The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Sell One of My Cars To Accelerate Debt Payoff? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, is my co-host today as we talk about your life, which is what he talks about on the Dr. John Deloney Show, or the John Deloney Show, what is it? It's the Dr. We spent weeks, a lot of creative, brilliant people in here.

Deciding what to name it. We came up with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Sometimes the most obvious things are the answer. Man, talk about tip your nose on that one, man. Jeez Louise. The Dr. John Deloney Show, and you need to tune into it on podcasts everywhere it is absolutely fabulous i listen to it every day when it comes out and um the uh the stuff you get into man there's some deep life issues and some squirrely people out there some people's children can i

can i tell you this It was a heartbreaking moment. It was about three or four weeks in to shooting the show, and we shoot multiple episodes a week, so it got in there quite a bit. And somebody called with a question, and I just stopped and said, Why are you asking me? And Davis was a haunting response, and I think it's all over the country now. She said, I got nowhere else to go. And that made me, it broke my heart.

People got nobody. They're going to call a guy they don't know on the radio, right? Like, you're the guy I trust right now. And so, yeah, the whole goal of that show, man, is to teach people how to reconnect with their neighbors and with their local communities and just learn how to be a person again, man. We just lost it. We've lost it.'ve lost it yeah well i the the advice is uh stellar and uh so you guys check it out and you can call in today and he'll talk to you right here at 888-825-5225

you know the answer is more than just i got nobody else the answer is the other stuff she heard you do made her trust you oh of course yeah yeah. You know that that's what really happened. Steve is with us. Steve's in New York City. Hi, Steve. How are you? Hey, Dave and John. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. What's up? Well, recently retired. About a year now, 53 years old. I have my work retirement, but my mom had passed away 18 months ago. We sold her house, and I inherited $150,000 that way.

Now it's up to me to invest it through mutual funds. I'm not super-duper comfortable with it, and I have some ideas, but I don't know between regular mutual funds, tax-deferred mutual funds. Do I go all in with the 150, or do I piecemeal it? Do you have any debt? Currently, just my one son's college. He's a senior. How much do you owe on that?

We probably owe another $35,000 for him. Okay. We need to set that aside, right? Yeah, we have that and we have some savings. Okay. And so there's no debt associated with the college. You just have an obligation. Correct. Okay. Do you have a home

mortgage? Not any longer. Nope. Good for you. Good for you. Okay. A you have a home mortgage? Not any longer, no. Good for you. Good for you. Okay, a couple of things on investing. Let's start at the top. Number one, you don't invest in things that you don't understand. You never invest in things because some goob on the radio like me said do it, or some goob on the Internet that's even worse said do it.

Okay, so you understand it. The Bible says in the multitude of counsel there is safety, and what that means is you get some experts around you to give you advice, and the advice is not that you follow the expert. The advice is so that you understand something you didn't understand before. So your financial people need to have the heart of a teacher so that when you sit down with your financial person and you get up and leave you need to know something you didn't know before you sit down every time every time i spent an hour and

a half in my office yesterday with our chief digital officer and three of our top senior tech guys, and they were trying to teach me. Oh, geez. That's why you're in such a great mood today, man. About our digital platform. And I do not have to be a digital expert to be the CEO of this digital company, but I do have to grasp the vernacular, and I do have to grasp enough of it to help them to make wise decisions under their help. So the multitude of counsel, these experts, are in my office teaching me about my company

yesterday. In this case, they're teaching you about your money that you inherited from the passing of your parent, right? And so you're going to gather that up. You do not have to have an MBA in finance in order to make easy financial decisions, basic investing decisions. Now, so rule number one is you don't want to do it unless you understand it. Rule number two is you put somebody in your life that has the heart of a teacher.

You can click SmartVestorPro at DaveRamsey.com or SmartVestor and find the person in your area we recommend. They don't work for us. They pay us an endorsement fee and they have to agree to approach your investing the way that we teach and with the heart of a teacher i personally invest steve inside my retirement accounts in four types of mutual funds growth growth and income aggressive, and international. Outside of retirement accounts, those funds all create taxes each year as they grow. That's a problem.

