The Ramsey Show - App - The Car Payment Is the Mantra of the Middle Class (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, that's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Becky starts off this hour in Tennessee. Hi, Becky. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay, I have a question. We are in Baby Step 7, and I wanted to get your opinion on landscaping, specifically hardscaping, permanent stuff for a home in regard to return on investment. We bought this home in 2011 for half a million dollars. It was built in 2003 for 1.6 million. The area in which we live in, houses don't fly off the market. And this house is particularly unique because it's very large.

And so my husband and I would like to put in some definite changes in landscaping, but are concerned about return on investment when we would go to sell it. So it's worth what today? What would you think you could get for it today without the repairs? I'm going to be real conservative and say probably $600, $650. Wow. So that market has not recovered then? It's very interesting.

There's some unique pockets in the town that, depending if you live in a certain neighborhood, the house is going to be... But million-dollar houses, there's not many in that county. No, no. Not many selling anyway. Okay. No, no. And like I said, we got an amazing, amazing deal on this house, not to mention that the size, it's about a 10,000-square-foot home.

And so a lot of people aren't looking for that size. We were blessed to find it because we do have a large family. And like I said, the price was amazing. Per square foot, you got a great deal. All right, so what are you talking about spending on the hardscape? We're looking at like maybe $50. Okay, and what's your household income? $425.

And what's your total net worth? If you add the conservative value of the home that I'm looking at, it's over a million. Okay, so your other stuff is you're making $400,000, but you only have about $400,000 in retirement? Correct. Okay. Previously, we paid off our prior home that we were in, and we're kind of late to the game in investing. That's okay.

So do you still have the other house? No, no, no, no. We sold the other home. Oh, and bought this one. I got you. Okay. Correct, correct. So you've not been making this kind of money long.

Okay. All right. How long do you plan to stay in the house? I'd say at least another 10 years. Okay. Well, basically, can you burn $5,000 a year for comfort, creature comforts, for the next 10 years, making $4.25. Yes, you can. And so if it doesn't add a diamond value, you're okay.

If you just said, we're going to consume this money as a matter of enjoyment. And, of course, it's going to add some value. But I doubt that that marketplace is much going to appreciate $50,000 worth of landscaping improvements. I mean, I don't know. I mean, we don't know if we can even sell this house at any price because the market is so thin there for houses of this type and this size. So it's a little difficult to tell, you know, increase the value 50,000 I don't know I mean somebody burping over there might increase it 50,000 because it's just such a thin market you follow me yes so I think you'll it'll probably increase the value of the home it's my best guess

but even if it didn't you can afford that level of consumption if you get enjoyment out of it okay and when you look at it at fifty thousand dollars over ten years making four and a quarter that's five thousand dollars a year and you look at it that way it's okay so if you're putting in a swimming pool you know are you going to splash around in the pool that much for ten years probably you know with your household income you can afford to do that it's not the end of the world um and uh and you probably are also going to increase the value of the home or at least the likelihood of it being attractive enough to actually sell someday when you got ready to sell it that kind of thing but that's hard to put a dollar figure on that part of it the probability sale is, you know, that doesn't really add technical dollars

to an equation. All right, Kiona is with us in Virginia. Hey, Kiona, how are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so me and my husband, we owe $125,000 in debt, and we have two cars together. It's $125,000 in debt. And we have two cars together is $75,000 of our debt. One is 20, about almost 18,000 upside down. So we're trying to see our options. We're not on that yet for baby steps,

but we want to see if we can sell them, either both of them now or try to sell the one that's the most and try to get a personal loan. We just wanted to see what their rights would be. Let's break this down for a second. Car number one is worth what? Car number one is worth $44. Well, it's worth, or how much we owe on it. How much it's worth? It's worth $26,000.

Who said? I did a KBB online. Private sale or trade-in? That was private sale. Okay. And you owe on the $26,000 car how much money? $44,000. That's your 18 spread, right?

