The Ramsey Show - App - Should We File Bankruptcy? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, host of the Fine Print and the

Entree Leadership Podcast, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Lauren is in Atlanta starting off this hour. Hi, Lauren. How are you? I'm doing okay. How are you doing, Dave? Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Well, I will try to keep this short. My husband and I are currently upside down in the house that we're in, and the mortgage is in my name. And I'm just desperate to find options besides bankruptcy but wondering if you think I should just go ahead and file bankruptcy. Are you behind? No sir. The house. How much is your payment? It is $750. What do you owe on the house? $115,000. Okay. And what do you think it's worth?

Well, that's the thing. So back in 2008, I put a lot of money in the house because my grandmother insisted on staying there until she passed. That was always what her goal was. And so the house was very under, you know, in bad shape then, but just wanted to honor her. So had a friend that helped me kind of put work into the house. I was unaware that the work that was being done wasn't done properly. For instance, they put a new kitchen on a rotted subfloor.

The sills in the house are rotted. There's wood-eating fungus that's destroyed the base of the house. It's just the house is sick. We had to move out about a year and a half ago for our health. We were losing our hair, and our dog was getting sick as well. And so we've been paying rent and paying the mortgage, thinking that we could just kind of be positive. Have you had anybody look at it to tell you what it's worth in the crummy condition that it's in?

So it's worthless. No, no. And we've been told not to put another dime into it. No, stop, stop. Stop with the drama. Have you had anybody that's a professional real estate person or investor look at it and tell you what it's worth? We've had several people.

And they say it's worth zero. No. Well, $40,000 is what the land is worth. So that's what I mean. We're upside down. I don't mean to be dramatic. It's kind of. Well, it's not. You said it's worth less. That don't mean to be dramatic. It's kind of dramatic.

Well, you said it's worth less. That was dramatic. It is not worth less. It's worth $40,000. Okay. Or more. But the land is worth $40,000. How much land is involved?

5.8 acres. Where? In Atlanta? It's actually outside of Atlanta. The big city I would say is Atlanta, but Athens, outside of Athens, Georgia. So a rural community? Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have homeowner's insurance?

I do, and back in 2015, I tried to contact them to see if they would help with the mold. I had some of the mold remediated, and it worked temporarily. But it's back. Who do you owe the money to? The mortgage company currently is Regions. Is it an FHA loan, a VA loan, or a conventional loan? I believe it is a conventional, but I'm not 100%. Okay.

And what is your household income? My husband and I make around $30,000 currently. You are not bankrupt, but you are in a mess you already knew that you already knew that okay yes sir so worst case scenario is you get foreclosed on because you quit paying payments on this today and um worst case is okay the uh i would go ahead and contact Regions and say, I'm done. The house is falling in. I can't fix it. I only make $30,000 a year.

Put me in touch with your short sale department. Okay. Get in touch with a real estate agent at RamseySolutions.com and interview some of our ELPs, our endorsed local providers. Ask them when you're interviewing them if they have any experience with a short sale. Okay. Very few short sales in today's world, but you have a house that has rotted down and lost its value and you've got basic structural thing. It just needs to stick a dynamite thrown in it. I hear you. It's's over it wasn't a great house to start with and then it's gotten worse and so here's what's going to happen let's pretend that

40 000 is a real number i'm not positive it is that means this land is worth less than ten thousand dollars an acre i suspect you probably get more than that for it it's in a floodplain i i forgot to tell you that the whole thing railroad the railroad expanded well the d.a.t expanded the highway in front of the house years ago we happened the whole five acres is in a floodplain no no sir okay that's what i was asking has been flooding under there for for many years that's okay the house is gone so here's what's going to happen the real estate agent gets you an offer of 40 or 50 000 but you owe what'd you say 150 115 115 then that offer goes to regions and regions can decide if they want to accept that okay and if they accept that offer then they forgive the rest of the loan.

Now, here's the word you must remember, the phrase you must remember. This is a short sale without recourse. Which means they can't come back after you for the difference in the $115,000 and the $50,000 you get for it. But if they get $10, bucks an acre out of this that'd be 50 grand and they take that offer to regions region says hey look after we foreclose on and we take this property back we're not going to get 115 for it we're going to get 50 for it then we've got to go sue this woman named lauren who makes 30 000 a year which point she'll file chapter seven bankruptcy and we're going to get nothing so so we're just gonna take this okay that's what a

short sale is that's how the logic works but you've got to have an agent that knows how to make that pitch to regions and work through the region's mess and regions is no picnic to work with they're a pain in the butt but maybe you could they just are it's a stupid bank so um but you know here's the thing quit paying payments a b number two get a real estate agent that'll help you with a short sale you can do that at ramsey solutions.com and then um c hopefully we can get them to accept an offer from an investor or a local guy who wants to just farm it and push the house down or whatever, right? Maybe your next-door neighbor wants the property. Yes, sir.

