The Ramsey Show - App - Tax-Deferred vs. Tax-Free Retirement Accounts (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Take control of your money once and for all. The Dave Ramsey Show offers up straight talk on life and money. Millions listen in as callers from all walks of life learn how to get out of debt and start building for the future. Check out the fifth most downloaded podcast of 2018!   Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE     Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is gone, 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, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jordan starts us off this hour in Oklahoma City. Hi, Jordan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing today?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Excellent. So just a little bit about us. My brief question is whether we should put our baby step three on hold until we're able to move out of our money pit of a home. We're actually planning on finishing our baby step two this coming February 2020. So our non-mortgage debt is $29,000. That's two vehicles at $3,000 and $26,000. I mean, our growth income is $135,000. The reason why I'm considering all of this is because, like I said,

our current home has cost us close to $40,000 just in repairs, unforeseen repairs over the last three years, and the home is only valued at $120,000 just in repairs, unforeseen repairs over the last three years, and the home is only valued at $120,000. What's wrong with you selling it now and renting? Well, our goal would be to move again in 12 months is kind of our goal. And so renting from here until the next 12 months, I guess that seems like a big ordeal to move twice. Our mortgage is pretty low. It's $700 a month. It's just the repairs that, I mean, even right now we're looking at...

Well, listen, if you're out of debt in February and a year from today you have your emergency fund in place and then you want to move, that's fine. Or if you want to move now, that's fine. But I don't understand what the difference is other than the move. I mean, it's not that big a deal. I guess my question more has to do with the ordering of the baby steps, just because, like, even right now we could pay off our debt, you know, in two months. But it feels a lot better having, you know.

I'm sorry. How could you pay off your debt in two months, and why would you wait until February if you can? Right. It goes back to these unforeseen expenses. Like, we could pay it off in just a couple months because of the cash that we have on hand because our emergency fund is a lot more than $1,000. Oh, so you're not working our plan. Okay.

Well, it's more so. No, it's not. I mean, it's your plan. That's okay if you want to work your plan, but it's not our plan. Our plan is you take all the cash that you have that's non-retirement down to $1,000, and you pay it on your debt, and you work your butt off to get out of debt. If you're not ready to work that plan and you want to do something else, that's okay. But that's what we recommend and how we've gotten millions of families out of debt

and helped them build wealth. Sure. So it's up to you. If you're that freaking worried about this house that you're to the point that you can't turn loose of cash because this house is about to cave in any moment and you're not willing to move twice, something's wrong with you. You need to be willing to move twice. Okay.

You need to get rid of the stupid house if it's that bad. Or you're being too much of a drama queen and you need to chill, turn loose this cash, and pay off your dadgum debt. Sit in the dumpy house for a little bit. Get your money saved up. Sell said dumpy house and move to the next house. Either one's fine. But the plan you're on, I don't like at all.

I don't like at all. Because it's kind of like you're just standing around waiting on something bad to happen. And trying to work sort of a plan in the middle of that. Nah. not good at all you need to you need a painter get off the ladder here so um yeah let's just go ahead and sell dumpy house and move twice that's probably what i would do because i think this house is driving you nuts i think you'd have just tremendous peace not owning this house anymore more than and it's going to relieve you of more

stress than two moves will cost you um you ain't got that much stuff and so just yeah just just make your move and get rid of otherwise plan on sitting there and turn loose of this cash now and plan on sitting there it won't even be a year now because you can be debt free you're sitting on the money when you decide to work our plan so it's up to you you do whatever you want but that's the plan that that's our plan hey thanks for the call joe is with us in dayton ohio hi joe how are you good thanks for taking my call sure what's up um calling my wife and i are both educators and because of that we are mandated in the state of ohio to pay 14 of our salary into the state teachers retirement system yep and our district also pays 14 into that

yep and how does that affect baby step four well it does affect it it's a good question because uh obviously you've got a substantial amount going into retirement now the downside is you don't control that uh what it's invested in or when you get it you're at their beck and call it's a pension plan is what it is and so you know if you if you leave and you want to use that money for something else you can't it's in their hands and you don't control what it's invested in so for that reason i wouldn't count it as my whole 15 percent because you're not in control of it and you don't have a lot of options and flexibility with it. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yes. I usually count that kind of stuff about 50%. So what that means is I would put in 7% or 8% of your own money and the 14% that they're taking out of your check mandatory, and you'd probably still do all that. And then you'd have a good Roth IRA over here on the side and some good mutual funds that are performing. And what may shock you is that your 6% or 7% or 8% that you put into a good Roth IRA and mutual funds may end up paying you more money at retirement than your teacher plan did. We were also looking at, we have four- and three-year-olds who we were looking at, do we kind of start maxing out

our educational savings account for our children? That'd be great. I mean, start, you know, baby steps four, five, and six happen at the same time. I wouldn't do nothing in addition to the teacher because of what I've described. I'm not predicting the end of their, I don't think the pension plan's in trouble.