There's two ways to avoid that with your $150,000. My preference is, and the one that I personally do is, I invest in mutual funds, growth stock mutual funds, that have what's called a low turnover ratio. Now, are you ready for the teaching part? Okay. Here we go. If you buy a rental house for $200,000 and it goes up in value to $300,000 and you still own it, you do not owe taxes on that $100,000 in growth because you've not sold the house.

Agreed? Correct. So you've got capital gains growth, but you don't have any taxes because you've not sold it. Stock is the same way. If a share of stock goes from $50 to $70, you don't pay taxes on that $20 gain until you sell it. Same is true inside a mutual fund. The turnover ratio is when they sell the stock inside the mutual fund.

If it has a 90% turnover ratio, that means almost all the stocks get sold every year, and so all those gains are going to be taxable every year. If they have a 5% turnover ratio, which is a low turnover ratio, that means you're not going to pay taxes on the increase in value until you sell the mutual fund, because they aren't selling the stocks inside the mutual funds hardly at all, much like that rental house or that share of stock. Did that make sense?

It definitely did. So that low turnover, what number am I looking at? You want an under 10% turnover ratio. Under 10%, okay. Yeah, because anything that turns over, they're going to send you a tax bill on the gain every year. Every year, yes, okay. So you want it to not turn over hardly at all

so that it only grows without taxes until you sell it. Now, if you hold it a year, when you sell it, you're going to be taxed at capital gains rate, 15%, rather than the ordinary income rate, 30%, 40%. So the tax rate's also much lower for you. So it's tax-efficient two different ways. One is you're not taxed until you sell it. And two is when you do sell it, it's taxed at a capital gains rate. Your SmartVestor

Pro can help you with every bit of that and finish teaching you what I did in five minutes. But that's the whole thing. All you got to do is learn some basic things like that. It's not rocket science. You just got to have somebody who knows their stuff and they show you how and then you know your stuff. So you do it smart.

Over the years, I've heard countless horror stories from listeners about being harassed by debt collectors, receiving calls at work on their cell phones, and some even getting yelled at and threatened. That is not okay. There are laws against this, and there are people, attorneys, that can help make this stop if they are in fact breaking the law. Go to collectionbully.com to learn more. Fill out a quick questionnaire that will identify if you are a victim of this type of illegal harassment. That's collectionbully.com. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Mike is in Tampa, Florida.

Hey, Mike, what's up? Hey, Dave. Hey, Dr. D. Thanks for taking the call. How are you guys today? Better than we deserve. How can we help? I need a little help with the tiebreaker for your favorite question.

We are on Baby Step 2, and I'm debating on selling my vehicle. We saw the car came out of my wife's car as well and student loans. How much in student loans? Student loans is $30,000. What do you owe on your cars? I owe $12,000 on my wife's car and I owe $32,000 on my expedition. And what's your household income? I make $140,000 plus vehicle allowance, my mileage rate, and then my wife makes $50,000,

and I have two side hustles that bring me about $20,000 a year. So $250,000? About that, yes. Okay. And any other debt other than these three things on your mortgage? We actually rent. We don't have a mortgage. We decided to wait until we got out of debt, and no, we paid of our credit cards we paid off all of the medical debt already we are just

now on to the vehicles and the student loans okay and uh you're fired up about this and she's not as fired up yeah i drive over a thousand miles a week i so i i work from miami to jacksonville i'm on the road all day and she's a little concerned that if I sell the vehicle, get something cheaper, it'll break down. And my vehicle allowance, my vehicle mileage generally covers the car payment and the gas. I'm on the other hand on the fence because I see debt going way faster. Okay. All right. Well, you get the vehicle allowance whether you have a car payment or not.

So comparing it to the car payment is a fool's trap. Don't get caught in that trap. But you can afford these cars and you can afford this debt. You can afford to pay off this debt. I mean, you got $74,000 worth of debt making $250,000. You ought to be debt-free in a year. That was the idea, yes. I figure under 15 months.

Okay. Now let's pretend you're there. So that's probably what you ought to do, by the way. Okay, I think your wife wins the argument. As long as you're both on board with doing beans and rice and getting out of debt in a year. Yes, sir. Okay. The second thing is this.