And they'll accept it without recourse. Okay. That way they don't chase you for the difference, kiddo. But this is going to be a – it's going to take six months to a year of your life of screwing with this but all that time you're going to be saving 750 bucks a month because you ain't paying any more payments if they do come around and foreclose and come after you you can deal with it then settle with them on 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

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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 budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. You hear me say all the time that everyone needs a will, and it's true. It's a basic adult responsibility. There's just no good excuse not to have one.

You've also heard us recommend an online will as the fastest, most cost-effective way to get your will taken care of. But I get a lot of questions about a simple online will. Is that right for everyone's specific situation? I get that. What if you need a trust or you need a mirror will or what kind of powers of attorney do you need? With those questions in mind, our team built a quiz to help you find the right option. Do you need a mamabearlegalforms.com well online, or do you need an attorney? We'll tell you. We don't mind telling you.

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today comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they'll remake your blinds for free. You'll get free samples, free shipping. And with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSEY to get the best possible deal. Today's question comes from Debbie in Los Angeles. She said, my husband and I have $230,000 in our 401k. We switched to a money market plan about seven years ago because

we're both in our mid-50s. Good lord. The CFO at his work is now trying to convince him to go back into mutual funds. He went as far as to tell him that we missed out on $59,000 in 2021. He's right. I'm not buying it. You're wrong. We lost almost all of our 401k in 2008 with this man telling us it would go back up and to stop watching it. I don't want to ever watch that train wreck again. Why would the CFO be pushing for us to risk our retirement fund? Oh, boy. Where to start with Debbie?

Sweet Debbie. Sweet Debbie. Little Debbie. Little Debbie. All right, well. Little Debbie's got a cake. I'm with the CFO on this one. I think he's trying to help you retire with dignity

and not lose out big because you jumped off the roller coaster mid-ride. And clearly, they're spook day from 2008, which is understandable. But to be in a money market account, which means it's just sitting in cash for seven years, losing against inflation, making 0%, that's a bad plan if you want to retire ever all right debbie you can't win at investing being drama debbie and you're being drama debbie you did not lose your entire 401k in 2008 the stock market did not go to zero it went in half

and so if you took out if you had $400,000 at the beginning and you moved it to money markets at the very bottom, which makes you the world's worst timing, then you've got $230,000, so that means you lost half of your money. You can't say we lost almost all. No, you did not. Not if you were in a mutual fund. It's actually mathematically impossible that you would

have lost almost all of it there is not a group of mutual funds that suck that bad that it went down 90 percent while the market went down 50 it went from the dow went from 13 000 to 6500 i know i was there my investments did the exact same thing I was here on the radio sounding just exactly like your CFO. Don't jump off the train. No one gets hurt except those that jump off in the middle of a roller coaster. Ride the ride to the end. Now, if you had not jumped off the train at the bottom, you would not have lost half of your money because in just a few months, the Dow was back to where it was pre-2008.

Oh, and by the way, it was at 13,000. Then it went to 6,500. You know it's over 30,000 today, Debbie. And so you would have had not 200,000. You would have had 1.2 million right now. If you had 230,000 at the bottom in 2008 and you had left it in there, you'd have 1.2 million right now if you had 230 000 at the bottom in 2008 and you had left it in there you'd have 1.2 million right now you didn't lose 59 000 debbie you lost a million dollars ouch

you're being a debbie downer dave i want you to know that i'm downing debbie that's me debbie we're just having some fun here. We're picking on you. But anyway. That's the math. I mean, it's true. That's exactly. People are scared to invest.

I don't know with this man telling us it would go back up and to stop watching it. I don't think he has any ulterior motives. It went back up, Debbie. The CFO is not making money from you being in a mutual fund. Or in the 401k. CFOs don't get commissions on 401ks. None whatsoever. He's just trying to help.

