The Ramsey Show - App - The Truth About Wealthy People (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it'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. 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 matter of fact i'm going to uh make sure i see what i pick back up and talk to you just a second i want to catch this so

how much of your 1.2 million dollars did you inherit none none it was all working okay what you do for a living and what have you done for a living i'm in sales i've been in sales ever since uh about 93 when i graduated college what'd you get your degree in in marketing okay well and then you went into sales well that makes sense okay what was your gpa uh 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 your net worth is what total uh just in the uh annuity roth and uh 401 excuse me the 401 is about 1.2 you know how much you're how much is in your house so uh the house is about the county says it's worth about $156. And it paid for? So the net bill paid for. Yes, sir.

So it's probably worth more than that, probably worth $200. So you're probably 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 realize 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 and how long ago is your house paid off oh at least about eight years ago paid off eight years ago so you were 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 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 more than your house. You know, there's no bling on this guy. There's some bling in his 401k, though, by God. So just look at that. Woo! $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 with Chris Hogan that we've just put on pre-sale, Everyday Millionaires. It 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 this is you know you meet 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.

Call working. Saving. You're not cute. Part of our deal here is our goal is to melt the snowflakes. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs based on new testament principles christian health care ministries or chm helps christian families churches and ministries join together as the body of christ to share their major health care costs christian health

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Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Thank you for joining us. This is Open Phones at 888-825-5225. Ryan's in Los Angeles. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Ryan. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Thanks for taking my call. I'm recently new to the Baby Steps. We're about a month in now. Baby Step 1 is complete. Working on Baby step two. My biggest dilemma is at the end of every

Friday, get paid on Friday, everything's good, and then Monday I'm back at a spot where it's back to paycheck to paycheck and freaking out, worrying about what's going to be there for the month or for the rest of the week or the next paycheck.

I'm having a hard time saving or getting out of that little funk. So that's one question I have for you. Good for you. Let me ask you two questions. How old are you? 31. How old are you? 30.

30, okay. And what is your income a year? Income a year ranges anywhere from 60 to 120 based on overtime. What do you do? Construction manager. Good for you. Okay. So you're making decent money all the way to good money,

somewhere in there depending on overtime, and yet it all seems to disappear after the paycheck. So that tells me that you are not doing a detailed written budget. Have you used the EveryDollar app yet? Yeah, I use EveryDollar, and it's based, everything's plugged in for, you know, no overtime. And then so when I do get the overtime check, I do not have anything budgeted out for that, and that is where the spending is. Right.

So when you do get an overtime check, you're supposed to jump into every dollar and change it. Okay. And give every one of those other new dollars, those overtime dollars, a name as well. Okay. And so your frustration is those dollars are the ones getting away from you. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because what's happening is you're doing a really good planning job with your base pay

and no planning at all with your overtime pay. Correct. Yeah, there's your problem. Okay. Every dollar. The reason we named it that was for many years before there was even an Internet when I started teaching this stuff, we would just tell people give every dollar a name, every dollar of yours an assignment on paper, on purpose, before the month begins.

Every single, you look at your income, you say, okay, I got this many dollars this week, I'm going to write it down, I'm going to make every one of these dollars behave. That's where the name EveryDollar came from. And so this is the same thing, and the only problem is you're just giving every base pay dollar a name you're not giving every overtime dollar a name and we've got to add that to the equation because here's the thing none of us well a few of us but most of us would not sit down and write out a plan to intentionally be stupid and broke that almost no one writes that plan out you know i want to be stupid and broke that's my plan no i don't want i'm gonna i'm gonna be irresponsible impulsive uh immature

and have no money and i'm gonna write down a plan that causes that to happen almost no one does that right so when you write it down what you're doing is you're being your best self because every one of us have a spoiled brat four-year-old that live inside of us that wants a chocolate chip cookie and spend all my money but uh but we all know we can't eat all the chocolate chip cookies although i've tried a few times and um and we all know you can't spend all your money and be anything but broke i've tried to out earn my stupidity for years and it didn't work and so that's all that's going on here you're not you know you're really doing probably better than you think you are, because, hey, think about it.

