The Ramsey Show - App - They Cleaned Up Over $500,000 of Debt! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, that's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is Will in Missouri. Hey, Will,

welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Better than I deserve, man. How can I help? Hey, so, you know, I've been watching some of your programs recently, and you do talk a lot about, you know, the benefits of joining a good church. I used to be a very devout Catholic. I recently fell out of the faith. And my question for you is, do you think joining a church has a long-term effect on your financial and mental health? Well, I don't know if I've got a doctrinal answer.

All I can tell you is what I have experienced, okay? What I have personally experienced is it's had a profound effect on my life. Now, you have to put the caveat, the asterisk there, that any time there's a gathering of people, you're going to find some idiots. And that includes church, right? You're going to find some toxic people. You're going to find some mean people, some bitter people, some angry people. Anytime there's a gathering of people, you're going to find that.

And church is not exempt from that. I think sometimes folks might go to a church and think, well, all the people over there are perfect. Number one, I wouldn't be welcome because I'm not perfect. But then number two, you know, they have this expectation that this set of humans is somehow, you know, never going to mess up or never going to make you angry or never going to hurt your feelings or never do something wrong, and they do all the time. I mean, I've been – but I started going to church as an adult,

so I didn't have the whole upbringing thing. And so for me, you know, admittedly some of the more frustrating times and some of the things that have made me the angriest and most disappointed are some of the human beings there. But I've also found some of the best people on the planet there. And I've also – personally, for me, I mean, everybody has their own thing, but all I can talk about is what happened to me. What happened to me, it's where I learned how to be a better dad.

It's where I learned how to be a better husband. It's where I learned how to be a better leader. Spiritual growth and faith in God has revolutionized my life. Now, some people, they have not had that experience. I understand, but I'm talking about me. It's what happened to me. So, I mean, Sharon often jokes we've been married 38 years. She's really thankful she's not married to the same guy she started with,

that he has been transformed because he was pretty much a twerp. I don't know exactly how I talked a woman into marrying me, but I will tell you this, after 38 years, I'm a much better husband. And I attribute some of that to reading books on marriage, going to marriage counseling, and spiritual growth and learning about marriage through the lens of my spiritual walk and through Scripture. That's an example. And you could talk about leadership on that, and you could talk about raising your kids that way.

You know, do all kids who are raised by parents who go to church turn out? No, they don't all turn out. I mean, we all know somebody's kid who hit the wall, you know. I mean, that's part of life. But, you know, but I did learn a lot about being, you know, a kind, compassionate, firm, solid dad and sticking through the process from people of faith in the mix of the Christian community, in the mix of church. But, you know, I understand if you grew up in a situation where you had a toxic environment or something, that it might not be that.

Is that what you were asking? Yeah. where you had a toxic environment or something that it might not be that. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, so, you know, I was raised Catholic, and, you know, with that came a lot of traditional values, conservatism, sorry being one of them. And, you know, I'm kind of in college now, kind of finding my own way. And with that came a more diverse opinion of things. That did lead to some clashing with my parents, which is ultimately why I decided to leave the faith. But I'm just kind of asking.

So you left your parents' faith? You didn't leave the faith. You left your parents' faith. Yeah, I mean, I guess I. I mean, if the clash with your parents caused you to not like God, then you weren't like—you were only hooked to them anyway, right? Well, basically, I think I have a strong complex of wanting to appease them. They're very strong, traditional parents, so they said, do what I say and make sure that you're going to school and becoming what we want you to be a little bit. I wanted to be a priest for a very long time kind of because of their wishes.

So I guess, yeah, it was more of a parent's fallout, but I did stop going to church. I did stop practicing, and I guess now is just kind of where I'm finding my way back into it a little bit, and I was just calling in to see, you know, maybe stuff. Yeah, I think you just find out. I think you find out for yourself now what you were really going for. If you were just going to make your daddy happy, that's not faith. And so you've got to find your own now or not. But you're just defining that.

