The Ramsey Show - App - Snowflakes Come From Helicopters (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 4, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Well, under the Wussification of America Department, do you know where snowflakes come from? Helicopters. Helicopters cause snowflakes, if you didn't know.

New York Times reporting this as millennials grow into their working years, with many of them coming of age in the daunting job market that followed the Great Recession, parents are more likely to feel a proprietary stake in their children's careers. The hovering is abetted by a full complement of real-time communication options from texting to Skype and social media and fueled by the desire to see a return on investment for sending their children to college. Mom and dad footed the bill, made sacrifices, now they want to make sure they get a job. Brandi Britton, a recruiter with the office team division of Robert Half, said she never saw or heard from parents when she entered the business nearly two decades ago but has increasingly felt their influence she recalled a father calling her in the past two

years in an attempt to get his son an accounting job the father sent in the resume scheduled the interview and to her surprise turned up with him in person at the interview he was shepherding that thing she said what's that thing his son his son is called that thing when office team solicited employers helicopter parenting stories in a recent survey they found that it was not unheard of one told of a job candidate who piped his mother into an interview via skype while another recalled a mother asking if she could sit for an interview in place of her child, who had a scheduling conflict. A third mother interrupted in the middle of an interview to ask if she could observe.

While search parents may be outliers, and most millennials are perfectly capable of negotiating their way in the workplace, some organizations generally appear to be struggling with parental meddling. Former Stanford freshman Dean claims the report reports that officials at Teach for America have been mystified in recent years by the volume of parents who intervene on behalf of their adult children, who the group employs as teachers. A Teach for America administrator told that parents had called him with complaints about such issues as their child being disciplined by a principal or having a run-in with a fellow teacher as though the adult child were a student.

In 2007, the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University published a survey of 725 employers that found that nearly a quarter had encountered parental involvement in the hiring. 30% reported parents submitting a resume for their children. 15% reported fielding complaints from a parent after the company didn't hire the child and nearly 10% said parents had insinuated themselves into salary and inserted is what that should be, into salary and benefit negotiations. Wow. See, I think, you know, I got a whole bunch of millennials working on our team. Like, I guess probably 50, 60%. I've probably got 300 or 400 of them in the building.

And I find millennials to be phenomenal team members. And they're very easy to interview because there's only two kinds of millennials, awesome and on fire and sucks. And they pretty much tell you in the interview which one they are like in the first 30 minutes it doesn't take a lot you don't have to have like some sophisticated test you've either got an entitled wussified little snowflake or you've got somebody who's on fire to change the world and bright and driven and work ethic and everything else.

And I love them. Like I say, I got a building full of them. I mean, my kids are millennials. They work here. And they're on fire, man. And they work their tails off, and they believe in excellence. And those are all over the place. So I got to tell you, I haven't asked my HR guys if we've run into this

because it just, well, they wouldn't even have brought it up. Because if a parent was anywhere near the interview of a 27-year-old, 26-year-old, they came in to interview here, boom, that's over. Next. You got fired right then. You never even got a shot because your mommy got involved, you moron. So really unbelievable you parents you know we have this is how you create a whole wussification of america here mommy is involved when her 28 year old daughter is teaching in a school and the principal says

you're not doing a good job and gives them professional input and discipline. And Teach for America says that the administrators are getting hounded by the parents. Unbelievable. By the way, if you're a millennial of substance, and I know that you're out there, like I said, I believe in you. I've got a bunch of you working here, and your parents are doing that. Smack them into next week. Let them know.

Mom, you have got to, like, freaking mind your own business. Hello. Now, you know, you can be kind about it the first couple times, but I've watched my kids do this. Now, I'm pretty good good believe it or not about not interfering because once they're grown i was kind of like you're grown you know i'm like the dad you know you're fly a little eagle fly and if you can ask my advice but now we're like you know we're we're peers now we're friends now but uh sharon she still wants to get involved and tell them how

to do stuff like how to raise the grandkids the grandma telling the kid how to raise the grandkid. Oh, my God, can you imagine? But the kids just look at her and go, Mom, not your problem. I mean, they're nice to her. They're respectful of their mother, which is nice. But they set good, strong boundaries. And so you millennials, that's what you've got to do. You've got to set good, strong boundaries and go, No, and go no not your problem mom dad you've got to be kidding came a parent comes to an interview

