The Ramsey Show - App - The Best Calls of the Year So Far (Part 4 - Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks, and my daughter is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. Cheryl is in Medford, Oregon. Hi, Cheryl. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave and Rachel, for taking my call. This is a first-time caller, and I'm happy to be here. Well, we're honored to have you.

Glad you're here, Cheryl. Big breath. So I have a question. I'm in my late 60s, and I'm married happily to my husband. We have five adult children. I've been listening for about a year. And what's changed in my situation is my mom passed away about five months ago. Sorry.

And thank you. It's been, she was sick for a while, so, you know, it still was hard. But the situation is she left. We grew up on a piece of property there, and she's been there since about 1958. And we all grew up there, and now this property is in a trust, and we're all trying to figure out how to divide it amongst us. And it's just been really volatile, not that I haven't contributed to it because I'm a woman, but I just want to do and honor the Lord and just honor my sister and my brother,

but it's difficult because they've all put a lot of money into the ranch, and my mother has it in the estate that she wants it divided amongst us, and we've kind of been an outsider because we've branched in other places and now we're here now and we're just trying to figure out our role what is the trust asking people to do and what is it they don't want to do um the trust has asked that we divide it equally amongst ourselves how is that fair if they put money into it and you didn't? Let's see, how do I go about that? They invested it in areas that benefited them and kind of an area that they wanted to.

How did it benefit them? They didn't own it. Did they make money off of that? Yes. One was in hemp, trying to grow hemp for a couple years and building a building that utilized that resource. And then another was in... Yeah, but that building now has a value, regardless of whether hemp's in it or not. Correct. $50,000. Yeah.

And that building, if they built that building with their money, your mom didn't, that should be their money, right? Correct. If I was them, that's how I would see it. Okay. Which is, let me tell you, the whole idea that they would build a building on someone else's property without having everything lined out in the trust in detail was pretty stupid because it sets up a big argument your mother and um your brothers and sisters should have their butts kicked for not doing this properly because it

leaves you in a lurch so they what is it they're wanting to do the brothers and sisters my sister has moved a lot of property uh let's see, has moved buildings onto the property and put buildings on the property, some of them legitimate and some of them not. And then she wanted $150,000 for providing care for my mother. But the trust doesn't allocate that. No, and then she lived on the property and her children did. 50% of her children did at the same time for the last five years. With no rent?

Correct. Okay. All right. And so, well, so I guess the negotiating is that I assume you guys have an estate. Who's the trustee? My brother. Oh, Jesus. Okay. The youngest. And so he's really caught My brother. Oh, Jesus.

Okay. The youngest. And so he's really caught in this. Bless his heart. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Okay, so his job, unless you guys come to a mutual conclusion otherwise, he doesn't have a choice. He legally has to follow the terms of the trust, whether he wants to or not.

His only out is that everyone agree to something different and go along with it. But otherwise, he's going to divvy this up straight up. He has to, because otherwise he's liable for suit. He has a fiduciary trust responsibility as the trustee to execute the terms of the trust. If he doesn't, any one of you that are the beneficiaries would have cause against him. So Cheryl, the fact that you know that there's other, you know, they've put money into it. How are you feeling? Are you on one side saying, yeah, you got to divide it up a third, a third, a third.

It's what it says. Or are you like, I want to be fair in this and do the right thing. I just don't know what it is. Where are you at in all of it? Well, it's kind of complicated because all the assets are on one part of the property. It's worth 2.2, but it's hard. Some of it's exclusive farming. And so you can't really do anything with it and that necessarily can build on it. And that's the part that we've been interested in but then when we research it it's going to be pretty expensive to try to you know put things that we have to do to live there and we live about an hour away why don't you just sell it and that's that's a possibility too your part i mean just sell your part oh well we've we've just wanted to farm. You know, it's kind of our way to try to – well, we have cattle.

We don't have a place for them. We have a couple at the ranch right now, but we have – So you're thinking about moving on the property? Well, we've been thinking about it, but it's been a little long. Next door to all these people that you disagree with. That sounds joyful. That's what I'm concerned about. Yeah, I guess so.