I'm just an old guy talking to you. I'm not a theologian, dude. You probably know more about this. If you were studying to be a priest, you probably know more about this than I do. But from a relational standpoint, you're just a young guy, it sounds like, in college, and you don't want to get your political stand and your faith confused. They're not synonymous. You know,

they do inform some things if you believe in, you know, the doctrines of your faith. They're going to inform some stands in the marketplace. For instance, Catholics have a very strong

pro-life agenda and believe, very pro. And so if you want to be politically left on that subject, you're going to struggle with your Catholic doctrine because they don't believe that. You know? Yeah. The Pope, Mother Teresa, you know, so on, have spoken very clearly on these issues, and very eloquently, by the way, and with great persuasion. But, you know, so that's just an example, but that's where politics will intersect your faith. But you don't have to say all Catholics are conservatives or all evangelicals are conservatives,

because they're certainly not. Right, right. No. So anyway, if I were you you i'd go look for your own what was it that you were there for for you what portion of the hour that you sat there fed you and was not there for your dad because i think you have figured out very clearly you're very self-aware very wise i appreciate your words. I appreciate your words. You were somewhat living through their faith, their umbilical cord, and that's been clipped now. And so now you've got to find your own connection to God. And when you find that, it's going to be rich and deep because

it'll be yours. So that's kind of the experience I had, dude, because in the sense of I started going to church as an adult. I met God as an adult. And so, you know, it was a very personal thing. It wasn't attached to my upbringing, you know, perpendicular to what yours was. So interesting discussion. I'm honored that you would ask me something like that. But I'm probably the last guy on the earth to be commenting on it. But I'm an expert on my opinions.

So I can always tell you what happened to me. And that's what happened to me. Hey, thanks for the call. Good luck with that. I'll pray for you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In a season of giving, what better gift can you give someone in the coming year than a new job? Business leaders, if you're looking to add to your team in 2020, get started now with LinkedIn Jobs. At Ramsey Solutions, we post on LinkedIn Jobs because we know the right person will have

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Merry Christmas to you. I do love this time of year. We've got all our Christmas decorations up here at Ramsey Solutions, and we are Christmas nuts around here, at least I am. And since I'm in charge, that means we are. So we're Christmas nuts around here, at least I am. And since I'm in charge, that means we are. So we're Christmas nuts around here. We love Christmas. And it is that time of year.

In a few weeks, we're going to be doing our special giving edition of the Dave Ramsey Show. We devote a whole show to stories about generosity, especially during the season. And maybe it's a waitress that got tipped $100 or Thanksgiving dinner that was bought for a family that couldn't afford one, or maybe you blessed someone in need by giving them a car. I don't know. Maybe you gave somebody $10 million. I don't know. What did you do?

What is the giving you did? Or maybe the receiving even. We want to hear from you if you have a giving or receiving story, and we can talk about putting you on the air and making you part of that giving show. We don't tell you what to say, obviously, but we organize that show. We'll make sure we have the show packed full, all three hours of generosity stories. And we do it every Christmas. It's a little corny, and I love it.

It's one of our most popular shows. Giving people, generous people make us smile. Generous people make our eyes leak. I love it. It's coming up on December the 20th, so send your stories in and let us know about living and giving like no one else. Send them to DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com. Put giving in the subject line, DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com.

No spaces, no dashes. Jump in there, and we'll help you out. Tyler is with us in Arkansas. Hi, Tyler. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So kind of long story short, me and my wife started Baby Step 2 this time last year. And up to now, we've paid off about $40,000. Way to go, dude. Yeah, it's been awesome. It's a blessing for sure. But we've still got a little bit to go. You know, we've got about $80,000 left to go.

And we planned on another year and a half to two years to knock that out. But we recently found out we were blessed with my wife being pregnant. So, just like you say, we stopped. We started making minimal payments, started putting money back in savings and everything well recently that blessing turned into twins when we got our first good detail ultrasound i love it that's awesome double trouble baby yeah it's it's gonna be uh it's gonna be a roller coaster are these your first ones yes oh that makes it even better that's awesome man i'm happy for you. Great. Well, thank you. Yeah, we're looking forward to it.

But, you know, when we found out she was pregnant, we talked about it from the financial side, and we felt comfortable and everything was good. And we figured she would, you know, take her time off that she needed when the baby came, but then she would go back to work. And we figured it wouldn't take us off track too much from where we had originally planned.

But now that it's twins, it's kind of a little different ballgame about how we're thinking financially. And we're figuring that there's a very good chance that she may not be able to work, at least, you know, in that first year. So I guess I'm just – I've seen these numbers just fall in. What does she make? It's been so awesome. She makes altogether – she does a couple different things on the side.