with a 25 or a 30 year old person for a job and we wonder why there's trouble man unbelievable that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard in my life and like the parents want to make sure they get a return on investment no that's not it they're still parenting that's all it is they're just just completely have raised spineless little jellyfish and they have to go do everything for them or so they think so i guess there's two possibilities one is the little millennial that's in there is a spineless jellyfish snowflake and it's not worth the you know not worth a flip or they're a legitimate on fire cool millennial like i'm talking about and they just hadn't set good boundaries with

their parents it'd be one of the two right man i gotta tell you i can't imagine how one of my millennial kids would go off on one of us sure right if i mean they wouldn't be disrespectful they they're not that way but there is no possible way that they would let us get involved in that because it takes their dignity away. That's unbelievable. Man, you kid has no, oh, jeez. Can I believe this stuff? And, well, you know, you see the statistics, the number of them living in the basement, it goes right with it. It's the same number. About 30% of men, males, they're not men, 29 years old still living in mama's basement.

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Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Hi, I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I are in baby step three with about two months saved. And we are thinking of selling our home to purchase another home. Okay. We make $100,000. The home we're looking at is currently priced at $224,000. We owe $117,000 on ours, and my husband is a little leery. What would yours sell for?

We think it would sell for about $165. The agent is not positive. She's going to get back to us about that. All right. So if you put $40 down on the other, and on a 15-year fixed rate, would your payment be more than a fourth of your take-home pay? I don't believe it would. I don't either.

I think it's going to be about that. I didn't put it in the calculator. I'm just sitting here looking at the numbers. But it sounds like it's right up about, it's probably the most you should do. It's right on the bubble as to how much. And you certainly can't do it until you're sales. Right. Under no circumstances can you have two payments, right? But, you know, we don't yell at people for taking out a mortgage on a 15-year fixed

where the payment is no more than a fourth of their take-home pay. Now, we don't want to do that every five years and start again. Right. And so like five years from now, I don't want to start that 15-year again and stay in debt. The idea of taking the 15 is to get it paid off. But it sounds like that you guys are at the stage of life, your family's growing, and you're looking for some more square footage. Am I wrong?

That is correct. We are in our mid-40s, and we have two children, 8 and 11 years old. And we have a three-bedroom. This home would be a four-bedroom and has a larger yard. We did a lot of improvements, and i think my husband's having a hard time with the fact that we did a lot of improvements put a lot of money into our home that you're not going to get out because they're the wrong kind of improvements um we did like it didn't increase the value as much as it cost, did it? I don't think that we have put more into it than I don't think that we put more into it. That's not my point. My point is you guys spent money that did not increase the value equal to what you spent

and that's what's causing your husband problems he thought you were going to live out some of those improvements since it did not increase the value and that's just bothering him on an economic basis plus he may have done a lot of the work with his hands too and that sometimes emotionally ties you into it but um yeah the numbers you're giving me, there's nothing mathematically wrong with that I can hear. As long as your payments no more than a fourth of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed, you get yours sold and you move up. I don't have any issue with it. What you spent on your old house doesn't matter to me. You sell it for $160 or whatever it brings.

If you're willing to do that, then you sell it. And you make the move to, you know, to make the move up to the other property. And you should be fine. Mark's with us in Wilmington, North Carolina. Hi, Mark. How are you? I'm great, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, first of all, thank you for taking my call on your guidance. My wife and I went through FPU in January. We're currently in baby step two. We paid off $21,000 since January. We've got $37,000 left to go. Great.

We're throwing everything we can at it. I've got a family trust dispersal with $110,000 in a bucket fund, pulling about 12% interest. Our question is, should we use it to pay off our debt? Our concerns are opportunity costs and potential loss of accounting interest. Our question is, should we use it to pay off our debt? Our concerns are opportunity costs and potential loss of accounting interest. We want to feel the pain of paying off our mistakes, and I'm looking at a clear change in the next three years. What do you think we should do? What's your household income?

$73,000. Okay, and how much debt have you paid off so far? $21,000. $29,000? $21,000. Okay, and how much debt have you paid off so far? $21,000. $29,000? $21,000. $21,000. And how much is remaining? $37,000.

Okay, how long did it take you to pay off the $21,000? Since January, six months. You told me that. Okay, I'm sorry. Not a problem. All right. No, I think you guys are under control. You've proven that you can live on less than you make to hit a goal.

