house is paid for. Good. So this is kind of like... So you don't have... How much cash value is in this? Right now it's at $6,000. Okay.

And do you have pension plans as well? No. Okay. And so you're living on Social Security and $80,000 worth of 401K money. Actually, my husband still works. He has $36,000 in income, and he brings in $21,000 in Social Security. Okay. That's all. I don't work gotcha and the

face amount of this policy you said was eighty thousand dollars yeah okay so we did look into term insurance for him but number one it's really a lot more expensive at his age but number two he has battled cancer a couple times yeah non-hodgkin'soma, and so basically nobody will touch it. Yeah, very difficult, very difficult. So we don't know. We can lower the death benefit. So what is the premium? How much is it a year?

It's $77. How much? $77. A month? Yeah. Okay. So $800 a year, and you make $36,000 a year. Well, here's the equation.

Here's the way it works in your mind, okay? The purpose of this is to give you an extra $80,000 if he dies before you do, okay? And so is that worth $800 at this stage? There's no investment value whatsoever. So we're not going to. The only question is, you know, you don't have a huge nest egg. You've got a small nest egg. And so to double it, basically, if he were to die, would be very helpful.

And so keeping the insurance sounds really good with that in mind. Yeah, they told us it would only last another three or four years. Anyway. It'll be 71 or 72. Okay, and they're going to make you stop anyway. They're going to pull the plug on you. Oh, yeah. Okay, and at that point, you would cash it out and whatever cash value is in there.

There wouldn't be any in there. My husband would like to get it out now. Yeah. The only way to get it out now is to close the policy down. Right. I want to do that. Which means that if he passes away, you'd have the 401K money, the paid-for house, and be living on Social Security, right? Yeah.

But you probably could make it, because I've got a feeling you guys are frugal people. Oh, yeah. And so you probably could make it on that, but it's not going to be a dream come true. So they have given you notice that at 62 or, I'm sorry, 73 or whatever, 70 years old, they're going to shut the policy down regardless. Yeah. Well, no, I guess if we could keep paying, you know, at that point it would be over $200 a month. I think we could keep it going. Okay.

Or we could lower the death benefit and keep it going. They told us we could do that, which is what I wanted to do. But he wants to cash it out, so we're doing nothing. Yeah, there's not a great answer. Okay, that's why I'm hemming and hawing a little bit. I'm trying to think through it. My tendency is at $800 a year right now to keep it for a while. Okay.

$77 a month. Even if you use the cash values, you can have the cash values begin to pay the premium. And, you know, it's going to use up some of that $8,000. I'm probably going to do that and let the $8,000 pay the premium starting today, and I'm probably going to leave it in place a couple of years. When it starts being $200 a month instead of $77 a month, at that point, I'm probably going to join his tribe and say, let's cash it out and close it down. But I don't think it's going to make sense to keep this long, for a long, long time.

We're probably going to keep it a couple more years. How's his health? What's that? How is his health? Well, the first time he went through, he stayed cancer-free for five years, and this time he's been cancer-free for two years. Good. So, I mean, he goes in and gets PET scans every six months or so

to make sure it's not coming back so they can stay aggressive with it. Good, good. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm going to let the cash value pay the premiums for the next two years and keep it open. Uh-huh, okay. And I'm going to check on his health at that time. Let's say that he's got another episode with cancer going at that time.

Then you pay the premium no matter what it costs. Okay. And you keep it open if the cancer has come back at any stage, right? You keep the thing open at that point. But if he's doing really, really good and everything's clean and two years from now you haven't seen a spot, nothing's, no problems anywhere, I'm probably dropping it at that point. Okay. Does that make sense to you? At that point, he wouldn't be insured.

Yeah, yeah. But you're also not paying, you know, $3,000, $2,000 a year, which is what it's going to be at that point. Yeah. Which is starting to be ridiculous. With that kind of money, you can throw money into investments and start having some money. Yeah. But at this stage, I'm hesitant to cancel it. It's obviously a bad policy.