I'm not saying you're not going to get your money. It's happened before, but I don't think that's the case in Ohio. They seem to be pretty conservative in how they manage things. But it just doesn't – the very nature of a pension plan with the regulations on it is it just underperforms. And, I mean, you're putting a bazillion dollars in there with you putting in 14 and them putting in 14. So you ought to get a bunch out of it.

It ought to do well for you because you're putting 28% of your income effectively in there. So you'll be okay if that's all you did. But I'd hate for you to get to retirement and all you had was your teacher pension plan. It just doesn't give you a lot of flexibility. And it's not real wealth because it dies when you do or when your survivor does, depending on how you sign up for it. But either way, it doesn't stick with you. It's not generational wealth, and I want you to build some other wealth in addition to that. So, yeah, I'd probably put 7% or 8% in Roth IRAs, and then I'd start my Baby Step 5 with Kids College,

and then anything I can find above that, we start chunking on the house and that's baby step six and that's how we teach you to work through those three baby steps that you work simultaneously there so good question good question that's cool that both of your educators very very neat love it this is the dave ramsey show We'll be right back. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs.

Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry. A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. That's chministries.org.

Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Jim is with us in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, Jim. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, I'm 52 years old, starting to think a lot about retirement. I'm going to have a pension, and we have a 401k also, and I just learned, I've been doing pre-tax, but I just learned we have a Roth option also within our 401k. So I want to know, I've just recently started listening, and I hear you talk about the Roth,

but I just wondered if you could explain to me why the Roth over the pre-tax. Well, when you're investing for 20, 30 years especially, 90-some-odd percent, depending on the calculation, but it would be 92% to 98% of what is in your account is growth. Only about 5%, 7% of what is in there you've actually put in. Okay? And so the Roth is an after-tax contribution but grows tax-free. The traditional affects the contribution. You don't pay taxes on the contribution today. And then all of the account grows taxable but tax-deferred. And so let's say you grew $1 million in your 401k, okay, as an example. Okay. What I'm saying is you're either going to pay taxes on $900,000 of that or not.

Yeah, I see. That's the difference in the Roth. Now, in your situation, I'm going to guess and say one of a couple things is going to happen. It sounds like you're hitting towards an early retirement before 59 1⁄2, right? No, no, I'll actually probably be 65. Oh, okay. That's my target. And your mix should include the company pension you were discussing plus whatever your 401K grows to.

And you've got all those years for the money to grow and for you to add to it and to get a match if they've got it and so you know we've got what 13 or 14 years to go plus keep in mind at 65 it's very doubtful you're going to cash out 100 of your retirement you're probably gonna just start to taking some draws on it right correct and it will continue to grow either tax deferred or tax free so you definitely need to be in a roth because you're not going to be using this money maybe ever actually you may end up living on your pension and this money just grows tax free and goes to your heirs but i actually switched my contributions to a roth a couple of days ago based on the few conversations I've heard you have with listeners, and I just wanted to hear it, I guess, so I feel better.

The only way it doesn't make sense is if you're going to turn around and pull the money out in just a few years. And so if you're 60 years old and you're just starting and you don't have any other money coming to live on and you're going to turn around and pull it out at 66, a lot of it, then it makes sense to do traditional in those cases, mathematically. But otherwise, the math I was giving you, you know, where the vast majority of what's in there is growth, and it's either taxable or not, makes the Roth a no-brainer. And so, yeah, you needed to switch to the Roth, and you need to stay in it.

So very well done. Good job. Matt is with us. Matt's in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Matt. How are you? Good, Dave. Thank you for with us. Matt's in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Matt. How are you? Good, Dave. Thank you for your ministry.