Altogether she makes about $47,000 to $48,000. And what do you make? I make about $51,000 to $48,000. And what do you make? I make about $51,000. Okay. And if she stayed home, how much of her $47,000 would she not earn? Probably about $36,000. Okay. All right.

Well, so what you're doing is you're just calculating daycare is going to be super expensive and going to eat up most of her income. Right. Because it's times two now, right? Right. So have you priced daycare is going to be super expensive and going to eat up most of her income right because it's times two now right right so have you priced daycare in your area we haven't yet um well let's let's get that let's get the information before we start making assumptions okay because i mean it would make a lot if if daycare is 1500 a kid a month yeah you're not going she's not working because she's not even going to break even, right? That's not going to happen.

Right. But I guess it could happen. You could get, like, the most expensive gold-plated daycare in the world. But, you know, but I'm saying the point is you can do some math, and that will help you make a decision that's not. And you go, okay, net of daycare, she's going to be making $5,000 a year. Well, she can stay home and probably make that by ramping up some of her side hustles, right? Right. If it's net of daycare. And so that's what you look at. And that may be

what you find realistically here. You know, take home pay after taxes and after, you know, you got wear and tear on the car, you've got her working, you've got some clothing costs that she won't have if she's not working or whatever she has to dress for work, that kind of thing. Whatever costs are associated with her working, including daycare, you add all those together, subtract them from her take home pay and you know it may very well be that she could make up the difference and with a good strong side hustle and stay home that's very possible but don't make the decision based on the emotion although it's a wonderful emotion i mean you simultaneously are like oh crap yeah yeah how old are you guys i am 29 and she is 24 perfect that's so cool it's gonna work out

okay it is not gonna be what you thought it was gonna be but um i don't think it's gonna mess up your plan as much as it feels like right now because right now in your head you're losing 36 000 right but you're really not because you're to lose the one daycare bill out of that anyway. So really all that happened was you would either add one daycare bill to it, or we come home and we crank up side hustle. Offset the difference. So I'll send you a copy of, I'll send her a copy of Christy Wright's book, Business Boutique, equipping women to make Money Doing What They Love.

And it's all about ladies running businesses, starting and running businesses. And so she can help you with that if that's what your wife wants to do. But my guess is by her being at home and being a super home economist, you know, we're cooking from scratch, which is better for you, and much cheaper than eating out all the time. We're, you know, we're not driving the car as much. We're not buying clothing for work anymore, and we're not got a daycare bill. By the time you subtract all of that out of a $30,000 income after take-home pay, because take-home's all you got, the government took the rest of it, you may mathematically want to stay home she may uh

plus it sounds like she might want to anyway with two babies so um if that's her goal so that that you just run the math out and you figure out a way to make it up but um yeah you're probably uh at least twelve thousand dollars a year off of your old plan, roughly, at least. But I don't think you're $36,000 a year off your old plan. So it's going to work out. Your income is going to go up through this period of time. You're going to build up some cash right now while she is still working. All these things are going to happen.

You're going to turn it. It's all going to turn out just fine. You're going to be great. You may add a month or two until you get out of debt planning, but that's okay. You get an extra baby out of the deal. That's sweet. Love it. Hey, thanks for the call, dude. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.

We'll talk about your life and your money. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings, free samples, free shipping, new promos all the time. Use the promo code RAMSEY. Rebecca's in Ohio.

Should I pay off my husband's student loans? Only if he's your husband. Currently, he still owes about $30K, which has about 7% interest. This is our only debt outside of our mortgage. I have the money to pay it from an inheritance, but is it better to continue working together to pay it? We are married. We got a money from an inheritance, and we have a student loan,

so we would pay off the student loan with our inheritance. When you are married, the preacher does not present and say, I now pronounce you a joint venture. He says, I now pronounce you one. You're unified. You're one. And that is the best path for a high-quality marriage and the shortest path to building wealth. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time. How often can you get the best of both worlds? Not very often, right?

Well, with the Rate Secured program at Churchill Mortgage, it's possible. You can secure a low rate now to nail down your budget, and if rates drop while you're shopping for a home, they'll give you the lower rate. That's right. They take on the risk of fluctuating interest rates, not you. Who does that? Well, you should fall in love with the numbers before you fall in love with the house. This program lets you do just that.

