The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Sell the Car or Pay It Off? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: When it makes sense to create a charity foundation, Selling a car vs. paying it off, The fastest way to knock out student loan debt, Using savings to pay off the house. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. This is the show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Ken Coleman, number one bestselling author, host of The Ken Coleman Show, where he helps people with their careers,

and does so in about 75 cities across America, plus SiriusXM, plus a podcast, plus number one bestselling books. And we're here to talk to you about all of that. Again, the phone number, 888-825-5225. Matthew is in West Virginia. What's up, Matthew? Hi, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Coleman. How are you guys doing? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? Just really quick. I just wanted to take a second to thank you both for all you've done for us listeners. I was very blessed to discover you guys as an 18-year-old, and your teachings have helped me get through school completely debt-free. And now I'm starting to begin to give generously, so I just wanted to thank you both. Way to go, dude. How can we help my question today is uh regarding whether or not i should

you know take my my giving uh into a more formalized fashion as in a foundation or to stay anonymous as it is now uh okay how much are we talking about giving away a year so i just got out of school and previously i've just been doing you know between a thousand to five thousand a year now it's going up to six or seven and i've been doing a lot of research on it a lot of people say it doesn't make sense unless you have like like, cuckoo bucks to give away. But I was more or less looking at it as, you know, standardizing the process and sort of partnering with organizations and legitimizing the giving just heading into the future.

Well, you're very wise to think about it at this stage of the game. It is not worth the expense to file the annual tax returns and go to the legal expense to form the foundation uh because you're probably going to have 10 or 20 thousand dollars invested in all of that so you don't want to spend all your money on lawyers that you would have been given to somebody so yeah until you're giving away several hundred thousand dollars a year minimum it starts to not be non. I mean, that's non designated. It starts to be a problem.

Let me start not work. So you can formalize the process with a simple checkbook and just decide, OK, I'm going to give this much. You can move. You could even move it into an account that is just your personal account. And that account is used only for giving. And that way you would keep up with it. You'd be able to track what you did very carefully, very easily, easier than if it was mixed in with your normal personal bills, right?

Yeah. And you don't have the advantage of anonymity unless you're doing it with cash. And when you go to cash, you also don't have any tax write-off, which is not that big a deal, but also don't have any tax write-off, which is not that big a deal, but you don't have any tax write-off. And so, yeah, at this stage of the game, I think you've gotten some pretty good advice. You know, you can formalize the process without doing a family foundation. And we were giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

And even with a pretty decent process at that point that's when we realized we needed to form our first foundation and we did that about 15 years ago and then we've amped up our giving from there but that way it keeps it just keeps us very true to our principles which is what you're wanting to put in place so you're good good question though but no i don't think you need a foundation today yeah but i but I love, I think he might. The way he's going about it. Won't be long. A young man who's debt-free and just getting started professionally, you see him doing some wonderful things.

At 22, I was thinking about giving to me. Right. Yeah, exactly. Giving me a better car. That's true. Giving me a place to live. Yeah, I mean, that's a phenomenal opportunity. Yeah, he's way ahead of the game.

Gabriel is in Santa Barbara. Gabriel, what's up? Hello, gentlemen. It's an honor for being able to talk to you guys here. Trying my best not to be nervous for you. No big deal. We've never lost a patient. What's up?

So, roughly four years ago, I purchased a truck, and I knew I couldn't afford it. That's the way I was actually introduced into you because I was very panicky. You guys are the best model to find out how to manage my finances. I got that truck for $38,000 four years ago. Now, four years later, I owe $12,000 left, but the truck is now valued at around almost $40,000. So it's literally almost more than what I got it for four years ago. My question is, should I just pay off the $12,000 and keep the truck? Or should I just sell it and take the $25,000 to $27,000 in positive equity to myself. What do you make? So I almost already know the answer to your question,

but so I just left my job about two months ago due to COVID situation, and I started my window team. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Why did you leave a job due to COVID two months ago? Well, it wasn't due to COVID, but we lost a lot of our staff, and I kind of fell into it. I'm 21. Oh, you mean the company failed?

Right. It was a very, very tough situation. Okay, but you didn't quit because of COVID. No. They lost their revenue because of the pandemic, and it caused them to have to do layoffs. Correct. Okay.