That doesn't sound fun at all. Like next door to my brother who's still mad about something that happened 15 years ago. Oh, my God. I would have to have real good, solid, loving, harmonious relationships before I'd want to live next door to him. And I don't know if this story you're telling me ends there. So you need to consider that part of it. But here's your bottom line on the whole thing. Let's pretend that you wanted to allow your hemp brother

and your sister tenant to get a little more than you got because they put buildings on it. In my mind, the care that she provided for your mom is offset by the fact she got free rent. So that's absolute bull. I'm dropping that one if I'm you. But she gets nothing. She already got it. It's called free rent.

And so then whoever brought buildings on will take the value of those buildings out of the equation and then split what's left three ways then they get their buildings back and so that because you should not benefit i don't think ethically from them putting a building on the property because you didn't put money in it it's their money again the whole thing was dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb that you all let that the family did this doing this stuff is how people end up not speaking to each other generationally you end up with the hatfields and the mccoys and so yeah you're just it's just dumb but anyway it's all that's water under the bridge but let's say that you said all right we're going to take the buildings off.

Now we run an appraisal. Then you get your buildings back. So, you know, you got your buildings back, and then I get my third of what's left. I would agree to doing that. And no $150,000, that is exchanged for the free rent. If you all agree to that, then little brother, the trustee, can go along with that. Otherwise, he has to execute the trust. He does not have a choice. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get

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CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Dr. John Deloney-Ramsaysey Personality, is my co-host today. Debbie is in San Francisco on line five. Hi, Debbie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Maybe not.

I think I messed it up. Try again. How about now? Debbie, you there? I am here. There we go. What's try again. How about now? Debbie, you there? I am here. There we go. What's up? How can we help? Well, I just want to know if there's ever a time when it would make sense to pay off home debt with traditional IRA. My situation is that I recently retired,

and before I retired, we were cruising along. We owe on our house about $65,000. We had everything paid off. My husband's self-employed and had a business credit card that he would pay off every month through that. And all of a sudden, we had a situation after I retired where we had a series of unfortunate things happen. So now I'm sitting here and it's like we owe $64,000 on the house. We now have a brand new car loan that I didn't plan on buying for another year or two. And we're basically retired. My husband's still doing a

little bit of side work. How old are you? I'm 65. And how much is in your retirement? We have $1.1 million. Why did you not just take out money and buy a car because it's all in traditional i don't care so yeah well okay so that that's that's my question you have no money except your iras well we had about 40 000 but now it's down to about $5,000. You have no money, basically, except your IRAs. Correct, yeah. You have a million dollars in traditionals. Yes.

Way to go. You're millionaires. You're amazing. It's great, but I'm so stressed out by having to do that. The fact that it feels all trapped kept it from feeling amazing, but let's just take a minute here and go, hey, Debbie's a millionaire. just stop and say that right well thank you yeah and her old man is too because he took the ride with her so there we go but yeah all right so what do y'all own a stupid car okay so we have 32 000 okay so you need 100 grand so you're gonna Ta-da! Yeah. Okay, so it's my stupid tax, right?

No. You have to pay taxes on it. Yeah. Yeah. You might as well pay some taxes. Okay, so I'm so relieved that you're saying this. Yes. Yeah, the only time we tell people not to cash out retirement at your age to pay off debt is if they don't have enough like if you told me i have a five hundred

thousand dollar mortgage and i have six hundred thousand in my retirement i'd be going that's a hard one right you're not but you're not looking at that you got 900 grand left over when we finish talking right and uh and then the other time we tell people not to use retirement is if they're not over 59 and a half so they get penalized so you don't cash out your 401k when you're 45 because the government takes 10 plus your tax rate and they kick your butt so all you're going to get hit with is the taxes that you have never yet paid on this earning on these earnings oh i'm going to sleep so much better tonight okay so yeah you're debt for your debt free by the end of the week you got a couple uh keystrokes on the computer to do to get the money out

and get over there, and then you're fine. And you've got mandatory required minimum distributions at 72. You know that, right? Yes, yes. Okay. Very aware of that, but I just felt like I had screwed everything up. No, you haven't screwed everything up. I mean, the only thing you did, you probably bought a –

