The Ramsey Show - App - The Importance of Life Insurance and a Will (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

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live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios. It's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is done, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Rick is with us to start off this hour in San Antonio, Texas. Hi, Rick. How are you? I'm wonderful, Dave. Pleasure to talk to you, sir. You too, sir. What's up?

Well, my wife and I have been following your plan for about 10 years or so, and we're proud to say we're debt-free, including the house. Yay! We've got a fully funded emergency fund with about $30,000 in it, and counting up my 401k annuities and traditional IRAs, I got about $1.2 million there. Way to go. My question is, thank you very much. I'm 58.

Retirement can happen next year if I wanted to. But my question is, should I think of a Roth IRA? And if so, when should I start investing in it? You could do a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA, and the only benefits, the benefits to the traditional is if you're going to use the money any time in the next couple of decades, it's probably going to come out mathematically to your benefit. The Roth, of course, grows tax-free.

One of the benefits in a high net worth situation like you're in, a traditional 401k or traditional IRA has mandatory withdrawals required beginning at 70.5. A Roth does not. And so you can allow the money to stay in there and continue to grow, in this case tax-free, if you put the money that you put into a Roth. But the government wants their taxes before you die. And so they make you begin doing your minimum distributions at 70.5 required. So any money that you move into or put into a Roth would do that. And you can do 6,500 for you, and if you're married, 6,500 for your wife as well. Dump that much into a Roth.

It's not going to be a lot, but as long as you have an earned income, you can do a Roth. And, you know, you grow a little bit in there, or you could even pay the taxes on it and move some of it over into a Roth. But that does no good except because you've already paid the taxes, and the whole purpose of doing the Roth is not have to start paying the taxes at 70 and a half. So, anyway, if you want to do a couple of them, it's okay. But it's not as late in the game as you're doing it. It's not going to change your mix.

You've got this high net worth already. You've done a great job. Congratulations. Very, very, very well done. As a matter of fact, I'm going to pick back up and talk to you in just a second. I want to catch this. So how much of your $1.2 million did you inherit? None.

None. It was all working. Okay. What do you do for a living, and what have you done for a living? I'm in sales. I've been in sales ever since about 93 when I graduated college. What did you get your degree in? In marketing.

Okay. And then you went into sales. Well, that makes sense. Okay. What was your GPA? About 3.5. I wasn't the best student, but then again, I was the worst. So about 3.5.

I was about average. About typical for a millionaire. And you're 58 years old, and your net worth is what total? Just in the annuity Roth in the 401, excuse me, the 401 is about 1.2. How much is in your house, though? The house is about, the county says it's worth about 156. And it paid for? So the net worth paid for.

Yes, sir. So it's probably worth more than that, probably worth $200,000. So you probably have a million and a half dollar net worth, roughly. Absolutely. Okay. Very well done. What would be your advice to the, you and I are the same age, what would your advice be to the 28-year-old version of you and I

that's out there listening to this right now? Can they still do it, and what should they do? Yeah, anybody can do it. You just have to, once you get your job, put the maximum amount into your 401K right off the bat. That way you never miss it and never touch it. Just let it sit there and forget about it. Did you borrow your way into wealth?

No, not at all. I borrowed my way into college but that was paid off my first year out of college with the bonuses and stuff okay so you haven't you haven't used debt to build wealth takes money to make money right exactly the only debt i had was when i first got out got cars got the usual things but then once started listening to you and realized i'm paying more in service charges and finance charges than I am in savings, that I'm gaining in savings, what's the point? So I just paid everything off, bit the bullet, paid everything off and started from zero and just worked my way up,

constantly putting money in the 401K and knew that someday I might be worth something. And I never thought I'd be a millionaire, and here I am. Yeah, 1.5. Unbelievable. And how long ago was your house paid off? Oh, at least about eight years ago. Paid it off eight years ago. So you were 50 when you paid off your house.

Right, exactly. Yes, sir. And at that point, you were not quite a millionaire, probably. No, no. I didn't even know what i had in my account until i started thinking about retirement and then i started going to my investment guy and he said well you got this much into your account and when he told me seven figures at that point when he told me seven figures i nearly fainted i was like oh my god i'm a millionaire

i did it i did it well i'm proud of you. Very well done. You fit the exact guidelines or the exact case study of the everyday millionaires that we have discovered. You are the typical millionaire. And they're all over the place, folks. They're just like this guy. And you'd sit next to him at the restaurant and have no idea it was him, by the way. He didn't drive up in an expensive car. He's not wearing expensive clothes. His watch didn't cost up in an expensive car he's not wearing expensive clothes his watch didn't cost

more than your house you know there's no bling on this guy uh there's some bling in his 401k though by god so just look at that 1.5 million well done sir very well done the reason i do that folks is because it's the same reason we're doing this book, Everyday Millionaires, is because our research that we did with Chris and Chris Hogan and our team here, and even an outside research firm that we hired to help us do the research, we've interviewed now over 10,000 millionaires. Most of them were not Dave listeners. They didn't even know I exist.