Yes. Okay. Car number two is worth what? It is worth $16,000. That's your 18 spread, right? Yes. Okay. Car number two is worth what? It is worth 16,000. And what do you owe on it? 33,000. Good Lord. I know. So in both of these instances, you rolled negative equity from your trade in on the previous purchase, right? Yes, sir. So you've just been perpetuating

this craziness ouch ouch what's your household income 120 000 you told me that you told me that okay yeah they gotta go but it's you know basically what we're getting rid of we get rid of them we get rid of thirty two thousand dollars out of your hundred twenty five thousand dollars in debt right yes sir and the rest of that debt moves over to unsecured loans who are the loans with on these cars pen fed what's that subprime it's a it credit union. Oh, good. What's your interest rate? I'm not sure of the interest rate on the bigger loan, but the smaller loan is about 5.36. I think there's something really good emotionally, relationally, and spiritually about breaking the cycle of cars being a curse in your family. It doesn't move the needle a ton on your get-out-of-debt plan, but it moves it some.

But more than anything, it's you just going, we're never doing this again. We're breaking the cycle. I'm selling both of them. Sit down with the credit union and get them to let you sign a note for the difference and get them sold and get you a couple of hoopties. And then let's get about the business of cleaning up the rest of this $80,000 in debt. Ouch. Yeah, you've got to break this cycle.

It's killing your family. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, let's cut through the bull. Interest rates are exceptionally low, so you're missing out if you have not called Churchill Mortgage to see if you can save money on your home loan. Lots of other companies are out there claiming great deals, but don't get lured by slick advertisements. No-cost refinance offers do not mean they're free. Churchill Mortgage has a

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Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We are glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Stephen's with us in Georgia. Hi, Stephen. How are you?

I'm good, Dave. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I wanted to ask you, my wife and I are on baby steps four, five, and six, and we have two daughters, a nine-year-old and a six-year-old. The nine-year-old has about $35,000 in her college fund. The six-year-old has about $20,000 in her college fund.

And at the beginning of this year, of 2019, when we sat down with our financial advisor to kind of do a yearly checkup, he just brought up that especially the older daughter was getting a pretty good chunk of money in the college fund. And he suggested maybe instead of putting money every month into the college fund, we just open a separate account that would basically be invested in the same thing in a mutual fund. And that way, once she went to college, if she didn't need all that money, and that it would, that basically we would just have access to the money at that point. The obvious disadvantage being we would have paid taxes up to that point, whereas with the 529, we would not. But when, if when if we just decided hey she's gone through college

she didn't need as much as as uh is there we could i could go buy an airplane or something like that without playing paying a penalty on the uh on the uh withdrawal and so i was wondering your opinion on that if you thought that was a good idea should we put should we put make sure we get more money in there before we start doing that, or what's your thoughts, Mark? Well, I would want to make sure that that's going to grow to enough to send her to school, and I'm a little nervous about only $60,000 or $70,000 being in there. And I don't know what you've got this invested in, but $60,000 or $70,000 sounds a little shy. I might want to beef it up a little bit more. The general concept's not bad.

The thing is the only thing you're going to lose is just the taxes on it because obviously the 529 is tax-free growth, and the UTMA is taxed at the kids' rate, which is going to be very low to nothing probably, so you're probably not going to experience any taxation on the growth there. But if you put that in the kid's name, the secondary fund that you're talking about, you can't go buy an airplane with it. Right.

Well, I think that was kind of a middle option. And then he had also suggested, because his suggestion with the UTMA was, you know, he had had clients, and I believe this is true, maybe I'm misstating, but the UTMA they get, it's theirs when they turn 18. 21. No, 21. If you put the money in the kid's name, it's taxed at the kid's rate. That's called a Uniform Transfer to Minors Act. It becomes their money at 21.

You're the custodian until then, and there's no airplane purchase out of that. Right, and his thing with the UTMA was, yes, if you, you know, obviously, you know, we would never suggest that anything would go wrong with my kids, but he had had clients before where the kids had kind of gone off the rails, but now there's nothing they can do. They have this chunk of money that's coming to them at 21. So he had suggested, hey, maybe you just set it up in an account in your name that you say, hey, I'm going to use this for college education,

and if I don't need it for college education, I can use it for it for whatever i want yeah and now it's taxed at your rate right well and that's that that being the disadvantage to pretty substantial pretty substantial mathematical disadvantage then so um you know it's up to you it's not it's not the end of the world because the amount of money that we're talking about here is the difference in the taxation might be 15 or 20 000 bucks right so it uh the what i'm hearing in behind all of this is a substantial income and you've been in control for a long time and you have a system and a process and you're winning and so uh i don't think the difference in this is much more than a a whole lot more than a theoretical discussion it's not going to change

