The Ramsey Show - App - Stay Away From These Divorce Danger Zones (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 12, 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 symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Matt is with us to start off this hour in Springfield, Missouri. Hey, Matt, how are you? Hey, Dave, I'm doing great. You know, I just wanted to tell you something. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for your course. wife and i took that uh in 2012 we are now debt free uh we have our emergency fund and saving for retirement so way to go dude well done yeah man i'm jazzed um my question's actually about my mom's money i'm responsible for that now too

uh she's 74 she gets 1300 a month in Security income, but her bills are about $2,300 a month, so $1,000 a month comes out of her savings. She has $88,000 liquid, and when her house sells, we will have about another $100,000 left after that. And I just want to know what I should do with her money. Should I be putting that in mutual funds, and if so, how much of it and what kind? Where is she going to live? She's in assisted living. Oh, okay. All right.

And so you're a power of attorney at this stage? Correct. Okay, when she moves into assisted living, will she still have the $1,000 a month deficit? Yeah, that's the reason she's got that basically because of that and you know her medications and stuff okay she's already there yeah oh yeah you know it's not like a nursing it's just like they cook and do laundry there's no stairs there okay let's do some simple math just just quick and dirty math in our heads okay 200,000 bucks she's not quite got that much but 200,000 bucks at 10 is 20,000 dollars okay if you just got that much, but $200,000 at 10% is $20,000.

Okay. If you just made 10% on it and you never touched the $200,000, but you made 10% and you had $20,000. Okay. Now, you don't have quite that, but that just helps me think, all right, that's, what, $1,800 a month. So the interest alone on that or the growth on that, if you could make the money grow at a rate, let's say it's $180,000. That's an easy one, too. 10% is $18,000 a year. That's $1,500 a month on top of her Social Security.

She can make it. And the $180,000 would never be touched. You follow me? Yeah, yeah, I do. The 10%. So what that tells us is we're close. Right. We may not get there quite.

But what you've got, if you leave it in a savings account, earning 1% is you're going to burn the money. You're going to burn through it because it's not going to earn enough to keep up with how much you're pulling off. And, you know, she could outlive her money. But if you never touch the goose, all you do is take the eggs. If you never, the goose that lays the golden eggs, the goose is the principal, right? The 180. If you never touch that and you only took the interest on top of her social and we set it up to where she makes it or almost makes it on that. She can, the money will last in perpetuation then for her,

which is where we want to reach towards. But let's say you had $88,000 and you were burning it at $1,000 a month. Well, we know you got 88 months, and she's out of money, right? Yeah. We can't do that, and that's what you've been doing. So anyway, what we need to do is let's set aside about $20,000 in an emergency fund that doesn't earn anything because she might need something. $10,000, $20,000, somewhere in there.

And I would invest the rest of it in some mutual funds so that I can get enough return to make her $1,000 a month. Do you think I should be putting, like, the type of funds that I should put in? Should I be putting it in the same thing you suggested for mine? Pretty close. Pretty close. But some kind of a mix that has a track record of producing $1,000 a month with $150,000. Okay. You see what I did?

Yeah, yeah. I need $12,000 a year on $150,000. So I need about 8%, 9% on that. That's how the math's working out. You see what I'm doing? Yeah. And so, you know, I don't know that I would do an aggressive growth for a 74-year-old nursing home. I probably would do a balanced instead of that, smart investor pros and develop a portfolio that has a track record of averaging enough that $150,000 will create $1,000 a month for her in perpetuation.

And then she's okay. Should I be drawing that dividend, that interest immediately, or should I be leaving that until the 20 000 liquid is burnt up or 20 000 liquid sitting there just for emergencies we're not touching it what i would do is just say every month send me what it makes or every month send me a thousand dollars okay one of the two if you say send me a thousand dollars and it makes more it'll grow a little if you say send me a thousand dollars in that month the market's down a little bit, it'll still get your $1,000, but the next month the growth would offset it or whatever. You know, it might go up and down a little bit, but the average is going to be more than you're drawing.

Okay. Is that logical? Okay, I'm glad I called because I was thinking leave it there and let it grow, but what you said makes sense. Well, you need the money. Yeah, I know. That's why I called. That's my goal. You need $1,000 out of it.