It's obviously been a bad thing. But it's your only option. You're stuck with it. So that makes it hard to discuss and hard to think about. But I'm going to hold it two years, let the cash value pay it. At the end of that time, if he's healthy and still cancer-free, I'm dropping it. Otherwise, I'm going to keep it if he's got a health issue at that time. So good question.

Thank you for calling in, and I'm sorry you had this problem. Folks, you hear me yell and scream about cash value, life insurance, whole life, life insurance, universal life, variable life is a ripoff. You just experienced it. You just experienced the back end, what happens if you buy one of those pieces of crap policy and you're 68 years old. This is what happens.

Because the money they put into that stupid butt policy would be 300 grand right now in mutual funds if they'd put it into that into a good investment instead of getting ripped off by this insurance company and if she was sitting there with 300 grand plus the other 401k they'd have about 400 000 bucks plus their house is paid for she wouldn't even have called me but instead guess who's fat and sassy instead of her the insurance company so when your whole life agent says i don't really agree with dave ramsey it's because your whole life agent's trying to rip you off that's why your whole life agent's saying that and there's only two kinds of whole life agents ignorant and crooked because if you understand these numbers and that story right there and

then you still sell this stuff that makes you crooked you ought to be ashamed of yourself and if you don't understand these numbers and you're still selling that stuff that makes you ignorant and you shouldn't be selling this stuff and And by the way, folks, in case you didn't know, you'll get screwed way more often by an enthusiastic ignoramus than you will by a con artist. So most of the people out there selling this crap are enthusiastic ignoramuses. They're not actual con artists. My Uncle Charlie sold me this while he's an enthusiastic ignoramus. That's old Uncle Charlie.

We just nailed him right there. Because he's probably not a crook. If he'd actually sat down and looked and realized that Sharon, if Sharon's friend sold her that, he's not a friend. With friends like that, you don't need enemies. You know? She could have had 300 grand in mutual funds. It's easy for what they've dumped into this crappy product.

Whole Life Life Insurance, the payday lender of the middle class. Oh, it aggravates me. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you are with us. Robert and Allison are on the line in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, guys, how are you? How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. I see on my screen you're debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Very cool. How much have you paid off? About $261,000. Very cool. How long did that take? About seven and a half years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Back then we started at about 80 and

now we're pushing right around the 200 mark. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I do HVAC, heating and air conditioning. And I'm an office manager in insurance. Okay. Very well done. Good. So I'm guessing from the size of the debt and the seven and a half years, you might have paid off your house.

We did. House and everything. Talking to weird people here. Way to go, guys. They're very neat. How old are you two? I'm 32. I'm 33.

And you don't even have a mortgage? No. We don't. You're completely weird. Yeah. I mean, I bet you probably don't even know any 30-year-olds with no mortgage, do you? No. My neighbors who are in their 80s. Yeah, well, get a mirror.

I know one. Way to go, guys. Way to go. Awesomeness. Thank you, yes. Very, very, very cool. What's this house worth? Probably about $220,000 to $240,000, somewhere in there.

Excellent. Something like that. So the $261,000 was house and other stuff then? Yeah, back in 2009, I think we started around then. And we had a car loan and some credit card debt. A car loan of like $30,000 and about $14,000 in credit card debt, and we paid all that off. And then over those few years, we kind of did some things around the house after we paid off the debt. Cash flow to our kitchen was like $20,000 and different stuff like that.

And then we really started hammering the mortgage out probably about three years ago. Wow. Well done. Well, this is the typical out probably about three years ago. Wow. Well done. Well, this is the typical total money makeover reader or Financial Peace University attender. It's about seven years their house gets paid for and everything else, too, in the process. So very, very well done. So what put you on this journey? Tell me what happened.

How did you get started? Well, probably about right after we bought the house. I don't know. I had heard of your stuff in church one time, and I kind of heard the name, but never really did anything. And then, I don't know, after we moved in your show, you'd be on Fox Business, and I happened to see it, and then really kind of found out what your stuff was all about. And right around then, I said, we've got to do this stuff, and kind of that's how it all began. Very cool. We never took the class or anything like that. But we did actually teach one class, but we never took the class.