You need to drive because you are destroying the value of whatever vehicle you drive you need to drive the least possible expensive car for purposes of your business that will get the job done now let's put that in air quotes get the job done the definition of getting the job done when i make 250 000 a year i don't need to be driving a freaking smart car. I'll be in a chiropractor's office as much time as you spend in a car. You don't need to be driving a piece of crap and broke down on the side of the highway. Okay? So get the job done is a nice, comfortable, reliable vehicle, knowing that whatever I spend on it,

I might as well pile that up in $100 bills in the front yard and light it on fire, because you're going to destroy the value of whatever you drive. Agreed? Yes, sir. Agreed. And so next time I buy a car, it's probably not going to be a $40,000 car to destroy. Yeah, absolutely. Dumb decision.

Yeah. No, I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying going forward, that's what I would do because you just say I'm a road warrior. Even if you want a nice car in the driveway and a road warrior car for driving that I'm destroying, I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's what I thought of. I thought I was getting like a smaller car, and she said that I would be miserable, and I agree. You said the same thing. Yeah.

I just don't want you in a piece of crap that's not reliable. And I also don't want you in something that's, you know, you spend a lot of time in a car. It needs to ride good. It needs to drive good. It needs to be, you know, it's a road car. I mean, but, you know, you wouldn't go buy a $100,000 Mercedes and turn it into a $10,000 Mercedes every three years. Because that's what you're doing. So that's the balance here.

It's a business decision what you put on the road. Now, you may reach a point with your income and your wealth that you have a road car and a weekend driver. That's your cool car that's at home that's a 40 or a 50 000 car that's paid for sitting in your driveway and then you get a brand new what camry or avalon or something two-year-old two-year-old one there you go yeah and just get you you know a two-year-old camry and our uh you know a nice honda accord loaded up or whatever i don't care what it is i mean okay you know caddy yeah those caddies are pretty nice they're doing good uh just knowing you're going to burn the depreciation off that sucker yeah the ground whatever it is and you know what you're looking for there is like you're looking

for gas mileage too yeah because you're you're running the wheels you're just running up down the road thousand miles man i mean that's you start putting 50 000 miles a year on a car pretty much gone right i mean even if you take care of it you can get a lot of life out of it but my point is the value goes away right quickly yep because nothing destroys value like mileage so um that that or you know driving it up through the field yes jumping creeks or you know stuff like that that's the john delaney way of cars might be some rednecks sitting here that have done something like that i don't know anybody like that personally, but they're in this room. All of us. Okay, Josh is with us.

Josh in Springfield, Illinois. Hey, Josh, how are you? Dave, what's up? Hey, man, how can we help? Hey, my wife and I are having a good hearted disagreement. We've got all our debt paid off except for a semi-truck in our house. So I was wanting you to kind of break the tie here. This is tiebreaker hour, son.

Tiebreaker hour, man. You guys are setting us up, guys. What do you want to do, Josh? I want to pay the big truck off because it's a liability. What's the balance? $93,000. What about the house? $60,000. Woo!

How much money you got in savings? Now, last year dave i put 160 000 miles on this semi truck how much money you got in savings oh 35 000 and what's your household income uh my 1099 last year year for 2020 was $170,000. Yeah, but that's before expenses, right? That's the only expense taken out of that would be fuel. So $170,000 to my bank account. My truck payments about $2,100 a month. What's the fuel?

The fuel, I would say, was around about $50,000 or $60,000 in fuel. Okay, so you made $120,000. Does she work outside the home? No. Okay, so if we have $120,000 and $35,000 and we have $150,000 in debt, how quickly can we pay both of them off? I think we can pay the house off in less than a year. Both of them should be gone in three years.

Agreed? Agreed? Agreed. Okay, so we're really not arguing about much, except just which one's going to be in the third year and which one's going to be in the first year. Correct. So which one does your wife want to do first? She wants to do the house first.

She wants to pay the house off. I want to pay this because this is depreciation. Yeah, but you get the depreciation either way. You get the depreciation either way, and either way, they're both done in three years. Okay. So the only thing you're losing is not the concept of getting it paid off at all. The only thing you're losing is whether it's done in the second and third year or whether it's done in the first and second year.

Does that make sense? Yes. So this is now marital advice so now i want you to go home tonight i want you to hey josh i want you to take a knee i want you to say honey i was wrong i was wrong and i love you and you're beautiful and we're gonna get this house paid off for you and as long as we can both agree that we're going to play all the way through and be done with both in three years, I'm with you. Let's do the house first. You didn't really lose much.

