The Ramsey Show - App - Talk Me Out of Keeping My Car Loan… (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Ken Coleman & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "I'm having a hard time finding my career path", Why whole life insurance sucks, from the blog: Term vs. Whole Life Insurance: What’s the Difference? "Talk me out of keeping my car loan..." Why people lie on their resumes (and why you shouldn't let self-doubt hold you back), Financially preparing for a baby. from the blog: Having a Baby? Don't Forget These Expenses Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ЗАСТАВКА МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ЗАСТАВКА Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a real conversation about life, specifically your money, your work, your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by George Camel this hour, and we are here for you to guide you to Breakthrough 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. And I do want to say, if you're a new listener and you'd like to learn more about

the Baby Steps, what is this show, what is it really about? How are all the different ways that we can help you? Well, we have a great opportunity for you to get a quick snapshot that'll get you started on the right path. It's the Get Started button at our website, ramsaysolutions.com. ramsaysolutions.com, click on Get Started. All right, Jake is up in tampa florida jake how can we help hey ken hi george how are you guys doing today we're having a blast awesome awesome so uh bear with me i have a little bit to share i just want you guys to

kind of understand like where my mind is right now take your time so i can you guys hear me okay yes sir loud and clear awesome so i graduated graduated with my bachelor's in business management last May. And then this past semester in the fall of 2022, I tried grad school out and pursued an MBA. And I just found that it wasn't for me. So I dropped out. So currently I'm looking for a fulltime job. So right now, like, as you know, as many high level people say, our greatest asset is time. And I love how Alex Ramos, I know you've talked to Alex, Ken, is that correct? Yes. Yes. I love his perspective on learning all the skills and eventually deploying all of them into a business idea or a great company to work for even investment opportunities. So currently I don't have any specific passion to follow or my own business idea to start. So I'm trying to go about my career and building my skillsets. So I thought starting off would be a good way to start off would be going

into sales. And for the past few months, I've been constantly applying to job postings, reaching out to companies and employees, especially through LinkedIn. I seem to can't find a job anywhere and no one's wanting to hire me. So I'm not sure if I'm going about it in the wrong way, or I'm not really sure where to start. So I'm wondering if you could help me out with that, give me any piece of advice. Yeah, absolutely. So let's dig into what you said. I'm having a hard time finding a job. And then you said, I can't get people to hire me. So are you getting job interviews? A few. And?

You're making it past the first one, or are you just kind of doing the introductory and you never hear anything? I actually have two lined up, and they're just basic entry-level sales jobs. A couple of them were not really any of interest to me, but usually I'll have one interview and then at least the one interview I've had, I went to one interview and then I didn't hear back from after that. All right. Well, so let's get a different strategy. So right now, you know that sales, you've been paying attention to Alex and I think he's right on this. We did a deep dive interview. You can see it at the Ken Coleman Show YouTube channel. The reason that sales is a good place for someone who's not quite sure what the long-term looks like while they're

getting cleared, I'm going to give you some resources to actually help you today. All right? That's coming in just a minute. But why sales is absolutely a good path for you while you're trying to figure things out is because it's a wonderful experience. If you can win in sales, you can win in marketing. If you can win in sales, you can win in leadership. If you can win in sales, you can win in customer service. If you can win in sales, let me tell you something. You can win because sales at its most fundamental application, a salesperson, is problem solving with a serving spirit.