You've done that for six months. The part about feeling the pain or whatever doesn't bother me. Now, are you doing that single-handedly and she's left out, or is she doing it single-handedly and leaving you out, or are you guys doing this as a team? We're doing it as a team. She's a stay--home mom so it's it's on my income right now yeah but i'm saying she emotionally and the decision making everybody's all on board oh yes sir 100 okay so as a couple would it be fair to say you're completely different people than you were this

time last year financially on how you look at it and handle money. Hands down. Yeah, I think you are too. That's what I wanted to confirm. Once I confirm that, yeah, I'm taking the distribution, paying off the debt in a heartbeat. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the debt's probably charging you more than 12%. I mean, opportunity cost is always there.

It's always there with anything you do. And that's something to consider. So that was a wise way to frame the question and to look at it on your part. But what I look at is the opportunity cost on not having any debt and what that can turn into. If you don't pay it off, you've lost that opportunity. So the cash flow that's increased in your household and in your life and the freedom that you have as a result is more important for me than anything else. So, hey, great question. Great question, sir. Thank you for joining us.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brandon is in Boston. Hi, Brandon. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up?

Funny you mentioned that millennial thing before we started. I'm a millennial. I'm 26, and if my mom ever did that, I'd definitely be a little upset with her. Good for you. The reason why I'm calling is about

eight months ago, I started a new job, and culturally it's not the right fit. It's not where I see my career going. I put my resume back out there a couple months ago. I've had three interviews or excuse me, four interviews since then.

But I think what my question is I had a previous job for three years before this and had been with this company for eight months. So what's the best possible way to just market myself as best as possible to get a new job as quickly as possible and at the same time not looking like I'm a job hopper?

Well, you're not a job hopper until you've hopped a bunch of jobs. I mean, two jobs in three years and eight months is not job hopping. You just made a bad call on this one. And so, you know, one of the things you want to do is do an autopsy on the interview process last time and say, what did I not ask? What did I not see to keep me from getting in this mess again? So you want to talk a lot about cultural fit this time because you didn't get that information last time and it led you astray accidentally.

So I'm not saying anybody did it intentionally. There was no malice, but you not having that information caused a mistake. So we want to be sure we get the information this time. But I wouldn't worry about the job hopping thing. If you came in to interview with us with two jobs, you know, a job three years and a job eight months, we wouldn't call you a job hopper, especially if you just said the truth and say, those are great people over there. It's just a completely different value system than mine. I made a mistake.

It was my fault. And you own it. And you go, I need to be in a different environment than that. Not running them down, but just saying they're different than me, you know. And you don't have to say what's wrong with them or something like that. That wouldn't be classy. that, not running them down, but just saying they're different than me, you know, and you don't have to say what's wrong with them or something like that. That wouldn't be classy, but you wouldn't have any trouble with us on an interview in that situation.

So I don't think that's limiting you. So I think you look for a job the same way you did last time, only you interview differently to make sure you get a cultural fit this time, among other things. You want all the other things to line up as well. But cultural fit is the first Ramsey Show. Folks, the real estate market is on fire all over the country. If you're looking to buy a home and you need a mortgage, don't sell yourself short by going and getting a typical pre-approval. That's a false sense of security, and it's just not good enough in today's fast-moving market.

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Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Andrew and Christian are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave. Hey, we're great.

Welcome. Where are you guys from? We. Hey, we're great. Welcome. Where are you guys from? We're from Dallas, Texas. All right. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way up here to do your debt-free scream, huh? Yep.

How much have you paid off? We paid off a little over $82,000. And how long did that take? About 19 months. Okay. Very good. And your range of income during that time? We started at about $120,000,

and we went down to $80,000, and then we're going to finish up a little bit under $200,000. Wow, cool. What do you do for a living? Working sales in the technology industry. Okay. And for the most part, I stay home with the kids, but as a way to supplement our income a little bit, I write curriculum and train teachers. Okay, all right. So why the big spike in the income here at the end? Well, it... Got a promotion at work. Oh, okay. The sales are rocking.

That's right. Okay, very good. Good. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Funny how that always happens when you start doing smart stuff at home with the money. It all worked out. Yeah.

What kind of debt was the $82,000? A little bit of everything. Normal debt, right? Car payments, student loans, some medical bills, credit cards, kind of a good mix of everything. Completely normal. Okay. Yeah. And now you're weird.