And the way that he's trying to give you the essence and the nuances of the market. And then the market's back down. It's trashed right now. It's horrible right this second. And, I mean yeah yeah you everybody's employed and nobody's making money in the stock market biden could screw up christmas but um the um yeah but but doesn't matter you know what i'm doing this month i'm not taking it out it's on sale debbie ukraine uh elon musk is buying the world uh what else is going wrong with the world oh inflation oh that's right uh gas housing market you know president can't string a sentence together

uh yeah i mean these are the things that are happening out there and so the stock market's going i'm so scared and it's going down right so you know what i'm doing investing you know what i do when it goes up invest you know what it does when it goes down invest why because the worst movement in the stock market's history other than the great depression was 2008 and debbie apparently if i'm reading this right you managed to take your money out at the exact worst time, I mean, you really hit it amazingly bad. So you panicked at exactly the wrong time. You should have panicked earlier or later or something, but oh, my gosh. What's the quote?

It's not about timing the market. It's time in the market. It's consistency. Yeah, exactly. Just leave it alone. Keep investing. Yeah, you lost out on $59,000 in 2021, but you probably lost close to a million dollars if you took this out at the bottom of the crash after 2008

and moved it to money markets and have made no money on it since. Meanwhile, my money's gone up 5X. 5X since the bottom of the 2008 crash. Really, almost 6X, technically. The Dow's down a little bit right now, but it was up to $38,000, which would have been 6X. Oh, yeah. So that's why, Debbie.

That's why. Because you're not really risking your retirement fund if you quit taking it out at the bottom. You're risking not being able to retire. You've got $200,000 at retirement. Yeah. I mean, look at this, okay? Here's another thing.

This is for everybody. We're using Debbie as an example, bless her heart, but you walked into it, Debbie. So if the analysis I gave you is exactly half wrong, in my case, I'm off by 50% in the little math formula I just did on the air okay which I'm not but let's just say I'm off by that much and you didn't have a million to I'm off by 50% you'd have 600,000 it's still almost three times more than you've got today. So your CFO would have had to have been dramatically, drastically wrong,

like wrong by thousands of percent for you to end up with less than you do now. Yeah. That's why he would be pushing for you to risk your retirement fund. You are perceiving more risk with your emotions than is actually mathematically there. That's what we're saying. That's the summary. And if I'm Debbie, I'm sitting down with a smart investor pro to educate myself on what would have happened if I left my money there. Ride the ride. Educate myself on what I'm actually investing in so I can make that decision.

Right now, she needs that kind of coach. She's freaked out. Yeah, and you know, George, that thing we were talking about the other day, there is a mutual fund that opened in 1934. It has averaged, since 1934, 12.25% interest, a rate of return. The number of years, 87 years it's been open, the number of times it's been down, 16. Wow. 16 years out of 87 it was down.

The other 71 years it was up. So that's the type of thing that should be in your mutual funds, in your 401k, and that's even safer than the market. Yeah. You got to have a long-term mindset. This is The Ramsey Show. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Sarah is with us in Maryland. Sarah, it says on my screen you're debt-free. Congratulations.

Hi. Thank you so much, Dave. Yes. Way to go. How much did you pay off? I paid off $43,000. Good for you. And how long did that take? About a year and five months.

All right. Way to go. And your range of income during that time? Well, I started out at zero. I had to make my first payment out of my very meager savings. And then I started my job later that month at $87,000 and now I make $92,000. Cool. What do you do for a living? I work for the government. I'm a cyber planner. Oh, nice. And your debt, the $43,000, what was it? That was all student loans, Dave. So you came out of school and a year and a half later jumped on it and it's done. Is that the story? Yeah. Way to go. what made you decide to jump on it so hard i didn't want to turn out like my parents and you know 55 still paying on their student loans

i i just wanted something different for myself yeah what made you think you could actually do this uh a really big part of it is thanks to my boyfriend and his parents uh they followed your plan to get out of their debt, and they taught me everything they knew. And I was like, hey, I think I can do this. That's cool. I'm impressed. Way to go, boyfriend and parents. Excellent job. How old are you?

I'm 25. Okay. So you're not waiting on the government to forgive your student loans, huh? I thought about it, and I was like, you know what? No way. Let me just, like, I want to sleep at at night let me just get this done with done you're close enough to dc to know it's never going to happen that's what it is there we go there's the real answer you're amazing i love it well congratulations sarah i'm proud of you thank you so much how's's it feel? It is incredible. You know, like a huge weight off my shoulders.