Six months ago, you didn't even think this was a problem. Right. Now you think it's a problem. That's a big progress, man. Hey, how close are you to Irvine? I don't know. Maybe a couple of miles, maybe 30 minutes or so. Okay.

I'm going to be in Irvine doing one of our Smart Money events with Chris Hogan, January the 22nd. Would you like to come as my guest? I'll give you a couple of tickets. You bring a friend. That'd be awesome. Thank you. Hey, cool.

Appreciate you listening in Los Angeles. Hold on. Kelly will pick up. We're going to give you two tickets to our live event that's coming up there after the first of the year in your area. Open phones at 888-825-5225. By the way, Charlotte, North Carolina is coming up in less than a month, and that's Chris Hogan and Anthony O'Neill. Tickets are still selling very rapidly there.

San Francisco, you've got one month, and there's a handful of tickets. People from San Francisco, this is our very first event we've ever done there. People have been begging us to come out there for years. This thing is going to be gone, and then there's going to be a bunch of whining of people that wish they'd bought their tickets. So don't whine. Their tickets are not that stinking expensive. You can cost them a pizza, really. So we're going to be there in San Francisco, October the 2 Chris Hogan and I doing one of our Smart Money Live events.

You do not want to miss this. Minneapolis, October 29th is sold out. We are selling an overflow room right now that will be fed with fiber. The folks at Eagle Brook Church are absolutely incredible. I'll be speaking there on Saturday and Sunday. And church is free, by the way. So that's October 29th. San Antonio, Texas, the 15th oak hills

church will be there chris hogan and i uh new life church is chris hogan anthony o'neill in january 17th colorado springs and again irvine is the january 22nd that's the smart money lineup you can find out about all our live events and where we're going to be and when we're going to be there just by going to davramsey..com. Nick is in Tulsa. Hi, Nick. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? I've listened to you on and off since I was young, and I've been watching some YouTube videos of yours recently, and in the last couple of months, I've been trying to decide or figure out what I should do. I've done, you know, reasonably well. I think I'm 35 and I've got my own business and I've got a decent amount of money that I really don't know. It's just sitting

in the credit union and savings account. What's a decent amount of money? How much money? $400,000. Good for you. Well done. That is a decent amount of money. So is your home paid for?

Yes, it is. Good for you. What's it worth? $800,000. Way to go. And everything else is debt-free? Yes, no debt. Very good.

Man, you're killing it. Congratulations. I'm proud of you. So you're a baby step seven guy, and you're sitting here crunching along. Did you say you're 35 years old, 38 years old? 35. 35, and you're a millionaire. Well done.

Very well done. And you're making bank, obviously. I mean, your income must be, two three hundred yeah it's uh you know it it varies pretty um you know quite quite a bit but on average i would say um since i've had my business six or seven years now about three hundred thousand on average i was thinking to hit those numbers at your age that's what it had to be good for you man well done well done here's what i do okay you're you're you're in the top end of things and when i'm working with the with folks who are wealthy and you're wealthy uh are folks that are new wealthy sometimes and you're fairly new you've worked your tail off to get

here without a doubt but uh sometimes athletes and so forth i just tell them listen there's only three things you can do with money you can give it and spend it on you and you can invest it and i highly recommend you do all three okay spend some of it on you i want you to enjoy some of this money are you married i do i do no i'm single okay good well enjoy some of it with a you know toy purchases or whatever it is you want to buy you got the money you're in good shape uh and make sure your generosity factor uh that's where you're gonna have have the most fun with money, actually. It's not toys. Especially in your situation, it's going to be a lot of fun.

And some of this giving needs to be done on a real personal level. Like you just buy somebody a $5,000 car and hand them the keys and just watch them melt down. It's so much fun. It's just so much fun. And, you know, do that and find some single mom that's struggling and help her, you know, that kind of thing. But doing something like that with no ulterior motives, obviously. Be careful, single guy. But anyway, then the last thing is on investing.

Most wealthy people that I know, their investing is very simple. Mine is very simple. I own two things as investments. Paid for real estate and mutual funds. I buy real estate that I pay cash for.

