The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Invest While I'm Still in Debt? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "Does it ever make sense to invest while you're still in debt?" from the blog: When You Should Stop Investing, "I'm recently widowed and wondering how I should budget on my own", "Should I keep my long-term care insurance?" from the blog: Long-Term Care Insurance Explained, Saving up for a house after college, "Should I invest in stocks or the equity of my home?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, find work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jane Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, open phones at 888-825-5225. Kim starts off this hour in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Kim.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks. Thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Well, to the point of the question, is there ever an exception to start investing before you're out of debt?

Why? So I'm an RN. I've always worked W-2 jobs. Last year I started as a 1099, formed an LLC, and I'm filing with S-Corp. And my CPA is telling me that I need to invest for retirement because I'm not contributing to Social Security and for the tax deduction. But my husband and I have about $24,000 in debt right now. Okay.

Your CPA does not need to be giving you advice on this because he's not very smart. You are paying Social Security. It's called self-employment tax. It's 15.3%. Okay. You don't get out of Social Security unless you are a pastor who opted out

as a conscientious objector, but you don't have that option, and I don't either. So we get to pay that. When you're self-employed, you pay both sides of Social Security. That's because the government loves small business, and they want to double dip on you. And so you get to pay 15.3. So you're doing that, So your CPA is wrong. Then secondly, you guys are young.

Clean up your freaking debt so you have some money to invest. Yes. So we started listening to your show a few weeks ago, and I just got your total money makeover book. So we're working on it. Is he kind of trying to scare you into thinking that you're running out of time because you haven't started investing yet? Well, and that's not entirely true. When I had my W-2 jobs, when I worked in hospitals,

I do have a 403B and a 401K. Okay. Yeah. And how, I mean, look, I tell folks this all the time with my husband and I, it took us seven years to get out of all of our debt. And we didn't invest during that time. We didn't start investing till our mid-30s, and do you know what we are? Perfectly fine. Yeah. We're fine. You've got the time, because here's the thing. Once that debt's cleaned up, you're going to have more money than ever to invest anyway,

and you're going to make up the difference. Here's the other possibility. He may be wanting you to invest to save on your taxes to create a pre-tax investment, which is not the best way for you to do investing right now. You need to be doing Roth, which is an after-tax investment, gives you zero tax benefit today, but it grows 100% tax-free. And so never do a pre-tax investment to save on taxes today because 96% of what will be in your account at your age when you get to 65 will be growth. 4% will be what you put in and took a tax deduction on. And it's 100% taxable if you do it his way. And 96% of it has no taxes on it. And 4% already had the taxes paid on it if you do it my way with the roth so again your cpa needs to stick to taxes and not financial advice because he's not very good at it good point dave there we go aggravates me so here's the thing let's go back for a second

because it's worth talking about um to say many years ago way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth in the 1980s, the tax law changed. And to stimulate the economy, they put in unbelievable tax advantages on real estate. Then they took them away. When they took them away, a whole bunch of people went broke because they bought the real estate for tax reasons only not for good math reasons otherwise the only reason they did the real estate deals was for tax they were bad real estate deals except for the tax and that's what this is this is a bad investment deal that he's suggesting except for the tax if he's suggesting or she's suggesting a traditional IRA or a traditional 401k versus a Roth for some young person like this.

That's mathematically bullcrap. Yeah. We would always say to do a match first, right, Dave? Match beats Roth beats traditional. Correct? It is. Exactly. That's how it works.

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Just get a bid on your upcoming move. That's pods.com slash Ramsey. Makes all kinds of sense. This is the way to go. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Circling back to match first, Roth second, traditional third. You do those in that order.

If you're a married couple, it doesn't matter who's 401k we're doing it with. We take all the match we can get first. Because a match is 100% rate of return. Free money. You can't mess this up. If your mutual fund makes a 10% or 11% return, that's great. When your boss puts in 100%, that's a match. That's 100% rate of return.

You really can't screw that up. Okay? And here's the thing. 82% of the companies that offer a 401k offer some form of match now. So always take full advantage of the match when you get to baby step four, only when you get to baby step four. And when you get to baby step four, only when you get to baby step four. And when you get to baby step four, you won't have any payments. So you'll have money to put 15% of your household income into that.