your life one way or the other yeah essentially yes that's my point so it doesn't matter much i i probably would go a little further into the 529 i just hate giving the government money well that's where i went to i that was my that was my reservation was and then and you know looking at college cost and then the the oldest daughter says she wants to be a vet and it's like well if she wants to do that we're going to need it she's going to need a big chunk of money so yeah she's going to need a plan too right well yes absolutely yeah like phenomenal grades and scholarships and all kinds of stuff so hey man good question it's okay to do it i'm probably going to beef those 529s up a little more before i go that route um and you know that's a

consideration all right up next is going to be sherry in indiana hi sherry how are you hi dave i'm fine how are you better than i deserve what's up well um i am 56 years old and i'm an empty nester now but um we got our kids through college, but we, hindsight, we did not save for their college fund. And so once they got into school, they took out some student loans. They still came up short for tuition, and the registrar's office told us this great thing about a Parent PLUS loan. Oh, crap. Yes. So we took out Parent PLUS loans for both my children. Oh, crap. the payments, not realizing that deferring the payments, not paying even on the interest,

but that interest is going to roll over to the balance the following year. Yep. And so by the time that we got them through college, we now have $80,000 worth of debt in cash loans. And so then they've contacted us because the last one was now done. So, of course, now it's time to start paying back. So for my convenience, they're going to set me up with a 30-year loan at $603 a month. And by that time, I'm going to be paying back.

And you keep saying we. You and your husband? My husband and I, yes. Okay. And what is your household income at 52 years old? Well, I'm 56, he's 58. Okay, what's your household income? $77,000.

$77,000. Okay, both of you are working 40 hours? I was a part-time teacher, but medical reasons, I am now not working. What is the nature of your medical problems? I have neuropathy in my legs and lymphedema swelling, so now we have also medical bills on top of this. Okay. All right. What's your husband do for a living?

He works at a car manufacturing plant. Okay. All right. What's your husband do for a living? He works at a car manufacturing plant. Okay. He's an engineer. Okay. As an engineer? Yes, an engineer apartment. Okay. All right. Because here's what I'm thinking.

Number one, we're not going to do a 30-year plan. So far, everything these people have suggested to you has hurt you, so I don't think we're going to use them for suggestions for anything what i would rather do is pay off forty thousand dollars a year for two years which would mean that you would probably be doing some uh teaching uh some tutoring that you could do depending on your health from your home at uh twenty five or thirty dollars an hour as much of it as you can possibly do with your health condition. And he's going to be looking for extra work or overtime. And you guys are going to work like maniacs because you have made a huge mess. And this thing is going to ride you into the grave if you don't punch it in the face hard.

Well, we do not realize that you can't get like a like a personal loan no you don't need a personal loan you have an eighty thousand dollar parent plus loan at an interest rate that is better than you can get on a bank loan so you have a forty thousand dollar a year problem for two years and it's gone okay that's $3,200 a month. And that means you're going to be living on nothing. You're going to stop all retirement savings. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You're not going on vacation.

And you're going to lean in with great focused intensity. Okay, if we want to do it over three years, what would it be? $30,000, $2,500 a month. But somewhere north of $2,000, hopefully north of $3,000 a month is going on this because extreme measures are going to be taken in your household to get your income up and your expenses down in order to do that. Otherwise, this thing's going to ride you to death into the grave.

It's killing you. It's unbelievable. And this is the debacle that is the student loan industry. This is the epic plague that is the student loan industry. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, if you're not using LinkedIn Jobs, you are missing out. Our Ramsey Solutions Company page on LinkedIn has over 100,000 followers. That's over 100,000 potential like-minded people our team communicates our current openings to. We also post on LinkedIn Jobs because we know the right person will have an

impact on our company for years to come, and LinkedIn Jobs matches the right person with the right job. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn, and over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals, and discover new job opportunities. In fact, LinkedIn members add 15 new skills to their profiles and apply to 35 job posts every two seconds. Get started today with LinkedIn Jobs and get $50 off your first job post. Visit linkedin.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. Well, we're in the last few days, weeks of our live event season for the fall.