You just lost a little bit of time on your argument. You lost the argument, but that's okay. It's better to lose the battle and win the war, my brother. You know, she's sitting right next to me laughing at me. The good news is you guys have a great marriage, You know, she's sitting right next to me laughing at me. The good news is you guys have a great marriage, and you're having a fun discussion about how many different ways you can become wealthy. These are lots of discussions couples never get to have. I'm so proud of y'all.

That's impressive. That's cool, man. And I love the sense of humor about it all. If you can keep that about some of these conversations, man, that's so good. And we're having a discussion about how fast we're going to get everything paid off. Right. And all of it is within three years. There's no negative in this discussion.

Nobody loses if your mortgage is paid off in three years or 12 months. Yeah. That's a cool place to be. Actually, you're going to take some of that $35,000. Well, you've got to have that as emergency fund probably. But if that's not your emergency fund, if that's extra savings, only $60 on that house, you're probably going to be out of debt before Christmas. He owes her a nice dinner tonight too.

That's what happens when you lose the bet. Sharon used to say, I'll bet you a pizza. And we both got pizza. Everybody wins. I'll take that bet every time. Works out. Hey guys, Rachel Cruz here. Marriages across the country could all use a date night right now.

An evening to come together and focus on what really matters most. Connection, communication, and intimacy. That's why I'm so excited to announce that we're hosting our special Valentine's weekend edition of Money and Marriage for the third year in a row. Join us via live stream on February 12th at 7 p.m. Central Time

for this digital date night worth investing in. Relationship expert, Dr. John Deloney and I will guide you and your spouse through an unforgettable evening together. At Money in Marriage, you'll reconnect and realign the goals of your marriage, learn how to have healthy communication, we'll improve every area of your life together,

and discover how to unify your financial goals and put an end to money fights for good. A stronger marriage starts now. Visit DaveRamsey.com slash events to purchase your money and marriage live stream tickets today. And I'll see you digitally on February 12th. That's DaveRamsey.com slash events. Dr. John Deloney, my co-host today here on The Ramsey Show. This is Dave Ramsey, your host. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Jeffrey and Nicoletta are here. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you, Dave? How much debt have you two paid off? $49,000. Wow. How long did that take?

23 months. Good for you. Where do you guys live? We live in Tampa, but in Lakeland, Florida. Okay. Yeah, I've been to Lakeland several times. Very cool. Beautiful area.

We love it. Fun. Yeah, Southeast University been to Lakeland several times. Very cool. Beautiful area. Fun. Yeah, Southeast University. I spoke there at some events several times. Yep, that's where I went for undergrad and my master's. Yeah, they used to have a big leadership thing down there. And I bring in a bunch of outside speakers, and I was one of them a couple of times. Awesome.

Very cool. Very nice. What was your range of income during this 23 months? So the first year was 50K, and then we finished off with 75. Good for you. Well done. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a maintenance technician for a logistics company down there. And I'm a mental health therapist.

Very good. What kind of debt was the $49,000? So I had a $3,000 car loan, and then the rest was our student loans. He points at her. Mostly mine. I did both. Yeah, the rest was our student loans. He points at her. Mostly mine. I did both. Yeah, the thumb was out. You were hitchhiking for a minute

and then you went back. Yeah, okay. Well played, man. That's a man married to a therapist right there. All right, $49,000 in student loans and car loans. How old are you two? I'm 27. I just turned 25.

How long have you been married? Two years. Okay, so this was the first order of business when you been married? Two years. Okay. So this was the first order of business when you got married? Yes. So tell me how that goes down because most married couples don't start and go, hey, let's get out of debt. What happened? So I think my journey started with him when I was younger because my parents were normal. They just had debt and I saw the stress that normal caused and that was probably when I was 14 or 15. And then fast forward to probably 22, and I went through the class with Mary Beth up in Calvary Irwin.

I lived in Pittsburgh before I moved back to Lakeland to be with her because she got a free master's. And I went through the class. You mean Financial Peace University? Yeah. Okay. All right. And I was like, this is how I want us to handle our money

because it just makes sense. And then we got engaged and he gave me one of your books and I read it and I was like, yeah, let's do it. And so right when we got married, we started right away. Just like that.