So you could leave it there and let it grow. But that's really for the next generation, for her heirs, is what it amounts to then. But right now we want to make sure she's taken care of. And the $20,000 is just kind of her rainy day fund. If she needed, I don't know, a medical thing, a wheelchair, or she needed a different bed or something, you could write the check and buy it down there at the nursing home, you know, or something that they didn't cover maybe, that kind of thing. And that's what that's for is, you know, her daily quality of life that her monthly budget didn't cover.

And then in addition to that, we set the goose up to lay an egg that's at least a thousand dollars a month okay okay um what if in like say two years from now like we have a market drop or something should i should i do anything different during that time no let's just say let's pretend this okay last year the s and p went up 20 right but you were only pulling off 8%. So then her nest egg, her goose would have grown by 12. But this year, the market loses 10. Well, you used up some of that 12. But you still pulled off the 1,000.

Okay. So the point being is the average of the two years is still greater than you needed to continue to draw 11,000 off. So some months you might dig into the goose a little bit, and some months you might get a little bit fatter. All right. You see how that's working? I do.

Sit down with SmartVestor Pro. They'll walk you through it, and they can show you how to make that investment, put your little portfolio together, and then don't sit and panic about it. But that's also, folks, how you set your retirement up. If you've got $1 million and you want to pull off $100,000 a month, but your funds only grew $80,000 that month, pull off $100,000 anyway. Because the next month or two months later, the thing might not go up $80,000. It might go up $180,000.

And it puts it back in where you took it out, and you're going to be okay. It's averages, averages, averages, averages. You're playing the averages when you're playing a be okay. It's averages, averages, averages, averages. You're playing the averages when you're playing a long track record, a historical track record like that. And, you know, sometimes people in the financial world say, well, I don't know if I agree with all that. I don't care if you agree with it or not.

You're wrong. I mean, the inflation rate is 4%. Who gives a crap? We're not talking about inflation. If she needs 4% more, then you need to leave 4% in there every year and let the goose get 4% fatter every year. And don't pull off any more than

whatever the growth is, minus 4%. If you want to let it grow, that's fine. But that's how you got to do. This is really not that hard. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Okay, things are getting pretty weird out there. I thought the Equifax breach was bad enough.

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Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com. That's Zander.com. Tyler is in Harrisburg, Virginia. Hi, Tyler. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Quick question. So I'll be done with Step 2 at the beginning of October,

and I'm getting married in April. Good for you. So, thank you. So, we unfortunately got in a wreck and nothing serious but the insurance company totaled out her car so unfortunately we or her depending on your answer for this have a car payment so my question is do i get started on my three six she totaled her car did the insurance company not pay for her car? Oh, yeah, they cut her a check for it, yeah. So why did she borrow money? Was she debt-free before?

Yeah, we had that conversation, and I chimed in as much as I could, but I didn't win that one. Because they cut her a check for like $4,200. And that was what her car was worth? Yes. And she went in debt to buy a nicer car. So let me help you understand this. You've got to be real careful. She did not go into car debt because of the wreck. She went into car debt because she

bought a nicer car than she had before. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Okay. Make sure we understand what's really going on. So how much car debt does she have? I think it's about $18,000. Yeah. So she went from a $4,000 car to a $24,000 car. Correct. Yeah.

We both had no car payments until that happened. We were working on saving up for it, and then, yeah. All right. How can I help? It happened sooner rather than later. So my question is, since we are getting married and becoming one in April, do I just go ahead and start helping tackle that debt with her because I'm going to inherit it? No, she didn't sell the car.

She bought a car she can't afford. What is her income? She's an x-ray tech, so she's probably making about $40. She's got a $24,000 car and she makes $40. It's insanity. She needs to sell her car. That's a real popular conversation. That's going to go over like a lead balloon.

Yeah, I know. Okay, so here's the deal, dude. I'm not going to participate in your all's delusion. She bought a car she couldn't afford. She threw a hissy fit, and you went along with it because you were the boyfriend. And you guys got to correct this. This is a real dangerous pattern that's going to cause you to be broke your whole lives going forward so if the the correct financial thing for her to do is to sell the car the likelihood of her

doing it with the situation you've described to me is about zero i don't think she'll ever do that i don't think you'll ever force her hand i don't think you'll ever force her hand that hard but i'm telling you this whole conversation and how this comes about this situation you're in is a danger zone for your future marriage can you imagine if you replicate this stupid butt decision 20 times in the next 20 years you're gonna be broke your whole life and so that's yeah that's what you guys got to solve so here's what i'm gonna do uh i'm gonna pay for both of you as a wedding gift to go through Financial Peace University. I'm going to give you the one-year membership, and you go to the nine classes. And then you don't bring up selling the car, and you don't tell her I said to sell the car until after you've been through the nine classes.