Like a great salesperson is solving a problem through the product or service, and they're doing it in a way that is really service-focused. You can take that all the way up the ladder, man, to CEO, entrepreneur. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing. So I think what's going on here is you need to be more urgent and you need to be less picky. So that's my formula for you. I'm going to give you some tactical things, but I think there needs to be a philosophy for you right now in my head. In other words, your mindset needs to be, I need to be very urgent and I need to be less picky because I'm not limited to the first sales job. I'm not limited to the second sales job. I want to get in and start getting some sales experience and start making money. True or false? True. Absolutely. So there is a principle that I created after after george talking i don't know

a couple thousand phone calls uh when we started the ken coleman show years ago and i came up with it it's called the proximity principle and i was trying to come up with a way for people to understand how do i get connected to actually get the job i want and that's what you're calling about and And the principle says this, in order to do what I want to do, sales, I've got to get around people that are doing it, salespeople, sales managers, and I got to get in places where it's happening. I can start getting like maybe I'm online forums. Maybe I'm going to conferences on sales. Like I'm always thinking about I'm around people that are successful in sales and I'm reading about sales. I'm thinking about companies

that have sales positions are open. I'm going, who do I know over there? I need to get over there because here's what happens with the proximity principle. You break it down to this, the right people plus the right places equals opportunity. And so you're calling me right now and you're saying, I don't have any opportunities. And that's not the case. You aren't in the right places and you aren't around the right people. Because if you're around the right people and in the right places, here's what's going to happen. Opportunity is going to come your way. You're going to have conversations. Somebody's going to go, you're a sharp young guy that wants to sell. I'll teach you how to sell. Come work for me. Now, I want to pause. I hit you with a lot,

but is what I'm saying, is it hitting you right between the eyes? You're right. Absolutely. So you got to get busy. What are you doing right now for income? I'm just working part-time jobs right now on the side. I do some marketing for a couple local companies in the area, just doing social media marketing. Yeah. Okay. If I were to pull up jobs, sales jobs in Tampa, Florida right now, what would I see? TQL, a lot of insurance jobs you could do. Okay. So those are the few that popped up to me. Okay. So get inside okay so here's here's the challenge for you jake you're working a couple of part-time jobs right now so the bar is low let's raise the bar by just going and getting a sales job go down and get a car sell a car

tomorrow go get a job go start selling something let's start bringing in more income than we are and what we're doing is, is we're moving forward. We're creating some forward motion. I'm moving forward. And I actually like George, him getting a sales job that he's not wild about because it's going to spur him on to go get another sales job that he doesn't like. And to get some experience too. Experience. You're not going to be the greatest salesman day one. Yeah. So here's what I'm going to do for you, Jake. I'm going to give you two resources. One is the Get Clear Career Assessment.

It's a 20-minute assessment, and it's going to give you so much clarity on what you do best, what you love to do, and results that motivate you. Spit out a purpose statement that gives you a high-level job description, and then I want you to read the book From Paycheck to Purpose. So the assessment is a compass. The book is the guide to climb the mountain. Hang on the line. We'll get you that.

And that's going to give you tremendous clarity, which will then give you confidence to actually step out and move forward. Thank you, young man. The best is yet to be. Get after it. George Campbell, Ken Coleman are here with you. This is The Ramsey show I'm Ken Coleman joined by George Camel. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225.

We're going to stay right here in our backyard, Nashville, Tennessee. Dwayne is there. Dwayne, how can we help? Yes, sir. I have a $200,000 term for 20 years. Got about 19 years left. I'm coming up off another one. That's why I got this other one, so overlap it.

But because I'm just coming up off the first one, I'm wondering maybe I should get a whole life. And I'm listening to what you and I think Suze Armand, everyone say, hey, whole life is bad. But every time I talk to the mutual mass and these other, they are convincing me, no, it's a solid. You won't lose money. And so I wanted to call directly and find out what am I losing when I start talking to them

that it seems like I'm pretty firm on while I'm listening to what you guys are saying. Is there something I'm missing in translation? Well, Dwayne, here's a simple way to think about it. What would they stand to gain by persuading you to get whole life versus term life from them? I'm sure some kind of financial gain. There we go. The commissions on whole life are astronomical, and there's a good reason. Your term life policy costs about 5% of the cost of an equivalent whole life policy. And so when you're paying, you know, 15, 20, 30 bucks a month for that term policy versus 600,