That's right. Then from there, we do the Roth and we do the Roth because it's tax free. That's right. So when you go to pull the money out in retirement, you're not paying taxes on it. So if you save up a million, $2 million, it's going to be 100 hundred percent zero tax when you're taking it out that's right what you put in was already taxed and the growth is a hundred percent tax free and with the new secure act there is no required minimum distribution on roths when you turn to 73 oh i love that you have to record your required minimum distributions on your retirement if you turn 73 and you have traditional you have to begin taking it out because they want their freaking tax money.

That's why they do that. 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 to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Well, it's tax time. Yuck. A lot of people got questions about taxes. Let's unpack a question from one of our listeners. What's the difference between filing single and filing head of household is one better than the other okay if you're divorced you're legally separated you're

widowed or you're not married you can file single and you probably should three qualifications to file as head of household you pay more than half of your household expenses you're unmarried and you have a qualifying child or dependent. So if you're a single parent taking care of an aging family member, you might qualify to file as head of household, which, by the way, if you do, will probably help you on your taxes, probably save your money. So filing as head of household comes with benefits, lower tax rate, higher standard

deductions, lower tax bill as a result. So now the other thing that comes up sometimes is should a married couple married filing jointly or married filing separately? There's almost zero times that a married couple married filing separately doesn't pay more taxes. Married filing jointly almost always, like 98% is less taxes. So it's very, very unusual if you don't run into that. So you don't want to file separately if you're married. You do want to file head of household if you can and qualify and you're single. So for more tax

tips and software that can help you file with confidence, head on over to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartTax. Ramsey SmartTax guides you through the online filing process. Low upfront pricing, no hidden fees, no tricks, not going to try to sell you debt. RamseySolutions.com slash SmartTax. So if you use those people like TurboTax, they might try to sell you a credit card. Oh, they will.

Because they're Intuit. They're owned by Quicken, and they're going to sell you Rocket Mortgage and credit cards and all this other stuff, which is the whole reason they have TurboTax. It's not even to do taxes. It's just to get you in the top of their marketing funnel so they can peddle debt to you. So the dirty little trick of the business there,

just to let you know how this stuff works. Ada is with us. Ada is in Indianapolis. Hi, Ada. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Sure. What's up?apolis. Hi, Ada. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Sure.

What's up? Glad to talk to you. You too. I'm recently widowed in December. Whoa. That was quick. What happened? A heart issue.

Oh, my gosh. How long were you married, honey? 49 years. Oh, my goodness. 49? Mm-hmm. Wow. 49 years oh my goodness 49 wow my youngest daughter says i was a baby when we got married i really wasn't but we were young and in college and i've had great 49 years i'm so sorry devastating thank you yeah it is but i'm trying to, I want to make sure that I'm living a way that I can bless my children and my grandchildren when I'm gone. And that I can, we are debt free.

That's great. We did that. We're going to buy a farm. And we did, and we paid for it, and that helped send our girls to college. So we didn't have any debt for that. They incurred some debt because of wanting to travel Europe and different things, but for the most part. So how are you today? You're 100% debt-free, and you have money as well?

We have some. We have pensions that we have gotten, and we were on Social Security, but we really didn't have a lot of... What's your income now? My income is probably going to be about forty nine thousand dollars how old are you 69 and you have zero debt house or anything nope i just recently had to get hearing aids and so i'm looking at um doing that for 18 months um interest free until i get my money situated around and because some of those things don't happen right away and you lose income and then you check medicaid medicare make sure they don't pay for them they probably do no they don't okay um okay i'm so sorry how can we help you best well we we never really budgeted i mean in my

head i knew the things that we had and tried to save for that. And I think that if I were to be in a budget and looking ahead and trying to find the best, you know, with insurance and trying to pay things so that it's not, you know, a monthly, I'd like to be more. You need to feel in control because everything's out of control. Right. I don't blame you. Okay. We would love to help you.

The only question I've got is I'm an old dog and I'm about your age. So is an old dog ready to learn some new tricks? Yes. Okay. I'm going to stretch your learning bone because you asked me to. Okay. Are you ready to do that? Yes.

Okay. We want to put our arms around you and help you because as Christians, one of our mandates is to take care of widows and orphans, okay? Yes. And so what we're going to do is Jade and I are going to put you through Financial Peace University it's a nine week class nine lessons you take them in nine weeks you'll be in a group of people

and we're also going to set you up with one of our Ramsey coaches and in that class we're not only going to teach you budgeting but we're going to teach you everything else you need to do with money to where you're going to feel competent and in control during this worst time of your life else you need to do with money to where you're going to feel competent and in control during this worst time of your life.

