The Ramsey Show - App - THIS Is How You Become a Millionaire (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss:  "I keep pulling money out of my retirement for emergencies",  "Should I pay off my mortgage with my life insurance money?" "How do I build the kind of wealth that Dave Ramsey has built?" Paying off debt with a low income, from the blog: How the Debt Snowball Method Works, "Should we pause the baby steps to move?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 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 in storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they really love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. that they really love and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money,

the call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Frank is in Myrtle Beach to start us off. Hey, Frank, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up?

Question. 53, I feel like I've done everything right except for retirement. House was paid off a couple years ago. I have a college fund for my kids, uh, two kids, 18 and 15. All, all my cars are paid off for them. Um, uh, I, I have a small, I got vested in like years. Wait a minute. You cut out, you're cut out.

You have a small what? Yeah. I have a, I'm vested or I have like a I have like a pension or retirement, whatever you want to call it. The company that I worked for, I got vested working for them for 13 years. So there's a small amount of retirement that's going to come from that. Okay. So it's not much. 13 years, it's probably not going to pay out that much. Um, I have some income property.

What's your question? So at this stage of my life, what can I do to, you know, I don't, you know, the 12 years away, what can I do to supplement my retirement, I keep contributing to a 401k or a Roth IRA, and I've pulled the money out for hardship several times. Why? I've never been able to. Just to pay bills. I shouldn't have done that. I've made a couple mistakes doing that. Okay, you have debt now?

No debt. Do you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses? $30,000. Okay. So the chances of you needing to pull out money with the $30,000 buffers, close to zero, isn't it? Have we not corrected this problem? Sounds like we have. Well, should I be contributing to a Roth at this point?

Yeah, if you're going to use the $30,000 to pay bills instead of the Roth. If you have an emergency pop-up, don't cash out your freaking Roth again, right? You use the $30,000. That's what it's for, right? Yeah, but our income's pretty low right now. It's only about $30,000 to $40,000 for myself. My wife's about $25,000. My health problems, I've been able to go full-time.

I've never been able to really contribute the max for a 401k, and I can't right now either. Why not? Well, I think you can max out all you can put in, and I think you can max out your Roth IRAs. You guys need to tighten your budget up and do a written budget. You've got to do it. You've got to do it. I mean, you said you're 63. I mean, dude, it's time. Time's ticking. It's like past time. It's time to do this.

You've got nothing better to do than pile all your money in a pile in a 401k and Roth IRA as fast as you can. If you've paid off all your debt and you've saved up your money and you don't have 15%, the math ain't mathin' to put towards retirement. Exactly. That means your budget's not right thousand dollar income yeah you sit down do a written budget with your wife and the two of you focus in and say hey we've got to make up some lost time yeah and you can do it it is possible it's it's not too late i mean you're not going to end up with two million dollars from that but you are going to end up with a good nest egg and take that vested amount and roll it to a 401k.

You need to jump into RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro and find a SmartVestor Pro in your area and sit down with them. And you and your wife develop a detailed game plan on how you're going to load this puppy up. Got some catching up to do. Yeah. But he can do it. They just got to do it he does um it sounds like in the past that they had debt didn't have an emergency fund and we're putting money in their 401k and this is why people they people freak out we say when we first start our program do not put

money in your 401k until you are debt free other than the house baby step two and have the emergency fund because you will use your 401k like he did that's right as your emergency fund dumb yeah won't work played out bad idea not dumb person dumb idea that's right yeah that's a different thing there so yeah you've got to do these things in that order that lays the foundation to be able to win michelle's in north carolina hi michelle welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you um i'll get right to my question and then give a little bit of background and hopefully you can figure this out for me um and so my question is should i have additional money withheld from my w-2 as a teacher to avoid owing money at the end of the year, as I have this year for the

first time in my life, or focus on paying down high interest debt. And I have about $20,000 of high interest debt. You should have the proper amount pulled out of your check for taxes, the amount you're actually going to owe no more right no less that's the question then that that i have how can for some reason they cannot seem to figure this out who's they so as my employer oh that's not their job okay how do i figure this out because i don't know how much much they should be taking out. Okay, how much extra did you owe this year? $2,100.