Y'all are just too easy. I went to class and she read the book and said, let's do it. There was no big fight. Nobody had to get killed. That's a brave guy to give a self-help book for an engagement gift, brother. That's a brave... To a a self-help book for an engagement gift, brother. To a therapist.

Yeah. To a therapist. She knew how to breathe it out. Wow. Exactly. There wasn't an exercise book or something in there, too. Okay, good for you. No, not that bad.

Okay. Just the money. Good. You guys are fun. I'm so proud of you. Well done. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? We had a bunch of friends.

We had, it was, the social aspect was difficult because some friends were like super encouraging, but they didn't understand what we were doing, but they love us. And so they were like, great. And there's other ones that we actually have friends that just became debt free last week. And so people like that were super on board and came alongside us and checked in and um we remember during the ends something with our car happened and we just felt super discouraged because it was the very last leg of it and we texted two of our friends who were really on board with us like i literally sent a voice memo like crying like explaining

how frustrated this was and they literally both sent voice memos back praying for us and just like you guys can do it you're so close and that was literally the last thing we needed to get through it was awesome that is very cool yeah that is very cool you know john honestly i i've seen this a lot more because i used to say like who was the one that made fun of you and who were your biggest cheerleaders and um 10 years ago somebody in their 20s doing their debt-free scream i said you know who were your you know who well we have friends that didn't understand they made fun of us right this generation the 20s are like they don't understand but they love us it's because they do it anyway you do you know this 20s generation is awesome It's an awesome generation

I don't even like you and what you're doing But do it anyway I love you It's great It's so cool What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think being obedient to the Lord Is putting your tie first like you say And allowing God to work

Yeah and I would definitely say discipline. The people who want what we have and see our results, it's funny because we'll tell them, and they're like, well, what about this or what about that? And I'm like, you just don't care. This is the priority, and so you just do it. And it's like no excuses and don't take it personal when your husband tells you no to going to Target

and things like that. It might have happened. It might have that. So it's just great. It might have happened. It might have happened. Dude, she just stared a hole through you, man. No, but I needed it. And knowing we're on the same page, like, at first I did take it personal. Like, well, this is annoying.

But he's like, no, like, we're a team. This is what it is. And I would do it to him when he wanted snacks, you know, like unnecessary things. And so it really is just being on the same team and just not making excuses, just seeing what it could look like long term. That was like the big thing for us. Just like maintaining context. Like this is only for a little bit.

And then we can do whatever we want later. Yeah. Live like no one else later. You can live and give like no one else. Absolutely. So Nicoletta, from a therapist viewpoint, did you did you recognize that you guys early in your relationship are setting? I mean, you're setting serious grooves in how you process information as a couple, how you go win at things as a couple. The money piece just happened to be where you were doing it. Yeah. But this was a huge exercise relationally, wasn't it? For sure. Yeah. And another hard thing that was a part of our journey was social life, because for me, I'm super extroverted and we started to not get invited to things.

And I'm like, they don't want to be friends with us anymore because we don't want to go out and spend money on this and this and this and whatever they're doing we live close to Disney and so um I think for us two together it was a growing part because we were like realizing we can't take this stuff personally like they still love us they're still our friends some like we're super creative and like hey let's just have a game net because we know you guys are trying to save money and I feel like our community helped us be a team too because we realized like sometimes it is just going to be you and i and like no one else is going to get it and then our community around us really helped us too so and our marriage it was really awesome because i feel like we grew it just extended into everything else um just super important yeah it's powerful it's golly dude you put my wife and i are having

those conversations now we've been together almost a quarter century. So good for you guys, man. Thank you. Just being able to see, hey, this is just seasonal. This is just going to be hard for a couple of two or three years. And then, right?

It's always that and then. And Dave, I have to just say, these two figured it out. And we've been talking about this this whole segment. It's both and. It's the dreamer. It's the prayer. It's the, we're's the prayer it's the we're gonna work out it's gonna work out and then there's also the you got to do it every day and every day and every day

and every day it's both and right you gotta have that big picture and that discipline you got to feel it and then go do it right and those those rotate and supporting each other every other day right one day it's like i just need a dream, because I can't get up and do it again. Exactly. And then vice versa. Well, but you've got such a healthy view of your interaction with your community that you got from your community what you needed. They're awesome.