It's truly a blessing. Well, thank you, sir. How can I help? I may have the option to retire in about five years from now, and I'm considering purchasing a small business within that time frame. I do not want to go into debt to do that. Are there options that I have to acquire that business? Well, are you going to have the money?

Well, possibly, but me being stingy, I don't really want to dive into my retirement savings too much. Well, I don't know where money comes from unless it comes out of your savings or you go in debt. Are there any type of owner financing type deals that can be done? Yeah, that's debt, though. Yeah. I mean, owner financing means you owe the owner a debt, the former owner, and he sold you the business. He just carried back paper on it instead of asking you to pay cash for it.

So what's your nest egg size, Matt? At this point, it's about 800. Good for you. Good for you. Well done. And you're how old? 44. Good for you.

And what kind of a business are you thinking about buying? Lumber business. Like a lumber retailer or you're going to go into a sawmill business? No, lumber retailer. Okay. Pretty good size operation. Are you around that kind of a business now? I'm a customer of his and he's approached me casually. Oh, so you've got the actual thing.

You've got it all actually marked out, I see. So what is it that you would be purchasing it for? What kind of money? Do you have any idea? I don't, but I can assume around $500,000 or so. Okay, and you might do that in five years, you said. Yes. What's your $800,000 or so. Okay, and you might do that in five years, you said. Yes. What's your 800K invested in?

About 600 in TSP, and then there's about another 70 in Roth, private Roth accounts. And what's it in? In the TSP, what category is it in? C, S, and I. Just like we teach, right? And what's your Roth in? That's, I also have part of the TSP is a Roth. Okay.

And then my private Roth is through aggressive growth. Okay. All right. Well, if your money made 10%, it will double in seven years. Okay? So let's just use those numbers as an example. Let's say that $800,000 became $1.5 million. We'll back it down just a little bit.

And you took out of your $1. million five and you paid cash for a five hundred thousand dollar business and you still had a million dollars cash i'd do that yeah okay that doesn't scare me at all and the only thing that scares me is you better do your dadgum due diligence on this business and you better know that thing inside and out i want to know every little thing about it right that lower that lowers my i want to make sure it's worth 500 but let's say i mean the thing would need to be netting uh you know 150 200 a year for it to be worth that net profit to you okay and if it's going to make you that kind of money and you put in $500, yeah, I'm in. Let's do it. And I need to see actual books and tax returns, and I need to understand the inner workings of the business

so that I know that if I put $500 in, what am I going to get out? I'm going to get my money back out in about four years. Right. Okay. And that's the kind of money you need to make if you're going to go run a small business and take it over. You need to make about 20%, 25% on your money because there's a high risk involved there. But you do your due diligence and dig into it. In five to seven years, you're going to be in such a position that you can afford to take the $500,000 investment and it not be everything you've got.

Now, if you told me five years from now you're going to have $560,000 to your name and you're going to drop $500,000 into a business that you've never been in before? I probably wouldn't do that. That scares the crud out of me. Because you're betting the whole farm on, you know, one horse here. I sure hope that horse wins a race, right? But you've got enough money. You'd still be a millionaire if you screw this whole thing up, is what I was talking about.

So you're going to be okay. I would do that i definitely would look towards that as my dream as my game plan um and no i would not owner finance it because it'll cash flow like a bandit if it's doing what it's supposed to do just pay cash for it man it'll do hey thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Kimberly is in the Ramsey Baby Steps community. There's about 200,000 of you in the largest Ramsey Facebook group out there. It's called the Ramsey Baby Steps community.

We'd love to have you join us. She said, should non-married couples have life insurance on each other? I wouldn't. I wouldn't buy life insurance on each other. I wouldn't. I wouldn't buy life insurance on my roommate. And besides, you may have trouble proving an insurable interest here. And you just can't go running around buying insurance and dropping anybody's beneficiary on there. People wonder what's going on. Insurance company wonders what's going on.

Here's the thing. If you want to act like you're married just get married why is this so hard for folk this is the dave ramsey show Thank you. We'll be right back. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your window blinds for free. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more.

Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best deal. Rules and restrictions apply. Nicholas is in Pennsylvania. How could I use the VA loan to invest in rental property? You can't. VA loans are owner-occupied only. Also, being in the military, what's the easiest way to save money? It doesn't change when you're in the military. The way you save money is you live on less than you make best way to do that stay

out of debt be on a budget written plan do it on purpose and spend less than you make and you have money to increase your generosity and increase your giving and saving and investing and all of that. But the VA loan is designed for veterans home ownership only to do. Otherwise with it would be fraud, which sometimes people do. They lie to the VA and say they're going to live in it. And then they don't, they sign the certificate of occupancy, which says I am promising to live in it.

