The Ramsey Show - App - There Are STILL Smart People in America! (Just Not in Washington) (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: How do I get to 15% if I'm already maxing out my 401(k) and Roth?  from the blog: Why Should I Invest 15% of My Income for Retirement? Selling a lake house to pay off the primary home, Setting up an estate plan for a tricky family situation, What to do with a settlement, "My husband wants to buy an AirBnB w/ a HELOC", Looking for another career. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Joe is in Houston to start off this particular hour. What's up, Joe? Hi, Dave. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade. It's a pleasure to speak with you both. You too, sir. How can we help? Yes, sir.

So recently I've heard you mention that you don't advise someone to open a brokerage account if their mortgage isn't paid off. And I've been listening to you for a little while now. And my question is, I'm on baby step four, five, and six, and I'm trying to invest 15% of my income. And I'm maxing out my 401k at my work. I'm also maxing out a Roth IRA for myself and my wife. So my question is, with the extra percentage that I have, do I open a brokerage account and just put it in mutual funds, or should I just throw the rest of my mortgage? You can just throw it. You're not up to 15% by doing all of that?

No, sir, because our income is approaching about $300,000. Way to go. Congratulations. Okay. Well, then, yeah, I mean, you just need to get it into mutual funds. If you want to use a brokerage account to put it in mutual funds, that's fine. The thing, when most people say brokerage account, they mean I'm going to take my golfing buddy's best suggestion and buy some stocks with some broker. Right.

Translation, you're getting ready to lose your freaking money. Right. But you actually tactically, functionally can use a brokerage account to buy mutual funds. If you get with one of our SmartVestor pros, you'll just have an account with them that they manage everything and you can put like your smart you can put your roth iras in that account you can put your other stuff in that account and it is it does technically fall under the heading of a brokerage account but this is not a count an account where we're buying and selling single stocks and sometimes people translate the word brokerage account to that. When I hear someone say that off the street,

that's what I always think they're talking about because it usually is. You see what I'm saying? Right. Would you recommend putting it in the four types of mutual funds that you typically recommend or an index fund? Since it's taxable, probably an index fund. Probably put it in an S&P 500 because it's going to – that falls in the growth stock category, but it's going to have a low turnover ratio, so you're not going to be taxes on it until you cash it out.

Right, right. To amount to anything. All right. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, I'd go – is there another way to max that? You don't have any self-employed income of any kind? No, sir. Okay. I don't know of another way to max that, you don't have any self-employed income of any kind? No, sir. Okay. I don't know of another way to max that out.

But again, if you're working with SmartVestor Pro, you might ask them if there's another way to get at that. Well, the good thing is he's got a high income. I bet you he'll have the ability to retire a little bit earlier than average, and then he'll have some money available to him before 59 and a half. Yeah, that S&P will serve, you're right, as a bridge, as some bridge money, because he's putting 45,000 bucks away yeah 15 of 300 000 he's putting you know 45 grand away a year that's four grand a month i mean he's kicking butt he's doing great that's going to

get him to some serious net worth very very quickly wow i love it oh man there's just people all over america that have a brain none of them are in washington dc but's just people all over America that have a brain. None of them are in Washington, D.C. But there's people all over America that have a brain. That guy's got a brain. He sure does. I mean, that's just incredible. Yeah, I like what he's doing. They're everywhere.

They're smart people. There really are smart people out there. You just don't see them much on the news. Arnold's with us in Houston, Texas. Hey, Arnold, what's up? Hey. Arnold? What? Something's wrong with your phone. Try one more time. in Houston, Texas. Hey, Arnold, what's up? Hey. Arnold? Hey.