But just mostly I listened to your podcast every day. And that's kind of how it began. Good deal. So Allison, he comes in and says he's listening to this weird guy on the radio. He wants to pay off everything. What did you say? I was actually really on board with that. I've never had a problem with, like, overspending.

That was more Bobby's end. So I was all for it. And when we started doing the house, that got rough. But now we're on the other side, so it was all worth it. Yeah, you got no payments at all now. You have no payments. You're 32 years old. You're making $200.

I mean, you guys are, whoa, you are going to be so wealthy. This is awesome. And it was really cool. I mean, you guys are, whoa, you are going to be so wealthy. This is awesome. And it was really cool. We paid off the house on his birthday. So we had it in there, and then I said, well, let's just wait until your actual birthday. So we always remember that day. So it was awesome. All four of us went, and the kids were all jammed up for it.

So it was good. That's fun. Very well done. How many kiddos have you got two boys what ages um bobby is six and benjamin just turned three so you have changed your family tree haven't you oh yeah they don't know anything other than they've been born into us never having a credit card which is pretty awesome it's very awesome i'm so proud of you guys. Did you have more cheerleaders or more detractors as you went along? We were actually talking about that a little bit earlier.

I mean, yeah, definitely my parents are very proud and, you know, don't turn us on, but, you know, some other people always would kind of poke fun at you a little bit, you know, or mention something. But basically now, not even my friends or anything like that, they don't say anything now. I guess not, yeah. You're sitting there with a paid-for house, so shut up, yeah.

That's pretty cool. Very neat. Well, well done, guys. Very well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Being diligent with it and staying on track. Yeah, even when you screw up. I mean, I can be the one to be

the most, it's all my idea, but when I want something or I like stuff or I always like the most expensive thing, then I can be the one to put up the biggest fuss about waiting or being patient. The hardest thing. Well, you did it for seven and a half years. You lived

like no one else. Now you can live and give like no one else. You're in just great shape. Congrats, guys. Thank you. Very, very cool. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you, number one bestseller, and we want that to be your next chapter in your story. And speaking of podcasts, make sure you're listening to his podcast

because that will keep you moving in the right direction here and hedge off in the millionaire land and be outrageously generous along the way, okay? Absolutely. Cool. All right, Robert and Allison, Hartford, Connecticut, $261,000 paid off. That's their house and everything by 32 years old. Seven and a half years it took them, making $80,000 to $200,000 a year. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right, boys, let's go. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yes! Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. I love it.

Sarah is with us in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hey, Sarah, how are you? I'm great. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? So I have a question about some of the movement through the final parts of the baby steps. We currently are out of debt.

We have our emergency fund that's fully funded. We're currently cash flowing to kids in college. And so it's about retirement versus our house payoff. We currently owe about $78,000 on our home. Good. And what's your household income? Just under $200,000 a year. Phenomenal. And how much is college? Our kids are about $40,000 a year right now for the

two of them. Okay, good. So doing all of that. So my question is, we currently have about $720,000 in our retirement accounts. My husband's company doesn't have a match, so we do 15%. Not a problem. My company, I'm very blessed with. I invest 5%. They give me 10. So that's the 15. So my question is, do I find a different way to invest that other 15% or the other 10% to make mine a 15? Or do we put that extra, it's about $380 a month, towards our mortgage? It's $4,000 a year.

Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter. Well, I just wasn't sure. Well, I mean, you know, you're acting like that makes a dent in your mortgage. It doesn't. Oh, but it would make a much better dent in my retirement account. Yeah. Yeah. So I want you to put at Baby Step 4 15% of your household income.

You put 15% of your household income into retirement. It doesn't sound to me like you're doing that right now. No, I haven't been because I've always thought, oh, we're investing 15% because I put in my 5 and they put in the 10, which is an amazing match. Oh, it's a wonderful match. I love the match. We're not going to lose the match. We're going to do 10% somewhere else, like you said, in Roth IRAs.