So if you're buying a home this year, you'd be crazy not to call Churchill and get your rate secured now. Call Churchill Mortgage today and have the best of both worlds. Go to ChurchillMortgage.com or call 888-LOAN-200. That's ChurchillMortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. From Minneapolis, Derek and Megan are with us on the line to do a debt-free scream. What's up, guys?

Hi, Dave. How much have you guys paid off? $532,563. Wow. And how long did this take? Four years, 10 months, 27 days. And what was your range of income? We started at $84,000, and then that grew to just over $176,000.

Okay. So you sold a house? We did. Yeah. We sold a house after we had paid it off and paid off four cars and then sold our two nicer cars and drive humdingers still to this day. Wow. Three credit cards and over $188,000 worth of student loans. Good Lord. So 200,000 student loans. And how much in car debt? Oh, gosh.

It was, I want to say, like, just shy of $75,000 in all of them. Wow. You had a lot of rolling stock, huh? Yeah. And how much credit card debt? Just over $10,000. So what did the house sell for? We sold the house for $274,000.

Okay, cool. So like another $200,000 and some change is paid off by selling other stuff and by cash flowing it with this increase in income over four years. Yep. You guys have been on quite a journey. Your whole lives have turned upside down. They have. You're driving different stuff.

You live in a different place, and your income doubled. Yes. It's been quite a ride. So what are you doing now? Are you renting or what? No, we use the profit from the sale of our house to pay off the last bit of our debt. We bought our dream home just outside Minneapolis in a suburb called Minnetonka, Minnesota in a great school district. Yeah living the dream cool so is that house paid for close well okay so you're debt free except the mortgage on the new house i got you cool way to go how old are you guys well it's actually derrick's 36th birthday today

happy birthday thank you very nice and so how long have you two been married? Four years. Okay. So that's what started this whole thing? Yeah. Well, Derek proposed, and then I said, hey, I have a lot of debt. We should go to Financial University. Yes, and here's what you're getting.

Derek, you didn't know about the debt before the proposal no i i had an idea it wasn't hidden or anything okay she's like okay but she's like game on if we're going to get married we got to clean this up right pretty much yep okay so you went to financial peace university as your first order of business upon getting engaged yep as a part of our marriage prep class, and it was a really great class, and we just have been gazelle intense ever since, and paid cash for our wedding, paid cash for our honeymoon, and just kept on rolling. Now, when you start selling houses and you start selling cars, people start saying you're crazy didn't they yeah yeah we're definitely weird yeah you got some pushback from everywhere didn't you yeah yeah yeah did you have anybody that was cheering you on

well one of the people that was cheering us on we're actually in his office at church right now he's the finance director nate bus has been cheering us on, we're actually in his office at church right now. He's the finance director. Nate Buss has been cheering us on a long time at our church. Okay. And we're parents. All right. So you had some backup that was telling you you weren't crazy while all your friends thought you'd lost your mind. Yes.

Yep. Yep. Well, you didn't lose your mind. You paid off $533,000 in four years and some change. That's pretty freaking impressive is what it is. Brand new marriage, and this is your first order of business. Just reach over and knock off a half a million. Wow. Very, very cool.

What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Sticking to a budget. And then snowballing. Snowball snowballing and using this full sentence no what was what was it inside of you guys and what did the discussion sound like that caused you to turn loose of cars and houses i mean you you just you turn loose of everything you you really uh did away with your need to prove something to everybody looking in from the outside. Something had to switch inside your brain for that to happen. You know what I'm talking about?

What enabled you to do that? Yeah, it was just more of kind of taking stock in what we actually needed and what was extra. And we just really didn't need the extra cars or, you know, the house was at a good time to sell to maximize our profits. So, yeah, it just worked out well. And then part of it was we really sat down and we went through the legacy journey too and thought about what we wanted our future to look like and you know when and if we'd have kids and now that we have a toddler what we wanted her life to look like and we saw both of our parents really struggle financially growing up and we knew that

they're wonderful people but we didn't want to leave that kind of a legacy for our daughter so if we keep all this crap we're going to be stuck in debt with our kid the rest of our lives yeah so you can start you can start canceling some garbage at that point right yeah yeah because it's just stuff yeah so uh what was the car that was the hardest to sell the one that was emotional. Equinox? Yeah, I had an Equinox that we ended up downsizing to a smaller car that was cheaper. Hard to let that one go? The motorcycle was hard, too.