And once you've done that, if she doesn't come to that same conclusion, then you guys really need to spend some time with your pre-marriage counselor because you are about to have a lot of fights about the number one cause of divorce in North America today, money fights and money problems. Because the last go-round, you did not stand up for what's right, and you allowed the woman you love to do something quite harmful to herself bad job and you guys got to fix that pattern so hold on loving your heart here buddy i hope you feel it but i think you can do this i'm going to give you a financial piece and kelly's going to pick up and we're going to get you signed up for that thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 when you are engaged folks there's all kinds of data points out there on what indicators are for a successful marriage and you ought to use them dave you're not talking much about love i i know i've seen a whole lot of people in love get divorced and here's the data

points there's here's the first set of data points if you can be in agreement in detail about how about how we're going to handle money how we're going to handle your mother and her mother the in-laws and how we're going to handle kids and if we're going to have them, and we're in agreement about religion. If you've got those four data points you're in unity on, you have a very high likelihood of having a successful marriage. Those are the big four that take people out. Disagreements over kids, money, in-laws, and religion take people out more than anything else if you're in unity on those

things you can tackle anything you can tackle anything but crazy mother-in-law break you up every time it'll do it every time if you guys don't have aren't unified on how you're going to deal with her she's a test pilot for a broom factory and we got to deal with her that's the thing you know so you got to've got to work this out. You've got to have these things laid down. And your number one cause of divorce in North America right now, money fights and money problems. You're not unified on the way to handle the number one problem area. You are asking for trouble.

You're asking for it if the number one cause of getting killed by a bear was to walk down willow lane you would never walk down willow lane because people get killed by bears there it's kind of simple you know and that's what this is so i have no idea if there's bears on willow lane sorry if you live on willow Lane. But the whole point here, okay? But you see the thing. If the number one cause of death while driving is texting, then you would stop it, stupid. You know, you don't want to die. And you don't want to enter into marriage when you're not on the same track on money. It's a big deal in your pre-marriage counseling.

It's a big deal in your pre-marriage counseling. It's a big deal. That's why a lot of pastors and a lot of marriage counselors are giving Financial Peace University as part, or requiring it as part of their pre-marriage counseling, because it forces you to discuss the debt monster. It forces you to discuss how we're going to save. It forces you to discuss whether we're going to pay cash for things. It forces you to discuss, are we going to pay cash for things. It forces you to discuss are we going to have the maturity to delay pleasure or do we have to spend everything every weekend and act like we're stupid?

You know, how are we going to live? It forces you to discuss that. And if you can get on the same page on that, man, it's a big plus for your marriage. It's a big, big deal. Will is with us. Will's in Birmingham. Hi, Will. How are you? Good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Dave, I got a quick

question for you. We're in the construction business, and we are kind of large. We have several pieces of equipment and a lot of semi-trucks, and what I'm wondering is, we have an accountant, and, you know, it's one local in the city, and, you know, he has other different clients. What I'm wondering is are we to the size where we could buy or, you know, hire a full-time accountant strictly to focus on our business? What's your top line gross? About $6 million.

And how many team members? Forty. Yeah, you need a controller at a minimum okay the controller is one step before hiring a cfo a chief financial officer and i brought in a bookkeeper earlier than you did i brought in a controller earlier than you did i was late getting sophisticated enough to bring on a full CFO, and each of those levels are more sophisticated than the one before. CFO being the most sophisticated, they're going to look at all the money projections into the future, the past. They're going to start analyzing everything to the point you guys are sick of

them telling you all the numbers, but it's wonderful information to have to run your business. A controller is a glorified bookkeeper in that they control and watch and keep something from getting out of control. A bookkeeper merely just is doing what you tell them. Yes, sir. And your past bookkeeper, you're a controller

getting close to CFO level. Okay. And you're going to make the best hire you've ever done. You're late. Yeah, I mean, that's what I was wondering. We may be missing a few spots, you know, because our accountant, you know, he has other different clients. It's not just the tax thing. It's the thing on the proper utilization of all this equipment you've got operating. It's logistics.