Or you can do it there in the 401K if you've got good options. If it's a Roth 401K particularly, I would do that. But I would be putting 15% of my income away in the retirement. The point is you're going to pay off this house anyway. Right. At really the exact same speed. Because $4,000 isn't what's going to get $78,000 paid off. What's going to get $78,000 paid off is when you guys concentrate on it,

when you get a little bit of a bonus, a tiny little inheritance, or you just squeeze some money out of your budget. But this $300 deal here, that doesn't move the needle towards getting the house paid off. The house is going to get paid off because you guys have been concentrating and focusing. And probably what's going to happen is when you get the kids off the payroll, you're probably just going to finish up the house in like that year. Because that 40, you'll be down to about 40 by then. And then that year, you'll just knock it out. So you're fine.

You're doing really good, obviously. I mean, you're doing really, really good overall. But I'm going to do 10%. You putting 15%. Put that other 10% in and do retirement. And then that's your baby step four. Baby step five, your cash flowing. Six is everything else we can find reasonably within the budget.

You pay extra on the house. our scripture of the day luke 1 or luke 12 7 why even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not. You are more valuable than many sparrows. Mike Ditka said, before you can win, you have to believe you are worthy. Rick is with us in Boise, Idaho. Hi, Rick. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hey, great talking to you. You too, man. What's up? I'm 73. Trying, great talking to you. You too, man. What's up? I'm 73. Trying to look for safe money. I wish I listened to you. I took your advice 15 years ago, but I never have.

I work for myself and just kind of piled up money, piled up money, but I haven't really put it in the stock market or anything. And then recently when I did put money in the stock market, I got so nervous. You know, I got so anxious. I was getting kind of being, you know, the age that I am. But I wound up taking out annuity for $50,000, which is just kind of sitting there, you know, with 5% coming in on it. I'm not touching it.

But we have about $70,000 in cash. My house is paid for. We have a house in Texas that's paid for. But I'm trying to see how I can go ahead and increase an income and not really be worried about it and losing it. My longevity, I don't look like as a longevity at no point here. Okay, good. And, okay, the thing is this.

You want to keep an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. I'd probably keep one of six months worth of expenses. And no one's forcing anybody to invest in anything. The thing I finally figured out, and it took me a long time to get there, and it may take you a little while to get there, is that buying a mutual fund is not risky and does not keep me up at night if I understand that mutual fund and its track record. Let me give you an example of how I know that would be true for you. You bought two houses.

Neither time did anyone give you a guarantee that they would not go down in value. Did they? True. And they might have actually gone down in value back in 2008. But you didn't get scared and sell them because you thought, well, real estate will work out, you know. Now, what that means is you're looking at the track record of real estate, not the guarantee because there's not one. I'm looking at the track record and going, you know, I'm 73. I've watched houses go up my whole life.

Sometimes they go down, but most of the time they go up. And if they go down, I'm not going to panic and they'll come back up. And that's looking at the track record you might not have had the actual numbers memorized but good walking around since means you've observed real estate goes up in value over time right right and so that's what i needed about mutual funds was some good walking around since so one of the very first ones i ever bought was a 75-year-old mutual fund, and it's got an average annual return over 75 years at a little over 11%. Now, that's average. Some years it went down.

Some years it went up. But for me, that was kind of like buying a house on a street with big trees. I felt like that's a pretty stable neighborhood. Oh, and out of the last 10 years, it had only been, when I bought it back then, I mean, it had only lost money two out of 10 times. All the other years it made money, and over the scope of 10 years, it made money. So it was a pretty calm growth and income type mutual fund, and what I was looking at was the track record and going,

okay, I know there's risk in the stock market, and I know stupid people lose all their money in the stock market because they buy some little stupid company, and the company goes under, and they lose all their money because they're just playing with their golfing buddy told them to do, but I'm looking at a mutual fund here that's invested in 90 to 200 different stocks. It has a 70-year track record. It it has a 70 year track record as a you know 10 year track record 20 year track record and i can actually look at it and go okay what's