well, there's a lot more wiggle room for them to steal your commissions under the guise of, well, you're going to build this cash value policy and you're going to invest it over a long period of time. You're going to make so much money, Dwayne. Don't invest in the market. Invest with me in this insurance policy. Do you see what they're doing there? Yeah, but it does sound like, again, this is what I'm talking to them, I get overwhelmed, the numbers and everything. And when they get done, they say, hey, look, see, you put this money in, which to me is a huge amount of money per month. It is. That you could be investing yourself into much more solid investments that have a much better track record. But what they do, I'm guessing here's what they did. They did some real fancy math that was real complicated to where they're like, well, Dwayne, you just got

to trust me, man. This will work. Yeah. Yeah. I have a little, I'm going to just throw this, let's get out of the money. You started the call by saying that you agreed with us on whole life. You've listened to this and you have an opinion on this yourself. True or false? Yes. When I listened, I said, hey, that sounds right because it felt crazy the money they're asking for. Right. So hold on. So stop. Who can afford that? I know. So stop. So remember why you feel that way. We've made a case and we didn't convince you. You convinced you. And so you walk away going, that's nuts. It's crazy to put all that money in there. It doesn't make any sense.

You've got to remember that. Do you trust yourself? Do you trust your common sense? Do you trust that opinion that you came to before you ever walked in to talk with these guys? Typically, obviously, I do. Well, I know. So no, no, no. But what happens is you sit down and somebody makes a really compelling case, and they've got this thing down pat, then what they're saying makes sense too. But then you go, it doesn't make sense, but now they're making it sound like it makes sense. You just got to say, I don't think it makes sense. I know it doesn't make sense. Here's why. I think it's crazy. And then move on.

Well, they're the fear factor too, that after 20 years, what's going to be the cost of another term? I'm 50. Dwayne, here's how a term works. George can tell you that. So the idea is that you don't have insurance for your whole life. The idea is that you follow the Ramsey plan. You pay off your house in 15 years if you do our plan with a 15-year fixed rate mortgage. And 20 years later, you've got a huge pile of money in your investment accounts. And then you become what we call self-insured, where you don't need that money anymore because you have more than that in your investment account. And you only need it if someone relies on your income like a spouse. And George, real quick, just break that down.

The money that you would invest in a whole life and the return on that versus the money you would put in the 401k, the stock program, I mean, excuse me, mutual fund program based on the growth, the whole nine yards that we, you know, the return on that is big time different. Break it down quickly. Yeah. So if you take the difference from that whole life premium with your term premium, take the difference that you would have paid and you pop that onto our investment calculator at ramseysolutions.com and let's say you get an average return, even eight to 10% over 30 years, see what that would turn into by doing it on your own. You don't need them

because all they're doing is taking most of that in commissions for the first bunch of years and eventually maybe you'll get a crappy return. So avoid this at all costs and why even talking

to these people? Go talk to our friends at Zander. They're not going to sell you this whole life crap and stop even entertaining these fools. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Good advice.

You got me riled up. Well, boy, I love when you break down the numbers. I live a sad life, and that's what gets me riled up, Ken. But it's fine. Well, it's fine. You're doing great. Gives me the juice. You're doing great.

I like seeing you with the juice. Jay is on the line in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Jay, how can we help? Hey, how are you today? We're having a blast, Jay. What's up? My question for you is is in terms of paying down my car debt, I am paying less interest on my car loan than I'm collecting in the bank in my mutual

fund. So why would I pull out 25 grand or so, pay it down when I could just let it accrue the differential? You're a genius, Jay. So here's an idea. Why don't we go borrow as much money as we can to funnel into investments, if that's the case? If it's a locked rate? Yeah. Both sides? Would you do it? Tell me why I shouldn't. Have you seen the stock market, Jay?

Am I the only one Googling around here? No, I didn't say that. I said to you if you have locked rates. I have locked rates on my car loan and my mutual fund. What's your mutual fund. What's your mutual fund making? $3,900. Okay, so my high-yield savings account makes more than that, and that's guaranteed for how long?