10,000 of that 43 was all interest that accumulated. And to just not have that anymore, it's crazy. It's so great. That's so fun. Good for you. Good for you. You got to also kind of feel like accomplished, like confident. It's, I don't know i like to stay humble but i really have to hype myself up sometimes to see like you know i i did this yeah i actually did

this there's a dignity to it yeah i i didn't think i really could but i i was determined and that determination carried me well this is your chance to brag right here on this call and we're here proud of you we're here to brag on you you we think you're amazing way to go 25 year old paid off your debt you didn't have to have somebody do it for you you threw your shoulders back and knocked it out way to go kiddo pop pop I love it so what kind of sacrifices did you make along this journey, Sarah? Well, I certainly learned a lot about delayed gratification. I had to push certain things off to the next month. I didn't always buy the newest video game, or I didn't always go to the movies with my friends.

I put about a full paycheck and a little bit more every month to my student loans. And I could have been wasting that on a new car or a better apartment. Yeah, you come out of college with a great income. You think, well, now's my chance to really show everyone all my success. Yeah, exactly. That is what a lot of people did. But, you know, I just kept it like really down low. I liked what I have and I stuck with it. So I'm guessing your boyfriend and his parents were cheering you on. What other cheerleaders did you have? Well, my sister, definitely. But other than my sister, it was pretty much just my boyfriend and his parents.

They were there every step of the way, and I would send them the screenshots of my payments so that they could, you know, tell me how proud they were, and I could feel good about it. Good for you. Well well done i love it excellent excellent job okay now that you've done it what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is determination and sharing rent absolutely if you have an apartment by yourself and you have a spare room, you're wasting money. You know, just get someone else in that spare room. Share your apartment.

How did you screen your roommate to make sure crazy didn't come in there? Well, my roommate's my boyfriend. So there's that. That's one method of screening. Exactly, right? Hopefully he's not crazy. We waited a couple years. I got the full.

Made sure he's good. And he's a Ramsey kid, too. There you go. No, he's a financial peace kid. He doesn't even have a credit score. He has no credit card, no credit score. Wow. Good.

Good for you. Way to go, Sarah. Excellent job. We got a copy of Baby Steps good good for you way to go sarah excellent job we got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you uh best-selling book and that's the next chapter in your story also we're going to send you a one-year membership to uh financial peace university and every dollar and ramsey plus and on top of that we're going to send you a copy of the total money makeover to give away and uh you've already lived a lot of this and your boyfriend certainly knows a bunch of it but you guys can enjoy the going through the class together hopefully as you're married and and uh move on to the next phases of your life

congratulations we're very proud of you all right sarah in maryland paid off 43 000 in one year and five months making zero to 87 to 92. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! That's how it's done right there. Whoop, whoop.

Wow. She wasn't going to wait on no one to pay off her debt and live her life she said she wants to sleep at night if i thought they would listen to them i would send 2 000 of those debt-free screams from 25 year olds that we've done to washington so they would know that the debt that student loans don't have to be forgiven if we quit telling people that they can never get out instead tell them they can get out quit stealing their hope with politics then we'd be okay but instead we have to go oh you're pitiful you can't make it without me I'm in the government how else are they going to get their vote how yeah how else am I going to get your vote if I don't buy it?

So, oh, and I have to run, you know, but she's got dignity. Yeah. I mean, she has the power. She's unstoppable now. She's controlling her life, not waiting on someone else to control her life. That's so cool. Megan is with us. Megan is in Minneapolis. Hi, Megan.

How are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I just started a business this year. I have a part-time job right now in that same industry on the side. I'm on baby steps four, five, and seven, and I'm wondering now that I'm done with my school,

is it a horrible idea for me to quit this part-time job to make more room for my kids this summer or should I focus on building my business or make more room to build my business or should I keep my job until I get more clients for my business? Are you married? I am, yep. What does your husband make? So he makes about 35 a year. Okay and what do you make at your job so my part-time job i make 1300 a month i haven't done my calculation and what do you make on your business um 1100 a month okay so you're going to cut your income by 25 when you do this unless you unless you increase your business size right yes yep okay and i'm the only reason why i ask or that i'm kind of i would really like to cut this off is because so for the past couple years i've been doing full-time work full-time school you know i had my daughter i didn't take a semester off, you know, to have her