It's the flow of money and making sure, double, triple sure that all the bills are paid early so you get the discounts. All of the things that happen when financials run efficiently, that person will make you in a $6 million business more than they cost you. And you need to hire them immediately. Good question. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We need to talk about something you've been hiding. It's your smile. Your teeth aren't straight, and you think you don't have the money or the time to get them fixed. You think your only option is to go on covering your teeth every time you laugh.

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One of our dental professionals evaluates your case and creates a plan that includes a preview of how your teeth will look when you're done. If you like what you see, we produce your perfectly clear aligners SmileLove.com and use the promo code Dave to receive $100 off. SmileLove.com promo code Dave. Ethan is with us in Lafayette, Louisiana. Lafayette, Louisiana. Ethan, how are you? I'm doing great, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm just looking for some help to try to figure out where we're at. My wife and I are out of debt. We have a $10,000 emergency fund, and I'm on the back half of my MBA program in school, and I was just calling to see kind of what your advice would be to take the next steps to where we're at. Okay. Is there a household income? Are you both working or what?

Yeah, we're both working. I make about $50,000, and she makes about $10,000. She's finishing up school right now. Okay. So you're both in school, and your MBA is a side thing, and you've got a career going. Yes, sir. That's right. Okay.

So $60,000 household income. How much debt do you have? Zero. Good. Way to go. So you're cash-flowing this education. Yeah, that's right. Very good. Very good.

And you have the $10,000 as an emergency fund. Yes, sir. That's right. Wow. Way to go. Okay. And I would guess that with all this tuition checks you're writing and a $60,000 income that it's very tight there. Yeah, we run a pretty tight household budget um so but there's still some extra funds that we can throw to stuff as it comes up like we just get some car repairs for her and stuff like that sure sure okay um and she graduates when

she'll graduate in december and you graduate when uh next september sometime i'm just taking two classes at a time okay will your income go up substantially when you do immediately i'm thinking uh probably not immediately it'll probably be about a year later i'll probably but she will say she will take a career in early next year correct that's right she's a photographer so she'll um up her um freelancing work for sure. She's getting a degree in photography? Yes, sir. Okay, good.

Yeah, but she'll be full-time, and hopefully she can take that up $40,000, $50,000 anyway pretty quick, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, I don't think there's any panic. I probably would just pile up some extra cash between now and the first of the year, and then let's get her income coming in.

And when you get up there and you say, hey, now we're sitting here at $90,000, $100,000, and it's going to go up even more when I graduate in the coming months here and that kind of stuff. So that's when I probably kick into baby step four, five, six. Do you own your home? No, we don't. We're renting an apartment. Can I ask your advice on maybe house buying in the future? Yeah, I would just save up above your emergency fund, staying debt-free.

That's why I was asking that. Before you start your retirement savings, you guys could take a little time, a year or two, and pile up some cash to be a big down payment, and then move on with baby steps four, five, and six. But, yeah, you're done very, very well. So excellent, excellent job. Roman's with us in Tacoma, Washington. Hi, Roman, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I was wondering, my mom tells me that I save too much, you know, because they did your financial peace university and everything like that when I was a kid. And so I wanted to get started early, and I just wanted to ask what my next steps might be in my life. How old are you? I just turned 19. Good for you. Good for you.

How much do you save? Well, I'm in the Army. I currently make like $20,000 a year, but I only see $16,000 or $17,000. I maxed out a Roth IRA at $458,000, and I just opened two 529 accounts doing $25 a month um for both of them so you have kids you're 19 you have two kids no i don't have two kids yet but they told me i could set up a 529 before beforehand no i wouldn't do that i wouldn't say for i wouldn't say for kids college that aren't here yet you got plenty of time to do that you're you're okay you are a

saver no doubt um yeah and then i do i do an extra two hundred dollars in my personal tsp for the army and then i save 500 bucks a month in my personal savings how much do you give how much do you give um i try and do $5 a week for my friends, and I'll just do something simple like get them a drink or something and then just say, hey, man, I'm thinking about you. And you don't spend anything on you? I normally do like $100 a month or something. Yeah, your mom's right.