Yep. Because you need something that is a solid rock right now. That's true. Because 49 years has fallen out from under you right now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've been married 40 years or something happened to Sharon, honey. I couldn't breathe, okay?

I'm with you. I know. I couldn't find my way to the, honey. I couldn't breathe, okay? I'm with you. I know. I couldn't find my way to the refrigerator. She will testify to that, by the way. But anyway, yeah, and here's the second thing. So the first thing is you need to do that. The second thing is I do not want you making any big financial decisions while you can't breathe.

It's going to take a little while for the waves to quit crashing on your emotions to where you can breathe a little bit. It's always going to hurt. You're always going to miss them. I don't mean that. But six months from now, you'll have less fog in your brain. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense because the first month was really foggy.

Yeah. Mine's foggy right now just listening to you, and it's not even me. I know. Ada, are you plugged into a church home? No. I would love for you to call up a friend. Everybody's got that friend that's always talking about their church. I would love for you to call up that friend and say, hey, can I go with you next Sunday?

I just want you to get connected to people who can speak life into you, who can help hold your arms up during this time. It sounds like you've got a great family, and you've got that, but I would really love for you to get connected just with some great people who will love you well during this time. So was it Northview or North Valley we were in last week there in Indianapolis? North Point. North Point we were in in Indianapolis.

It's a great church. We were just up there and spoke last week. Yeah. So you think I remember where I was. I was trying to look for my notes. I think North Point is Atlanta. I'm trying to, it's north something. Okay.

North View. Yeah, it's right there in Indy, and it's a great church to check into. So the whole thing is that you need community while you're working through stuff that's really, really hard. Right. And you're doing that. And we'll put you into the Financial Peace University community and help you do that. And that's of no charge. And we're going to set you up with a Ramsey coach at no charge.

If I do all of that, will you promise me you'll do it? Yes, I will. Okay. The other thing, and don't make any big decisions until the fog clears. And the third thing is if you need anything, you call us. We're right here, will. Okay. The other thing, and don't make any big decisions until the fog clears. And the third thing is, if you need anything, you call us. We're right here, okay? Okay, I will. All right.

You're going to be okay, honey. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Wow. That's tough stuff. Community, Dave. That's the... Well, Dr. John Delaney talks about this all the time.

Grief demands a witness. Yep. And so being in the presence of other people when you're grieving, and even if they don't say anything, especially if they don't say anything. People say stupid stuff usually in that situation. But the best thing you can do is just be silent and hug somebody, right? But grief just demands a witness. I got a good friend that was diagnosed with later stage cancer just a few weeks ago,

and I ran into her out here in the lobby I didn't do anything except just walk up to her and she stopped by here for something I just walked up to her and gave her a big long hug that's all that's all because I what can you say I'm not a medical doctor I'm not a cancer I had nothing I can do but I love her yeah you know ouch well she's got what she needs now. Yeah. Go to Financial Peace, get plugged in in a good local church. She's going to be all right. Amen.

This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Doyle is up next in Cincinnati. Hi, Doyle. How are you?

Fine. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up, sir? I've got a long-term care policy I've had for 20 years. I got it when I was 55, and it's just gone up 40% in one year from $2,900 to $4,100. And I'm just wondering whether I should keep this or just not continue with it any longer. How much money do you have?

Well, I have enough money to pay the $4,000. No, that wasn't what I asked. I asked how much money you have. Well, I have an income. I'm retired of about 70, well, about 85 with interest on it. Okay. Do you have any nest egg? Yeah, I have about a half a million nest egg.

Okay. Are you married? No, I'm single. Okay. So if you burn through the half a million to take care of you in a nursing home, just your inheritance is harmed, am I correct? Correct.

Okay. The average nursing home stay is 2.4 years. Okay. And the average cost is $80,000 to $100,000 per year. Okay. So we're talking about a quarter million dollars is your typical burn on this,

and you've got a half a million dollars. Correct. That's the average. Averages come from some are shorter, some are longer, right? Right. So that's your analysis. Do you want to self-insure through this or pay $4,000? Is it $4,100 a year?