things like this. And I'm, I think I'm officially, I'm just kind of maybe hustled out a little bit right now at the moment. How many hours a week are you working? So I, I mean, right now I'm, I'm working about like 45, 50 hours a week. So, I mean, honestly, not like super overworking it. I mean, if I will be honest. It's more so my business is more kind of like night, weekend, and my part-time job is more like in the day. I just don't. The 50 hours a week to make $28,000 isn't worth it,

even between your part-time job and the side hustle. I'd get both of these things up. Really? Yeah, you might consider a different career one where you make some money if you can't get your business going that's not enough to live off of but i'd get your business rolling what i would do if you like the business i'd get it up and running and get it running where you can make some good money on it at 40 hours a week. And get the husband's income up. Normal working hours. And, you know, I think that's it. I think George is on to something here. And if you can't do that,

then you probably ought to look at a different career. Because you're not really making much money. That's what it comes down to. You wouldn't be so dadgum tired if you're making $130,000 instead of $30,000. This is The Ramsey Show. our scripture of the day proverbs 19 23 the fear of the lord leads to life then one rests content untouched by trouble albert einstein says whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs no doubt about it open phones at 888-825-5225 paul is with us in jackson mississippi hey paul how are you doing all right man how are you doing better than i deserve what's up well i've come into a a predicament here that um a lot of people don't

don't get the chance to do um here in about four months i'm going to be receiving a check for about 1.2 million dollars wow um where'd that come from um a a land deal okay so you you had a piece of land that you sold and it's gonna you're gonna net you 1.2 million A land deal. Okay, so you had a piece of land that you sold, and it's going to net you $1.2 million. Well, actually, it's sort of like a finder's fee. I found some land, took it to a developer. It was worth a lot of money, and he's going to turn it around.

So that's going to be my percentage of the profit. Wow. Very nice. Okay. I hate it when that happens. Good job. If you find any more, let me know. Absolutely. Okay. How can we help? Yeah. I'm 27. I have about $50,000 in debt. And taking in this kind of money, it it's great but it's also kind of scary because i don't know what to do well that's a lot of wisdom it's why it's wise to be scared if you were strutting around acting like you knew what to do and you'd never done it before that

would be the the first sign you're going to lose the money so um really good really good position to take a healthy kind of fear not not toxic fear not being anxiety ridden or something but uh just going ah this scares me a little bit like this is a really powerful car and i'm not that great a driver yet right yeah cool so should should i should i i don't own a home right now. I'm renting. Should I take, I don't know, $200,000 and put it down on a house? Or should I reinvest this money? And I have a day job as well.

All this side income that I have is working from 4.30 to 10 o'clock at night and on Saturdays and Sundays. Wow. Not a bad side hustle. Yes. I've always been really driven. So what do you make a year on your day job? $70,000.

Okay. And you're used to living on that? Oh, yes. Okay. All right. Well, you can do living on that? Oh, yes. Okay, all right. Well, you can do a lot of different things, Paul. I'll give you a couple of things that, first let me throw some just basic ideas at you, and then I'll throw some conceptual ideas at you as well, okay?

Basic idea is write a check, pay off the debt, okay? Okay. You said you had $50,000 in debt, right? Yes, sir. Okay, so you write a check and you pay off the debt. okay you said you had 50 000 in debt right yes sir okay so you write a check and you pay off the debt that's thing one thing two is you need to sit down with a good tax pro and calculate what the taxes are going to be on this and then just set that aside and pretend like it's not yours because it's not yours you're going to get in a pinch if you start screwing around with a portion of this that is taxes so just set aside an account over there and be ready for next april when it rolls around and hold on the money as long as you can hold on to it but just put it in a money market account and pretend like you don't own it anymore and that's going to be substantial amount of money

i figured it would be around 250 yeah i think probably maybe it's probably 300 yeah but sit down with your tax pro and calculate it exactly and set that aside okay and then that tells you what you got to work with okay so let's call it 300 and then let's uh call the other 50 and that gets us down to 850 okay correct um and what would you if you were going to buy a home, do you want a house? You know, not necessarily. Not in the market that it is right now. I don't want to pay, you know, I don't want to pay $300,000 for a house that's worth $175,000. Honey, it's worth $300,000. It's not worth $175,000.