I might go back and revisit that car decision it sounds like you guys panicked but uh but yeah but either way um you know uh you got the money you're millionaires i mean you can make a forty thousand dollar mistake when you have a million you can't make a forty thousand dollar mistake when you have forty thousand it's kind of a problem so um but you set yourself up and it's not even a mistake because you actually own the car and now we're just paying it off the only big mistake was that so that that's the process all right let's go to uh joel in houston hi joel welcome to the ramsey show hi ramsey how are you doing better than we deserve how can dr john and i help well thank you so much for taking me on um but see i'm calling

you today is because i'm very nervous um about the new student loan payments you know resuming and everything um so i'm 24 years old you know i make sixty thousand dollars a year and i am soon to be married so i'm currently engaged congratulations thank you sir thank you appreciate it um what do you do yeah so um i am a so i work in logistics uh transposition logistics you got a supply chain degree and you make 60 grand yes sir that sucks you need to make more than that you're probably worth 80 i'm working towards it yet it took a while to get a 60 no i'm telling you dude the marketplace right now is about 80 for a newly graduated i mean you got a four-year degree in supply chain

yes sir okay yeah you're underpaid i'll just tell you you need to go look at anyway what how much student loan debt have you got uh so i have about 30 000 on a car you know 30 000 joel and you make 60 okay how much is your student loan debt 18k okay and and your fiancee what's she do uh she works for um a government facility it's a children's assessment center um you know they take care of children they have what she make whatever um she makes 19 an hour and she has a four-year degree yes criminal justice okay uh the two of you are vastly underpaid so we're going to work on your careers for sure um you bought a car you can't afford sir the car is in cray cray land nutty nutty 30 a $60,000 car you make i mean you make 60 and you have a $30,000 car that doesn't work you don't have a student loan problem you got a car problem yeah i nervous laugh means you're gonna keep it what's that mean and listen dude i i drove the streets of houston that's where i grew

up in a 1988 tercel easy hatchback a thousand bucks you don't need a forty thousand dollar car when you're broke that is true it was just an emergency. I had no. No, it's not a $30,000 emergency. It wasn't. The beer just fell in my mouth, officer. No, you bought it. Okay, man. Nervous laughs aside. The number one mistake newly minted college graduates make is they go buy a car they can't afford. So you're not dumb.

You just did what most college graduates do. You went and bought a car they can't afford. So you're not dumb. You just did what most college graduates do. You went and bought a car you can't afford. And if you don't hear this loud and clear, it's going to hold you back because if you didn't have a, what, $650 car payment making $60,000, you wouldn't be calling me about the student loan debt. So if I woke up in your shoes, if you were my son and you call me my nephew and you call me and you said i'm getting ready to get married papa dave uh what should i do to get ready to have a great life with this woman i'm in love with i would say work on your career you're

underpaid you're worth more than you think you're worth in the marketplace today you're a stud supply chain is an excellent degree field. Way to go. Good choice. And you bought a car that indicates you were doing drugs. So stop doing this. Stop. Stop. Stop. Get rid of this.

This would be Papa Dave talking to my nephew. I'd be going, you're out of control, dude. You've got to sell it. So the best thing you can do for the future Joel and the future Joel's wife is to get rid of this car and get you a beater and get rid of student loans as fast as you can by living on beans and rice, rice and beans, and work on your career choice. And she needs to work on hers. You go get a four-year degree to make $19. You can make $19 at Target if you didn't even get out of high school.

So that's just ridiculous she again you both have accepted positions and you've somehow justified or rationalized it that you're you're both worth more than you have been so far but it's time time to work on those two areas if i were you that's what i would do yeah my my dad's a criminal justice professor i know that's underpaid i know that's too low and there's a number of things you can do across that that well yeah a whole bunch of stuff you can do with criminal justice but but that's not 19 dollars right so i mean and by the way that's that's that's when when we say that that's when she says well i really love working with these kids so i get that yeah i get that but right now you can't afford to do follow your heart or do your passion thing or whatever instagram is telling you to do because you got y'all got bills

quit your job and work with a youth group of the church, but that doesn't make sense. You got bills to pay. You do work with a youth group of church and work a job. That's how you do that. You do both. You can't mix the two up and be underpaid. It doesn't work. So, hey, man, we're going to put you guys through Financial Peace University as our

wedding gift. Hold on. Austin's going to pick up. And we were messing with you pretty hard, but if you listen to what we said, it's going to help you. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show, question of the day, sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. From repairs and maintenance to remodeling and upgrades, Neighborly's trusted home service providers have trained local experts to handle almost any job.