Yep. I love it. So what happened 19 months ago that put you on this journey? Well, we had actually started one time before, and our need wasn't as great as our want was for it. We wanted to do it, but apparently not bad enough yet. And then a couple of years ago, our daughter came down with really severe food allergies and she couldn't go to daycare anymore. We tried it for a while and I was still teaching in the classroom full time and she was sick

all the time. So being a teacher, I was able to, they give you like a lump sum paycheck over the summer to get you through. And we had kind of decided, well, if we can make it through the summer without spending that lump sum paycheck, then we could totally do this. And the only way we knew how was going back to what we'd given up on before. And this time though, our need was much greater than our want was before. We wanted to do it.

And now in order for me to be able to stay home to help her to feel better, it was something that we really needed to do. And now she's allergy-free, so it worked. Yay. Yep. Well, the nobility of your why. Why you were doing it. All of a sudden it's for her. It's not just for selfish motives, so to speak.

It's you're doing this for your kid. You're doing it for your kid. Yep. And you your kid. Yep. And you did it. Yep. So you went back. I mean, did you go through like Financial Peace University the first time and flunked or what? Well, we kind of.

We did the home study at first. We did the home study. Okay. You flunked the home study. We totally flunked. Yeah. I think, you know, we just didn't stick with it enough. You know, I was a teacher and Andrew was.

What did you do the second time? The second time, we worked on the budget a lot better. We did the home study again. We did the home study again. You got it back out. I started listening to the podcast every day. I listened to Total Money Makeover in the car. Christian read the... She reads all the books, I guess. She's definitely the CFO. She's the planner. I'm more of the free spirit. Gotcha. You're the sales guy. But she wrote out every budget every month. We did cash only to the point where if I use my debit card now, it just feels weird. Yeah.

Everything we do is in cash. Wow. She's the reason why we did it all. I mean, she's the one who just every month, every paycheck went right to the bank, did all of it. But it sounds like you were in there, too. Oh, yeah. You just weren't doing the details.

I was doing the details. I'm a details person, but I'm a great cheerleader. Okay. So I was very supportive. You weren't dead weight being drug along. Right. Right. It was a team effort.

Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. So, Kristen, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt was? This is very impressive. I think the key for us was to communicate a lot. We never had monthly budget meetings, but we had almost daily communication of how it was looking and what we could do next, or if we needed to change it somehow, we could. I also think for us, it was involving the kids a

lot. Even though they're little, they, you know, I brought our baby Pierce with us to go meet Rachel, you know, at the Dallas book signing. And we would listen to the podcast with them in the car. And when we were getting a little bit discouraged, they would say, hey, when do we get to go meet Rachel at the Dallas book signing. And we would listen to the podcast with them in the car. And when we were getting a little bit discouraged, they would say, hey, when do we get to go do our debt-free scream? And so it kind of was that little nagging voice in the back of your head that kind of kept us motivated to go. That Y was standing there looking at you. Yep.

Very cool. Very cool. Did you sell anything big? No, we didn't. We just really kind of buckled down and got it done. You used that lump sum check and then tore into it. How big was that lump sum check for the summer? Well, that lump sum check was really, we started trying to get her to stay home to take care of the baby. And so we use that as our little summer proof of concept.

You know, if we can get through this summer without, you know, taking in any of that money, then we know that we can replace your income if we can go down to rice and beans. And actually, it just worked out perfectly that summer. My mom's also in the education industry. And she had a lead for a position where Christian can write some curriculum and train some teachers, but mostly do it from home. And so we were able to replace a lot of her income without having to pay for any child care, and then we were off to the races starting to pay off debt.

And that's how it all started. Very cool. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Very well done. How does it feel now? It feels great.

It feels amazing. Yeah. We have so much. I mean, we're still working hard to get that three-month to six-month emergency fund done, which we're almost finished with. But now we have so much more freedom as to, you know, where we want to spend our money and what we want to do. And we have it perfectly lined up as to, you know, where we're going to go next.

So the cars drive a lot nicer now. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I bet. Well, congratulations, you guys. Thank you. And you brought a couple of them with you, right? We did. We brought Jackson and Kennedy and Jackson six and Kennedy's four.

All right. Very cool. And they got shirts on that say what? Dream it. Believe it. Achieve it. did we brought jackson and kennedy and jackson's six and kennedy's four all right very cool and they got shirts on that say what dream it believe it achieve it i love it very cool that's as it should be and so kennedy was your one that was that you that you brought out of school yes okay and every where we stopped on the way up here to get gas or any place we stopped to eat they told everyone we were coming up to our debt-free screen. Even the valet lady at the hotel was like, oh, we're doing our debt-free screen. I love it. I love it.