That was pretty cool. That's cool, man. Can't do that alone. Well done, you guys. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. We're also going to give you a ticket to the live stream that is coming up this Friday night with Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz, the Money and Marriage event.

We may need to have them on the show, actually. We really need to interview them on how to do it. That's exactly right. February 12th, 7 p.m. Going to give you all of that as our gift. We're so proud of you guys. Congratulations. Well done.

All right. Jeffrey and Nicoletta from Lakeland, Florida. $49,000 paid off in 23 months, making $50,000 to $75,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah.

Woo-hoo-hoo. This is how it's done Both in You know, we've been talking about getting you into a Financial Peace University small group And that the accountability and the encouragement from the small group was the magic sauce of Financial Peace University It happens inside Ramsey Plus these days We've been talking about that for 20 years. And you come along in your show, and you're constantly telling people as they're going to work on these mental health things that they've got in their lives,

they've got to be in community. Friends are everything. Everything. Friends are everything. And we've lost a lot of that during this pandemic. And you guys have got to reach back out and pull that back into your lives in order to have successful lives. Scratch and claw to whatever you've got to do to get and pull that back into your lives in order to have successful lives. Scratch and claw to whatever you got to do to get reconnected, man.

Just vital. The check won't save you in the mail. Your friends will. You got to have people. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Here at Ramsey Solutions, we want to do millions and millions of times what we just experienced with that debt-free scream. We want to transform so many lives that disruption spreads like wildfire across our country. Whether it's in the mental health space with Dr. John or the money space with some of the other Ramsey personalities, career space with Ken Coleman, marriage space, money space. We want to disrupt and transform so many lives.

Imagine a world where it's weird to have a student loan debt, where the majority of people pay cash for their cars, where it's kind of looked down on to have a credit card, like the credit card is the cigarette of the financial world, where you actually have the relationship skills to work through the conflict because you've spent time in John's materials. Imagine a world where most people are that way. That's a transforming thing for our nation, and that's what we're trying to do.

That's a level of disruption to this toxic culture, and that's what Ramsey Solutions is doing. That's why we've got 1,000 people in our company working together to create products and digital products and services and digital services to help people with this transformation, with the goal of disrupting the toxic culture. Because this culture is messed up, you guys. You know that. You don't want to be married like the culture.

You don't want to raise kids like the culture. You don't want to handle money like the culture. You don't want to run a business or leadership like the culture. It's messed up. And we're in the process of changing that. If you want to join us on this crusade, we are on the hunt for folks to join our team. We intend to hire 350 more people this year, and that includes software engineers, Ruby on Rails folks, Java, C Sharp, front-end technologies, UX designers, SEO folks, content specialists, senior developers. You want to write code? You want to lead people that are writing code and building digital products for things that

are changing people's lives? Well, that's what we do. Oh, and by the way, we don't work 180 hours a week. We work 40 hours a week and we go home, with the rare exception of when we have a project deadline. But you walk through this place at 6 o'clock at night, there's nobody in here, right, John? Or somebody's going to say, hey, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? You need to go be with your family.

You need to go home. You need to go home and hug your babies. If you're no good at home, you're no good here. And that's not true in the digital world. Most of the time, technology folks, if you're a developer 24 7 365 they just they what they just gonna burn you up man you're just a robot they're gonna eat you alive and uh and you don't even know what the code you're writing is doing it could be doing harm in some cases so uh you want to find out about the jobs that are available here we're on a crusade to change this world.

I mean, and that's not just Cheese Factory. That's the truth. Check out DaveRamsey.com. Click on the Dave's Hiring tab over on the right-hand side of the homepage. You can see all of our opportunities. They're not all digital. There's all kinds of opportunities, but tons and tons of senior dev positions and platform folks, Ruby on Rails folks folks java c sharp seo tons of that product uh you know product managers i mean there's everything uh pm1s twos threes we've we've got some serious stuff rolling out of here you think about the products that we put out how

would you like to have been working on every dollar when we launched that? Or when we iterated every day? Yeah. Or Ramsey Plus or some of the other things we're doing. It's pretty fun stuff. So check us out. Dave's hiring at DaveRamsey.com. Luca's with us in San Antonio. Hey, Luca, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