Download the Neighborly app and you can connect to all the help you need. These are great people. They are. Today's question of the day comes from Paula in Georgia. My son's school is running a food bank, so I sent him with some highly requested items, such as peanut butter, canned soup, and tuna fish. When my husband saw them, he insisted we don't donate quality items like these and instead only donate rice and beans. I'm aware that you've told people to eat beans and rice if they're on a tight budget and cannot afford to indulge in nicer foods. However, I also know that you value generosity and giving,

and I didn't see anything wrong with donating something other than beans and rice. Do you believe that the same principle applied to those on a tight budget should also be applied to recipients of food banks? Oh, brother. I don't mean to laugh, but it's just so silly. That's silly. It's silly. Yeah. Number one, when we say beans and rice to laugh, but it's just so silly. That's silly. It's silly. Yeah.

Number one, when we say beans and rice, honey, it's a metaphor. Yeah. A metaphor is a representation philosophically of an actual item. I am not suggesting that people only live on beans and rice. I am suggesting that you quit spending so dadgum much money on food, especially eating out all the time. So probably prime rib is not on your list or lobster tail, but possibly even some hamburger helper might make the list. You don't have to just literally do beans and rice. It's a metaphor.

I think this guy was just looking for an excuse to be a tightwad, be a cheapskate. He didn't have to look for an excuse. He already was. I mean, goodness gracious. tightwad be a cheapskate you don't have to look for an excuse he already was i mean goodness gracious and it's not like tuna fish is that big of an upgrade from rice and beans i mean come on now and here's the deal i mean what we're talking about is you limiting your consumption so you can create margin yeah to move ahead we're not talking about those poor people don't need any good food what in the world seriously seriously yeah that's horrible yes they need some good food send them some good food you

cheapskate your wife is right your son is even better learn from them sir yeah oh my gosh if you're going to give something away be generous with with what you're giving. That's right. I'm going to give you a car, but it doesn't really run because you can figure that out for yourself. What in the world? You know what, Dave, though? Okay, so I've been here about 13 months, 14 months. I am shocked at how many people I've encountered that think their beans and rice, rice and

beans thing is literal. Let me tell you what's worse okay 30 years of doing this I have had precisely 4732 offers to co-author a beans and rice cookbook with other listeners I made that up but it's close to 4 000 I mean it's unbelievable then and apparently it would be a best seller if we could just get the people that wanted to co-author it look with me to buy it but yeah people keep asking me about it and i'm like beans and rice cookbook no it's it's a it's a metaphor it's a metaphor yes you can't you can't eat different look it up look up metaphor it's good oh my gosh yeah but we don't need to be going out to eat every night. It's some fancy spancy thing, or for that matter, for fast food. Yeah.

Because it's fast, but it's not necessarily food. And the, and, you know, you're working so that you can learn, you put yourself as a guy I used to work for would say, we're working so I can get enough money that i can read the menu from left to right i know that's right i don't start with the price i get to start with the thing and pick what i want prices are irrelevant but when you're broke you self-manage your consumption not other people imposing on you yeah they're they their beans and rice so oh my gosh yeah then you're entering into like a judgment kind of zone i think and it's like well just be generous if you can yeah i mean i yeah you

kind of missed the point sir yeah kind of not kind of you did all right Ayla is with us. Ayla's in Washington, D.C. Hi, Ayla. What's up? Hi, Mr. Ramsey. Hey. I was wondering if we should pay off our current mortgage and relocate for a cheaper mortgage. What's making you ask that question? Pay off your current mortgage or relocate and get a cheaper mortgage. What would be cheaper than a paid off mortgage? Um, so we bought a house that needed to be fixed up. So we fixed it up and now it's, we just had a realtor come out and tell us what we could list it as. My husband was in the military and just got out and his job fell through so it kind of shook us and we just wanted to move somewhere with the proceeds to have a cheap enough mortgage to be covered by my disability okay um so you're not you don't have the opportunity to pay off your mortgage

you're talking about moving to a less expensive property because you're scared about his income. Right. Why do you think he's not going to get an income? It's not so much that he wouldn't get one. We're just kind of thinking about reprioritizing our time. The house that we bought is a historic house, so it takes a lot of maintenance. We do a lot of the work ourselves. That's a different discussion.

What do you owe on that house? $490,000. I already don't like the house. I hate that we have spent so much time on it. We can get some good money for it and get something I like is a good, reasonable move. I'm using his lack of a job and a cheaper mortgage as my excuse is not okay. Okay. You see the difference?

We're both on the same boat. The boat where he doesn't work? Just that he has more flexibility, and we're not tied down to... Doesn't work much. How old is he? Well, not right now. How old is he? We're 25 and 26.