So what do you think you're going to be making when you get the next job? So like I said right now, I'm doing automotive window tinting on my own. Dude, what were you making before? I was making roughly around $35,000. Okay. Okay. what do you have a degree in school did you say uh no no okay and so what do you think you'll be doing in the coming two years i mean just give me a stab in the dark what do you what's your plan i should definitely be able to make anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000. Okay. All right. So a good rule of thumb is to not have things with motors and wheels totaled up that equals more than half your annual income,

because other than this anomaly of the last 18 months, they all go down in value. Now, granted, yours went up in value, so did mine, but that's correcting itself very quickly. Six months from now, the truck will be gone back down or heading back down. As the supply starts hitting the car lots again, we'll see supply demand and the supply chain issues driving prices into an artificial world go away. So I think we can all agree long-term, trucks don't go up in value. They go down in value. And so you don't want a $40,000 asset going the wrong way when you make 40.

But if you're going to be making 80, then you're right on that bubble, and it sounds like you're heading that way if you want to keep it a little while and see if you get your income up. But, dude, if you're in a steady rhythm of making $50,000, you don't need a $40,000 truck. Correct. I'd sell it. Gabriel, I don't need a $40,000 truck. Correct. I'd sell it. I guess the only thing... Gabriel, I'd sell it.

I like to fast-forward goals in life. I'd sell it. You're going to make $26,000 on it, buy yourself a nice truck... For $20,000. ...for $20,000, and put the $6,000 towards your financial goals. Fast-forward everything with one purchase price. That's what I'd do. I'd sell it now.

Yeah. It is just a stupid truck at the end of the day. I mean, we fall in love with these things. Like, we have to keep them forever. It's not a wife. It's a truck. You know. So, you don't have to keep it. It's not required. It's not until death do us part. This is the Ramsey

Show. Hey guys, George Camel here, and I'm so excited to tell you about the newest product from Ramsey. It's called Gazelle, and it's a digital banking experience that will help you spend and save the Ramsey way with banking services provided by PathWord NA. You'll get a single spending account with no monthly fees, and it's FDIC-insured through PathWord NA. We're offering early access to our beta customers, so you can help us make it the best experience it can be. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash gazelle to sign up for the wait list today. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-hosthost today number one best-selling author imagine what it'd be like to be in an arena filled with people that are all fired up about winning they're fired up about being better at their marriage at their parenting at their leadership

at their mental wellness at their career at their money they want to be baby steps millionaires all the Ramsey personalities will be there it's called smart conference we they want to be baby steps millionaires all the ramsey personalities will be there it's called smart conference we're going to be doing this with about 8 000 folks in dallas on saturday october the 22nd this is not just another pep talk this is helping you be smarter and when you're in a room full of people like that a connection happens and there is a spirit to the whole process and you leave their believing and knowing that you can happens and there is a spirit to the whole process and you leave there believing and knowing that you can win and how to do it. It's only a $39 ticket. It should be $390 with a lineup like this. All the Ramsey personalities plus Craig and Amy Groeschel from

Life.Church are going to be there. We're looking forward to it. Get your passes now before it sells out. Several of our building wealth events in the fall are almost gone they're in the 90 percentile on the sellout uh one of them's within just a handful of tickets so you need to get your tickets for these events as you know events are very popular these days after the pandemic people no longer take for granted our right and ability to gather and so uh these tickets these things are selling out like crazy yeah so $39 tickets get them at ramseysolutions.com slash events ramseysolutions.com slash events feels like an eternity ago we were allowed together i can't believe how long it's been since we've done a smart conference and it's really a special event and you're right you know

some of us need catalytic moments, something that just ignites something in an event like this. So many people in the room all gathering for one reason, to go from where they are to where they want to be. And it really is infectious. If you've never been, give it a shot. It's extraordinary. Just as somebody who gets to participate as a speaker, but to feel the energy in the room as I sit and listen to all the other folks talk, it's

special. Well, it's like one of my pastor buddies gave me a hard time one day, and he said, you know, Ramsey, you say the same thing over and over again. I said, so do you. Yeah, right. I was going to say, hello, Pop. But that doesn't mean we don't need to go to church. That's correct.