And they break their promise instantaneously. The VA frowns on fraud, as most of us do, so don't do that, sir. Now, also, besides that, I would tell you just don't use a VA loan at all. Unless you are disabled, the fees with a VA loan, unless you're a disabled veteran, the fees with the VA loan, unless you're a disabled veteran, the fees with the VA loan are very high. Between VA, FHA, and conventional, VA is the most expensive of the three, which is a bit ironic because it's supposed to be a benefit to those of you that have served, but it's

actually not. It's the worst of the three loans in terms of expensive. The cheapest is the conventional loan, and that's what we always recommend, a conventional with a good strong down payment. And, of course, you know, if you can put 20% down, you avoid PMI, private mortgage insurance, which runs you about $75 a month per $100,000 borrowed.

It gets expensive, in other words. So if you can do a conventional loan on a 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay and you put down 20%, that is ideal. And then get about the business of paying it off. The average millionaire pays off their home in 10.2 years. That's what our study of millionaires that we did for Chris Hogan's book, Everyday Millionaires, revealed. That book is chocked full of 140 statistics of things millionaires do.

And it's unusual, I know, but if you do a whole bunch of stuff millionaires do, you're probably going to be a millionaire. How weird would that be? And if you do a bunch of stuff broke people do, you're probably going to be broke people why is that hard to figure out yeah it just seems to be tad is with us in springfield illinois hi tad welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave thanks for taking my call sure what's up well uh i have a rental property question for you so uh we live in our, we still live in our first home. It's a

single family home, you know, pretty modest. And I owe about 50,000 on it still. We are looking to move within the next year to two years. I've always wanted to be into at least a handful of rental properties. And I was wondering if you think it would be a good idea to hold on to our first home and use it as my first rental property. A lot of people do that, and I love rental real estate. And if you want to have some, I want you to get you some. I would not do that because, in essence, it's as if you have borrowed on your home to buy a rental property. Right.

Because the equity out of that house otherwise would have been an additional down payment. Agreed? Agreed. Yeah, so what I would tell you to do is get in your next home and then do what we were just talking about a second ago. Let's turn and get that house paid off as fast as we can. When you're 100% debt-free, you save up and pay cash for your first little rental, a modest little rental. That takes a while.

That's a slow process. That's contrary to what you almost hear anybody else say. But most people are broke, so what anybody's saying, we don't really want to follow. So the first one, it took me forever to get, Tad, it felt like. But once I got that, let me tell you about a rental property that doesn't have any payments. Cash Flow City, baby. Right. And you can save up and buy the next one pretty quick.

And when you got two of them cash flowing, you can buy the third one even faster. And when you got three of them cash flowing, ding, ding. going ding ding the only reason um i i would hesitate is is because it's in a position where i'm i'm confident that i could rent it so double what my payment is um year after year um with a with an influx of uh biologist interns uh you do what you want to do i just told you what i would do sure yep okay i appreciate that i'm not gonna do that because i've owned rental property my You do what you want to do. I just told you what I would do. Sure. Yep. Okay. I appreciate that. I'm not going to do that because I've owned rental property my whole life, and the idea that renting property to renters is easy is mythology.

Sure. Collecting rent is work. Maintaining rental property is work. Dealing with the drama and the crap is work it makes you a lot of money and i like real estate i got a bunch of it but this idea that renters just magically appear and they always pay and they don't tear up your stuff is mythology and so this is harder than it sounds when you look in from the outside and when they it sits empty for two months and the heat and air goes out, all that cash flow you thought you were going to have at double is gone.