Entree Leadership Master Series with 650 people sold out here this week in Nashville. Our team is teaching. Chris Coleman, Ken Coleman, Chris Hogan have been teaching, and some of our other team down there. I'll be down there tomorrow and Friday with them. Next week we head to Sacramento for our SMART conference, which is the day-long event with Dr. Meg Meeker on parenting, Dr. Les Parrott on marriage, Patsy Claremont speaking on fear,

which is a talk everyone should hear. It is stellar. Ken Coleman, of course, on careers. Chris Hogan, of course, on millionaires. Anthony O'Neill, of course, on teens and teen debt. I'll be there. My friend John O'Leary, which is one of the most inspiring stories I've ever heard, will be there. This is a day-long event.

It's only $59, and you would pay that to see any one of these speakers speak for an hour. It is a deal. It is the Smart Conference because we touch every area of your life, and when you leave there after that event, you will be smart. That's why we call it that, and it's very true. The bad news is that there's only, uh, 422 tickets left. Um, it's a 10,000 seat auditorium, so it's basically sold out. And so if you want tickets to that, it is one week from Friday and, uh, we would love

to have you there in Sacramento. You need to get them immediately. And that date is November the 16th. Uh, the following Thursday, Chris Hogan and I will be in Charleston, South Carolina to do a Financial Peace live event where we laugh with you, cry with you, walk you through the baby steps. There are 61 tickets left to that event. So it is sold out. Basically, you can still get a ticket today, but by the time most of you hear this they'll be gone so um you need to get that lined up by the way that is also uh simulcast or uh webcast and so we're streaming it live so you can purchase a ticket to watch it at home in the comfort of

your home with your family and it's a lot of fun. People come to the Financial Peace Live events. We walk through the baby steps. We walk through the stories behind it, the humor that's fun, the whole process. And so this is where you bring someone to one of these events that you've been trying to talk into doing this Dave Ramsey stuff, whether it's your spouse or your kids or your parents or your friends or whatever, and they think you're crazy, then do that. We're doing a money and marriage event that is a whole weekend of series of events, but the big event is February the 14th here in Nashville, and we've got all kinds of add-ons and things you can do this. This is the Valentine's edition of money and marriage with Rachel Cruz

and Dr. Les Parrott, and that thing is February 14th. It's almost sold out. And it's because everybody wants to come to Nashville for the weekend. And we've got some real weekend options for you to do after you attend the event on February the 14th. So make sure you check that out. Of course, we've got the 2,400 cabins sold out for the Live Like No One Else Cruise in March. We'll be announcing our springtime dates soon but uh for now basically stuff's gone so you can check it there's a handful of tickets here handful of tickets there on the other stuff uh but you best get on it right now if you want to do sacramento or you want to do um uh for the smart conference or you want to

do the money in marriage or you want to do the Money in Marriage, or you want to do the Financial Peace Live. Now, the Financial Peace Live streaming, that's unlimited, so it won't sell out. You can buy a ticket to that right up until two minutes before. That's just the way that works, right? Streaming's unlimited. So we'd love to have you at any of these things. The reason we run around all over the United States is to have a pep rally in your town and let you have a place where you can plug into the energy of all the other people who are actually doing this stuff how fun because there's actually

actual human beings doing this stuff aaron is with us aaron is in michigan hi aaron how are you oh not so good day and so i'm calling you what's up? I want to know, I'm trying to get started on Baby Step 1. I'm having trouble hearing you. Can you speak directly into your phone, please? Can you hear me? A little bit.

Try again. Yes, sir. How about now? Okay, that's a little better. Okay. So basically, we're paycheck to paycheck. I'm trying to get started on baby step one. Part of that is I have some credit card bills that are past due.

So my question is, should I just let those go with the intention of adding them into my debt snowball when I get to that point? Or should I really try hard to get them caught up because they're behind right now? Yeah. How far behind are you? I'm three months behind two of them and probably six months behind them. What's the balance on these things? Small balance. It's just $1,500. Say balance. It's just $1,500. Say one more time.

About $1,500. So about $4,500 altogether. Okay. So it's not much money. $200 brings this all current, right? Yes, sir. So what's your income? About $36,000 a year.