You know, so there's an advantage to you in your spiritual, emotional, mental well-being, relational well-being to go to church physically. Go sit your tail end in there and have the experience of the discomfort of the parking lot because nothing's meaner than a Christian in a parking lot. Well, that's the truth. And all this whole process just to have a set-aside moment. Yeah. A set-aside.

And that's what happens at these events. It's not church, but it is. Well, not to mention, we have a world-class band, one of the great cover bands in all of America that comes in. Oh, yeah. They're really good. I mean, there's not a low moment. In between all the speakers, we have world-class music. We have fun surprises, experiences that are just – that weave in the entire day.

There's a thread. Smart conference is immersive. It really is. For sure. Phillip is with us. Phillip is in Chattanooga. Hi, Phillip. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. I appreciate you taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? So, I just graduated college this past semester, debt-free. All right. And I also got married two weeks ago congratulations you've been busy well well thank you and uh with this marriage i now have ten thousand dollars in student debt um that she that she brought in and you got off

just wondering yeah i'm just wondering if i need to um write a check and pay it off or if I need to wait. Why would you wait? Well, I've got about $13,200 in my retirement. No, I don't want to take it out of retirement. You've got money in your checking? Yeah, I've got about $16,000, so leave me with about $6,000 left. Pay it off today. Okay, that's what I needed to know.

We're done. We're done. now let's move up through the baby steps we call them does that make you guys 100 debt free yes we both have paid for vehicles and we're renting at the moment you guys are way ahead of the curve see now you're debt free with six thousand dollars your next goal is to have baby step three which is three to six months of household income as your expenses of your expenses as a rainy day fund okay and so what's your household income uh right at um 75 000 before taxes okay well let's call your emergency fund 15 to 20 okay and that's money to sit on you don't

ever touch that that's not i want to couch money that's not i think i need a bass boat money this is money for emergencies only all right okay so we're going to raise your first goal then after you write the check today is sit down with your spouse develop a budget the two of you are going to lay out your goals together we're going to build an emergency fund of 15 or 20 whatever you decide the the number is, quickly. Let's just use the money. Everything we can squeeze out of the budget goes on that. Once that's done, then we start investing 15% of our income. Or you push pause between baby step three and four, and you start saving for a down payment on a house if you have a house in your future.

Okay. So you guys are right on track. I'm going to send you a copy of the Total Money Makeover book that will show you how to do all that as a wedding gift and get you guys plugged in. That's a great start, Scott. Phenomenal. I mean, play that out, Dave. I think when people hear that,

maybe we have some new folks listening or watching today, this couple is so far ahead of the game with that kind of income, call it $75,000 gross, no debt. They're going to be millionaires in what? How long? if they follow our baby steps start putting 15 to retirement after they fully fund that normal growth in their career through their 20s uh probably 12 years that's crazy so you're talking about 34 35 36 years of age yeah they'll be early millionaires yeah baby step if they follow the baby steps and

that's extraordinary when you told him you're ahead of the curve, I wanted our audience who may be new to this conversation to go, that's where they stand. Let's face it. What normal is, you call me, you're 22 years old, you just got married, you got $160,000. Correct. Student loan debt. And two stupid $20,000 cars that you shouldn't have bought, but you thought you had to celebrate graduating from college with stupidity. So, and what else would be involved there? There's probably some other little debt of some of some oh some credit card debt hanging around credit card yeah yeah there's

probably some of that and so that would be like the normal person calling me so this guy is he's he's on the way he's on the other end of the bell curve yeah it's extraordinary chris is in kansas city what's up chris hey david and Ken. Thank you very much for taking my call. Sure. I live a little more than that. I'm hoping to be on my way to weird, so I would like some guidance there. I've currently been saving for— Ken and I are experts in weird.

Yeah, that's a fact. Good. Good. I need some expert guidance. My wife and I have been saving up for kind of an upgrade, uh, in the house. And after this month, I believe I'll have, uh, the fully funded emergency fund and 20% put down, uh, on the house as long as stuff doesn't kick up in price again. Um, we are in the house now.