Something's wrong with your phone. Try one more time. Take it off speakerphone. Three. Okay. You're going to have to get back on and see if we can teach you to use your phone. All right, Stephen is with us in Springfield, Missouri. Hey, Stephen, what's up? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay sure what's up hey dave uh my wife and i

we have a primary residence that's on a 15 year loan we owe about 220 000 but we own a lake property that we we uh paid off actually down near branson um it's on a one-year lease right now it'll be up soon. We're contemplating, it's worth about $350,000. We've thought about just selling it to pay off the primary. We've done a little bit of Davis over the years. We flipped a couple of properties, but we have five kids and we could sell the lake house for about $350,000 and pay off the current. So just kind of want to get your thoughts on what you would do in that situation. What's your income? I'm in sales.

Base is around $140, but it goes up to about $175 if I have a good year and my wife stays at home with our kids. Do you have any other debt? It's just those two homes, right? Or it's just the one home? Yeah, just the debt on the primary residence. No other personal debt. So you leased your lake house out because you're not using it? Yeah, we bought it to use, you know, go down to the lake and use it from time to time.

And then we don't get down enough with the kids being so busy. So it paid off, but we get $2,200 a month. Well, $2,300 a month, but we still pay the HOAs. So we net about $2,000 a month uh well twenty three hundred dollars a month but we still pay the hoas so we net about two thousand a month so emotionally this is not your family's favorite place to go in the summer that you're going to sell and your children are all going to run away and hide in a homeless shelter because they hate their dad emotionally this is a rental house yeah i mean i'm from the area so there is there is some connection to the area but uh if i sold

my lake house um i you would probably never find my body my children and my grandchildren would go bananas were there every weekend all summer boats and sea dues and skis and tubes and if i sold my lake house it would be like the end of the Ramsey family as we know it. And so you're not even in that category. Is it far from you? Is it a far drive? No, we're two hours away. We're out near Joplin. But like I said, with the kids being busy in school, we just don't get down there as much. And so I've done some math and I'm like, you know, if we go down and rent an Airbnb 15 nights a year year go see my family you know it the the utility is the utilities are the property tax and hoa and the insurance i mean let's say it's five grand a year

sell it steven you don't want the house anymore sell it you've already sold it 16 times in this conversation yeah there was no fight in you at all to keep it i gave you every chance how does your wife feel is she ready to get rid of it yeah i think so yeah 35 sell it yeah if your wife says sell it sell it she's right is it that you're just having a hard time because it's cash flowing yeah you feel like you're yeah and we're just like well we have one house paid off but not the primary so we can go back and forth in our minds. I think we're trading.

If you were going to buy a $300,000 rental, it would not be a lake house two hours away. Right. This became a rental by default when your family quit using it. Uh-huh. Right. Sell it. Fair enough. Thanks.

No default rental properties. Well, that's exciting. No default rental properties. He's getting ready to have a paid off primary mortgage. With five kids. Yeah. No default rental properties. Well, that's exciting. No default rental properties. He's getting ready to have a paid-off primary mortgage. That's great. With five kids. With five kids. Wonderful.

I'm telling you, Jade, there's smart people in America. Smart people. We met a couple of them today. They're out there. We are collecting them here on The Ramsey Show. We have the largest collection of smart people. I love it. In America.

Watch the other shows. They're not on those shows. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services.

When something in your home breaks, Neighborly is the name to remember. You know it by names like Mr. Rooter or Molly Maid or Mr. Electric and many, many other wonderful names. And the Neighborly Done Right promise. With that, you'll know you're getting great service from their network of local home service providers. It's an incredible company. We are honored to have them sponsoring our question of the day.

So go to neighborly.com today. Today's question of the day comes from Andrew in Wisconsin. He says, I'm in my mid-50s with two kids. I've done relatively well in life, but have had some problems in life like cancer. I recovered thankfully, but it does run in my family. So I'm worried about how long I'll live. And I wrote a will last year. I have a son and daughter in their 20s. One is doing well, the other not so much. My youngest daughter has struggled with addiction to opiates and has gone to rehab several times. Although she has been sober now for several months, I'm well aware of the idea that once

an addict, always an addict. How should I set up my will so that I keep my daughter safe when I pass? My friend suggested that I request it gets paid in annuity as opposed to a lump sum. I'm looking for your advice on this. That's a really, really good question. Well, I'm glad that you're doing well from the cancer. You know, I would suggest, I think it's a great thing that you have a will, but I would suggest also getting a trust in place.