Okay, and so that's suspiciously like about $200 a month. Has anything changed in this year versus last year for your tax situation? No. Buy a house, get rid of a kid, no longer got a dependent. No, my son's 19, so he was already out the year before. They're going to be the same as last year. They're going to be the same as last year. Your income's going to be about the same.

No big financial events that are causing a tax change. No. Then you could simply tell personnel to change your withholding by 200 bucks a month and you'll be okay okay that's an that's an easy way of doing it the more complicated way of doing it is actually sit down with a tax professional do your taxes for this year you're not going to file them but do them and go i owe exactly. Divide that by your paychecks and make sure that much is coming out of your paychecks. Okay. And that would be exact.

The IRS withholding tables are incompetent and wrong. They're from the IRS. Don't be shocked. It's terrible. And I claim so many deductions. I'll never forget my oldest daughter got her first job out of college, and she had to claim many deductions. I'll never forget my oldest daughter got her first job out of college, and she had to claim nine deductions. And she had no dependents.

She was a single college girl in an apartment. But she had to claim nine to get the right amount of withholding. Their tables were that far off. Just stupid. So, yeah, that's what you're facing. So you can't't personnel doesn't know how to do it you can sit with a tax professional and figure it out exactly and then take that number go to personnel say withhold this from my checks or just change it by 200 bucks

which is 2400 a year you'll get a small refund next year if your taxes are exactly the same as they were this year but it doesn't look like taxes are going to change much from 22 to 23. So I think you're going to be okay doing it that way. But if you want to be perfectly nerdy and do it the other way, you can go that way too. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So, if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

CHM is a health cost sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. Jade Warshall, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us.

This is the Ramsey Show. Kate is with us. Kate is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Kate. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dave. Thank to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dave. Thank you for your time today. Sure. What's up? I have a question of whether or not I should pay off my mortgage using some of my CDs and investments.

What kind of investments are they? They're diversified with capital growth. They have capital growth, cord bonds, those kinds of things. Non-invest, non- It was a life insurance policy from my, I'm sorry? Non-retirement. Um, well, it's kind of turned out to be a retirement.

No, is it in a 401k or an IRA? No, it's with an investment company. Um, my, my previous husband away, and so it was his life insurance policy. Oh my. I'm so sorry. Well, he passed away during COVID. It's been a few years, but so I invested it because I didn't know what else to do with it. There's nothing wrong with that. We were debt free except for our home. We were debt free except for our home. Yeah, you did. We were debt free except for our home. And I wanted to pay my home off, but just in that time, I went ahead and invested it. Okay. And I've since remarried, and we would just like to use, you know, our money properly.

And I'd like to kind of honor my late husband because we both wanted to have a pay-forward home. Yeah. So I just want to know if this would be a good idea or if we should just buckle down and pay off what is left, what the balance is, because I have very little, and my interest rate is super low. What is the balance? What's your balance, Kate? The balance is $164.

How much is in your investments? We have a net worth of $780. What's in the investments? That's probably about a total of $467. Oh, yeah. So you could pull some out and be mortgage-free quicker than you know it. Just know that you're going to be on the hook for some taxes when you cash this out, right? Okay.

Well, the CDs, I guess not, because when they roll over, I probably wouldn't do it in a big chunk. I'd have to, you know, because they're rolling over at different times. I have about four different CDs that I could pull from, about $100,000, and then probably have to take the excess from the fund, so there may be a penalty with that. Is that correct? Yeah, there won't be a penalty. If you've invested in mutual funds, the only thing you'll have is taxes on what it is increased that you've not paid taxes on. If you get any capital gains on it, that's all. But your broker can tell you that.