So Jackson and Kennedy have been practicing then. Oh, yes, they have. They know how to do a debt-free screen. They sure do. We're going to rate you here. No, I'm kidding. Very cool. All right.

Here we go. Eight, Andrew. Oh, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you. Oh, great. Thank you. Retire Inspired. That's the next chapter in the story so that you're millionaires now and outrageously generous as you go along. All right.

It's Andrew and Christian Jackson and Kennedy doing their debt-free scream from Dallas, Texas. $82,000 paid off in 19 months, making $120,000 to $80,000 to $200,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. You ready, guys? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it.

Well done, well done, well done. That is as good as it gets. Awesomeness, guys. Awesomeness. Fun, very fun. Well, that's how you do it right there. You just have a plan. You sacrifice. You execute. Adults devise a plan and follow Do what feels good. Think about it. There are times in my life, I'm getting ready to be 57 years old. That's hard to believe. There are times in my life I still want to be a child.

I still want to retreat and just do what feels good. But the strange thing is, is that very rarely brings me happiness and peace. It very rarely takes me to a place that I'm proud to be. But if you live like no one else, later, you can live and give like no one else. You're so lucky. Luck didn't have anything to do with it, stupid. Luck wasn't in the equation. So our hard work, self-control and discipline in God's blessings,

and not necessarily in that order. But isn't it interesting how his blessings seem to follow our hard work and diligence? Proverbs says, the diligent prosper. You know what diligence is? Excellence in the ordinary over time. It's all the little things done with a high degree of excellence over and over and over and over again. Over a long period of time. And you know what you get out of that?

The best quality of life possible. The most functional family. The best health. The best wealth. The best career. The most rewarding of everything. Is it without bumps? No.

Is it without bruises? Absolutely not. Scars and cuts? Oh, they come with the territory. People that lie about you and say nasty things about you all the time. All the time. It's part of the equation. But the winning, the winning is worth it. Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. The Bible says no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. This is

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Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Irving Berlin said, Talent is only the starting point. faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Irving Berlin said, talent is only the starting point. New York is next up. Yakov is with us. Hey, Yakov, how are you? Hi, good afternoon, Dave.

I have a question about, I have a cell phone that I finance through Verizon directly. You know, they used to have it that you sign the contract and now you can finance it. I hadn't put it in my debt snowball, but I was thinking about it the other day. Is that something that is supposed to be put into the debt snowball as well? Sure. It's a debt. It's a debt. Yeah.

And can I ask one more question? Mm-hmm. Okay. I heard earlier you were talking to someone about a lease, a car lease being in a debt snowball. Before I started my debt snowball, I also made the mistake of leasing a car. Is that something that always goes in the debt snowball? Because I would like to know if I have to add that in there. Absolutely. Yeah.

Because the whole goal here is to get rid of payments. And if you've got rental on your cell phone, rental on your car, it's the same thing as having debt on those two things. And so we want to get rid of the payment. You don't get rid of a payment like a utility payment because that's based on consumption. That's not based on a debt that is owed. But basically, a car lease is another form of debt. It's another way of borrowing money to buy a car that you did not pay cash for. And so, yeah, that would go in your debt snowball. And when you get to it in the debt snowball,

you'll make the decision of, okay, do I want to turn this car in at the end of the lease, or do I want to sell it, or do I want to just pay it off and keep it? If you're going to pay it off and keep it, you would treat it like a car loan and the debt snowball. If you're going to take it through the end of the lease and then dump it, then you may want to just do that. You may want to count it as a budget item and run it through to the end of the lease and dump it if you want to go that route. But most of the time, that's not the route you want to go. Most of the time, you either want to reach over and save up the money and pay it off in full so you own the car or have the plan to turn it over at the end of the lease.

If you've got six months left on the lease or something like that, then you just run it out to the end. That's going to be your cheapest route out, and then save up and pay cash for a car and move on. Ryan is in Savannah, Georgia. Hey, Ryan, how are you? I'm pretty good. How about you?

Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? Well, me and my wife, we had some, my father passed away earlier this month. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, well, he left us a big chunk of cash that me and him had talked about years ago, and I wasn't expecting it, but it happened. And all I want to do is be able to turn that into more income just to keep moving on. Gotcha. Cool.

How much was the inheritance? Probably going to roughly be looking at $800,000 after taxes. I'm not sure what the death tax rate is. Wow. Well, there won't be any unless his estate is over. I mean, you may have some probate there in Georgia if that's where he was, but unless the estate was over $5 million, there's not any death tax on the federal level. Well, now, he had it in a 401K.