Yes. We do owe some, um, on this. Now we're looking to, we are going to start our house. Now we're looking to we're in a starter house now we're looking we've outgrown it we're hoping that 20 is in cash or the 20 includes the equity in your current home it's in cash okay well then you also got equity in your current home right yeah and that's where i'm not quite sure where it would be at i mean it's a starter house needs a lot of needs some work and so i'm not i'm not sure what the sale would kick up there but i'm kind of curious if with what i've saved if i should pay off the house that i'm currently in maybe use it as like a rental no or if i should just kind of

stay say where i'm at as far as no you don't have the money you don't have the money to do that okay let me tell you let me tell you where i'm coming from on that so you'll know why i answered that so fast all right um i don't believe and i didn't and i don't teach people to buy rental property with debt if you have a paid for starter house and then you go into debt on your main new residence that means that you have essentially borrowed on your new residence to buy a rental. Essentially, it's the same thing, right? And since you can't do this move debt-free, then it's not time to start rentals yet. You need to sell it.

A little bit of an X factor here. If I have more saved than what my house is that I'm currently in is owed on the note, does that kind of change the you're still going to go into debt on the next house okay because you kept the first one okay i see what you're saying you're saying pay okay you can't you can't pay if you could pay cash for the new one and have the old one also in cash i'd be okay but i'm not going to have you buy rental properties by borrowing on your home, which is essentially what you're doing because you're throwing all your money over there in the rental instead of putting it on the other one and you're going into debt. So it's the same thing as going to get a home equity loan to buy a dadgum rental.

And no, I'm not going to tell you to do that. I believe in rental property. I love real estate, but not borrowed, not leveraged real estate, not mortgaged real estate. I'm always going to teach you to be 100% debt-free. It is the shortest distance between where you are in wealth and financial peace. Two words that don't go together, like airline service. This is The Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Sean and Tammy are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Doing fantastic. How are you doing, Dave? Better than we deserve. Good to have you guys. Where do you all live? We live in the Houston, Texas area. Oh, wonderful. So good to have you. How much debt have you paid off? We paid off about $100,000. Wow. How long did this take? It took us about eight years. Okay.

And your range of income during that time? It ranged from about $70,000 to about $130,000 for both of us. Okay, cool. And what kind of debt was the $100,000? It was mostly student loan debt. Oh, Sally Mae. It took a while to get her out of the house, huh? So tell us the story.

What happened here? There you go, Tharn. So we got a copy of your show. Yeah. So we moved to Houston and bought a big house. A big house. It was about 4,000 square feet. And I started a new job there.

And a buddy of mine at work, he went around and he was passing around and said, hey, you guys, I got this audio thing. And we downloaded it on our computers. I listened to it. And it was a financial piece of university. It was apparently a pirated copy of it. So. Okay.

That'll work. And we started listening and we were like, wow, we're doing that wrong. And we're doing that wrong. And there's a way better way to do that. Yeah. It was like one thing right after that. I was like, oh, man, this makes so much sense. Why are we doing, why are we so stupid?

So we made a huge chart on the back of our bedroom door that had all 100 little steps that we needed to get to $100,000. And we just got fired up and we started paying it off and paying it off and paying it off. And we did great at the beginning. And then I started having these weird spells where I would forget things. So we went to the doctor and found out that I had epilepsy and tried a couple of medications and then they didn't help. So then we went and got an MRI and found out that I had a brain tumor. Oh, there's that. So then we were like, okay, you stop the debt snowball.

You just start stockpiling money and you get ready. And so I had the brain tumor taken out and then we find out that if you do it on purpose and you save up your money, it takes a good two, three months to get the bill.

And this time we just paid off the bill with cash instead of adding to the debt like we had our whole lives. Oh, wow. One of the debts that we had was the birth of our daughter, Kaylee, this cute little blonde over here. But with her, we knew we were pregnant. It took nine months to bake her up in the oven. And then nine months later, we still hadn't paid it off.

And that's how we were living before. And now we get a brain tumor out of the blue. And by the time the bill comes, we just pay it off and that's how we were living before and now we get a brain tumor out of the blue and by the time the bill comes we just pay it off wow that's a nice thing to have while you're facing something that severe yeah yeah well and it doesn't stop there you know afterward um because of the brain tumor we found out there was other complications that happened you know she had lost uh you know when they took it it out, she lost sensation in half of her face. So she couldn't feel what was in her eyes. So she had an eye surgery where they grafted a nerve into her face from her leg. And then she couldn't hear.