Okay, he needs to get a career, darling. It's not good for him to not work much i'm not saying he won't work i am saying he needs to get a career where he works okay i'm hearing the code words in your language he's not wanting to work much at all and that's worrying part of it is he got knocked out of the saddle and didn't get the other job and it's he's lost some of his confidence and you're clearly worried because you're talking about selling your house and relocating so that you could only live on your disability like you said it with your own words i don't think that that came out right we okay he wants to work that's not the issue the issue is is that we want to be more flexible with

not having to deal with the house and not having a mortgage that's so high is the mortgage more than 25 percent of your take-home pay it is now that he's not working but before that was it no it wasn't okay okay so your mortgage amount is not your problem the house if you want to get rid of a house that's a money pit where you work on it all the time i don't blame you i would do that okay but let's not couch that in he wants more flexibility and when i'm talking about his job your answer is he wants more flexibility it wasn't when i was talking about the house repairs you said that so i didn't i didn't misunderstand you you said it real clearly so what what we need to do let's let's let's parse

this out and break it up number one the two of you need to get really good cool strong careers that you're passionate about i will send you a copy of ken coleman's book from paycheck to purpose number two it doesn't sound like your mortgage is off me neither and i'm actually wondering number three i would sell a house it's a money pit and i had to screw with it all the time it drove me nuts that's true but i don't know that if it's a money pit that's one thing but i don't know i'd be interested to know more. She's in Washington, D.C. Where does she plan on relocating where she's going to? They may be moving to a whole different city. Yeah, that's possible, but yeah, which would be less expensive

for sure. Yeah, I'm getting rid of the money pit, but I'm also getting a career and probably getting a house about the same price range that in the money pit. Want to make the move. That would be my advice to you guys. Don't mix these things together and create some kind of false narrative that's not really going on, okay? That's what I heard you saying. I think you were saying it whether you wanted to or not. This is The Ramsey Show.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Johnny is with us in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Great. Well, I'm calling to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. I'm 22 years old. I fully support myself. I take home about $5,000 per month. I have zero debt. I have $60,000 in savings, a $3,000 emergency fund. And I've been listening for the past year or so. And some of my friends and mentors are into long-term real estate investing. So I've been saving towards that for the past couple of years. Ideally, I'd like to start building some long-term wealth. And so I just wanted to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. Wow. You are beyond, beyond ahead of the game. Well done. Very well done. Thank you. Well, I, um, probably have a different view on real estate investing than

your mentors. Sure. And I probably own more than they do given that I own about 600 million worth. Okay. Um, but anyway, the, uh, uh, I do not believe in borrowing money, Johnny, because you, and you've heard that listening to the show and I don't for my real estate investing, I pay cash for it. And so the first real estate investing I did, and I've always loved real estate, um, that I did after going broke and starting completely over, and with this new I don't borrow money thing as a part of the guidelines, was I didn't do real estate investing at first. I just started piling money in mutual funds. And when I got enough in an index fund is what I used, an S&P 500 index fund,

it took me about five years to buy my first income-producing property. I paid cash for it. And then I took all of those rents, net of expenses, and any other money I could, and I threw it in an index fund until I had enough to buy another property. And then I took all the rents from the two properties and any money I could scrape together from anywhere else, book royalties or whatever else, and I bought another property for cash. And every time I bought another property for cash, I had more cash flow to buy another property faster than I did the one before. Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

That is a very long-term play versus what you have been considering until this phone call. Sure. Because you're thinking about getting up and down payment and going buying a nice little duplex in California. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm telling you to wait and pay cash for it, which your friends aren't going to like. And I don't really care. They're wrong.

That's true. But you called knowing you were going to get a different take, which tells me you're actually interested in this take. I am, yeah. I've just been curious what to do because I feel like I've been saving decently, and I'd like to continue that. But, you know, once you get a certain amount of money, I feel like it burns a little bit of a hole in your pocket.