I love real estate. Got a bunch of that. And I buy mutual funds that have good long-term track records. That's all I buy. And the mythology that's out there

is that somehow wealthy people have these, you know, double backflip family partnerships, something or others. They really don't. They just put money in stuff they understand, and they make more money. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Okay, things are getting pretty weird out there. I thought the Equifax breach was bad enough. It exposed the personal financial info of half of all Americans.

Now we have breaches affecting almost every U.S. citizen, and the data stolen is more personal and equally dangerous. One company had over 230 million consumer files hacked, which included not only the home address, but info related to religion, pet lovers, smokers, you name it. And the businesses were not any luckier this time, with 110 million files hacked. It really is no longer a matter of if, it's when you'll become a victim. That's exactly why the only plan I've ever recommended is through Zander Insurance. They cover all types of identity theft for families and businesses, and they take over

all the work if you become a victim. I use it for my family and my entire team. Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com. That's Zander.com. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Andrew and Kelly are with us. Hi, Kelly and Andrew. How are you guys? We're great. Thanks for having us. Welcome.

Where are you guys from? Where do you live? Indianapolis, Indiana. Oh, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. All the way down here to do a debt-free scream. Yes. Very cool.

How much have you paid off? We paid off $249,000 in just around four years. Good for you. Good for you. All the way down here to do a debt-free screen. Yes. Very cool. How much have you paid off? We paid off $249,000 in just around four years. Good for you. Good for you. And your range of income during that four years? We started at just around $100,000 and finished at $144,000. Good. Very cool.

So I'm going to guess, with this huge amount of money and the length of time, that either you're a doctor or you paid off your house. Well, both actually. A little of both. Okay. You paid off your house. Good. Yes.

I'm looking at weird people. Yes. Thank you. Really cool. How old are you two? 30. And you paid off your house. Yes.

So who's the doctor? I'm a physical therapist. Okay. So doctor of physical therapy. Very cool. Very cool. And what do you do for a living, Andrew? I do sales for my family business.

Excellent. Good, good. So how much of the $249 was your home mortgage? All of it. All of it. So the whole thing was knock out the mortgage by the time we're 30. Yes. Boom, and you did it.

We did. Wow. How's it feel when I have a payment in the world? It's a wonderful feeling. Amazing. Wow. I mean, you're making $100,500 between you, and you got no payments in the world. You're 30 years old.

You're going to be so rich. Thank you. Unbelievable. And you should be. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Very, very well done. Good for you.

So how long have you two been married? It'll be eight years in December. Okay. So four years after you got married, something happened about the house, and you said, I think we can pay this off, and I think we should. Tell me the story. What happened? Well, we've always been a little weird.

We've been very fortunate to have wonderful parents who helped us with our college educations, so we didn't have any student loan to deal with. Big start. And four years ago, we bought our home, and we thought, you know, we can do this. So we listened to your podcast on a very long 12-hour drive to Florida. We listened the entire way there and the entire way back. Oh, Lord. And we've been listening ever since and just knew that that was something we really wanted to do. We wanted to be very intentional with our money and be able to get our finances in line now so that later

on in life we could be as generous as possible and make a wonderful life for our son, AJ. Yeah, amen. Very good stuff. So were both of you raised in households that were responsible then? Absolutely, yes. Wow, so you got like a generational head start that way. Yes, yes. That's not even fair.

I know. That's awesome. I love it. Way to go, Mom and Dad. Yes. Good stuff. So how did you got like a generational head start that way. Yes. That's not even fair. I know. That's awesome. I love it. Way to go, Mom and Dad. Yes. Good stuff. So how did you get connected to the podcast? When we were driving to Florida, I got an iPhone for work and found the podcast button.

We just started searching through it, and we happened to find your podcast pretty short into the trip. Oh, okay. And once we turned it on, we loved it. So you were looking for something to make the trip go. Yes. And there we were. I think we were number four last year out of all podcasts if i remember so yes yeah that'll make you get noticed well i'm glad good i'm glad our success led us to you

very good very well done you guys so what was it when you were listening for 12 hours god help you for 12 hours to this podcast, this crazy guy, for the first time ever, I guess, you turn it on, right? That made you go, okay, we're doing this. Because I guess it's partly aligned

with the way you were brought up, right? Yes. And I mean, one of the first calls you had was a lady was asking about her car. And my first thought was, just sell the car. It's a stupid car. And your exact words were, just sell the stupid car. So I thought this guy's a genius.