And I'm telling you that because it's going to allow you to determine how this money is distributed and all the different terms around it. My husband and I are actually walking through that with our trust and with our kids. A will is a great place to start, but if you have those things that you want to delineate with your children, you're going to have to take it a step further and get a trust. And so that's what I would suggest to you and just put in there whatever you want it. Dave, I know you've got a whole lot of stipulations on how these things work out, especially when it comes to addicts. You know, you got to you got to be careful there.

Yeah, your friend is wrong. An annuity won't work. That will be a steady stream of payments to buy opiates with. The annuity doesn't turn on or off based on her addiction. Right. doesn't turn on or off based on her addiction right and so um you can um you can set a trustee on a trust and the trust could be formed at your death at the direction of the will you don't have to put it in place now and her portion your son's portion could be just released to him her portion could be left into trust and um you know i i would release amounts of money based on uh years or months of sobriety

because what we're trying to do here is not finance her addiction and um and and not jar her and knock her out of the saddle of sobriety so i mean let's just pretend okay let's just throw out a number that to her is big whatever that number is could knock her out of the saddle because she has this sense that now she has a new source of uh of a provision for her whole life and so she relaxes a little bit in the in the fight to stay sober. Yeah, that's good. And so if she perceives $100,000 to be a lot of money, it's not in these situations, but if she perceives that, it could knock her out of the saddle.

So I would personally leave it into a trust and get with an estate planning attorney and have the trustee monitor her sobriety. And if she's attending AA, for instance, you would get a coin at various milestones. And based on those milestones, you could release money at the one year. You know, she's already been sober for a while, it sounds like. That's good. Several months. But I mean, at a one-year mark, a two-year mark, a five-year mark, or you could increase it or you could release it all at a certain mark. If someone's been sober for five or ten years, you know, they've done, especially from opiates, you know, I'm not an addiction expert, but sadly we work with a lot of addicts. So we've learned a lot because 100% of addicts have money problems.

Stuff's expensive and so um uh yeah uh anyway we get to learn a lot about it sadly and um as a layman not as a medical professional but anyway all that to say opiates if she can stay dry five years she's probably dry for life yeah and he's in his mid-50s you're you're gonna god willing be able to watch this yeah throughout the next 10 years and make those adjustments you could just do away with the trust at some point like if in other words if let's say you live 10 years and she's dry for 10 years you could say all right i don't need the trust and redo your will yeah yeah but um but in in the meantime uh if you're going to do it today, I would just say, okay, give some milestones.

And you could work with her counselor. You could have the counselor report to the trustee. And they have to have the – she has to sign the right to do that in order to get money because the counselor cannot report her information legally without her permission. But she could say, okay, in order to get funds released, the counselor has to, the sponsor from AA has to, whatever it is, and then the trustee, whoever that is. I would not make your son the trustee. I don't want him to be his sister's keeper.

That's a good point. I want him to just be able to love her and support her as her brother, not the keeper of her money. And you should have these discussions with both of them. Yeah, talk about it. Yeah. Talk about it. Yeah. Talk about it. That's a really good point. Anytime you're dealing with adults and a will of any kind, just say, look, if you're going to piss people off, do it while you're alive. Okay. Tell them

you're not in the will. You're not in the will. Okay. It's not fair for everybody else to have to deal with your actions after you're gone and everybody else is emotional about it. So you need to have a reading of the will or essentially that where everybody knows what's going on here. And, you know, and it's real easy with her. I'm just going to say, I love you so much that I'm not going to finance a potential relapse. Absolutely.