Most of them, a little over half of them actually were ours. A little under half were what we call white space, meaning they didn't know who we were. So we got a good cross-section of both. Oddly enough, the statistics didn't change much. They were almost the same. Almost none of them inherited their money. Way less than 10% became millionaires because of inherited money. The data is very clear.

This is not your broke brother-in-law with a political opinion. This is not a left-wing nut that doesn't believe in, you know, capitalism. That's not what this is. You know, you meet these these people and they've all got opinions about everything about the little man can't get ahead and yet we talk to them here on the air every week almost every day nowadays so if you want to get a copy of this book it uh not only will prove it to you that you can go do this stuff but it might prove it to someone else who has lost hope and thinks the American dream is dead.

It's not dead. It's just dressed in work clothes. And nobody's going to hand it to you because of where you went to school or because you're cute. Nobody really thinks you're cute, but your mama anyway. Get over yourself. It's called working. Saving. You's called working. Saving. You're not cute.

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Brentwood, TN 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matt is in Spokane, Washington. Hi, Matt. How are you? Oh, not doing real great right now. Uh-oh. What's going on?

Um, my wife passed away about a week and a half ago. Oh, my gosh. And, uh, we're still kind of trying to, we were in baby step two. And, um, I'm just trying to figure out how to keep going on. Wow. What happened? How old was she? She was 33.

33? What happened? What happened? The coroner report said it was a pulmonary embolism. Oh, my Lord. She had an 8-centimeter blood clot in one of her lungs. And didn't know it? No.

She was putting away groceries with our daughter and our daughter came to get me and told us that mommy said oh no one fell over oh my goodness how old's your daughter uh she's seven oh my gosh man all right um and so you were on baby step two and you said you got life insurance that's on the way then? Yeah, she had two policies. I found out one for $100,000 and one for $500,000. How old are you? I'm 37.

How long were you guys married? We just had 10 years in June. You know what I tell folks to do in these situations? Let's be very careful to do nothing but cry. Just give yourself some room to cry. Okay. I don't think if your 33-year-old wife passes away suddenly, unexpectedly last week, that anyone would expect you to make really good decisions today.

I know if that happened to Sharon, we've been married 38 years, getting ready to be 38, I wouldn't be able to breathe for a little while. And just listening to you, you can't even breathe real good right now, and I don't blame you. I understand. So here's what i want you to do okay i want you to keep food in the house and pay the lights and pay the water bill and pay the house payment and any other payments you guys have just go ahead and pay those but don't make any big financial decisions right now. Okay. Just breathe. It's going to take you six months for your brain to work right again. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah. And all that makes you is not a bad person. It just makes you a human. Okay. I know. None of us, when we get hit this hard, do we think well for a while. And so we're going to give you a little time for the fog to clear, all right, and do nothing, do nothing for a little while.

Yeah. So all you've got to do is just eat and feed your baby and hug your baby. That's all you've got to do. And you put $600,000 in the bank bank and you don't touch it for anything. Don't buy anything. Don't travel. Don't blow any money. Don't touch that money.

Just forget that it's there for six months. And this is September, and so we're going to say in March, when the spring comes out and the flowers come out and the grass is coming out again, and it starts getting a little warmer, then we'll start thinking about this. But we're going to take from now until then to breathe again. Is that okay? Yeah. Well, I'm worried because she was half our income, and her last paycheck came today.

Okay. So what do you make? Well, it's going to change at the end of this month, but I was making about $63. It's going to jump to $75 at the end of this month. And you can't live on that? I don't know. She was absolutely the nerd in our relationship. Okay. I'll tell you what we're going to do.

I'm going to put you with one of my financial coaches that's been through our training and i'm gonna pay for it's not gonna cost you anything and they're gonna sit down with you and help you put your budget together and help you get on track okay okay i think you can live on 75 i don't i don't know all your details but i think you can make it on your 75 and then let's not touch let's not touch the other money until you kind of get clear where you can breathe again. And then we'll probably just, you know, what we'll probably do in March is we'll just advance you through the baby steps. You know, we'll pay off everything, and we'll, you know, pay off the house, and probably that kind of stuff, but we're not going to do that today. Today we're just going to cry.