I have to check that. Gets squishy there. Not sure. What if it goes down to 3%, 2%? So then I could pay it off. Well, here's another question. How much is your car payment? Monthly? Yeah. 480. So wouldn't it make more sense to free up $480 to then funnel into those investments? And also 4% kind of sucks. Putting $480 into an index fund or a mutual fund, on average, you know, over the next 30 years with long-term thinking, you could be making 8% to 10%. Agreed? Mm-hmm. And so I'd rather...

But I'm giving that money away. That $20,000, let's say, is the payoff of my car. So I could either give it away today or give it away over the next three years. But one way or another, that $20,000 has to go to the car payments. I just, if you went back in time, would you go into debt again for the car? No. I don't know why you're defending the lenders here going, well, these guys are my friends because they gave me a low interest, you know, loan on my car. I'm trying to figure out what I should do, Tim. I'm trying, I listened to your lecture.

Pay off the dang car. I don't like all about it. What's that? But I'm trying to figure out what I should do, Tim. I'm trying, I listened to your lecture. Pay off the dang car. I'm like, oh, about it? What's that? But I'm trying to figure out why I should give away my 20 grand. I can't convince you that a debt-free lifestyle is going to give you a better life. You're not giving away. I agree with you. I agree with you. No, but you got the wrong narrative. You've really concocted this in your head. And if you're here to debate us, we're not going to. I'm not. I know you're not. No, we're not going to i know you're not no i'm not but listen brother i'm just but it keeps coming back to that and i think you've got the wrong narrative the narrative is that why should i give away 20 000 the real question you should be asking yourself is why did i borrow 20 000 for a car that i couldn't afford you put yourself in the 20 i know

your narrative is it is wise to leverage debt in order for me to build wealth. And I have found that debt is not a friend of mine. It doesn't help me build wealth. It steals from my paycheck. It steals from my joy. It robs me of so much. And so therefore, here's the way to think about it. What if every dollar coming into my house I could use for whatever I wanted and I could invest that money and get more than a 4% return long term?

What if I could have paid cash for a car that allowed me to do that? So what's your income? $180,000. You're making $180,000? Dude, you shouldn't even be borrowing for a car. Why'd you do that in the first place, making that incredible of an income? I hear you. I hear you. I hear you.

I'm wondering, dude, you're crushing it, and you could really build some amazing wealth. Are you a net worth millionaire yet? No. My question is, why the heck not? You make $180,000, and we're wondering what we're doing with it. We're trying to play games. I'll tell you why, because he's spending $480 a month as one example towards a depreciating asset.

Not sound financial decision making. Now, we're not knocking on you. We're trying to help you see what the real narrative ought to be in your mind. Why am I spending $480 a month for a car? Jay, try this. Pay off the car. You could probably do it today. I imagine you have the money.

And live a debt-free life for a year. And if you hate it, if you absolutely hate where you are, you can always go get a loan. They'll be happy to give it to you at probably 8% interest rate. Oh, they love you. You could always go get more debt. I liked that one, George. That was a fun one. We had some fun there.

Hopefully, Jay, you didn't take it too personally. No, we're for you. We're for you. This is The Ramsey Show. welcome back to the ramsey show america we're thrilled that you are here this is where america hangs out to have a conversation about your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. All of those are tied together if you want to live a life well. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by George Camel.

The phone number, if you want to jump in, is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. If you're going, well, who are you? Hi, how you doing? My name's Ken. I'm one of the Ramsey personalities, and I focus on work. Specifically, I want you doing work that you are good at, that you love, and that matters to you. That is purposeful work.