How can we help? How are you doing, Dave? Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm calling because I'm 28 years old, I have a wife and I have two little girls, and I'm looking to start getting into becoming a real estate agent,

but I don't want to be one of those slimeballs, you know? And I just want to know what advice you would have or any thoughts you would have for getting into this in 2021. We have no debt paid for my wife's school in all cash. We own our vehicles. The only thing is that we live in an apartment. We don't have a house yet, and I just kind of wanted to know what your thoughts were

on becoming a real estate agent. What do you make a year? This past year, together with my wife and I, we only made forty thousand dollars okay what do you make and what does she make okay she makes so she makes um thirty two thousand dollars and this year since i lost my job in 2020 i was really working with immigrant shelters and kids weren't coming so they laid us off so i was kind of here and there with jobs throughout the year trying to kind of bring in what i could so just total was 40 000 but before i was seven years

with social services making about 36 000 okay and but today what are you making at this moment okay today um i'm making 30 annually will be 34 000 okay so you've gotten another job. Yes, I have another job right now. And you said you're 28, correct? 28, yes, sir. Okay, good. Great. Well, I think you've got a wonderful goal. Why is it you want to get in the real estate business?

You know, I've done the church thing. I've been in church, kind of done the leadership stuff. I love making impacts with people and making, and making connections with people. I'm a people person. And I, one sense, I kind of want to be in my own boss.

And I, I've always had this thing to want to become an entrepreneur, but I've always been afraid of it. And I feel like real estate, it's not, it just gives me this drive to want to be able to say, Hey, I can help people like myself who've never had a home

and be able to see that come to life and be able to be on the other side of that. Very good. Okay. Well, I think you should do it. If I can figure out a way, if I'm you, I'm going to do it incrementally, not all at once, meaning not walk in and quit your day job. So I would start talking to real estate brokers in your area and see if you can get on.

There's a lot of high-production real estate agents like the ones in our ELP program that might have a two- or a three-person team, and one of those people might have an entry-level position where you get licensed and you do some of the grunt work around the real estate business and learn the real estate business working for them, and that's your gateway into moving out on your own eventually. Okay. But finding a broker that will let you incrementally learn this

and some kind of part-time or joining a team for some kind of minimal guarantee while you get your license and learn the business, being mentored, like an apprenticeship in a sense. If you can get engaged in something that feels like that, then that's going to do it. The good news is you don't have to sell a lot of houses to make $34,000. But you're a long way. I mean, you've got to get licensed. You've got to learn a lot of stuff you don't know today before that first sale is going to occur. And so you need to get under somebody's tutelage.

And I can see where you would think, I'm just going to go out and start selling houses. And there's a lot of things behind the scenes that you've just got to pick up, right? Yeah, and in this world today, the marketing in the real estate business is not just as simple as saying, I'm selling a house. There's a full digital platforms. There's methodologies that you'd use for gathering clients and communicating with clients. And a lot of that costs money. And getting plugged into that stuff and learning how to do that in today's real estate world,

a lot of people don't even use a phone you know they're just they're texting i mean they use it for texting or email and but the number of times someone's talking on a telephone in our world today is a lot less than it was five years ago and that's certainly true even where there's a lot of people interaction. You know, I bought a piece of real estate last week, and I'm closing on it tomorrow as an investment, and I've not had a telephone conversation. I won't be at the closing. It'll all be done digitally.

Everything will be wired, you know, and that's a different world than when i got my real estate license in 1978 so those are the kinds of things you got to be able to get your head around uh if you're going to move into this luca but i think you should and could do it i think you can do it don't you got a special heart man absolutely and uh i love they don't they don't have a lot of money they don't make a big salary and they're still cash flowing they're still grinding it out he's got two little girls that they're still cash flowing. They're still grinding it out. He's got two little girls that they're taking care of.

I just love his spirit. Man, I got lucky with a real estate agent with great character, and I want to see more of them out there. So go get them, man. Amen. Amen. Well, that puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Dr. John, good job.

James Childs and Kelly, good work. Good work. We'll be back with you before you know it. This is James Childs, producer of The Ramsey Show. You can listen to all our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. Browse by topic or even send clips to your friends. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today. Ramsey Network