Okay. Is that okay just going to cry. Okay. Is that okay? I don't think so. Sometimes, you know, what happens is you just need room to cry, and I'm just telling you, take room. You've got room. There's nothing here in the finances that you're giving me that caused me to panic. There's nothing to be afraid of other than we've just got to be able to get our arms around some of the details

and keep the household running, but you can do that, and do that and we'll help you we're going to walk alongside you we're not going to do it for you but we're going to walk alongside you yeah be part of your healing in this time okay okay you can do this and you call me you call me back if you need any help too okay okay all right i'm gonna put you on hold stay on and kelly's gonna pick up and we're gonna get you set up with one of our coaches so hang on the line with me open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in and um we'll talk about your life and your money. Wow. You just, I mean, I don't even know how to recover after that. What do you say that's intelligent after that?

You can't. There's nothing to say that's intelligent after that. Ouch. Unbelievable. If that doesn't make you go home and hug your spouse tonight, then you weren't listening closely. If that doesn't make you say, I'm going to get my financial house in order so that if, God forbid, something happened, then my family will be taken care of. Making sure you have the proper amount of life insurance in place. How much different is that phone call if there's not $600,000 in the mail?

Could be different. Could be very different. But there's nothing to worry about there, is there? Nothing. Not financially. You've got lots of other stuff to worry about. You've got a baby standing in the kitchen when her mama passed. That's enough to worry about. You got a baby standing in the kitchen when her mama passed. That's enough to worry about, right?

So that's why you have, you know, $600,000 in term life insurance. That's why you have your will in place. And that's why both of you are involved in handling the money. Both of you. Oh, honey, you're good at it. You money. Both of you. Oh, honey, you're good at it. You just take care of it. Does that sound like much of a plan after that call?

Nope. It's called grown-up land. You're both supposed to know what's going on with the money. He knows more than he's letting on. He's in better shape than he's just hurting. He going to be okay but you need to know i'm the nerd at my house and my wife needs to know about the money you're the nerd at your house your free spirit needs to know about the money and what's going on and we have to lay out a plan y''all. And it's not, well, I just live my life. I don't want to think about it. Well, it's time to be a grown-up.

I'm sorry. Unless you're living in your mommy's basement and she's taking care of you, then you're going to have to be a grown-up. You're going to have to take care of you. And that's what this stuff does. Because what poor Matt and his family are going through is what all of us go through at different times in one way or another, don't we? None of you, none of us are getting out of this alive. And so we got to have a complaint. I don't want to talk about it. I don't care if you want to talk about it or not. Better talk about it now. Now's the time to talk about it while you can.

Where there's somebody to talk to about it. Lay your will out. Go over with your family what the will says. Make sure that's done. Today. Put your life insurance in place. Today. Make sure both of you are on the same page about money.

Today. Thank goodness Matt and his wife are doing most of those things. Doesn't make it any easier. Well, actually it does make it easier. One less thing to worry about while your heart is breaking. You have to worry about your house being foreclosed on while your heart's breaking. That's a bit more of a problem, isn't it? That's how this stuff works in the real world boys and girls ouch this is the day

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Terms and conditions apply. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Joshua and Andrea are with us. Welcome, guys. How are you? Good. Doing good. Good to have you. Where do you live? Longview, Texas. Cool. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. Yes, sir.

Very cool. How much have you paid off? $27,275.97, but who's counting? I love it. And how long did this take? Seven months, five days. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? 60 up to about 92.

In seven months? Well, I just graduated nursing school school and i was on orientation and then once i got off orientation started picking up a lot of overtime got it ding ding okay start taking off fast good good very cool what kind of debt was the uh twenty seven thousand dollars most of it was all mine okay um there were were student loans, medical bills, and a car. There was two car loans that were to family members, and then a defaulted gym membership. Oh, that was mine, too. Okay.

Wow. So how long have you two been married? One year, August 26th. Okay. So you got married a year ago, and you graduate from nursing school. Things take off. When you got married, of course, you knew all this debt was there, right? Absolutely, yeah.