Yeah. That was much harder than the car. Yeah, they're flashing this stuff up on youtube that the purple motorcycle what was that thing that was uh yamaha v-star oh my gosh is that a custom paint job on it uh yeah it was when i bought it that's how i bought it but yeah yeah so that that was kind of your baby yep what did it sell for? $1,500 is what I ended up selling it for. $1,500?

Yeah. Wow. Okay. So, Megan, you need to know that when a guy like Derek or a guy like me that loves motors and loves the sound of a muffler when he will remove something like that from his life for the good of his family that that is a an act of love that is very real by a real man way to go derek thank you proud of you it's a very manly thing to do it's very difficult to do but it's a very it's a proper way to live and uh you'll get another you're gonna get another bike someday if you want one and um you'll be you'll be able to live like no one else and later to live and give like no one else i'm so proud of you guys well done very very well done you

guys are heroes man you've completely changed your family tree how's it feel? Feels good. Really good. All right. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you. Everyday Millionaires. You're going to be one. You make $176,000 a year. You don't have any payments. And you've only been married four years.

You're rock stars, man. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo-hoo! Yeah! That's how that's done. There's something about a man or a woman willing to release an item

that is precious to them for the good of their family that indicates you've grown up. And sometimes you're 53 years old before you do that. It's not a 30-year-old thing or a 25-year-old thing. It's an emotional well-being thing. I think the millennials call it adulting, but some people wait till they're 60 to start adulting. It's a good thing that adult has become a verb now. So it's something we all ought to do, learning to delay pleasure for the good of ourselves and those around us that we love. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. So we've got over 300 of our 900 folks are technology people, and 150 of them are developers. Yeah, we're a huge technology company is what it amounts to.

And the code that, when you write code here, if you're a developer, you're actually writing code for something that helps change someone's life. And guess what 150 isn't enough we need some more so we're looking for front end and full stack and back end and salesforce technology leaders and developers especially seniors especially ruby so guys um you know if you're in that world gals if you're in that world um you you know what a full-stack developer is. I have no idea.

I'm reading it off a script. I do know the difference in front end and back end because they've taught me while I've been in their meetings trying to understand what they're doing. But we've won 11 times in Nashville, one of the best places to work in Nashville. And the reason is we're one of the best places to work. So see all the jobs that are available at Dave Ramsey.com. Click on Dave's hiring on the right hand side of the homepage. 13 new people started this morning here. Uh, we're starting about 25 folks a month right now, roughly, which means we're hiring roughly 300 people a year. And so if you have an interest, click on Dave's Hiring there.

And if you're just looking for a job, don't bother because we don't hire people that are looking for a job. If you want to join a crusade, if you want to be part of something that's big and is helping people and it's not about you, it's about others, you'll fit in then if that's the case. DaveRamsay.com. Click the Dave's Hiring tab on the right-hand side of the homepage.

Tina is with us in Ohio. Hi, Tina. How are you? I'm great, Dave. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. Merry Christmas. How can I help?

Merry Christmas to you also. My husband and I, well, I've been listening to you on the radio for a few months now, and I hear you talking about the term life insurance. I checked our policies. Of course, we have the wrong ones. We're looking to cash them in. Once we cash them in, we can pay off our house. We'll have no debt.

We have no dependents. Do we still need life insurance? Do you have an SDAG? We have $150,000, $200,000 investments in our house, $100,500. We're going to prepay our funerals maybe. We're just wanting to know what you think. Yeah, you still need some life. Because a lot of all your things aren't everything.