You're ready to jump into it. Yeah, and you've done really well, Johnny. I mean, let's face it you're 22 years old you have 60 000 bucks in the in the bank and no debt at all and you're making 5k a month you're killing it ding ding very impressive and it doesn't sound like you lead a super luxurious lifestyle you're a saver i i try to be for sure there's a balance so the key is to keep living on less than you make what would be interesting if you want to be really nerdy, I don't know how nerdy you are, I'm real nerdy,

and I've done this a couple of times, and it always works, that's why I'm putting you up to it, is if you say, all right, when I'm 42, would I rather own $10 million worth of real estate with $8 million worth of debt, or would I rather own $3 million worth of real estate with eight million dollars worth of debt or would i rather own three million dollars worth of paid for real estate yeah i think the clear answer is that three million yeah and then here's what's into here's the here's the exercise run out the the purchase snowball which is not a debt snowball but the way i talked about a while ago rents buy buy more, buy more, buy more, buy more. Everything's folded back into the next deal,

and the slower start ends up with a faster end. The faster start ends up with a slower end. My way is slower start, but has a big time payoff at the end because it hockey sticks from an exponential mathematical equation perspective does any of that make sense yeah definitely it does because when you get all this property that's sitting there paid for you are buying more property faster than you would have if you had a whole bunch of property that's not even close to paid for, and it's not cash flowing nearly as generously. So the math says I can buy more property faster now. It's ridiculous what my real estate fund now looks like from my real estate income. Now, because I'm at the back of the story, right?

But I can't get people to think long-term. And I might have just got one 22-year-old to do it, though. I'm impressed. He sounded interested. Yeah, we might have. If we could just get off TikTok, we'll get there. For real. Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa.

Hi, Jake. How are you? Hey, guys. It's an honor to speak with you. Thanks for having me. Our pleasure. How can we help, sir? Yeah, so I'm

35 years old, have no debt, and am about to step into Baby Step 6. And my question is, you talk about Baby Step 7, living and giving like no one else. I have no problem with the giving aspect of things. The part that is a little tricky for me to wrap my mind around is the living like no one else because I am a pastor. And so to be stepping into baby step seven, hopefully here in the next five or six years, I'm trying to imagine life in my forties, living like no one else while being a pastor and living in the community of people who, uh, who pay for, who have paid for my, uh, financial success, you could say, I don't know how else you would put it, but how should I think through that as I look forward to the next five or 10 years?

Yeah. Well, um, don't muzzle the ox as he treads out the grain. You probably read that scripture, right? Yeah. And a worker is worthy of his hire. You probably read that scripture, right? Mm-hmm. So are you a good pastor and you're worth what they pay you?

I sure hope so. Okay. Then if you use that money wisely, in Christianity we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we? Mm-hmm. If you use that money wisely, in Christianity we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we? I think you're modeling for those people what the results of good stewardship are, that it ends up with wealth. But we're taught by Karl Marx, not by Jesus, that wealth is evil. Wealth is not evil. People are evil evil particularly some of them in your church i'm kidding no but uh not much but yeah anyway but yeah but but so you're always gonna have a hater whether you win or you lose if you do it at scale. Yeah.

If you lose, you aren't a good steward, and you're horrible, and you worked your whole life, and you have nothing to show for it, and we call that being a good steward. That's not a good steward. That means you did a bad job handling your money. So you're supposed to model for your congregation how to be a good husband, how to be a good dad, right? Right. How to be a great leader. We're supposed to model in Christianity. It's called a witness.

And yet, my friend Craig Groeschel says, why is it that wealth is the only blessing from God we're supposed to apologize for? And I've got several friends that are pastors that are a decade and a half ahead of you, and they're facing the exact same thing because they have systematically carefully invested in their 401ks and in their Roth IRAs and in their retirement programs. And some of them have bought real estate carefully, and they don't have jet airplanes. They're not on TV. It's none of that junk. They're just good guys as a pastor, and they've been careful with their income,

and most of them are millionaires because they did the stuff I teach. But now there's always some duper that says, well, a pastor should never be a millionaire. Yeah, that's what I want. I want my pastor to be broke and stupid. No, I don't either. I want my pastor – I don't want – you know, a pastor should never – listen, I want my pastor – I want his marriage to be something I can look up to. I want his kids to be't want I want you know pastor should never listen I want my pastor I

want his marriage to be something I can look up to I want his kids to be something I can look up to I want the way he handles money to be something I can look up to because obviously the book he is reading has having an effect on his life and I want to know more about what that book called the bible says then but not if you're out you know so but you're always going to be criticized Jake whether it's about your message or the car but you're always going to be criticized jake whether it's about your message or the car you drive there's going to be someone out there and you know you have to get if you're a christian you have to drive and use the cord because that's what jesus said they were all in one accord oh that one still gets me this is the ramsey show Hey, George Campbell here.

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