And so I'm going to dole this out based on sobriety because as an act of love, not as an act of punishment for your addiction and talk to her about that while you're alive because trust can't convey the emotion of a dad right it's loving his daughter well right and so that this is an excellent time to do that so it's a really good point jade and just a reminder everybody needs a will yeah right everybody needs a will everybody doesn't need a trust but there are times when um it's the best choice for you yeah and the only time you're going to have ongoing trusts um typically our special needs child is going to be ongoing throughout their life a situation like this is going to be ongoing but it's probably not forever it's not perpetual right uh the only and

the only other ongoing trust are where there's like large estate where you're trying to manage the estate out of the trust, not just keep from harming someone that you're leaving behind. Right. Like your children, if you've got minor children and none of them are special needs, you might just have a trust until they're a certain age and then it evaporates and the money's distributed to them. And that would be normal as well so uh fun stuff fun stuff yeah go to mama bear legal forms.com if you don't have your

will in place and they can help you with basic trusts as well if you need a complicated thing like this one's a little complicated i'd probably see an estate planning attorney it's worth a few hundred dollars to uh more to get this done right and to have someone that teaches you and consults with you about what the law allows in your state on managing that distribution. But the annuity is not the answer. Arnold is with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Arnold. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Did we get your phone fixed, brother? Yes, sir. How are you doing, Mr. Ramsey? Better than I deserve. That is so much better. Thank you, sir. How can I help? Well, I've been following your show for about a year now, and finally decided to start

doing things the way you teach. And, well, I got a little bit of a question. I'm about to start that snowball, and I want to know if it's a little bit different in my case. So, I have a motorcycle on that my ex-girlfriend took out for me. I crashed the motorcycle, and I injured myself pretty badly. After a couple of months of litigation, I got a settlement that's just enough to cover the loan, about $15,000. So what I'm wondering is, do I dump that into that snowball, or do I pay her off so that she can be out of my life for good and I can be out of hers? You pay her off. I pay her off.

Yeah, it's the right thing to do. It's not fair to her. Yeah. This whole move was dumb on her part, your part, and you can tell why now because it's left you in a lurch emotionally and relationally. And this money was for the motorcycle from the motorcycle about the motorcycle so you just pay her off and that's

clears it so it's not it's not a random piece of money right yeah i would do the same thing get her out of your life if you you use those words get her out of my life yeah and my guess is she feels the same way yeah this. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you are a new listener or viewer, and we know there are a bunch of you based on all of our analytics and numbers, and a huge number of you have joined us in just the last few months, thank you for that. You may be a little bit out of the loop on all this lingo, the baby steps and

debt snowballs and all those kinds of things we talk about around here all the time. We'll try to keep you up to date, but if you want to really dive into it and start to learn where you are and where you need to go next, it's a free service. Just go to RamseySolutions.com, click on Get Started, and we'll help you figure out your next best step from where you are right now. RamseySolutions.com. It's completely free. Click Get Started.

Sandy is with us in Nashville. Hi, Sandy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, dave thanks for taking my call sure um i've been agonizing over something for a few weeks walking around my house saying what would dave say what would dave say so today i decided to call and see what you would say about this my husband wants to buy an Airbnb in Florida as an investment. We have no emergency fund. We have excellent credit. All we do have is the equity in our house, which we do have a mortgage on. I'm terrified about this idea. It would require a home equity line of credit and possibly another investment mortgage loan on top of that. You already know what Dave would say.

Yes, I do, I believe. And do you want to know what Jade would say? Yes, yes, yes. Well, I might not be able to say it on the air, but it ends in the word no. Yeah. Capital N-O. You're broke people. Broke people don't need to buy investment properties.

Broke people really don't need to buy high-risk investment properties. Broke people really don't need to buy high-risk investment properties in another state with all 100% borrowed money. And leveraged on your own home. Right. This goes sideways. It's got nowhere to go but bad. Okay. So let me tell you, he's been watching.