And let me tell you what happens. You make greater income and greater impact. All right, so that's what I do as a part of Ramsey Solutions, and I host the Ken Coleman Show. We covered a story earlier today, and James, the producer, said this is interesting. And so this comes out of the news, but George, it's not just a news story. It's actually a pervasive problem. And the story in the news right now, now in fact it's one of the hottest stories

right now comes from the political world this guy uh named george santos have you heard of this guy oh yeah so he's a i know all the georges out there you know all the georges well so he's a newly elected congressman from new york if you don't know what i'm talking about and he's taken a lot of heat from the media rightfully so because it's come out and almost it feels like every day the dude has just lied and lied and lied and lied to cover up those lies about his resume, his background. So he just lied to everybody. And boy, you know, pressure on this guy to resign. And it's a little bit ironic that people are now shocked that a politician lied. Well, it's the first time in history a politician has lied yeah so this is big news so everybody's trying to grasp that deal

um and and and then but you know what there's a deeper thing here and there's a temptation for all of us to do what george santos has done i'm going to break that down in a second but i wanted george you pulled up give us a if you, just a couple of the fantastical lies that this congressman has laid out for everybody. Lied about where he went to school, lied about where he worked, lied about owning a number of rental properties, lied about being robbed of his rent money, lied about his criminal status in Brazil, lied to donors, lied about his athletic accomplishments, lied about the timing of his mother's death, about his campaign finances and this one might be the funniest one he lied about being jewish and then he came back and said no no no i said i was jew-ish which is which is

even worse than the lie that's borderline comedic yeah wow oh my gosh yeah i mean so this is a guy this is pathological though that's the right no he's a pathological liar now why do we bring this up in the work context for a moment those of you who feel a sense of doubt maybe you are dealing with imposter syndrome and we took a call from a young man early this hour trying to get a job. And when we face doubt, George, it tempts us to be deceitful because we feel like if I'm not good enough, I've got to make up a story that makes me good enough. That's the slippery slope. And that's what he did. Well, he took fake it till you make it to a very dangerous level here. Oh, man. I mean, it's unbelievable. So doubt leads to deceit.

When we don't manage our doubt, I don't think I'm good enough. I don't think I'll get the job. I don't think they'll like me. I don't think she'll marry me. I mean, this thing spirals out of control, and it's all deceit lying like this. And this is unbelievable, folks. Listen to this data. This is right here. In my hand, CNBC article, 55% of Americans admit to lying on their resume at least once.

55%, George. This is according to a recent survey from Standout CV. And now it gets worse. By the way, before I tell you this data, if anybody out there wants to really know what we the people are really like, you want to know what the people of the world are really like, you want to know the true human condition, go look at Google searches. That's the ultimate indicator of who we are as humans. Case in point, the number of Google searches about how to fake a resume is up. The searches for how to fake a resume is up 48%, George. So what are people lying about? Here, real quick, the top eight reasons or what they are lying about on their resume. 55% of people lie about their previous work experience. Well, that's smart because we know no one's going to check your references.

I got anxiety thinking about this, George. How do you keep up with this? The audacity that you could even pull this off is impressive. Here's another one. This is my personal favorite because of the humility excuse me uh the uh opportunity to humiliate yourself 43 people uh admit to lying about their skills oh yeah i can operate heavy machinery or even worse we'll see you on monday morning ken you've done this one i know excel it's a dangerous one yeah but no heavy machinery what are you doing man that man? That one could be life-altering. Literally a life-altering. 41% lie about their college degree. 39% lie about personal details such as age, location, or name. 39% lie about high school.

Hey, can I set everybody free who's tempted to lie about high school? Nobody cares what you did in high school. No one. Not even your mom or dad because they've forgotten. 33% lie about salary. 33% lie about job-specific software or equipment skills. And then finally, 21%, and this is so moronic, I don't even know how to process it. 21% of people lie on their resume about their employer references.

So I guess they're making that up. Hey, George, will you do me a solid? I'm putting you down as a reference. Oh, so I give him Ken's number and I go, yeah, he was my previous manager. Give him a call. He'd be happy to talk to you. And I slip you a $20 bill and say, hey, Ken, if they call, make me look good. Yeah, I feel like I need a shower.