When you said you can rent it for double, you meant double the payment. That's called gross profits. That's before other expenses hit. And somebody tears up something, the heat and air goes out, the roof leaks, the taxes go up, and it's empty for two months because the renter moves out in november and nobody moves at christmas and so that's what you get into that's that's called real world right there but when it's sitting there and there's no payments on it and it does all that well you just kind of go well i'm waiting on a good renter

and it's you know just kind of sucks i didn, I'm waiting on a good renter. And it's, you know, it just kind of sucks. I didn't get any rent for two months, but oh well. But all of a sudden, all of your perceived mathematical profit is just dissipated in my scenario. And what I'm saying is, is in the real world, it's a whole lot more to it than just rent minus payments. But you do what you want to do. Victoria is in Atlanta. Hi, Victoria. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. So we've been listening to your show since last September, and we ended up deciding to move in with my husband's mom and paid off $21,000 in debt in six months. Wow. So now we are, well, during the time of paying off our debt,

we had our daughter. So my husband's job offered him six months of paternity leave with 80% pay. He took one month off when she was born, and we held off on the remaining five months so that we could pay our debt. Because he can, like, break up that six months any way he wants. So we're now on baby step three, and once we have that funded, we'll be saving for a down payment on a house um and our plan is well so that's the thing um our plan is in three years to save up a hundred thousand dollars for a down payment um or more um and so but right now what is your household Our household income is $70,000. Okay, good for you. Wow, you're getting after it. We're doing our best.

Okay, so your question is what? Okay, so our 401k is frozen, and we were wondering how long is too long to keep that frozen. My husband is 30 years old, and we're wondering should we take the five months of paternity and enjoy our family and keep the 401k and save, or should we we take the five months of paternity and enjoy our family and keep the 401k and save or should we not take the five months keep the 401k on hold like we just don't really know what to do with all of that or like what you would do in our shoes uh i would forgo the five months because that would get me out of my mother-in-law's house five months faster okay that would be me um and um i enjoyed my family and i worked five to seven days a week the entire time i was raising them and i never

hesitated to enjoy them once i didn't have to take five months off to enjoy a baby wouldn't have really been enjoyable to me anyway. So there you go. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Well, guys, for the past 17 years, Financial Peace Plaza has been our company headquarters, the home of the Dave Ramsey Show, where I'm broadcasting from today. And this place is special because of you. We love when you drop by and watch the show. I was just talking to people from New York and from Arizona and from California all coming by

and having some homemade cookies and some fresh coffee, all our gift when you visit us here and get to watch the debt-free screams. And after 17 years, our Ramsey Solutions team has grown from about 56 people when we moved in this company into this building, and now we're just under 900. And all of that to make sure that we take care of you guys. That's crazy. We're busting at the seams. So we're moving to the new place, a bigger studio,

a cooler place to do debt-free screams, a larger cafe, more kinds of free coffee, an interactive tour that tells you all about Ramsey Solutions, our history, where we've been, where we're going. You're going to love the new headquarters. We'll be in there in August. We're moving. It really takes about a month to move 1,000 people. They started taking stuff off the walls around here today. It looks weird inside. And so I just through a hallway with it used to be full of

pictures and they're all gone it's strange but hey that's what we're doing and uh we'd love to have you guys the new headquarters will be open in august make sure you make plans to come there and uh so we're shutting down the visitation to this building because we're getting ready to move everything out of here so it's um but when you're moving a thousand people i didn't like you do it with a pickup on the weekend like we used to do in college you know and um three guys a six pack of beer and a pickup and your move is done right well maybe more than one six pack but anyway the uh um all of that doesn't work that way when you're moving a thousand folks so we're in the process of doing all that we're thankful for you those of you that have

visited here and anytime you're coming to the nashville area we will be in franklin tennessee which is very close to where we are now we're in the same general area now and we'd love to have you come down and visit us we're going to try to get the new address up on google pretty quick because it's pretty much out in the middle of a field. It's the first building in this huge complex, and we've got 47 acres there of our own. So you're going to wind down in there a little bit to find it. It's on the cutting edge. It's not exactly in the middle of everything, which is because I've got a deal.

So that's how I work stuff. But anyway, we'd love to have you guys come visit and hang out with us, make plans to do that. Brady's with us in Tucson, Arizona. Hi, Brady. How are you? Hey, I'm well. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. How can I help? Well, I'm in a really sticky situation. I would just like to get your advice on where to go from here. I had a really successful business that I had built up for seven years that went sideways on me at the beginning of this year. Since then, I've changed careers, and I've been trying to build up a career as a life insurance agent over the last six months-ish. And, um, but, uh, every month it's been hard to kick off. So every month I've been just kind of, it's, it's been a really expensive and, you know, a pain thing to go through, but it's been kind of, you know, it's been hopefully been something that was going to give me something in the future. Um, and then, um, so, but I've, I've been steadily going further and further into