It was staring us right in the face. So you're kind of waiting to get out of nursing school to start the attack. Yeah, yeah. We were holding back. It was kind of a slingshot effect as soon as we got out. We were getting after it. Yeah, okay. The debt went up

though because the week he was to graduate nursing school his car caught fire and burnt to the ground so that's always that literally and you didn't have you didn't have insurance on it uh liability yeah oh that's all yeah that's it yeah so so the car's gone yeah a family member was like or it was my uncle he was like hey you know you can i'll sell was my uncle, he was like, hey, you know, you can, I'll sell you my truck. But he's like, you know, I know where you sleep. So I was like, all right, well, you know, that number one family loan. So we got it paid off. Oh, so you borrowed money on the truck from your uncle.

Well, he. He put it on time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much was the truck? It was only like, it was $2,000. Okay. So that's part of the $27,000 that got paid off? Yes.

Okay. Very good. So Andrea, you don't get blamed for the whole thing. At least $2,000 of it's over here. Okay. Yeah. All right. Cool.

All right. So you guys were dating before you're engaged. You're talking about this dad. Did you kind of have the plan when we get married, we're going to get out of nursing school, we're going to attack this and knock it out was that a discussion prior to marriage or what we were together seven years when we got married we're high school sweethearts um he took the class in high school so he's been following you since he was like 17 i didn't get on board till about four years ago okay yeah it took me a long time and then really

didn't y'all didn't do anything about it until seven months ago? Correct. Yeah, okay. All right, very cool. But, hey, the high school curriculum set you up. I mean, you knew what to do. Oh, yeah. And you got an attack mode once you get married and clean it up.

How does it feel to be debt-free? Awesome. Oh, my goodness. So liberating. Yes. Did you have people cheering you on, saying you should do this? Because you were going crazy for that seven months. Yes.

Mostly, yeah, everybody. They did think we were crazy, but everybody was behind us, it seemed like. How old are you two? 25. 25. Oh, wow. You've got a great life ahead of you. Well done.

Good job to my high school curriculum guys. I'm looking at an example of what happens if you get that thing in high school. That's awesome. Yeah. I just want to give a shout out to Paula Mathis at Gilmer High School, my senior economics teacher. She was the one. Every student that went to her class went through your high school curriculum. Oh, very neat.

Cool. Very cool. Way to go, Ms. Mathis. Well done. Very well done. Yeah, we're in about, I think we're in 51, 52% of the high to go, Ms. Mathis. Well done. Very well done. Yeah, we're in about, I think we're in 51, 52% of the high schools now, roughly. And we've got people sponsoring it and giving it to the high schools, local businesses all over America. And you guys are exactly what we want to have happen.

You know, you get married, and if there's debt, you clean it up. Or you start out with no debt or whatever it is, and you know what to do, and you know how to do a budget, and you have a plan, and that's perfect. So, Andrea, like you said, you joined the game a little bit later because he got the head start in high school. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Because you guys went on this adventure as soon as you got married.

Really, it's communication and listening to what your partner is trying to tell you as to the reason why. For the longest time, Dave, no offense, I didn't even want to hear your name. Oh, I couldn't believe it. Yeah, I'm a cuss word around some people. But I actually sat down and listened to him and just listened to his reasonings, and then he had just amazing reasons and points. So then I just got on board.

And it also helped that we went to premarital counseling, and our counselor was really into your programs as well so that helped a lot you couldn't get away i couldn't you were everywhere everywhere texas yeah when yeah when we went to marriage counseling he brought it up in the first meeting and her head just went oh i hate this guy well he forces me to listen to your podcast the whole time we're in a vehicle no matter where we're going that's gross you're a bad husband i don't mind it now i enjoy it i guess turn on some music you just got married good job you guys i'm proud of y'all well done so who are your biggest cheerleaders oh man probably just family because

um shout out to my uncle dan he's actually debt free now as well he's been working hard on it we've had a lot of cheerleaders along the way just people we didn't really expect so really just everybody that's good there's a lot of people you know they'll just come up and ask us like you know i don't even really know you, but what is this debt-free journey? You know, and we'll just send them straight to your webpage or send them to the YouTube channel, podcast, anything. So how were they following you? How did they find you if they didn't know you?

We had a blog. Oh, okay. And then we also were very active on Facebook about our journey, and we had people sharing all of our updates and our blogs. Oh, that's neat. So we had a little bit of a following. I bet you do. Yeah, that's great.

How fun. It was fun. Good for you. Good for you. Well, that gives you encouragement, too. It also gives you accountability. We've got to do it. All these people are watching.