He's been spending too much time on the Internet. Yeah. Yeah. So here's what the Internet, here's what the idiots on Tic Tac will tell you, okay, that running an Airbnb is 100 percent profit. You're going to make so much money. You're going to be just bathing in money. There's going to be cash everywhere. It fails to mention that renters that tear up your house. It fails to mention the times that it sits empty. It fails to mention the high management fees. It fails to mention all of the costs of it sits empty. It fails to mention the high management fees. It fails to mention all

of the costs of your maid service. It fails to mention the fact that the local municipality decides that Airbnbs are no longer legal, and they pass a law prohibiting Airbnb in your neighborhood, which is happening in some areas, and HOAs are preventing them left and right because they don't want a hotel in their neighborhood, which is essentially what an Airbnb is. And the things, if everything works perfect the way the Tic Tac guys say, you're going to be so rich it's unbelievable. But guess what? You and I live in the real world. It doesn't work that way.

Running an Airbnb is a complete pain in the bohonkas. Okay. That's exactly what every fill in me is screaming yeah are you going to be able to convince him of that she's not going to sign the deed um i'm praying i'm praying just no i refuse to sign the heloc the house has your name on it in tennessee as well he can't get a HELOC without your signature. Right. No. Okay.

Well, thank you all so much. We'll discuss the marriage aspects of this, but no. All right. Don't do it. Here's the thing. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies? The heart of her husband safely trusts her her and he will have no lack of gain sandy you have what's called common sense you can perceive risk a mile away your husband has spent so much time on tic-tac that he has no idea what real risk is and how much work and hassle and

problems this is you can make money running an airbnb but you know you can also make money running a hotel but it's called a full-time job somebody has to manage the hotel somebody has to manage the maintenance people somebody has to manage the maid service somebody has to this is not just found money that you walk out on the sidewalk and pick up a bail of money because you signed up for airbnb because some moron on tic-tac said it was a great idea it's not just found money that you walk out on the sidewalk and pick up a bail of money because you signed up for Airbnb because some moron on Tic Tac said it was a great idea. It's passive. It's passive income, Dave.

It's passive income. There's no passive about it. You talk about active, it's about as active a piece of real estate as you can get. Again, there is situations where you can make bank on this if you're willing to go through the hassle and the hard work and put up with it. But it's not as much as people say it is. And it's certainly not as much as your gross rent projection is by freaking Airbnb. Because all they'll tell you is you keep it full all the time.

Here's what we can get for it. Well, nobody keeps it full all the time. Number one. Number two, nobody puts everybody in there and 100% of them pay. Never happens. number one number two nobody puts everybody in there and 100 of them pay never happens nobody puts everybody in there and they don't tear it up past beyond the level of their deposit never happens so dad gum man i got a a three degrees of separation uh-huh guy that has a an expensive property that he put and uh a bunch of uh characters went in there and one of them killed the other one in his house oh a murder in his house oh so i was not expecting that yeah there you go that that's my that's my

love of airbnb it just went away right then but that doesn't happen very often but i mean these characters and this was not a cheap this was not a house in the yeah in the wrong end of town or whatever it is you know sheesh no this is this was people partying and they party too hard oh my gosh yeah out of control so yeah it's uh you know does that is that that going to happen? No, that's not going to happen. Right. All right.

But the point is you're running a high turnover night to night, week to week rental. If this is not, you put a tenant in there and they stay in there a year and you have an actual relationship with the tenant. So, okay. So here I am playing devil's advocate as I sometimes do. There are listeners who want to get into that space and we don't want them to listen to tic-tac as you call it. What do you say to the person?

Pay cash for it after your home's paid for, baby step seven, and understand that you are embracing two things that no one talks about when you do Airbnb. High hassle factor, high risk. Yeah. And so you have to apply those to the numbers. It's the same thing when somebody goes to one of these nothing down real estate crap and they go, I can rent the house for $1,000 and my payment's only $500.