That's how dirty I feel right now. So the solution here, Ken, obviously is to have integrity, which if I'm hiring someone, I want to hire someone with integrity. How do we get over this hump? Yeah, so back to the reason, I always like to try to give you a deep source behind why we do what we do. And I think doubt is what leads us to deceit. So then if we need to manage doubt better, what do we do? So if a doubt, the way I define doubt, George,

is that I don't believe that something good can happen. That's doubt. I just don't believe that something good, this thing that I long for, this thing that I want to do, it can't happen. I doubt that it can happen for a variety of reasons. And so what you have to do there is you got to go, number one, I can't shortcut this doubt. I can't take my doubt in myself and then try to shortcut it by lying to everybody else. No, I've got to step into me and go, what is the voice of doubt telling me? I'm too old. Is that true? I'm a stay-at-home mom. I've got nothing to offer if I enter the workforce. Is that true? Is there any evidence that the doubt is telling you the truth. Because if doubt is telling you the truth,

it's protecting you. I'll give you a silly example. George, if there's a basketball, a 10-foot basketball goal in the lobby, and I tell all these fine people watching, hey, I can dunk. Have you ever seen me dunk before? Watch this. I'm going to dunk. And moments before I go to dunk the ball, I have some serious doubt because I haven't stretched. And let's be honest, I've never dunked a basketball. And doubt's going, I don't know if you can do this. Doubt's protecting me from certain humiliation. Silly example, but you get the point. I'd lower the hoop for you, Ken, just for the record. Thank you. But even then it'd be a question mark. All right. But if doubt is saying, I can't ever start a business, I can't pay off debt,

I can't get through the baby steps, I can't earn enough money to do it. That's holding you back. That's the idea. So instead of lying and trying to shortcut, which is what people do here to get the job, you got to go, what am I doubting? Why am I doubting? Is there any evidence to support that? And then when we get clear that, hey, I actually can do this if I go get qualified, if I go make some connections. Now, all of a sudden, we're not having to lie. And here's the big takeaway. The reason we bring this up is because you can do severe damage to your ability to earn money if you get caught lying like this. I mean, because if you're lying on a resume, you'll lie on the job. And that's the idea. And if I'm the hiring manager, I'd rather you come to me and say, hey, listen, I know you require this much experience. Here's what I'm bringing to the

table. I know I'm not quite there, but here's what I'm doing to get there. I'm impressed. I'm ready to hire this guy. Right. Versus someone lying to my face. Yeah. Yeah. Not good at all. Be better, George Santos. I'm trying to represent Georges out here. You know, Foreman, Lopez, Costanza, Washington. I like that. Put respect on our name. You know what the problem is? The guy, he's holding on for dear life. He's lied so much, he doesn't even know how to unravel or admit any of them. I don't even know if his name's George anymore.

Why? We should look into that. But I know your name is George. Thank you. And I know my name is Ken. And I know that this is the Ramsey Show. Not a lie. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

I'm joined by my colleague George Camel with a K, by the way. Thank you for that, Ken. Get that right. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. It's time to talk about the big night again, George. You got plans tonight? I'm getting jazzed because I'm going to be on stage tonight, Ken.

Big keynote. Don't miss it. Yeah. Is it a keynote? You're doing a... That's what they call it in show business. long are you going to speak for about 20 minutes 20 minutes right here live in the lobby more huh leave them wanting more yeah i know that i'll be wanting more i know that uh so tonight in the lobby of ramsey solutions where we are broadcasting right now building wealth live stream um this has been a very popular event. We had a very full and very fantastic, dare I say, fall tour.

Yes. Sold out crowds everywhere. And tonight it is here in the building. It's a free live stream for you. It's happening tonight at 7 p.m. Central, 8 Eastern. Dave Ramsey on the stage. Rachel Cruz, George Campbell on the stage speaking Cruz, George Camel on the stage speaking, keynoting as George likes to say

and my colleague Dr. John Deloney and I are joining for what we like to call a round table a spirited discussion and so I'm not going home after work I'm hanging around

late night at the office it's going to be a lot of fun and you can still get in and did I mention that it's free? I'm not going home after work. I'm hanging around. Late night at the office, and I love it. It's going to be a lot of fun, and you can still get in. And did I mention that it's free? I think I did. RamseySolutions.com slash wealth. RamseySolutions.com slash wealth. RamseySolutions.com slash wealth to sign up.