Yeah, that was a big part of it. Yeah, that's worse than my name being around here. I love it. Way to go, y'all. Way to go. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you. That is, of course, the next chapter in your story. You know how this goes.

Oh, yeah. And to be millionaires and outrageously generous as you go along. And when you make $92,000 a year, you're 25 years old. My gosh, you're killing it. And no debt in the world. Woo! Life is good. Well done, you guys.

Very well done. Joshua and Andrea. Longview, Texas. $27,000 paid off in seven months. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo!

Love it! Yeah, baby! Yeah! yeah baby yeah oh man oh man oh man way to go you guys very well done that is the second time in the last two weeks that a young couple has come on here and they took the class in high school and they came on here to do their debt-free screen. You know, when I wrote the very first book, Financial Peace, and I self-published it, it was a little blue, ugly cover, a little light blue, baby, bird-egg blue cover, and I'm standing at the back of the room after I spoke at the Kiwanis Club or whatever it was, the Rotary Club. The very first time I ever tried to sell a book in my whole life i did this little speech that was too long and real cheesy about debt and budgeting and same stuff i talk about now 1992

i walked to the back of the room to work my own book table um because that was our staff it was i was the back of the room to work my own book table because that was our staff. I was the CEO, the chief everything officer. And the first possible customer I ever had walked up to the table, picked up the book, and said, I liked your talk. Why don't they teach this stuff in high school? And I've heard it millions of times, it feels like, since then. Well, the good news is now we do teach it in high school and in colleges.

So any of you educators out there or any of you businesses that want to pay for the curriculum so your local high school has it, that's a good way because a lot of your high schools don't have the money for it. It's not that expensive, but they don't have any money. So any of you that want to get involved in making sure this is in your local high school, yeah, we don't need to be at 52%, 51% of the high schools. We need to be at 99.9999%. Every kid needs this stuff, don't they? Wow. See what happens when they get it? I love it. Get in touch with us.

We'll help you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Abraham is with us in San Diego, California. Hey, Abraham, how are you? I'm doing well, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, I've recently started listening to your show, and I haven't really gone through the steps exactly, but I think I'm through them. You know, I've got a savings of about $300,000, me and my wife.

Good. Putting away 12% to 15% in retirement. Mm-hmm. You know, we've got the kids' college funds going. Okay. We're out of debt. Mm-hmm. And the only debt that we have left is our investment, our rental properties, and our home mortgage. So, you know, which one should I do first?

What do you owe on the rental properties? One of them about $250,000, and the other one about $275,000. What about your home? About $300,000. Okay. Those are all fairly close. And, you know, so what I'm going to do is, number one, you're debt-free everything but the home. Number two, you need to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. That's baby step three.

Then you're putting 15% away doing kids' college, which you said you're doing already. Then any extra money, which one do I throw it at, the rentals or the home? I'm going to throw it at my home first, given that they're fairly similar in balances. And I do that from a very worst-case scenario analysis, a risk management analysis, meaning if the world came to an end and I got in a real pickle and I was going to lose something, what would I want to lose? Rentals or my house? Well, the rentals. Gotcha.

So I'm going to pay off my house first. Now, I don't think that's going to happen, but that's the only tiebreaker for me is, plus there's something that happens inside of you when your house is paid for. Gotcha. Well, I do have about $300,000 saved up. In retirement? No, just in savings. Write a check and pay off your house today.

Okay, okay. Will you do it? I've got to talk to my wife. She's the one that's kind of i gotta convince her yeah pay off your house today here's my challenge pay off your house today and if in six months you hate being debt free get your mortgage the problem that i see if i pay off the house she's going to want to go buy a million-dollar home. That's my fear. Well, I think you need to go buy a million-dollar home, but let's do that after we get the house paid off and then turn around and pay off the rentals pretty quick.

And when they're all paid off, then you save up the cash to move up in-house, adding to the equity of your personal home, and you can get you a million-dollar home then. What's your household income? About $325,000. Yeah, nothing wrong with having a million-dollar home at that situation. All it's just paid for, right? I agree.

So I'm with you. So the answer is, can we get a million-dollar home? The answer is yes, but not now. Gotcha. So I'm kind of on your side, but we're going to get, you know, it's okay if you end up over there in a million-dollar house with this situation, especially in your area. I mean, a million dollars is not that opulent in San Diego necessarily.