I'm going to cash flow $500. Well, let me tell you how that works in the end okay if that's the case you're going to break even with vacancy with non-payment with suing to evict them with fixing the repairs beyond the deposits with fixing the repairs that just happened to a house the heat and air goes out the roof leaks and paying the insurance paying the taxes messing with it you got a 500 cash flow no you don't you're breaking even this is what people don't grasp i have a 500 cash flow what that means is you don't know what the flip you're doing you have no knowledge of how real estate really works my homes and properties of all kinds are 100 paid for and i swear i wonder if some of them are going to cash flow then

you know i mean it's unbelievable and you do know you do know airbnb and wouldn't even get into it no no winston cruz runs all that stuff rachel's husband he would shoot me if i proposed airbnb it would make his life miserable. But why is that? Well, the hassle factor versus the risk. It's not worth the risk. The juice ain't worth the squeeze. There you go. That's what I want people to get.

Like, just pay cash for a normal rental, right? Yeah, that's what I would do. Why even fool with the... But if you want to do it, you probably could make more money. Mm-hmm. You would make more money. If you can get it rolling. If you have a reasonable property, you'll make more money. Net, net. You would make more money. If you can get it rolling. If you have a reasonable property, you'll make more money doing it at Airbnb than you would renting it out.

But not just some guy off the streets who thinks they're just going to. Net, net. Yeah, net, net. You would do that. But even if you don't know what you're doing, you don't know how to be a landlord. Net, net. You'd make more money. But what you need to perceive is the extra hassle level.

It is real. You're dealing with a lot of human beings. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today thank you for joining us america speaking of co-host ken coleman is uh has launched an exciting new event or we have launched an exciting new event with ken coleman called career breakthrough whether you feel stuck in your current job because of fear and doubt or you have an idea you want to pursue but you don't know how to get there or you just need someone to tell you you can do it. You need to come to this.

Ken Coleman is the guy, and his event, Career Breakthrough, is just for you. You can join Ken live in person this spring for an event that will give you clarity, confidence, and courage to do the work you were born to do. Ken is going to take questions, interact with the audience, and talk to you guys. And every ticket comes with his Get Clear assessment as well. The career breakthrough is going to be Kansas City, Missouri, April 20, coming up quick here, Chicago, Illinois, May 16, Atlanta, Georgia, May 18, and Dallas, Texas, May 23.

Tickets start at just $50. These are small events, only going to be 300 or 400 people. So if you want an intimate interaction with Ken and audience to be able to get questions answered and actually take you where you need to go, get signed up for these. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash events. Al is with us in Bethesda. Hey, Al, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon.

Thanks for having me on. Certainly. How can we help? Yeah, my question is, how would you advise my wife and I to determine the best high-growth industries when considering a career change? Well, high growth is a good thing to look at. I also would look at how you're wired and what's going to make you smile. I don't care if it's high growth if you hate it every single day.

There's not enough money on the planet to make you happy then. No, that definitely makes sense. I am actually reading Ken Coleman's book from Pick Tech to Purpose. Good. But we're just really just trying to get all avenues and information and talk to different people about different careers, what we could do. He's a CPA, and I do research for the Department of Defense, and we've both been working about 12 to 13, 14 years, something like that.

So, and we just both had a realization being in middle management that is, wow, the folks in upper management just seems like they do have the burden of responsibility and leadership, but certainly it feels like we're working more than perhaps they are. So we're just kind of looking at each other. We're both 33 and saying, like, are we really going to do this for the next 20 to 30 years? Have you done the career assessment that Ken offers to see what you're wired to do?

I have not. Where's that assessment, if you don't mind? You can go to his website and find it. Well, you can find it in the Ramsey Solutions store, RamseySolutions.com. We'll give you a couple of them so you guys can take it, and that'll be helpful. I think one of the things you're going to find, Al, is that you're both detail people, right? Yes, very much so. And I'm not so if you put me into a detail thing it would be like uh

as a friend of mine says leukemia to my soul oh gosh but yeah no thank you if i had to do what your wife does every day i would you know i want to read the reports that she does but i don't want to create them you know so uh from a cpa perspective now here's the thing it might be that being a cpa is not a problem it might be how here's the thing. It might be that being a CPA is not a problem. It might be how she's doing it. Maybe start your own practice where the sky's the limit. And then do the same work but for yourself and make a lot more money. Maybe it's that simple.