Working 40 hours? At least 40, sir. Okay. What do you do? I'm a security guard. Okay, cool. And are you single? Yes, sir. How old are you? 48. Okay, all right. Well, how much other debt have you got? Not counting these credit cards. Altogether, probably this includes student loans. I'm just under $32,000. Okay. And how much of that student loans? $21,000. And so how much do you owe on your car?

$6,300. $6,300. Okay. Cool, cool. Cool. All right. So what's your career aspirations? What do you want to be doing when you're 58? Well, I'd like to be retired by then. That's my goal.

Retiring? Yes, sir. I mean, what do you want to be doing for a career? I'll be in the security field. It's, you know, everybody needs security. It's a field that has a lot of potential, so I, you know.

Okay. And it's the only thing I know. So you see ways that you can double your income in that field? Yes, sir, because I'm just an officer. I mean, if I can get into a leadership position or even a director somewhere, I'll make more money than that. What I would do if I were in your shoes is I would sit

down and get on a detailed written budget. Check out everydollar.com. It'll help you do that with a free budgeting app because the money that you have is not very well organized. It's not working really hard for you and that's all the budget is is you're making your money behave you're telling it what to do instead of wondering where it went and then the second thing i would do is i would double my hours whether it's in the security guard world or something else i would go get another 30 hours or 40 hours a week to work because man you have a 200 problem that can be

solved with one weekend's work then you're current and then you start and adding you know you add ten thousand dollars to your income with extra work and uh that and tight budgeting and you could be completely debt free in two years and so there's a vision that needs to happen here an excitement that needs to happen here a belief a hope that needs to happen again because even in your voice it sounds low energy it sounds like you're just struggling and so I feel for you right now and I want to get you i want you to get you competing for the super bowl i want to get you jazzed up and working like a maniac and having big traction and scoring some touchdowns and spiking the ball knocking some of these debts completely out not be worrying about a 14 payment

that is four months behind that just means disorganization is what that means so you can do this you can do this. You can do this. Hold on. I'm going to give you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, which you can read on your break, and it'll show you what to do. But you don't need many breaks. You're going to be working all the time right now. Get your income up. Get your outgo under control and make those dollars dance.

Make them fly in formation. Crack the whip on that money. Make it behave. When you do all of that, you're going to see some pretty quick results based on the numbers you gave me. So hold on. Kelly will pick up. We'll get you a copy of the book, man. We'll get you going.

Hope that's helpful to you. God bless you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Rebecca's in Iowa. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Rebecca. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a two-fold question for you. My husband and I have been married 27 years,

and up until about nine years ago, we really didn't make very good money. But we're at that point where we're trying to decide on purchasing a home or putting more into our retirement. Up until nine years ago, because we weren't making a whole lot, we struggled to put a full 15% into our retirement plan. So gradually in the last nine years, we have increased it a little bit every year. But in that meantime of that nine years, we had purchased a business and well, actually about 11 years ago, we purchased a business and, um, the economy went kapook. So, um, we ended up closing that shop down and, um, I, we ended up owing about a hundred thousand dollars on that. And we paid that off

in three years. And, and, uh, and so in that meantime, we just didn't put tons into our retirement. The last two years, we have increased it and now we're paying with the health savings and retirement. We're at about 33% we're putting in of our check. Um, and, um, my husband just got transferred to Kansas. And so we're trying to decide if we should purchase a home right away or put, keep putting money back into retirement. Um, the area we're going to the cost of living or the housing has, um, is really high. Um have saved enough where we have about $150,000 down payment for a house, but in that area that we're moving to, that's not tons of money. So what area are you moving to? Around Kansas City. I mean, we would actually probably pay about half the house off. So do you own a home now?

No, we are completely debt-free. Okay, and what's your household income? $95,000. You're completely debt-free, but you don't own a home? Uh-uh, we just sold a home and um and um paid off all of our debts and and well we didn't really got 150,000 left to put down on a house in Kansas City yeah okay well what we teach is what we call the baby steps and baby step one is a thousand dollars two is to be debt free other than the home three is to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses.

And you do those three before you do anything else. And so do you have an emergency fund in addition to the $150,000 that you have for the down payment? Yeah. We have about a year's worth of income as well. Okay, that's too much. You should have about three to six months of expenses set aside in your emergency fund, not 12.