So it's a nice place, obviously, but you're living in about an average home in the $400,000 range there, you know. So, yeah, that's what I would do. I'd ride check the day, be debt-free on the house. Then I would take any extra money I can find, and I'm going to start throwing it at one of those rentals until it's gone. And when I find extra money, I'm going to throw it at the other rental until it's gone. And then I'm going to start saving and investing above my normal retirement investing

towards moving up in-house because that's what she's going to want to do, it sounds like. Very cool, man. Very cool. Good to talk to you. All right. Michael's with us in Chino, California. Hey, Michael, how are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Good. How can I help? So, Dave, I'm in a situation where I've been on medical leave for almost six months from my current job. I'm a forklift technician, so I repair and maintain forklift equipment. And I got a back injury from a car accident back in February. It is September, and I'm slated to hopefully get back to work by, gosh, hopefully by the end of September, as long as all my physical therapy and everything gets

back together. But my question is, I want to start attacking my debt. I'm going to freeze my 401k input, use that extra money to start attacking my debt. My concern is my job is so physically demanding. Do I still just work at it? Do it as hard as I can? I've been with the company for seven years. It's a good company. Or do I try and find another avenue to make income? I'm just deciding what's best for me, whether it's physical or trying to get into another field. It sounds like that you don't see yourself doing this 10 years from now due to this back injury. Well, I don't think I'll survive. That's what I mean. 40. That's what I mean. I'm broken like to be 40 and feeling like I am now.

Yeah, and broken up, yeah. So it sounds like you need to, from a physical limitation standpoint, not panic, but you need to see a light where you have a way out. Yes. Okay, so I don't know how long that takes. So you start asking yourself questions like, what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to be 10 years from now? Well, I'm know but you i'm kidding with you right but but i mean what do i want to be when i'm 40 right that makes it makes what do

you make now i make about 65 000 a year what do i want to be when i'm 40 that makes 130 000 a year okay or more and i don't care i don't care what it is uh then once you kind of start to identify that um then you say okay what what do i have to do to become one of those do i have to get in a mentorship program do i have to go take some classes and get certified do i need to get go back to college do i uh what have i got to do to be one of those you know an example would be let's just make up something i'm not saying this is you okay but you want to move into more of a white collar thing where uh where you don't use your back is what i'm hearing okay right so let's just say that you've always loved real estate

i've always loved real estate so i'll use that as an example so you want to be a real estate. I've always loved real estate, so I'll use that as an example. So you want to be a real estate agent. Well, what have you got to do to be making $130,000 as a real estate agent 10 years from now? Well, the first thing you'd have to do is get a real estate license, and you'd have to study to do your pre-licensing requirements, take the test, pass the test, and then do your post-licensing requirements, but it doesn't require a college degree. The second part of that is I would want to talk to somebody that makes a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in the real estate business and ask them how they do that right what does that involve now i'm not saying that's your answer my point is the first thing we did was we identified what you wanted to be doing and then we identified what the steps are to go do it

and you've got time it's not it's not like you can't go back to work you can do the work right now you're saying but yeah as soon as you get cleared but you just don't see it as a good long-term plan because this is this was kind of your wake-up call right yeah and it's you know what it's actually a flare-up from a i got in a car accident two and a half years ago that caused the initial back injury, and this last one just made it worse. Okay. And while I've been off, I've actually been getting mildly involved

in a multi-level marketing business, and I kind of like it. We teach all the same things that you guys teach. I believe you've probably heard of Primerica Financial Services. Oh, yeah. And there's some aspects of the business I honestly do not like. I love the point of sitting down with people, showing them how to attack their bet, how to be properly protected. The thing I don't like is what it takes for me to have to grow the business.

That's what's hard about it. Yeah, you like helping people with their finances. You don't like recruiting and building a hierarchy exactly i love i'm a numbers guy i'm very technical and the money the money in any kind of a multi-level is in recruiting yeah and because that's the only way you build your hierarchy you are you are a sales manager and a sales recruiter if you're going to make money in a multilevel. And Primerica is no different than that. And I guess my question is, at my job, I can go in as soon as I go back. I know how busy we are.

I can do overtime like crazy. I can work on Saturdays. I can bring in so much extra income. That's subject to your physical ability to do that. You might want to be working your side hustle towards your long-term goal, whether that's Primerica or whether you say, well, I don't want to do recruiting, so I'm going to take that same set of things and go, maybe I want to move into the financial advising world.

And maybe I need to look at getting my licenses and doing it in a more traditional way than a multi-level way so that I actually do the work rather than do the recruiting. That may be your route. I don't know. Sounds like you've got something there to talk about. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register.

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