You're saving too much. There's three things you can do with money save it and invest it that's number one number two you can give it and number three you can enjoy it you are failing at the last two five dollars does not constitute giving okay and a hundred dollars does not constitute enjoyment. So you need to up both of those categories considerably and back down some of your savings a little bit. You'll have a better rhythm of your life, and you will end up wealthier as a result

when you increase your giving and you increase your enjoyment. Your natural tendencies to save. You're never going to struggle to save money. Your nature causes you to save the way you're wired. And that's a wonderful trait to have. Most people aren't wired that way. Most people are wasteful spenders. They're immature.

They're out of control. And you're quite the opposite at 19. So you have a wonderful trait. You just took it a notch too far. Have a little fun, for goodness sakes. And for those of us that are Christians, our guideline is to give 10% of our income to our local church called the tithe. And if you're not a person of faith, you can still use that guideline and say, I'm going to give to charities or to not to friends. Buying a cup of coffee for a friend is not charity.

That's just doing something for your buddy. I'm talking about finding a homeless guy, finding a single mom that needs tires put on her car. You're doing something nice for someone somewhere. Or you've got, you know, an actual 501c3, an actual ministry somewhere that you like what they do, and you give to them to do that. If you don't attend church, you can do that. Now, if you attend church, you'll be be given 10 of your income to your church and and what that does is it just lets you uh count on not just your own ability to say but also count on your spiritual wealth to have a high quality of life

counting on god and so always be giving always be enjoying and always be saving and you're never going to struggle struggle to save enough you're always going saving. And you're never going to struggle to save enough. You're always going to save money. You're an incredible young man. Thank you for your service to our country. But please enjoy a little more and give a little more. I think you'll come out better if you do. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard. Redwood, Tennessee 37027. Clinton in Baltimore, Maryland. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? All right, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? All right, sir. Hey, Dave. Got an issue here. Just definitely need your advice. I'm actually a new listener, and I actually just got your book. So my situation is I owe the IRS eight grand. I owe the IRS eight grand. I owe the IRS eight grand. Now, my bank

was offering to, I guess, pay the eight grand. Definitely, I'll have to pay them back, but they offered no interest for 18 months, and I feel as though I'm disciplined enough to pay it back in 18 months. Just trying to figure out what you think I should do on that one.

Well, I would have a game plan to be completely debt-free that includes this, and you're already in debt. You're in debt to the IRS. Would it be better to be in debt to your bank? Yes. It would be better to be in debt to your bank. I don't like the 18-month part.

I want you to do it sooner than that. But how much debt do you have including this or not including this? Let's see uh not including that i would i have a car payment how much do you owe on your car i owe 20 000 on my car i was thinking about selling it because it's worth about 27.5 it's just like super low miles on it i had it for maybe a a year. What do you make? I do have something, $83,000. Okay, that's good news. Okay, and how much other debt do you have? And I have, what do I have?

I have one credit card, have one credit card, all about, you see, $980 on that one. Let's see. Yeah, and that's it. I actually paid off. I had another credit card with, like, PayPal. You have a student loan? No, sir. Okay.

So you got about $29,000 in debt today, and you make $83,000. So how quick can you pay off? Are you single? Yes, sir. Okay. If you just said, I'm going to go on a beans and rice, rice and beans budget, So how quick can you pay off? Are you single? Yes, sir. Okay. If you just said, I'm going to go on a beans and rice, rice and beans budget, you should be able to pay off $29,000 in one year.

Okay. Well, 83 minus 29 leaves a lot, doesn't it? It does. It does. That doesn't leave much room for partying, and it doesn't leave much room for vacations. But right now, we're getting out of debt. Right. leave much room for partying and it doesn't leave much room for vacations but right now we're getting out of debt right so yeah i would move the irs loan to the bank and i would put myself on a hard core plan to be 100 debt free in a year i don't think you need to sell your car if you like it yeah but i do think you need to sell it if you're not going to work hard to pay it off in a year i can definitely um work hard on that one um okay well you're right going to work hard to pay it off in a year? I can definitely

work hard on that one. Okay, well, you're right on track then, man. That's exactly what you need to do. Hold on. I'm going to have Kelly send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, and it'll show you exactly what to do step by step and how to do all this stuff. But yeah, you're right on. You're paying attention.