Okay. It's not coming back down. Okay. Real estate prices have retreated in the history of the united states never okay long term well that makes me a little bit more comfortable i mean we had one retreat in the 30s and it came back up we had another retreat in the 08 and it came back up and those are the only two times it ever went backwards and it came back up uh and so we're not we're not going to see a retreat in as a result of this mess

we're in right now but we are going to see a slowing in growth so but you're a single 27 year old guy you may not want to screw with the house you may want to get you a nice condo where you want to mess with stuff right i don't know what your living situation is but i would go pay cash for a residence okay whatever that is and so let's call that 300 that still leaves you 550 laying around what are you driving what are you driving um i've got a uh 2018 f-250 okay okay that's where all my dad is okay i was gonna oh that's that's the truck okay she paid off the truck keep the truck it's great car keep it okay what's your suggestion it'll be on that i, you can always park extra money in a high-yield savings account and use it towards your next goal.

So I love the idea of getting a reasonable residence. Let's pay off all the debt. Let's get our emergency fund in place. So set aside maybe, you know, $20,000, $30,000 over here for that. And beyond that, look at what your next goals are. Maybe you want to do real estate investing and you want to pay cash for that. Maybe you want to go on some vacations. Maybe you want to set it aside because you don't know what's going to happen in the next five are. Maybe you want to do real estate investing and you want to pay cash for that. Maybe you want to go on some vacations. Maybe you want to set it aside because you don't know what's going to happen in the next five years. Maybe you meet someone, you get married. And so I like the

idea of parking a lot of this aside once we have our house paid for. Yeah, nothing wrong with that at all. Here's the thing. If you want to deal with the fear, like sometimes I talk to someone that's inherited two million dollars or something and they're like, I don't know what to do. I don't know anything about money. And so, um, you know, we put them through financial peace university immediately, which we're going to do for you. Okay. I'm going to pay for you to go through it because I want you to get the basics on handling money down. And then you kind of build yourself a little board of directors for this million dollar business and the board of directors is a good insurance agent a good estate planning attorney that helps you get a will in place a good tax tax professional in your corner uh it sounds like you already know a lot about real

estate uh but you may you know if you want to put a real estate person in your corner that's fine but you put some experts around you that will teach you different things that you need to know uh to be able to do things that you don't know how to do um my for instance my estate plan is very complicated um there's no possible way i could have invented with my knowledge base my estate plan so i have paid an estate planning lawyer a lot of money to keep my family from having to pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes after I die because they tax you twice in the U.S. now because if you're rich you are must be evil and you should be punished so um but the uh you know that's an example I don't do my own taxes uh and I I could probably muddle through but I probably miss some stuff I don't

pull my own teeth either. So, you know, that's the thing you're dealing with. So, you know, you kind of get some advisors around you so that you've got, and you don't have to pay them anything. They're just there, and you develop a relationship and maybe meet with one of the smart investor pros about investing in mutual funds. You may want to take that half a million. You may be a real estate guy that wants to do some deals and just do them all with cash. And you can't mess them up if you're

doing them with cash. Uh, because there's, I'd never seen a single piece of real estate in my life go to zero. Uh, and you know, it's not, it doesn't, it's not Bitcoin. I mean, it can't go to zero. So, uh, you know, if you want to buy a piece of land and you want to fool with it flip it over you want to buy a property and flip it uh or you want to buy some properties that create income that's all okay uh good news about jackson mississippi it is a reasonable real estate market uh much more so than a lot of areas of the country so um a lot of stuff you can do there you got a lot of options congratulations sir amazing sir. That's amazing. Very proud of you. I want this to set him up for the future.

I mean, he's 27. And if he manages this money well, he's going to be able to retire early, do whatever he wants to do. Well, I mean, if you invest a half million dollars and you made 10% of it, that's $50,000 a year. That's not bad. And you've got taxes on that and other stuff. And it won't be 10% a year every year, but you can make 10% average.

But he can about replace his income if he invests this. Yeah, get real close. And if you left it alone, you know, it'll double every seven years. So in seven years, he's 27. When he's 34, you know, he'd have a million. And so when he's 41, he'd have two million. Wow. And just off of that.

That's incredible. You know, something to think about. Yeah. But again, that's investing in a mutual fund, leaving it alone. If you're going to fool real estate, you can probably make more than that, but you got more hassle and expertise involved. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince

of Peace, Christ Jesus. Dave here. We just launched a brand new audience survey for The Ramsey Show, and we'd love your feedback. You could be entered to win a $500 Visa gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at ramseysolutions.com slash survey.