I wouldn't wait on the CDs to roll over. I'd just cash them out and do it. I'd be debt-free this week. This week I'd be done. Okay, and so a second part to my question. So if we do this, I have a daughter who is a special needs adoption through the state of Florida. She's 23.

She'll always have to be under my care. I do want to give her a sense of independence. We could build something on the property that we're on, this house that we would pay off, or if we could potentially find something in the next few years to move, would it still be a good idea to pay off this mortgage? Pay off the mortgage this week and then decide what you're going to do with it, whether you're going to add on or whether you're going to purchase as a different decision and you're

going to do that later. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't change anything because there's no time that you're going to lose money as a result of having paid off the mortgage. If you sold this house and moved to another one, they're going to give you a check at closing for all of the money right it's not like you're consuming this money you're moving it from investments to a paid off house from one asset to another and so the money doesn't go away it's still sitting there and so if you two years from

now three years from now say hey we're going to go buy this neat little place that's got a mother-in-law apartment for our special needs 25 year old by then um yeah you can do you just sell your house take the money out of it and use that to purchase the next one maybe with some of your other debt money or maybe not but somewhere in there but pay off your mortgage this week kate this back and forth worrying about this, worrying if you did the right thing is causing you more angst than it's worth. Just make a decision, pay off the mortgage, and then you're going to have a sense of peace just from having made a decision. That's right. It's all this all over the place that's driving you crazy. And you're wondering if you're doing

the right thing all the time, and you are doing the right thing. By the way, you didn't do a dumb thing by investing the money. I think that's a very smart thing to do. You let it sit there while you're going through the grieving process. You reset your life, remarried now. And, wow, I mean, you've gone through a lot in the last 36 months. And you kept your head about you through that. So congratulations.

Very, very well done. Britton is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Brittonain how are you hey dave how's it going better than i deserve what's up so i've got a question um my parents raised me in a dave ramsey home where um now i'm 27 years old and i don't have any debt on my house my cars no student debt anywhere man you got to go home and kiss your parents on the lips. You're 27 years old with a paid-for everything. Way to go. What great moms and dads.

Yeah, but this is my question. I read somewhere Dave Ramsey's worth $600 million, and I want to get into that kind of wealth for my family and impacts that I can make with that kind of money. So I don't know how I get to the hundreds of millions of dollars with the kind of money that I'm making now. I think if I stay disciplined and conservative, I can definitely be a multimillionaire. But hundreds of millions of dollars without taking on debt, I don't see how I'm going to get to that point. I love real estate.

My wife is a realtor, and that's what we were really looking into a lot of projects in real estate. But what would you tell me? I just don't know time-wise. That's the biggest constraint. How do you get to that much wealth? Well, I think you set intermediate goals, number one. Number one,

I'm going to work a traditional plan and go for the first five to 20 million. And the traditional plan that we talk about here all the time will put you in that category. But no, you're not going to become a billionaire with your 401k. It's mathematically impossible. And what you've got to do in that case is study billionaires. For instance, you could comb through and say, okay, the Forbes 400 are all billionaires now. You don't make the 400 anymore unless you're a billionaire. A billionaire is 1,000 million. It's a completely different stratosphere. And it's a completely different discussion.

But you asked, so it's a fun discussion. So what we do is we study best practices. We'll study the Forbes 400. Okay. What do we find there? Do we find a bunch of trust fund babies nope you don't find a bunch of inherited wealth you find um the truett kathy family at chick-fil-a you find david green at hobby lobby you find um oprah uh you find bezos at the top you find Bezos at the top. You find Buffett at the top. You'll find Michael Dell. Okay?

You'll find all kinds of things. And so what do you find? And all of those are first-generation rich, by the way. Walmart. Sam Walton when he was alive. Now that money is now dispersed to the next generation down. And I think each of those members are still billionaires. I'm pretty sure they are.