it averaged over the last 10 years what's it averaged over the last 20 years and how many times has it actually been down now is that a guarantee that it won't go down in the future no it's not a guarantee but your house wasn't. And if your house did go down one time out of 10 years or three times out of 20 years, you wouldn't panic. You'd hold on to the house and, you know, let it come back up. And that's how I first got comfortable with mutual funds because, you know, Rick, in my late 20s, I went broke and lost everything. I don't like losing money. I don't like losing money i don't like risk but i also don't like money invested or sitting in an account making one percent when i could be making 10 or 12

and and so if i got a mutual fund that's averaged 11 for 75 years and it only does half of what it used to do. Well, that's still 5.5%. Half! I mean, it's got to really suck. It's going to do half of what it's done for 75 years. That's got to be really bad. I mean, it's like the worst possible period of time, you know? So I'm going to beat my savings account.

I'm going to beat your annuity. I'm going to beat everything if it does half. And that gave me a lot of comfort. And, you know, and again, but the reason you're laying awake at night is you didn't think about it in terms of track record. And knowledge of history will give you peace on investments it'll allow you to sleep well and and so just take your time and learn take your time and learn if you need some help sit down with one of our smart investor pros we will not endorse people and they're not people that work for me us but we don't endorse these smart investor pros unless

they have the heart of a teacher because we don't want you to invest money and lay awake at night. I don't want you to do that. I think that means you didn't understand what you invested in. Or you did understand and you put it in something stupid. You shouldn't be laying awake at night with your investments. Just like you shouldn't be laying awake when you bought the house in Texas, you bought your home. You shouldn't be laying awake at night because of that.

And so if you go on the website at Daveeremsey.com click smart investor um put in your information it'll drop down a list of smart investor pros in your area sit down talk to one of them there's no obligation just learn the more knowledge you have about something the more calm you are about it it's as simple as something like driving a car i mean the very first time i got behind the wheel of a car i think the very first time i got behind the wheel of a car i think i was probably about 10 years old dad said move told me i could move the car down the driveway and uh it was a gravel driveway and i think i emptied all of the gravel out of the driveway because i think i just stepped on the accelerator and floorboarded it and just dug a

hole with the back tires of the car and the first time you ever drive a car you remember how nervous you were whether it was in a field or in a parking lot and And the first time you ever drive a car, you remember how nervous you were? Whether it was in a field or in a parking lot. And then the first time you drive one on the road, you remember how nervous you were? But you know what? You don't even think anything about it now. Your brain autopilots the car. And so what happens is you have learned to do something that has risk because you can wreck a car.

There's no guarantees. It has risk, but can wreck a car there's no guarantees it has risk but you've learned to do it and the knowledge and the practice has given you a piece and you do it without your heart rate even changing you don't lay awake at night going gosh i gotta drive a car tomorrow it doesn't bother you even though you're taking risk but it's practice and knowledge and practice and knowledge open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money justin is on twitter following me at dave ramsey about 800 and something thousand of you do that my son's having a hard time finding an apartment due to having no credit any advice yeah i quit looking at the super expensive apartments he's going into these corporate managed things where they've got

a 28 year old managing the apartment or the 24 year old managing the apartment and they're not allowed to think if you have no credit that means you have no debt if you have no credit, that means you have no debt. If you have no debt, you know what that means? You have money, and so you're more able to pay rent. As a landlord, I love people that have no credit. It's awesome. Assuming they have an income, that means they have a lot of money to pay my rent with. And so you just got to find somebody that is actually allowed to use their brain in the renting of the apartment. There's plenty of those out there, but some of the large corporate things, they don't allow them to think.

And if you don't have a credit score, we can't rent to you. And what that means is I'm worth tens of millions of dollars, and I can't rent an apartment there. I can write a check and buy the complex, but I can't rent an apartment there. And that's how stupid that scenario is. That means the people running that place are stupid. That's exactly what that means. So if credit is the only thing keeping him from doing it, then he hasn't looked at the right places.

That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Blake Thompson, our senior executive producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back 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.

Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word.