That's what you're saying, right? Right, yeah. It's going from $2,900 to $4,100. And it covers you for, what, four or five years? Well, it's unlimited, $3.41 a day daily benefit, 2% inflation factor. Okay. And I've paid in about $50,000, which I could use for probably a few months' coverage

if I discontinue it. Who gets the half million if you die? No, not if you die, when you die. Yeah, my family. Who's your family, kids? No, just a brother and nephews. Okay. Well, basically you are, 4,100 is probably not a bad trade for a 75-year-old

for $80,000 a year, $100,000 a year. Mm-hmm. Probably not a bad trade, mathematically, you agree? Yes, yeah, I yeah i'm just yeah it's a lot and i hate that they went way up on you but basically what you're buying is a quarter million dollars worth of coverage on average for four thousand one hundred dollars a year at 75 years old the likelihood you use this now you may stay two, and it's a losing proposition. You might die in a car wreck, and it's a losing proposition. You might stay six years and make money on them.

I don't know. But, I mean, we don't know. That's how this stuff works, right? So do you, you know, all insurance is a bit of an educated bet, if you're smart about it. And what we're betting is 4,100 against the probability of an average of 250,000. Yeah, for me, listening to this, it feels risky to let the coverage go and follow the stat of the 2.5 years.

Because if he's in there longer and he runs out of money, he's up a creek without a paddle yeah well and i it just but i you know i guess if if you're gonna leave it to your brother you might as well use it yourself you can it's how you want to look at it it's what do you want how concerned are you about that half million dollars surviving you yeah that's what it comes down to that's true um and so you know do you want to burn through it i'm i'm kind of thinking i'm gonna pay for it myself and self-insure here's the other thing doyle you may want to investigate as a part of this decision either one's okay with me but that's your trade-off is 4100 for a probability or a possibility of an average of a quarter million that's your trade

off um and you know that sounds like a good trade when you say it that way yeah now the other thing is this though if you were to do uh let's say okay i'm going to allocate i'm going to uh designate someone to take care of my money if i'm incapacitated and i'm going to designate them to hire and provide me with 24 hour a day in-home care and hire a full-time nurse now that and you probably can do that cheaper than a nursing home and you might enjoy it more well maybe i would think so you're in you're in your own home depends i mean you know you're by yourself too but i mean but but uh so that's you know like in my case i'm more than able to self-insure i'm 63 i do not have long-term care insurance i've got but you can pay substantial net worth and if something happens and i'm homebound sharon i was going to hire somebody

full-time we've already got that arranged i to hire somebody full-time. We've already got that arranged. I'll hire somebody full-time if something happens to her because we're just going to do it because we want to be there in that case. And so, I mean, you can buy a hospital bed. You can hire a full-time nurse, an RN. I mean, it's not that expensive. It's not as expensive. And make your own food and that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah.

So that's the provision. You're not having to provide shelter because you've already got the shelter. And that's the issue. So that's always an option for, especially if you're choosing to self-insure. Yeah, I would look into it. I moved here from South Florida, and South Florida is like the retirement capital of the world. And that's what everybody did. Everybody would hire a live-in nurse and have 24-hour care.

Really? That was, yes. That is far more popular than going to a nursing home or going to a facility. Yeah. Because you have somebody move in with you and take 24-hour care of you. You do need to, don't cheap out. Don't go eight-hour care. Right.

24-hour. Well, yeah. I mean, make sure you're taken care of. Right? Don't cheap, because you're saving money anyway so don't cheap out yeah yeah uh and you got this great income from the pensions of eighty five thousand dollars a year so he's got some options i'm gonna be real tempted to self-insure um partly because i'm kind of with you doyle it pisses me off they went up that much but it probably is based in math i mean it's probably based in 75 year old higher probability

right that's true that's true. That's true. That's how they're getting there. Chris is in Wilmington, North Carolina. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how you doing, Dave? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Hey, so I'm a recent graduate of college. Now I just got a full-time job and I'm working. Good. Great. Um, and now I just got a full-time job and I'm working and I'm really looking forward to stopping to have to pay a rental income or pay rent. Um, because you know, it's just money down the drain, uh, never getting back. Uh, so I'm really looking for a plan or something to do, uh, to set myself up so I can hopefully get out of the situation in the near future, um future as in five years, to be able to buy a home.