But that is inherited wealth there because Sam, the old man, started Walmart. But it's Walmart money. So what you do find when you're going through there, and I've noticed this, is the vast majority of them are, it's like 69% are first-generation rich. Okay? So that means it's possible in other words uh then number two how did they do it well it wasn't funding their 401k that's not that

doesn't get you to a billion a thousand a million doesn't get you there okay uh what they typically did was start an enterprise start a business so i mean you've got gates starting microsoft you got dell starting dell you got chick-fil-a you got hobby lobby you've got oprah is an enterprise oprah's not a brand oprah is an empire uh a huge brand but it's got i mean hundreds and hundreds of employees and so uh i mean i know she's person, but she's also a massive enterprise. And so, each of these people, I think almost all of them started businesses and the business made them wealthy. The explosion of the business. Yeah.

And or they took them public. Yeah. And the stock made them rich. I mean, obviously, that's Buffett's situation. Phil Knight. Yeah, Phil Knight, Nike. Yeah, that's another one. But they almost all were business enterprises.

And they grew large businesses. And in my case, that's where my money came from. The vast majority of it is from running for Ramsey. I've got 1,100 team members. We do $300 million a year in gross revenues here at Ramsey. And so, yeah, I mean, obviously, that's where my personal net worth came from. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today hey thank you to all of you who have

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your time doing something else. It's silly. Don't be here. That's right. Anyway, we appreciate you. We're glad you're here. Thank you for being with us. Nate is in New York.

Hi, Nate. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, so I guess my main question question is like i have a the main question i guess is how should i go about paying off my debt what kind of debt do you have so um yeah so i have uh about 48 grand grand in private student loans and 19 grand in federal student loans. I have about 12

grand on my car and I have a seven and a half grand personal loan. What's your income? Yeah, so my take home pay right now is about $2,600 a month. Okay. How old are you? I'm 23. What do you do? I'm a support technician for my company's R&D. What'd you get your degree in? Math. Math? Math, yeah. Okay. Yes. So I had this opportunity so uh i was admitted into a master's and applied math program all the way across the country um and uh but right now i have about like three grand in my savings and um i also have about 2500 in a 401k i don't know why i put money in there at this point right uh so uh i i do you're a math guy and you understood compound interest

you wanted to get involved that's it yeah but uh the the equation here the equation here is simple. You've got a big hole of debt and your income needs to come up. So we need to be working on ways to get that income up short term and long term. Right. You're just getting started. Twenty three years old. You're just getting started. I'm sure there's plenty of ways to move up in the field that you're in. Right. Over time.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. My biggest, so the plan I kind of have right now is I'm thinking about just trying to get a second job. Right. I'm working as much as I can. Yep. And then like, but I don't know if so next year, by next September, like let's say I have like, you know, 20. So right now I'm staying with my grandmother.

I'm trying to not spend any money on anything. That's good. Again, let me go back. The equation is simple. What we're doing here is we're getting our income up in the short term. That's looking like working an extra part time job, some hustles, and trying to get this paid off as quickly as possible. Another thing you can do is make sure that you're writing down your expenses and what you're spending through your budget because you're going to optimize your money in that way. So those are the two things that you need to be doing. Lowering your expenses through budgeting and increasing your income through part-time side jobs, that sort of thing.

And that is the only way to skin the cat on this one. There's no magic thing. and increasing your income through part-time side jobs that sort of thing and that's it that is the only way to skin the cat on this one so there's no magic thing nate i took every math class that was available to me all the way through ap um math is my thing i love it so i love the way your brain works it's the way mine works and here's's my warning. Don't over analyze this. Okay. I nowadays, when I'm talking to someone like you, I use big math. I call it meaning very little analysis. So what I'm looking at is I just added it up real quick in my head. You got $86,000 in debt and you make $35,000 a year. Okay. $86,000 in debt means you need to pay off 43,000 a year okay eighty six thousand dollars in debt means you need to pay off forty three thousand a year for two years and you're debt free so what have we got to do to do that

you need to make about thirty five thousand dollars more than you're making right now and so you're going to lean in on your current job push push push do anything you can do to get promotions and move up or change your current job to a better one and you're going to work like a maniac at the best possible paying side hustle i don't care if it's cleaning septic tanks or walking dogs do whatever you got to do for two years and get your butt in gear and go find you forty three thousand dollars a year for two years and you're done man you're 25 years old you're debt free the whole mess is cleaned up and you will have learned some things about Nate that you don't know right now.