So we connected pretty quick, and it was pretty easy to listen from there on out. Okay, fun. What kind of business is your family in? We do, we're a beer and wine wholesaler. Oh, great. Very cool. Good for you. Well, that's awesome, you guys.

So what do you tell people? Because you are weird. I mean, you're 30 years old. Oh, great. Very cool. Good for you. Well, that's awesome, you guys. So what do you tell people? Because you are weird. I mean, you're 30 years old. Yeah, totally weird. But you paid off $250,000 in four years, too. That's impressive. And nobody even thinks to pay off their house, but you did it. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is?

The secret is there's no secret. You have to really want to win. You know, a lot of people look at it and think they can't do it. But as long as you believe you can win, that's the biggest key for me is thinking you can win and knowing you can win and changing your mindset to saying, I can win, I can do this. What about you, Kelly? So a lot of really what Andrew said was what I was going to say, but I let him go first, so that's okay. So my key, of course, communication, of course, having a written budget. Those are essential, I think, right off the bat.

You know that. But putting in the work every single day. And that's hard. It's hard. It's hard work to make a commitment to yourself, to your spouse, to your future every day. But really just keeping that end goal in mind, having great family and friends around you to support you. Those are really the key there, having a good team behind you. So you had a lot of cheerleaders, I'm sure.

But, I mean, the two of you seem so in sync. It's almost sickening. I mean, did you not have any good fights? Oh, tears have been shed, mostly on my part. I was going to say, Andrew, how often did you cry? We're both very financially minded. Him, way more so than me. I'm definitely more emotional.

But we've really been on the same page since day one. What was the biggest one that was the biggest problem in the four years? I know one, but... Go ahead. Uh-oh. It was over maternity pants. What? You wouldn't let her buy

maternity pants? Well, I would. I just want to know how much they were first. You shouldn't have asked. I know. Especially with hormones. Yeah, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The maternity pant meltdown almost threw the whole thing off the tracks. Yes. Yeah.

That's awesome. Thanks for being real. Thank you. That's awesome. That's very cool. That's good. Because you guys were just a little too pretty there for a minute. I was worried about you. That's good. I you guys were just a little too pretty there for a minute. I was worried about you.

That's good. I like that. Because Sharon and I, we still fight. Oh, awesome. You guys are great. Very, very well done. Thank you. Very well done.

Oh, man. So what was the hardest part? The hardest thing for me was we had one debt, and it was a large amount of money. There was no mark, no milestones. It was very, very tough. We kept an amortization table on the refrigerator at home, and every month we'd mark it and work it down. I love it. That's what I would do.

You might be a nerd, him. Yeah. It was looking, trying to get that one page down and move on to the next page and the next page and the next page. It was just tough to, you know, some months the progress wasn't as much as we wanted, but we just had to stick to it. That is so great. Yeah, he is a nerd.

I know. He's a great one, too. That's awesome. That's exactly what I would do. Sheriff would be going, what are you doing to my refrigerator? That's so good. So good. You guys, you're so winning. I'm so, this is really good. Thank you. Paid for house. What's so good. So good. You guys, you're so winning.

I'm so, this is really good. Thank you. Paid four house. What's the house worth? Probably around $350. Okay. Paid four house. 30 years old.

And first baby's here. You said TJ? Or AJ. AJ. How old is AJ? He'll be two in December. Awesome. And you brought him with you for the debt-free screen.

That's good. Good. Well, this family tree has been changed because Mom and Dad really started with the grandparents even. Yes. Have trained you guys up and were able to provide your education, and that sets you up for a completely different thing. Wow. Way to go. And so we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you.

That is the next chapter in your story to be millionaires. You're well on your way to doing that. We want to hear from you on your everyday millionaire hour soon. Yes. And outrageously generous, as you said, as you go along. So well done. Andrew, Kelly, and AJ, Indianapolis. House and everything, baby.