Or actually, she could hear too well, I guess is the thing. So three surgeries, ear surgeries later, she now has much better hearing. But this was like a year later and then a year later so that we could pay our out-of-pocket max every year. But that kept kicking Sally Mae down the road a little bit because you're dealing with health stuff. Exactly. I always say the word, the little engines that could.

Yeah. Like we were on the debt snowball plan and we wanted to do it, but all these things kept coming up. Much more important to take care of you than Sally. Yeah. And then we crashed our car. Yeah. I got in a head-on collision of you than Sally. Yeah. And then we crashed our car. Yeah, I got in a head-on collision and totaled our van.

Yeah, why not? Well, and that was our first car that we bought with cash because we had to upgrade from the little tiny sedan that we had because we had six kids now. So we bought a minivan, a used minivan, totaled that. And then I was informed about a month later that I was put on notice for a layoff. Of course. Yeah, so it all happens all at once. That dumb country song, man. It's unbelievable.

And so, you know, people tell you, like, yeah, I started Dave Ramsey, and it's a good idea and stuff, but then stuff happens in life, and you can't just follow it. And we were like, baloney. We don't do debt. Even if we have six bodies and a car that only fits five we're gonna make do and we're gonna buy a car with cash because we don't do debt anymore so so we bought a brand well not a brand new car it was new to us it was a used car

had uh had you know 40,000 miles on it we were you know lord bless us with with uh the cash that we needed in order to to get it paid for without going into debt at all. So many naysayers kept saying, you guys, just get a loan. Come on, you can do it. It's just a car. We decided not to. And then the medical journey just kept going on. So I guess what was it, total?

So then they said for epileptics, there's this thing you can install in your brain and it will help turn it off. So I had brain surgery again. And then it didn't work. So then the next year they said we can just go in and take that chunk of your brain out. And we said, okay. And by this point he was like, okay, we're putting our out-of-pocket Macs in our budget. Because we keep doing it year after year. And then it didn't work.

Because I'm just that patient. But luckily, he said we can put the thing back in your brain but i can't imagine how it would have been if this doctor was like there's something else we can try to help you because you're a difficult patient but you haven't paid your bill from last year you know because that's the way we were living before we did the ramsey plan but this way we paid it with cash so when they had something else that we could try to help us. Five surgeries now or six? How many was it?

Seven, I think. Seven. Total is nine. Total is nine. Four of them. When was the last one? How long ago was the last one? October.

This long ago. I was bald in October. So how are you doing overall now? I still have about two seizures a week. Bless you. overall now uh i still have about two um seizures a week bless you but the thing is what would it have been like if every time i needed a surgery or every time i needed to change medications we had to panic about money yeah like now it's not a problem while you're doing all nine surgeries you go ahead and pay off sally may you know and have some kids and live like and fix a head on and get laid off.

Yeah, oh, my gosh. We were the little engines that could. And you know the thing? I think more than that. I think you just didn't quit. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable heart.

And this isn't a question, just a comment. I hope the audience is paying attention to this. You had financial peace in the midst of still paying off the debt. You know, the fact that you guys pressed pause, but the ability to do that, Dave, I mean, you know, they hadn't even paid off all the debt yet and still cash flowed stuff. Very amazing.

Huge. You guys are something else. Very, very well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? To not pay for Christmas with your December paychecks. Very prescriptive. I'm also going to tell you, never quit. That's right.

It's like a Winston Churchill speech. Never quit. Never, never, never quit. Once we got the budget, it was just nice to be able to say, this is how much we need for new school clothes, and this is how much we need for Christmas, and this is how much we need for out-of-pocket masks in case Tammy needs to have brain surgery and I'm the free spirit and now the thought of not having a budget

is scary to me because I'm like but and a monthly budget meeting yeah really so let me ask you this I don't know anything about the medical part of this does stress add to the likelihood of you have an episode yes he's shaking his head she says no but i say yes because i see it okay all right so the fact that you don't have financial stress in the house is probably helping it's huge yeah and it's allowed us to focus on the things important these four right here our relationship with each other her health yeah Exactly, yeah. Instead of focusing on money, on this material stuff that consumes so many people's lives. Stupid car payment on a stupid car. Wow.