You will like him even better because I like him. I think he's a good guy. Do you think it's, like, worth it to take the school opportunity? No. You're broke. No. You don't need a master's in applied mathematics. You need a job. Right.

You got to go get some money you have a mess yeah so jade comes out thirty eight thousand dollars in income with a couple of music degrees did i get that right you're about right and four hundred sixty five thousand dollars in debt they did not get out of four hundred sixty five thousand dollars in debt her and sam in seven years with thirty eight thousand dollars you know what did? They got their butt in gear. You got to work, man. And they got their incomes up, and their income up some more, and their income up some more.

And they were making serious money by the end of the story. But the beginning of the story was pitiful. And the beginning of your story is pitiful. But the end of your story is going to be amazing because you have that ability. My only, like, concern like don't analyze this nate quit you got you're getting paralysis of the analysis already you got to get in gear man you got to roar it's a it's a simple simple equation on this be a little dumber for the purposes of getting this done this is just be a workhorse you know just get your butt in how much money can

I make legally and morally how much can I work and don't worry you're not going to die from overwork right before you die you pass out don't worry about it hey there's this um I'm sure you've read atomic habits by James Clear and he talks about the idea of motion versus action and the motion is I'm reading all the books i'm doing all the math equations i'm rolling it over in my head over and over but the time comes when you actually have to act and do the things that you're reading about thinking about listening to podcasts about asking dave's advice about at some point the motion has to transfer to action and that's the only way that you're going to get out of this thing but i mean you and sam just threw your shoulders back and roared yeah you just went i'm going you know

that's what you did yeah and then you guys went and you worked and and you did some crazy stuff to make money that was legal yeah but it was like you look back on it you're like you're nuts and that's what that's what nate's got to do you got you don't have kids you're not married you can do crazy stuff like get a bunch of roommates so you're paying you know with grandma for free that's crazy yeah you can do things like you know sell everything you've got you can get rid of this car if you need to and get a two thousand dollar car there's there's a lot that you can do you can work to all hours of the night you're 23 years old your body doesn't you know don't get me wrong you need sleep but i'm saying you can you can do the crazy right now and do it now dude don't put this off until you know

10 years on down the line listen money comes from action and work go get you some that's right 43 000 a year for two years you're done and then call me up we'll have you come down here you can stand on this debt-free screen we'll give you a big old hug and tell you we're proud of you because that's where you're going, man. That's who you are. You're not a wilted little snowflake. You're a roar, man. Roar.

Get it. Get it. This is The Ramsey Show. We have people who tune in to every episode of the ramsey show they know everything we teach about money they can answer the questions faster than we can and they still still feel stressed and stuck because knowing what to do isn't the problem doing it actually doing it, is the solution. Personal finance is 80% behavior. It's only 20% head knowledge. And the proven way to change your behavior, actually doing it with money, is by taking Financial Peace University. The class is the difference between trying to get into shape on your own versus having a personal trainer. You'll have a coordinator

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Melissa is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Melissa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I discovered your program three years ago, and since then, we have paid off,

my husband and I, $120,000 in debt, and I proudly drive a 2006 Honda Odyssey now. Woo-hoo! We have no debt other than our student loans and our house, but unfortunately, I guess, and fortunately, my husband has a private undergrad a master's degree and a separate law degree how much is that debt we still have a hundred and ninety thousand dollars in student loan debt okay yeah and so i'm glad you're on jade too because i know you have a similar experience so yeah, well the student loan debt, yes. Yeah, so what's your household income? We have about a $300,000 household income. That's good. So we have a big shovel, big hole as you say, but about half of our income is from, I own a business, I'm self-employed, so it's a little bit more precarious I would say