$249,000 paid off in four years, making $100,000 to $144,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Oh, man. Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man. That is so fun.

So I wonder what in the world would happen if you put $2,500 a month starting at age 30. What you would have at age 70. That would be 40 years. I'm just going to put this in here, I hope. And a decent growth start mutual fund starting from now. If they just take their house payment and save that alone from now until 70, if it's a $2,500 house payment from now until age 70, they make, that's $17 million. Oh, I know, I know, I know.

What if I'm a half-frog? Woo-hoo! This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Jeff is with us in Fort Lauderdale. Hey, Jeff, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I'm currently in a position of moving my fiancée, soon-to-be wife, from my Dallas home down to Fort Lauderdale. Looking at homes down here, and unfortunately, they're about triple the price than what we have now.

And that kind of puts us in the category of getting what's called a jumbo loan, which requires 20% down. I have ways to do that, but I guess I just kind of wanted to run them by you before I did that. Okay. And the first one was selling my home in Dallas, selling it to a realtor or selling it on my own to get more out of the house. You'll net more on average using a high-end, high-octane, high-protein realtor. Okay. You'll net more.

The commission savings is mythology because you generally sell it faster sell it for more money don't make mistakes in negotiation um and so on and you generally another realtor may bring the offer anyway even if you fizbo list it for sale by owner list it and then they'll want to be paid the three percent so you end up only saving three because and it or not so all the data says use a high-quality realtor. Anyway, next. And so what would you get out of the house if you sold it in Dallas? At $153, I think it's worth about $230.

Good. Okay, good. So you've got some equity. Good. And what's your household income? Mine by myself is $120. When are you getting married? October.

Good. Congratulations. What does she make? Thank you. She is $120. When are you getting married? October. Good. Congratulations. What does she make? Thank you. She makes $140. Okay. And you live in Dallas now, but you're both moving to Fort Lauderdale. How's this working?

Yeah, I had to move down here early. She couldn't make the transfer right away, so she'll be here at the end of December. Oh, okay. I got you. So that's the story there. Okay, cool. All right. So she's got her job moving to it. She makes what?

$140,000. Oh, wow. So you have a great income. Yeah, not too bad. And are you out of debt, both of you, except the house? At my house, I do have a fleece that I need to get rid of, and I plan on paying off my school loan at the end of the year. That's $17,000. Okay.

Before you buy? You're out of the fleece. Before you buy, you're out of the fleece, and you're out of that, and you have an emergency fund, and then you do your down payment. So it sounds... Okay. I didn't let you finish. So one option is sell the house.

What's your other options? I have a 401k with a little bit of money in there. I didn't know if I should drain that to put this 20% on the house which i would love to do never never okay because if you do they're going to charge you a 10 penalty plus your tax rate which is 35 so it's a 45 hint on the money dave i want to borrow money at 45 interest so i can put my money down on extra down on the house no probably not a good idea yeah all right next one all right so I guess we'll save a little bit two options I guess okay trying to get to the point of saving enough money to put yeah 20 let me let me give you uh let me give you

an uncomfortable option but a wise option okay that's not on the table right this second. It is wise to be married a year before you buy a home together. Okay. And I always just laughingly say it takes a year to know how close to your mother-in-law to buy. That's probably not your case logistically. But the point is you will know each other a lot differently and a lot better after a year of marriage. And that will cause you to make a different home purchase. The second thing with the numbers you're giving me, the best number in this entire conversation is your incredible new household income. You guys are slaying it, man.

You're slaying it, you know? We're not doing too good. Yeah, so the point is you're going to be able to pile up cash so fast if you'll behave because you've got this big goal of a house. Take a year. Rent something cheap. Not super, super cheap. You make $300,000.

But take a year and clear up the fleece, clear up the student loan, get your emergency fund in place, and save you a big honking down payment. And sell the house in Dallas. And then there's just no stress push pull you're not in the middle of a wedding trying to pick out a house changing careers changing cities oh my god there's a lot going on in your life at one time you really could make a mistake yep if you were ever going to it would be with all the stress so you know just just take a year just chill it's okay you're not you're not you know again don't go rent the Taj Mahal.