You guys are fun. Amazing. You're inspiring. Wow. All right, let's bring the kiddos up. What are their names and ages? This is Jacob, Sierra, Haley, and Kai, and they are 13 11 9 and 7 all right very good we've got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that's the next chapter in your story

and you guys have quite a story but the little train that didn't quit for sure without a doubt also got a copy of a non-pirated financial peace university version and we'll let you watch it legally this time and available with ramsey plus it's online now and we'll let you watch it legally this time. And available with Ramsey Plus. It's online now. And we'll give you a one-year subscription so you guys can go through it. Brand new videos on this. And they're the best we've ever done.

The class is the best it's ever been in all these years. And also a copy of Total Money Makeover. All right, gang. Count it down. $100,000 paid off in eight years while they take quite a journey from $70,000 to $130,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Okay, you guys ready?

3, 2, 1. I am debt-free! I am debt-free! I am debt-free! Love it! That's how it's done! Wow. whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop that's how it's done wow We'll be right back. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Matt's in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Hey, Matt, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken. How are you doing? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? Yeah, so my wife and I were 23 years old. We got married when we were 21, and I'm a youth pastor, and she works a customer service job so that she can stay at home and take care of our baby. We're on baby steps four, five, and six, and we've never had any debt except for our mortgage. Way to go.

We both have always—thank you. Appreciate it. We both have always enjoyed listening to you and following your program, but we recently took FPU, and we left feeling super inspired to like pay off our debt for our house. So we currently have 48,000 left on it and it's a fixed 15 year mortgage, but I don't want to just wait 15 years for it. I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and, and so I hear you talk about the importance of having a big shovel to pay off debt. And as someone who's getting started in his career and his ministry, I don't have a huge shovel.

My question is, how can I wisely increase my income while balancing the responsibility and calling of being a pastor to pay off our house? Good for you. Yeah, I love the question, Matt. My dad was a pastor, and many in our uh childhood or adolescence he would have to because he pastored a small church so at a very small income and not a lot of opportunity he would have to add things and so you know dad was very good with um construction work and things of that nature so my my thought would be where do you have some talent and skill that you can

immediately put to work so you've got some got something premium to offer based on the time you can give. So how many hours a week could you give? Well, I could do evenings and then Fridays and Saturdays, but maybe like, I mean, realistically, maybe like 20 hours, something like that. So you start there. I've got 20 hours max. And so what can I do that will allow me to make some money quickly?

Because we're talking about hourly work right now. You can make $20 an hour if you're stocking shelves at Walmart or Target. But what's a skill that you have right now that you know you can get paid for? Well, I really like to work with people, like talk with them. You know, I'm pretty relational. I can't say I'm super handy, but I'm learning. You know, I'm 23. I'm really, you know, I kind of view myself more scrappy than anything.

I'll just do whatever I can to really make a buck. So your degree, I mean, you went to seminary. Did you have another degree other than seminary? No, so it's a youth pastoral degree with pastoral leadership. Perfect. Good, good. Okay. Yeah, so it's just a matter of poking around and figuring out what you could do that you can make the most per hour on the short term.

And I honestly, my general rule is I always, I kind of entrepreneurial so I always move towards some kind of self-employed anything and it could be something as silly as walking dogs or pet sitting and you know making 30 bucks an hour doing that and um I mean we've had people do their debt-free screams on here that have done that the great news is you're way ahead you're a you're thinking about this b you only owe forty eight thousand dollars i mean you could pay off this house in like two years yeah of extra income that's the goal that's what i want yeah but i mean extra income it's just a matter of how much you guys want to get jacked up about this um and then uh so so then the other question is you know what ken's saying is true the data that we have working with churches all across America,

we've worked with about 75,000 churches now over the past 30 years. And the data that we have is somewhere around 80% to 85% of pastors are bivocational. Most churches are not of size that they can even support the senior pastor full-time. Just in general, the movement, the way the church movement's been in America. And traditionally, the worship pastor and youth pastor starve to death, you know, until you get into a megachurch or something, right? And so, you know, in your calling, it's going to be a few years before your calling pays you a substantial amount of money.