In your case, research is not something you necessarily start up on your own. Maybe it is. I don't know what field you're in. But whatever you move towards needs to have lots of detail uh like for instance i'm not gonna recommend and it's not necessarily well it is actually probably a pretty growth oriented thing right this second um is event planner okay where it's different every day it's constant change. There's a lot of human beings running around with drama, trying to get the event off the ground,

whether it's the crew putting in the sound system or the people running the event center or the client. You're not doing that one, okay? That one don't fit you, okay? You'd be miserable for you. So, you know, you're going to find one, okay? That one don't fit you, okay? You'd be miserable for you. So, you know, you're going to find those things out from this career assessment, but then it can be that what you described to me was not necessarily a career path problem. It was where you're doing it is the problem.

Yeah, I think you might be on to something there. So, yeah, we'll give you that. You guys take that. But then I would look around and go, okay, you know, technology is obviously anything that falls under that bucket, and that's a really large bucket. You know, a guy like you, if you wanted to learn programming or you wanted to get into that field, there's a lot of stuff that's booming

there uh any anything around that word assuming you develop some skills in that area uh what you could do pretty quickly with your natural bent is my guess you might go to code school you might do uh something else you might study security uh you know digital security app applications and uh just a huge huge booming it's a gold gold mine gold rush right now uh but you know it doesn't necessarily mean that's for you but i would not pick it based you know you're reading that from ken already i would not pick it based on only on um you know what's booming yeah and what you can make money with. I don't want to go to a dentist that chose being a dentist because there's a lot of money in it. Exactly.

You're not going to work the same way. I'm a coward and I want to go to a dentist that chose it as an opportunity to serve in the medical arts and they're a compassionate person because i'm a coward oh yeah well we've all dealt with people who it's like wow you you need to go on and do something that gives you some joy we've all encountered those people where it's like why are you doing this every day you're clearly miserable is it just for the paycheck i mean you don't definitely don't want to be one of those people um yeah that would be as you say the tail wagging the dog so john is with us in modesto california hi john how are you good thanks for taking my call sure how can we help

so um we took out a heloc uh last year uh to make some upgrades around the house and also to put a practice baseball field in our backyard. Well, the HELOC, we under-budgeted, so we ran out of the HELOC, and we still need probably another $5,000 or $6,000 to get the field. How much did you spend on your field of dreams? If you build it, you will come. About $40,000 of the HELOC went towards the ball field, and about 30,000 went towards the well and pump that we needed to put in anyway

for our residents. What do you make a year? We are, I'm sorry? What do you make a year? $200,000 between my wife and I. Okay. And your question is how to come up with the last $5,000 to finish? Well, yeah, we're really hot and heavy in step two.

We've already tackled about $25,000 in debt within the last 30 to 40 days. How long before baby step two is done? At your current time? About another eight months. Is there a problem waiting until next spring to finish the ball field? How long before Baby Step 2 is done? At your current time? About another eight months. About another eight months. Is there a problem waiting until next spring to finish the ball field? I mean, tactically, technically, is there a problem? I'm not talking about emotionally.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the hard part, right? I think we'd earn about $2,000 per month renting it out, but it would take another $6,000 or so to finish it. And each month we have about $4,000 left over from income to pay towards that. Who are you renting a baseball diamond to? They are in high demand out here. It's hard to find fields to practice on.

Huh. So who's going to pay you? Like little kids? Whether it's, no, whether it's a youth, a lot of youth teams are open to paying. Youth teams pay $2,000 to rent a field? No, if I rented out 20 nights a week.

100 bucks for a few hours. Okay. If you want to work the cash flow in to finish it, that's fine. It's the first time I've ever taken a call on a baseball field. I'm flabbergasted. If you build it, he will

come. That's what came to mind. I hope your projections are accurate. I do too. And you haven't spent this money. And you've got to get it all paid off now. This goes in the debt snowball, by the way. 20 days of, 20 days of.

Maybe not. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly

newsletter.