debt and kind of once, once it got to the point this last month where the credit cards were almost all maxed out and everything, my wife decided to take the kids and move in with her brother and decided to end the marriage. So now, in addition to the phone right now. Based on your inability to earn an income or what? Yeah, I'm sure that was, I think, the straw that broke the camel's back on that whole situation. But now I'm basically here flat broke, really seriously in debt, and now I'm an independent contractor, so every day I wake up and I'm trying to get out and get motivated for work,

but it's hard to do that in an empty house and, you know, dealing with just, uh, you know, living in solitude here. So I'm just wondering if, you know, cause right now I have somewhere in the area of like $35,000 in credit card debt. And, um, my wife probably has about $20,000 to $30,000. And we owe $15,000 on a payment plan that we're paying in back taxes. And we have two cars, one that we owe $5,000 on and one that we owe $10,000 on. So this is the first month where I'm thinking I might not be able to make these payments. And then also trying to figure out what's the financial cost going to be to actually go through and get a divorce. How long ago did she move out? About a week ago.

How old are you? 35. I'm sorry. Okay. You had a business failure. Now you've attempted to launch this for six months and it hasn't worked. And so far, we would classify it as a failure. Right.

And now it's hitting your marriage. Okay. You've got to really stop and look at this and say, what I've been doing hasn't been working we have to do something different so if you could get a job could you begin marriage counseling and begin to work your way back out and put your marriage back together like a job a job that pays money, not a commission job. Right. Yeah, I would be open to that. I don't know if it would be mutual.

I don't know if she would be or not. But, yeah, that would be something that I would be open to doing. Because you're probably three months late to doing that. I don't blame you for having tried the other gig, but when it gets to the point that she has given up hope that her kids have a future with your career choices, it's time for you to make different career choices. Right? Yeah.

I'm not throwing cold water on you. I'm just trying to walk with you here because you're in a real, I mean, you have been through hell. If you could take the last year and bottle it, you could sell it as hot sauce. Yeah, that's true. It's been tough. Losing a business, how old did you say you were? 35. 35, yeah.

Losing a business and then being deeply in debt and then the next thing you've tried to do is failing is not working you're not making money um it's just you're just getting punched all over i mean you got both eyes black your nose is broke there's blood running out of your lip you had the crap beat out of you you know that is the truth and so um are you in a good church by chance um not really active no um i've been you have a good you have a good friend that's say in their 40s or 50s that you consider to have a pretty good life that you think might have a good faith walk yeah call that guy today tell him you need to have coffee with him you need some help he'll help you whoever he is okay and he's going to lead you into he's going to lead you into into a good

spiritual community into your church into his church and where you can actually get a vibrant type of real faith and um and that pastor can help you guys put your marriage back together and this man can help mentor you and get you back on the career path and then i can help you guys put your marriage back together, and this man can help mentor you and get you back on a career path, and then I'll help you with the money part. We can get you out of debt, but we need to get your career moving and your marriage saved first, okay? Okay. That's the most important thing.

And you just had the snot beat out of you, man. I mean, I've been there. When I was 28, I lost everything. I was 28 i lost everything we we lost i mean we lost everything sharon and i about killed each other she tells people she would have left but she didn't have a car i mean we fought like hillbillies because we are i mean we it was bad brother and i felt about an inch tall because everything I touched turned to poop. You know what I mean? And I felt like I was worthless.

And that was 30 years ago. But, you know, what got me out was I got some guys around me. I was in a good church. My faith walk, you know, it just started. And walking with God, walking with good men of character. And, you know, Sharon and I spent time in the marriage counselor two or three different times. We've been married 37 years. She says we've had 30 good years of marriage.

You know, you can turn all of this around. Where there's this much poop, there has to be fertilizer. Yeah. Hey, you hang on. much poop, there has to be fertilizer. Right. Yeah. Hey, you hang on. We'll get you into Financial Peace University, get you and your wife in that. You start working on the career side and on the spiritual part, and I'll walk with you on the rest as well.

Hang on. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. your show. Hey, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for the show. You know, you can listen or watch Beanie Wear with the Dave Ramsey Show app on your smartphone. Catch the full show or watch the highlights and check out Dave's upcoming guests. Head to the App Store and download it today.