I think you still need some life insurance, and here's why. If something happened to him and you have 100, everything's paid for and you've got no bills, I got that part. That's wonderful. Kids are grown and gone. I got that part. That's wonderful. But $150,000 a year year the income off of that will

not support you and his his income would obviously be gone if he was correct and so um you know i generally say uh eight to ten or ten to twelve times your income on you you probably don't need that much but you need some kind of a nest egg there that you could live off of the income it creates in the event something happened to him, and vice versa. If you're creating an income and he's dependent on that, then it would be about the same for you. If he works part-time, I work full-time. Okay. And he's 63, I'm 60, I just turned 60, so we're thinking about retirement, but it's

going to be a little bit for that. Yeah. Well, I want you to build up your nest eggs in the next four or five years, and so I probably would look at pricing some term policies that are probably five or ten year policies. And during that five or ten years,

I want you to build your nest egg up to where you don't need them anymore, because you're not only debt free, but you've got four or five hundred thousand dollars in your nest egg, and you could do that in four or five years pretty easily, starting with $150,000 in your nest egg. So get with one of the SmartVestor pros and make sure your investing is going properly, and get with Zander Insurance and get you some term insurance sum. You probably don't need as much as we usually talk about, and at your age, it's going to

be more expensive. At my age, I'm almost 60, it's going to be a lot more expensive. So, but check it out. You'll be surprised at how inexpensive it is. Zanderinsurance.com. You can get a quick, easy quote there. And of course, you can also click smartvestor at DaveRamsey.com and get your investing part working. The two work together because the more investments you have, the less need for insurance you have. And I would make sure you have the right amount of insurance in place before you cancel your existing policies. All right, Brandon is with us in New York. Hey, Brandon, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave, thanks for having me. Sure, what's up? So I've got a family business question. I love listening to you guys' all your answers on this stuff. So we are a five-generation dairy farm, upstate New York. And six years ago, we decided to start an on-farm processing business to kind of capitalize on our, you know, heritage, I guess. But so each year we've doubled our business. My wife and I run the processing distribution. My mother and father-in-law run the dairy operation. And so each year we've doubled sales. So obviously cashflow has always been an issue

because we keep reinvesting to keep growing the business. So getting to our sixth year in business with the processing, we're trying to get into the point where, you know, we do this full time, but I haven't been able to save for retirement like we should for my wife and I. I'm 30. She's 25. We have four kids, all under the age of six. And so I need to kind of, I don't know if I should refocus and start having the business pay us. We make a very small salary so that we can invest into our personal retirement. Or do you, because we've been blessed with opportunities, do you keep investing in our small business on the processing side

because it is investing in ourselves and our family? So you own the processing and your mother-in-law and father-in-law own the dairy farm? So we're all together on it. It's a four-way partnership. My wife and I have 50. They have 50%. So how does it work when you invest the money from the processing that you're running back into the processing,

and you don't take any money home, and they didn't put any money in and they own the rest of it um well it's kind of just been a mutual uh deal where it's all of our business they focus on the producing of the milk yeah so what do you what is your personal income my wife and i we bring in like 34, I think we did last year, we brought in. Granted, you know, we raise our own fee. What is the processing plant producing top-line gross revenues? Right now, year-to-date, I looked, we're at $1.2 million.

And you're being paid $30,000 to run that. Yeah. That's asinine. Well, and that's kind of been our limo is we keep investing in the business because we want it to grow and be there for the next generation. No, that's asinine. Listen, there's two problems, okay, or three problems. Yeah. One is family's involved.

Two is it's a small business. Three is it's a farm. All three of these things are highly emotional and um farmers um we all love those of us that are not farmers those of us that love farmers we get it uh but sometimes you guys become completely illogical in your love of the farm and uh family business does the same thing and small business does the same thing and you got you got like a threesome going here killing you okay so you guys got to back up and start running this like a multi-million dollar company which it is and people that are major

executives in multi-million dollar companies do not make thirty thousand dollars a year right i don't care if you're an electrician with 14 trucks. I don't care if you're a heat and air guy. I don't care if you're a small home builder. I don't care if you make milk in upstate New York. It doesn't matter to me. It's a multi-million dollar business, and the guy running it needs to take home more than $30,000. He's got four small children, and he needs to be investing for his future and for their college and taking care of his family.

Right, right. And after you take home a living wage, which you're not yet, then what is left can be used to invest into the business. Okay. So even though the business is growing and taking home a hefty salary would kind of inhibit. Because our biggest thing is capital. It doesn't inhibit it.

It's growing fine. A hefty salary would be $50,000 to $100,000 a year would be a reasonable income for you in this situation. $30,000 is asinine. If you wanted to take a job working for somebody else and you were going to run an organization that size and they wanted to pay you $30,000, you would laugh at them, and rightly so. Do that for yourself and for your family business as well. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show.

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