You're making good money. You just got to pay attention and clean up your mess, and then you'll be in a position to really build some wealth. I mean, think about it. What would it be like if you didn't have any payments? Wow. Rosemary's in Lexington, Kentucky. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Rosemary. Hi, Dave.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I, unfortunately, am looking at a divorce coming down the pike here. I know. We've tried to do your courses before, so I'm familiar with it. But anyway, so I have not worked in 14 years. I have had a job for the last seven months, not making $12 an hour.

So my question is, so many people are saying, I do have a little bit of a nest egg. My dad passed away, so I do have about $362,000 that I put away in some mutual funds. How old are you? I'm 50. I'll be 50 on Friday. Happy birthday. Any kids home? Thanks.

Yes, two, 14 and 12. Okay. All right. And I assume the child support payments will be substantial? I hope, yes. He's in the home right now. He has no plans to leave the home because of finances uh so i guess what i don't know is do i because of finances he doesn't want to leave the home what's that mean we can't afford for him to leave we cannot afford for him to have two. There's no way he can afford another place and our home.

What does he make? To pay the bills. About $76,000. What is owed on your home? $232,521. Okay. So your question is? Do we sell the house?

Yes. Do I keep the house? No, the house. Because. Do I keep the house? No, the house is not a blessing. The only way you can afford to keep the house is pay it off. And that would use up almost all your money. No, right. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that either.

I don't think so. And this is a horrible thing y'all are going through. I'm so sorry. And it's hard on the kids. And moving is the thing you're not, you don't want to tell the kids they've got to move too. But they do. Right. They do.

Because you guys cannot afford the house. Correct. It needs to be sold. You can't handle it. We have no car payment and only about $8,000 in debt. What's the debt on? Credit cards. Okay. Just like random. Yeah, both of you on the debt on credit cards just like random yeah both of you on random credit cards both of us on those yeah so as soon as the as a part of the divorce why don't you pay

off the credit cards i will and that was my plan and cut them up and make sure the accounts are completely closed so he doesn't run them back up okay okay not his problem okay mine for sure okay well then then you cut them up so you don't run them back out and then what you've got to do is go rent something as cheaply as you can and develop what you want to be your career in the second act the curtain went down on the first act when the curtain comes up everybody's standing on the first act when the curtain comes up. Everybody's standing on the stage smiling. We're standing on stage smiling and we continue with the play. You got an encore

career here. I mean, there's something you're going to do. It wasn't what you wanted. It wasn't what you signed up for. It wasn't how you thought this was going to turn out. But it could end up being something really fun and lucrative. Might be you need to take a few classes and get some more tools in your belt. I don't know.

Maybe some of your money you would use for education. But what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I just opened up a new business. Oh, you did? Okay, good. I've been working for six months as a transaction coordinator for a real estate company. So I do contract to close work. That's your $12 an hour?

No, that was with them. and now I'm charging per transaction about $250, $200 per transaction right now. And you're going to get more than one real estate person you do that for? Correct. Excellent. Good for you. My goal is like five agents. I'm hoping to get 10 or more closings a month.

That's my goal right now. Wow. Okay. That would be $2,500. You can live on that. Really? Just going to have to watch what you're doing. Okay.

And you could grow this business and actually have people working for you that are doing it. I mean, this could go really big. That's a wonderful idea. Yes. Okay, good. You got your second act, right? Okay. You can do it.

Thank you. You can do it. Thank you. You can do it. But don't try to hold on to the past and, you know, it's like I'm going to hold on to this anchor while I try to swim to the boat. Correct. And that's what this house is. It's going to take you down. Yes. Maintenance and bills and electricity.

Well, $230,000 mortgage. It's going to take you down. So we're going to let you rent a little while and not touch the $300,000. Let it sit there. Right. And when you get your income up $40,000, $50,000, then reach over and find you about a $200,000 house and pay cash for it. Great. And no debt.

Great. No debt ever again. No credit cards ever again. No car payments ever again. And no debt. Great. No debt ever again. No credit cards ever again. No car payments ever again. And no debt. Okay. You can do it. Okay.

You can do it. Okay. I'm proud of you. You're going to make this turn. It's a horrible transition, but you're going to make it. And if you need more help, you call me back as you go, and I'll walk with you. I understand how scary it is out there. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That is the number you call. It is a free call that puts this particular hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer. Kelly Daniels, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. Hey, guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.