Don't go rent something $30,000 a month on the beach in a penthouse or something. But, you know, there's nice stuff in Fort Lauderdale. But get you something that's, you know, cheap but reasonable because you're camping for one year. Right. How much do we want to spend on camping? Because the more we spend on rent, the less we'll have to put down. Right. want to spend on camping because more we spend on rent the less we'll have to put down right so we're not going to live in a one-bedroom trash hole that's not safe because we make 300 grand but we're also not going to spend a bazillion dollars you follow my thinking here bottom line

though is this one less decision to make you get you can get the house sold you can get the student loan paid off get the fleece gone get your car purchased get your down payment your emergency fund in place and you'll know each other better. And have a goal of, like, next October after the wedding, we're going to buy. But we'll be in the new house by Christmas of 19. Okay. All right. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes.

And you just got a lot on the table, and you don't have to do it all at once. There's nobody pushing you. Good question. Good question. Thanks, man. Appreciate you listening. Fort Lauderdale is a great town, too. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Blinds.com gives us our question of the day. They have the 100% satisfaction guarantee that says if you order window blinds from them and you screw up, nobody does this. This is a great guarantee. If you mismeasure and the stupid blind won't fit the window because it's too long or it's too short and it won't hit the bracket, you know what I'm talking about. Is that aggravating or what? Because it's your fault when you do it. It's really super aggravating when I do something like that. But you know what? They'll just make it for you for free. If you put it up there and it's a wrong color, they'll remake it for you for free.

And you get free samples and free shipping. It's a no-brainer. And it's a wrong color they'll make it a remake it for you for free and you get free samples and free shipping it's a it's a no-brainer and it's the best deals out there yeah be sure to use the promo code ramsey at blinds.com to get the best deal this is a great company laura's in tennessee she gives us her question where in the baby steps does identity theft protection fall should i cover my kids or only the adults in my household? If you go to Zander Insurance, you can get a family plan with their ID theft protection, and I would do that immediately. Everyone's identity just about now has been stolen. I mean, unless you just are completely off the grid, probably someone has your numbers. I mean, between Equifax and Target and three or four of these others that had, you know,

100 million each people identity stolen, yours is screwed probably. I mean, really. It's just the world we live in now. And I go through about four debit cards a year now. I don't know about you guys, but my bank constantly is canceling it because somebody's misusing it. Somebody in Russia bought something the other day. Who knew? I think there should be an investigation. Oh, already is okay not me but okay so uh but yeah it's 680 bucks i

don't think it's worth an investigation but my bank didn't pay it i didn't pay it and they redid my debit card because something happened i have no idea i'm not sloppy with it but they just it's the world we live in you You need identity theft protection. Everyone does. Just like you need life insurance, it's not in the baby steps. It's something you do for your family. You don't have car insurance in the baby steps. You just buy it. It's in your budget.

You need car insurance because there's people out there that drive like I do. It's a new joke. You'll catch on later. Oh, my goodness open phones at 888-825-5225 uh wesley on twitter says should military members give up to six give up 6.5 percent of military pension monthly for their spouse to receive from a survivor benefit benefit of 55 percent no um i tell you to take your military member, which is the full retirement, and buy life insurance on you. So when you die, the life insurance provides for your spouse.

It costs less than the cut in pay you're taking to buy the life insurance, assuming you're healthy. You don't smoke. You're not overweight. That kind of stuff, right? Now, if you're healthy, you buy some inexpensive term insurance and offset the difference until you have enough wealth in place to cover for your spouse. But the numbers work out that the term insurance is cheaper than the cut in pay by far. expired, you'd have a nest egg as a result of that one investment mathematically built up on average to cover your spouse in the event you canceled the term insurance and died and your military pension died with you.

So generally speaking, with pensions of any kind, you're better off taking them early and often, but that's not to spend them. It's not to go buy a pickup. It's to create investment accounts to offset the fact that you're going to lose it later upon death. That's how the math works out. That puts this hour of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that in 2017, Dave Ramsey Show listeners paid off $50 million in debt? That's pretty impressive, and it could be you this year.

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