It's going to be a lot of fun. And what are we going to be talking about? George, tell us. I'll tell you. I got the insider knowledge. Yeah, you do. So Dave is going to kick it off, giving us some hope in some dark times and giving us some perspective with some great storytelling, some great inspiration, some great tactical things we can do. And then I get up there and I show you

how to create margin to build wealth. And the true reason most people aren't building wealth, they don't have the margin to do it. And so I've got some real tactical steps to walk you through. Rachel then comes up, giving us some, you know, quenching our fears about the real estate, the stock market, what's happening, the ups and the downs, how to ride the roller coaster, why you should get on the ride and stay on it for the long term. And then we're going to have a great discussion with all five of us, you and Dr. John Deloney, talking about what we're looking at for 2023 as far as the trends go. Oh, you know, I like talking about the trends. You're very trendy. Very trendy.

No, I'm not at all. And does your margin keynote, does it involve anything on brisket at Buc-ee's? You know, I didn't work that into the talk, but it may not be too late. I feel like we could probably get a slide together pretty quickly. The night is still young. I do reference the Costco hot dog. So there's one reason to tune in. Are you a proponent of the Costco hot dog? Huge proponent. How does that fit into your very persnickety clean eating? Well, it's called a tease, Ken. You have to tune in to find out.

Oh, I have to wait. Yes. With bated breath. If that's a gluten-free vegan hot dog at Costco, it's going to blow my mind, man. I'm not touching that thing with a 10-foot pole. Costco's better than that. They know me better. Can I just, for everybody who follows you on Instagram, at George Camel, by the way, you're welcome. Thank you. At Ken Coleman while you're following, just jump on over and say hi to me.

I'd like to see you go to Costco and do an Instagram reel on that. Can I be honest? I went to Costco and I had my Kirkland signature sweatshirt on and I almost wore the matching sweatpants that I have. Don't ever say that in public again. I know. Well, my wife dissuaded me from wearing the top to bottom Kirkland signature. She's a good woman. But that's how big of a Kirkland signature fan I am.

I went to Sam's Club the other day. I felt like I was cheating on him. I was like, I can't be found out can you imagine man i didn't even know kirkland had a signature line of clothing and i now wish that uh i didn't know i might get you the sweatshirt for you not gonna wear it good to know never gonna wear it duly noted 888-255-225 mike is on the line in raleigh north carolina mike how can we help hey guys how are you today well we're having a little too much fun. What's going on? I'm having fun, too.

So I'm just going to get right into it. My question is, how do we save for a baby? Because my wife is pregnant, and she's due in July with our first child. Hey, hey, hey. Congratulations. That is awesome. Thank you. Do we know if it's a little boy or a little girl? We are finding that out on Saturday, actually.

You doing one of those big gender reveal parties? No, we're going to get a very small cake, and it's going to be a very intimate thing between my wife and I. We're just going to cut it open and see what happens. That's fun. Love it. That's really cool. Well, as far as the expenses go, are you feeling like this is going to be a big financial weight? Do you guys have good health insurance in place? Yeah, we should. I just went full time with an IT service providing company. So I'm waiting

to see what the health insurance is going to be there. You know, no debt whatsoever except for the mortgage, you know, three to six months emergency fund. You know, we've done all the baby steps. So we're, I just, my biggest concern is not going back into debt once our son or daughter is born. I love that. Very normal, first of all. I'd continue saving to give you some peace because there's going to be some costs probably out of pocket for the baby. And we want to make sure that mama and baby come home healthy. And so we call that stork mode. And that's kind of when you're pausing the baby steps to stack up as much cash as possible until baby and mama are home and healthy. And some of the costs you