You don't need 12. Okay. It would probably be a little less than that because we're taking out some of that for. How much is in that account? Total, we have a little over about probably 210. And that includes the 150 or that's the 12 months? It's everything. Okay.

And so what is your household income again? $95,000. Okay. We've been renting for three years and we've been saving for that three years. So most of that money has been put back from us eating beans and potatoes. Good. Well, that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with saving money.

I'm just trying to allocate it properly. And so, you know, probably $30,000, $35,000, something like that, maybe $40,000 on the high side is your emergency fund, okay? And the rest of that is your down payment on your house. at that point we tell you have an emergency fund and then baby step four is not 33 going into retirement it's 15 going into retirement and um then we do baby step five and then so i would back that down to 15 i would set aside 40 of the 210 for your down for your emergency fund i'd use the rest of it as a down payment on your house. Do you have children that you're saving for college?

No. She's grown. But in those years beforehand, we weren't putting enough into our retirement. We were putting maybe 10%. How old are you? I'm 46. My husband's 62. You've got time.

You're all right. You're okay. Because here's the thing. When we get you to retirement, we want to have a retirement nest egg and a paid-for house. Yeah. Okay? So I want you to limit it to 15% of your income. If you don't do anything but 15% of $100,000 a year, that's $15,000 a year for 20 years,

you're going to be wealthy. If that's all you do in a good 401K and good growth stock mutual funds, you'll be wealthy. Okay. Okay. So you're okay. You're okay. No, don't panic. We're going to put the $170,000 down on the house, and we're going to buy a house where

the payment on a 15-year fixed is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay and then we're going to anything above the $15,000 more going into retirement we're going to place on the mortgage until it is paid off once the mortgage is paid off i'll go back that puts you at baby step seven then and i'll go back and attack and raise up all the retirement as high as you want to raise it up but and you can probably pay this house off with what you're telling me in about seven years it's not going to take you 15 if you do it that's the goal was to pay it off within five years was my goal so okay cool i mean i'm thinking seven because 15 but because again 25 of your take-home pay on a 15 year fixed with 170 000 down that's your max 15 going into retirement 170 down 40 in your emergency fund

and you've got a really solid plan here and um all the pain is in your rearview mirror you got you know you're not doing anything unwise you're gonna be very conservative and you're gonna walk this out let's get this house paid off and if you get paid off in five great that's even better it gets paid off to seven still you're 53 years old if you do that and you got plenty of time another 15 or 20 years to invest aggressively you should have a net worth if you follow the plan i just gave you and and your income stays at least at $90,000 to $100,000 through these years. If you work until 67, you should have about a $3 million net worth with what I just gave you. That's where you're headed. It's very, very doable, and it's pretty much the tortoise, not the hare.

It's just a steady implementation of the stuff we teach. But you're a little bit helter skelter you're jumping around on me here slashing at some of these things and and some of that comes from the pain of having to pay that business off and you guys being on potatoes and trying to get through here rum and noodles and so you're but you're kind of being over dramatic with some of your moves and just follow those baby steps exactly like we teach. There's a reason they work. It's dialed into the case studies just like yours. And if you'll do exactly what I just told you to do,

and you work until 67, making $100,000, and you never get a raise, which means you're pretty lame, by the way. I mean, if you work 20 years and never get a raise, that's the definition of lame. And you just keep saving that money the way we're talking about, get that house paid off in five to seven, then max out the retirement. You should have a net worth of $2 million to $3 million. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Would you recommend selling my vested restricted stock units in order to pay off our car loans? Yep. Surely would. But probably if they're restricted, you're not allowed to sell them. That's what restricted means. Vested means you have the ownership of them. Restricted means they're not letting you sell them yet. That's usually what it means.

It can mean other things, but that's generally what's happening. But yeah, I'm going to sell stock, pay off a car loan in a heartbeat that's not in a retirement account. You need to get out of the car loan business. The car payment is the mantra, the drumbeat of the middle class. Always going to have a car payment.

Oh, the little man can't get ahead. Oh, things are tough it's rough out there this is what this is what you know you ever hear i mean these people eeyore is their spirit animal right i mean it's just hard when you have no hope and you have to crush these payments and get rid of them so you can do it you can do it. You can do it. We got your back here. You can call us anytime. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section.

Thanks for listening.