Do you have a job? Yes, I do. I have a full-time job. What are you earning? During the week, 55K. Okay. Is this what you want to be doing long-term or is this kind of a transitional deal? Yes. This is my career job and my field I went to school for. And then I also have part-time 1099 income that I do on the weekends from March to November at the Baseball Empire, which is pretty steady.

And is that on top of the $55K or is that included? Correct. No, that's on top. All right. You got any debt, Chris? I have about 20K doing that. You got any debt? Any debt?

I have student loan debt. How much? About 20K. All right. Your first goal is roll up your sleeves and get rid of that as fast as you possibly can. And then you build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. By the way i want that done by christmas i want you debt free by christmas you're 55 you're single you got

nothing to do with that money but party or get out of debt so get out of debt yes it's all you got that's your two choices okay get out of debt that's your only job get rid of sally may evict the old woman she's ugly you don't want her in a spare bedroom and if you have if you have car debt because i'm just you didn't say it but if you have a car debt pay that off too because that counts 100 debt free then build your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses then save you a good down payment as 20 is best because you avoid pmi private mortgage insurance when you put 20 down on a conventional loan. That's your best bet. You can do all of that by the time you're 25 in your situation.

Everything you're wanting to do there is very, very possible. But do it in that order, and that's the fastest way. This is the Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 brandon's in louisville kentucky hey brandon what's up hey thanks for taking my call today sure how can we help so i have a question about what i should where i should be focusing my money so i went through majority of your steps. I am debt-free with everything besides my house.

I did the 15% into my retirement to my 401k. I have a relatively new son who's six months old, so I started the 529 and started investing in that. There you go. Thank you. My question is, so I bought a house a couple years ago, two, three years ago, bought it at a pretty good time. My mortgage that I have left on it is about $250,000. It's worth around $300,000 to $315,000. But I put about $50,000 in individual stocks,

and then I have an additional $103,000 roughly and just savings on the side and my question is should i be taking that money out of the individual stocks and trying to beat that mortgage down as much as possible or how should i be investing this money what should i be focusing on a direction with this money you seem you seem like you're awfully familiar with what we do. Uh-huh. Until that last part. Relatively new to listening to you guys. It's probably been a few months that I've been listening to you guys. But you know the baby steps. Yeah, like I said, I love the method you guys use.

You try to make it as simple as possible. But I feel like I'm at the point where I'm still relatively young, but I want to get ahead as fast as possible. You do. I'm not going to stay in this home forever, but I'm probably going to move out of it in a couple of years. So I'm like, does it make sense to keep down my mortgage? Here, let me help you. Let me help you. What you're, what you've been doing, which is the baby steps has been working for you. So let's keep on doing that. So the way we would teach it is you're already investing in the 529. That's great. You've got all this

extra money, the 50 K in single stocks, 103K. Is that above and beyond your three to six months, I'm assuming? Yeah, that is everything. Yeah. From the savings portion. So what we would do next is put, you know, we're paying off the mortgage.

So you've got this extra money. If it were me, I would cash out the 50K in single stocks. There's going to be some tax implication there. so you've got to be prepared for that. But I would do that because you've got $250,000 left on this mortgage. You could pay off $150,000 by the end of the month. What's your household income? So I make around $250,000. And you're how old?

26. Okay, way to go. You're killing it. You're doing really good, Brandon. So good. Here's the thing. What we have discovered in studying millionaires, not someone's theory on Tic Tac, but real millionaires, okay, what we've discovered in studying 10,000 of them is the shortest distance between where you are

and the first $1 to $5 million is two things. Loading your 401ks at 15% of your income going in like you're doing and becoming 100% debt-free using what used to be payments then to build wealth with by steadily investing. The number of millionaires that we interviewed, and we interviewed 10,000 of them, that said, I ran up a bunch of profit in single stocks and used that to pay off my house, and that caused me to be rich, was almost nothing, almost none of them. There was a few, but there was, percentage-wise, it would have been well less than 5% of them. 95% of them followed the plan of not just our plan, but just the idea, the common sense idea of my most powerful wealth building tool is this wonderful income you have because you're obviously bright.