Now, as your calling does develop, though, particularly your oratory skills, if you become a great preacher, you may get some side gigs speaking at youth conferences and other things, you know, filling in for a pastor here or there, pulpit ministry, that kind of thing, and even later on, maybe some writing. So a lot of pastors supplement their incomes within the calling uh and then some just simply uh you know they have a a bread route a donut route and they deliver off a truck you know and they work ups or whatever that whatever it is you do but um you know the good news is you're willing to work, and like you said, scrappy. And honestly, I'll take scrappy over six degrees any day.

Six scrappy will get her done. And there's so much opportunity right now, Dave, for somebody who's scrappy. So, you know, Matt, look, I'd look at people-based work. You've got those 20-hour block. You've got that time of day that you're looking at. So this is just the hunt, as Dave said. But you've got limited hours, and you have a limited time during the week. So what are we looking at? People-based work sure would be great sales customer service work uh but

if it's just good old-fashioned delivery or waiting tables i would do that yep exactly nick is with us in salt lake city hi nick how are you good how are you guys doing better Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just had a quick question for you guys. So we have an opportunity in our life to buy a house, but the problem is that it's a million-dollar house, but it has two rental properties inside the house that would bring in around $5,000 a month. And so the mortgage would only be around $4,000 a month, and we could make potentially around $5,000 a month. And so the mortgage would only be around $4,000 a month, and we could make potentially around $5,000.

Do you think that would be a smart decision to do to buy that house? Not if you're dependent on the rent to pay the bill. Okay. Let me tell you what, just, I don't know where you were in the last three years, but in some areas, rent, you couldn't evict someone for not paying for six months because of the pandemic during which time you would have been foreclosed on sir yeah so the the thing is though is that you drove right past that and didn't hear a dadgum thing i said i did but um i'm just curious because we're i don't know we feel pressured to do it from certain people, but we're kind of hesitant.

The thing is, though, that it's not like a typical rental at the Airbnbs, and they have a three-year attractive three where they're bringing them. That's even worse because now we've got cities passing laws not allowing Airbnb because they're in violation of zoning. Okay. Why were you hesitant? You just nailed the whole thing. You're feeling pressure from some

people that you and your wife respect big time they have a lot of influence over you and yet you're hesitant what are you hesitant about um just i think it seems like a good opportunity but also don't know if we can make it work yeah i think there's a lot more risk here than the people pressuring you have any concept of that's right they don't know what the flip they're talking about so no i'm not going to tell you to do this deal based on this i think you're doing i think you're going to get yourself in trouble uh and on top of that you're living in a house with other people kind of defeats the purpose man if i wanted I wanted to live in a hotel, I'd buy a hotel.

Ugh. No, thank you. Just, you know, all in the name of I can make a buck. All in the name of all real estate's a good investment. All real estate's not a good investment. Real estate is a good investment. All education is not a good investment. Education is a good investment investment but there are stupid forms

of real estate and stupid forms of education i mean you can get a degree in german polka history or medieval left-handed puppetry but that doesn't mean you're going to end up being anything but a barista and that you know that's stupid education and when you buy real estate leveraged up to your eyeballs and you say well the renters are going to pay the rent that's stupid because i've got i've had renters for 30 years let me just tell you some of them don't pay sometimes they go in chapter 13 bankruptcy there's a pandemic moratorium on on evictions and you're sitting on them and uh you know it had nothing to do with the pandemic they just chose to not pay because the government told them they could and then when you do finally get them out,

they have, ugh, can you tell I'm bitter? Well, you've got to beware of the influence trap. What you just heard, folks, happens to all of us at some point in our lives if we're not careful. And people that we respect and love dearly... That are stupid. Yes, but yet they tell us it's a good idea, and something in our guts, this young man, he said, we're hesitant about it.

He didn't feel right about it, but the influence of people who have no he said we're hesitant about it he didn't feel right about it but the influence of people who have no idea what they're talking about makes him think well gee whiz they said it's a good idea maybe i should consider it thankful he called the show today now read some articles about what's happening to airbnb politically in a whole bunch of markets they're getting their face smacked man and their hands and everything else smacked. And so you can read, you build your whole pro forma based on Airbnb performance. You can really get yourself in a crack, dude. Don't do it.

Don't do it. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? It's your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts. The Ramsey Show.