Okay. Oh, then there will be some income tax on that then. Okay. All right. And you can roll that to an IRA, an inherited IRA, and not pay taxes on it initially, which is probably what you need to look at doing. All of that money is in the 401K? Yes, sir, and then a couple of life insurance plans that I'm trying to get figured out.

Yeah, okay. Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm so sorry you lost him, but my goodness, what a wonderful inheritance. Okay, how old are you? 26. Wow, okay. And do how old are you? 26. Wow. Okay. And do you have any debt?

Actually, me and my wife do at the moment, and we're working on paying that off as we go. As this money comes available to you, that's my first goal is to get you paid off. Do you have a house? We do. first goal is to get you paid off do you have a house um we do we're actually in the process of selling it because it's just not uh it's not in condition to be raising kids in at the moment gotcha okay so i'm gonna clear i'm gonna clear your debt and i'm gonna pay cash for your next house out of this inheritance okay all right and then's left, we'll talk about doing some other stuff with. Maybe you need to move up a little bit in car.

Maybe there's a little bit of a vacation, but not tons. We don't need to spend a lot of it. We want to invest the rest mainly. Okay? And what I would do is, have you ever had any rental property? My family's owned about half a dozen, and we're all in the process of getting them gone. You don't want to keep them? It's not something that they want to deal with.

Okay. What about you? Do you want rental property? I don't have the time between how I work. Okay. That's fine. That's cool. All right.

The reason I ask is I only invest in two things. I invest in real estate that I pay cash for, and I invest in mutual funds. And I spread my mutual fund investing across four types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And what I have found, Ryan, is that people that build wealth like your dad did, they usually keep their wealth building very simple. There's this illusion out there like in the movies or sometimes people who are broke, they think that rich people have some kind of weird thing they do that's like some kind of big secret. It's not. It's just very simple stuff, and they just do it over and over and over and very intentionally.

Okay? So what I would tell you is this. Number one, move slow. Be out of debt. Number one, move slow. Number two, be 100% debt-free with whatever you're going to do. And that includes the purchase of your next home. That includes paying off all the debt you have.

Then number four, number three, as you're investing, move slow enough that you don't put money in something until you understand it. Don't do it because I said do it. Don't do it because someone else said do it. Don't do it because some guy who thinks he acts like he knows what he's doing says do it. None of that. You are in charge of this money it's on you if it wins it's on you if it loses and so you are in charge of this money and i would pretend like it was like your job

to manage this money and if you screw up you would lose your job and if that was the case you would make sure you knew what the money was going into. You wouldn't let somebody else make the decisions, right? Right. And that's the way I look at it, is I'm managing God's money for God. It's my job to manage it well. And the truth is, if we manage it poorly, it leaves. So it's kind of like getting fired, you know, from your money management job because you sucked at it.

So go slowly. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. Anyone you're talking to, whether it's an estate planning attorney for your wills, which you need to do, whether it's a real estate agent to make a decision on a house, whether it's an insurance broker or whether you're talking to a mutual fund broker and you're getting ready to do some investing. Anyone in the financial space, there's only two kinds of people in that space. There are people that have the salesman spirit and people that have the heart of a teacher. If they have a salesman spirit, just get away from them.

All they're trying to do is sell something and make money. If they they have the heart of a teacher you will know that because you will be learning and so when you sit down with your mutual fund broker talking about mutual funds you ought to be able to come back home and say this is how mutual funds work this is what i'm going to do and until you can do that you either don't have the right person or you just haven't learned it yet but you need that heart of a teacher around you and so what i would tell you to do i'm not in the mutual fund business so i don't care where you invest the money you do whatever you want to do i'm telling you what i do and i would tell you to never put money in something you don't understand and to go slowly take your time and do everything debt-free.

So check, click on SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com, and you can type in your name, and then it's the list of the SmartVestor pros. The people in the mutual fund business will drop down in your area. You can pick one of those, or they'll contact you, whatever you want them to do, and you can sit down and begin the process of learning. But you don't make a $600,000 decision, an $800,000 decision in one meeting.

You take your time and you learn. Slow, Ryan. That's what your dad did. Go slow and steady. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show in 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.

Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word. Did you know, statistically, when it comes to life insurance and protecting your family, that women are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured than men? This doesn't make any sense. Women make up half the workforce, contribute mightily to family incomes, and in many cases are the breadwinners and take care of their families 24 hours a day.

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