You're 26 years old. You make $250,000. Dumb people don't do that. So we know you're bright. Okay. And so that is your secret sauce, not the stocks, not leveraging your house. You are the secret sauce in the equation. So if I'm you, I put $150,000 minus an emergency fund, if you set aside 20 for your emergency

fund, so $130,000 on your $250,000 loan, and you have a $250,000 income with no other payments. I think I understood that. That's right. And that means I'm going to knock off. You're going to be debt-free when you're 28, house and everything, and then you've got $250,000 freaking dollars to invest steadily. You're going to be a millionaire when you're 35

if you do what we tell you to do. Okay. What's this house worth? $315. What's going to make you probably a little mad at me is I am paying PMI on my – I'm not mad at you. You're brilliant. You've done a great job.

And it's going to be gone. All we're doing is fine-tuning your excellent plan. You pulled up here in an IndyCar. All we're doing is tuning it up. your excellent plan. You pulled up here in an IndyCar. All we're doing is tuning it up. Okay. Well, you know how it is. You like to look at the bank. You like to see the savings.

I'm really good about stockpiling money. Let me tell you what. Let me tell you. I don't know how it is. What I know how it is is when you pay off your house and you walk through the backyard without any shoes on, the grass feels different. It probably does. It does. I promise you. So, so hey here's the thing if i'm wrong and two in a year and a half from now you're 100 debt free and you hate it you can go get you

a mortgage that's a great way to look at it all right hey man pay off your house as fast as you possibly can that's your next step and and don't get too caught up in the stocks. I'll say that too. Single stocks are pretty much a gamble. Pretty much a gamble. I don't buy single stocks. We recommend if you're going to do single stocks just because you can't stand it for whatever reason, not to have more than 10% of your net worth in single stocks. I buy mutual funds.

That's all I do. And real estate that I pay cash for. That's all I do. I've built 100% of my wealth doing that. That's all I've. And real estate that I pay cash for. Yeah. That's all I do. I built 100% of my wealth doing that. That's all I've done. Very simple. And, you know, he made a good point. The thing you have to watch against, and Brandon, he didn't get there, but he walked up on the

edge of it. I heard him. He's not really there because he's very smart. Yeah, he is. He's obviously a smart young man. Okay. When I was his age, I would have been more than smart i would have been arrogant okay yes that would have been the category i would have been in

so here's what i find he said you guys what you teach is so simple and there's a lot of compliment in that but there was also a but i know better because i'm smarter than simple yeah you wanted there to be more smarter than simple if you get smarter than simple that's when you get your toe cut off in the lawnmower just don't get don't get smarter than simple it's a bad idea because let me just tell you some of the most profound life-changing things you will learn in this life yeah are very easy to understand and very hard to do let me give give you one. Yes. Love your neighbor. Oh, but he's a jerk.

Yeah. I know what to do, but doing it. Oh, my gosh. Simple does not mean easy. You mean I got to love the guys on TikTok and Twitter? Oh, man. Oh, I know what to do. I just can't do it.

It's simple. It is simple, but not easy. Very simple. Some of the things, most profound things are simple, but not easy. Brittany's with us. Brittany's in Oklahoma City. Brittany, we're short on time. Go fast.

Okay. I am currently doing the baby steps. I started on baby step one. I saved $1, thousand dollars and then I end up using it. What? On what? On moving out of my apartment to another apartment.

Why? My lease was up on my apartment. Did you go down and rent? I did not. I went up and rent. See, I can't help you if you keep doing this stuff. I know. The part of the place that I was living, I could not...

It was like... Okay, Brittany. You got to quit moving the wrong direction, kid. Yeah, we got to lower... We're trying to lower the expenses, raise the income. You got to get on those baby steps, hurry up and get that $1,000 resaved, and then you're going to start going through your debt snowball. And watch these moves.

That was impulsive as crap, and you know it. That's why I'm picking at you because we love you, and we don't want you to do that anymore. Don't be so dadgum impulsive. Now, if you got a nasty butt thing and there's roaches running around, you got to make a move. That's one thing, i get that but on the you know but you really need to just stop and slow down he who is impulsive exalts folly do not be impulsive i've been

impulsive most of my life and every time i'm impulsive right after that i get broke That's true. Slow down. Slow down. Make slow, calm, wise decisions. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Now work your baby steps again and start fresh. But if you undo them every time you get started, I can't help you. It's not going to help you. We don't have a baby step for those that start over all the time. No, it doesn't work that way. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com

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