can expect are of course the, you know, the checkups, the prenatal care, that's going to be a huge cost. Diapers. The ultrasounds, the lab work, the prenatal vitamins, the dietary needs, the maternity clothes, the baby gear. All right. So you know what, this is good because the big ticket items is where you would worry, right? Your healthcare and you're doing it, but you know what you need to do, honestly, and lean on some, lean on some friends that have little ones in your, in your world that you guys are doing life with, or even your mother or her mom and just like literally go, go to target, go to go to George. Where would people go to get diapers for you? You're Mr. Walmart. I'm a target guy. Target Walmart. Here's the deal. Just go

price out diapers. Take your wife with you. By the way. Here's the deal. Just go price out diapers. Take your wife with you. By the way, I remember the first time we went shopping for diapers. And I was like, get those. Those are the cheapest ones. She looked at me like I had grown horns in my head. We're not going to put those on our kid. I was like, why? We're the only ones looking at it.

And they're crapping in them anyway. What's the problem? Like, I would get the Kirkland diaper. Thank you. I wouldn't get the most expensive i'm going i'm going to costco or sam's club so all that to say and we're having a little bit of fun but literally go price out a box of diapers get an idea how many diapers are going to go through in a month start looking at the little baby food once they get to the point where they're doing

the little jars and the little spoons and all that price it out like literally treat it like you would your grocery budget so that you get an idea beyond the medical and all the bigger stuff. Just get an idea. And I think you're going to find, wait a second, they are expensive little things, but I can do this. And talk to your friends that have babies because they'll tell you, oh, we got 17,000 things and we only use seven. That's right.

And so here's the things you really need to buy. Here's the things that are worth getting quality, you know, the car seat, the stroller. I'll tell you one thing, George. I'll tell you one thing, my friend. This isn't financial advice. This is just life advice. Invest in a baby wipe warmer. Oh, there we go.

Or put that in the old registry. You'll never regret having one of those. That's impressive. Well, Mike, I've got a stat here for you that might help you get some numbers around this. The Healthcare Cost Institute says that the average regular delivery That's impressive. Well, Mike, I've got a stat here for you that might help you get some numbers around this. The Healthcare Cost Institute says that the average regular delivery with an in-network insurance provider, an out-of-pocket cost, is going to come out to about $13,000, $14,000.

Now, it can vary. It can go from $7,000 on the low end, $18,000 on the high end. So I don't know what it might be in North Carolina, but start to actually price that out. Well, right now, we just got a bill in the mail that's saying, like, every month we have to pay $300 towards the delivery, and I think the final price that was on there was, like, $4,800, $5,000, something along those lines. But we're stocking money away like we're back in baby step two again. Good. Which means you're fine. Baby step 3C.

3C. Wow. Mike, nominee for caller of the year. That's amazing. Early with the baby step 3C there. Very good. The truth is once the baby's here, the baby's going to become a line item in the budget for those expenses like formula and food and childcare and books and toys and, you know, clothing. You might have higher water and electric bills, of course, the diapers. So that's kind of the big

things to worry about as far as the budget goes. But you guys have put yourselves in a financial spot that most people are dreaming about being in, which is no debt and a bunch of money in the bank. So it's something you can breathe easy on the financial side and instead get excited about this new baby being born. Mike, you're going to be a dad and you're going to be a great dad and you guys are okay, man. Stay off the internet and all the fear articles. Don't go to WebMD. Yeah, just save.

Don't do that, man. Let me tell you something. Stay off those websites where they tell you, here's how much a kid costs to raise in 2023. $4 million. Yeah. Stay off of that stuff. You're good. George Campbell, always fun to be with you, here's how much a kid costs to raise in 2023. $4 million. Yeah, stay off of that stuff. You're good. George Campbell, always fun to be with you, sir.

Good times. Good hour. I want to thank James and the team and you, America, for listening. This is your show. This is The Ramsey Show. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube.

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