my husband's um an attorney and it's a little more stable maybe so how can we help yeah so our other um numbers to share because I know Dave will ask because I listen all the time we have about twenty thousand dollars in liquid um savings i would like to have a little bit more even though we're gazelle intense just because i am self-employed i have a one-year-old and a four-year-old and i have three to six months uh-huh no they still have 190 000 in debt we still have 190 000 so i see i see yeah yeah that but because i'm self-employed... Okay, so what's your question? Okay, so my question is, we live in a pretty somewhat unsafe area without great schools, and my oldest son is going to be in kindergarten next year, and so we are hoping to move in a year. We have about $200,000 equity in our house right now, but we've still been just paying the student loan debt.

What's the house worth? The house is probably worth about $500,000. Sounds like a rough neighborhood. Half a million dollar homes? I live in Portland, Oregon, so the housing prices are very high. No, they don't have $300,000 slums in Portland, Oregon. $500,000 slums. Yeah. They don't have them. I've been there. Yeah. Yeah. So my question is, should that, I mean, I think you're probably getting that we should just stay in the house and not move. Well, Melissa, I can take you and show you some real rough neighborhoods some real ones

some real ones yeah yeah it's just that my my i was hoping that my son would not have to move schools okay here's what i would do here's what i here's what i did i sold my home and i rented okay and i changed my kids schools we had our kids in private school because we were in a neighborhood where we didn't like the schools um nowhere nowhere near uh as long long a lot longer ago than now but nowhere near the same numbers you're dealing with um and we sold the house and got got dumped the private school tuition and rented for two years while we got ourselves straightened up and got out of debt. And then we bought,

that's what you should do. You should sell your house, take the 200,000, pay off your student loans. So I, we were very close to doing that last year. And I, to do that exactly,

take the equity and pay off the student loans, which we could do. But our mortgage right now is only $1,600. Do I sound like I'm going to argue with you? No, I'm just wondering if the rents are a lot more expensive than the mortgage. You're not going to have a mortgage. You're not going to have a mortgage. You do what you want to do, Melissa, okay?

You do whatever you want to do. I just told you what we think you should do. You should sell your house and you should rent. If you want to put the kid in the school, pay off your debts, take your fabulous $300,000 income and start saving up for a down payment. Rents are not, you know, you have to get fatalistic on me every time we talk about it. You have the horrible ghetto that you live in that's a half million dollar home. That's ridiculous statement. Then you have rents are so high that it's impossible to rent. Well, if you can't afford to rent in the school district your kid's going to go to, you can't afford to buy in the school district your kid's going to go to.

So we have a bit of a problem here, Melissa. You're going to have to decide which of these things you want to do. You can't have it all. You've tried to have it all and made your life into a freaking mess. You've got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, never saying no to you guys. So now it's time to say no. Stop it. Stop doing it.

So either sit there and pay off your student loan debts starting today like wild people or move and rent and use the equity to pay it off. You do whatever you want to do. That's what I would do. I have an issue with this. I feel like this is kind of a trend right now where folks are calling in and they've said, I want to be a stay-at-home mom and I want to live in the best school districts and I want Jimmy to have the best possible. And it's like, but if you can't afford it, it's got to make sense. It's got to make sense in the span of your reality. And sometimes you have the opportunity to make it make sense if you're willing to sacrifice,

but you can't have it all without willing to have any ounce of sacrifice. That's important. I wanted that. We wanted to stop the private school tuition in the case of the example I just gave. And we wanted to get rid of the IRS after bankruptcy because the IRS never goes away. Right. We wanted those people out of our life. and we wanted the kids in a school system we also wanted to own a house but we wanted those other things more than owning a house yeah and if you ask sharon ramsey

to this day that was um gosh it's almost 30 years, 25 years ago. Okay. To this day, she can describe the color of the kitchen floor in the rental. She hated that house. I feel that. The hate that, I mean, and she can describe all the things that were wrong with that rental house. That period of our life was we made choices about what was most important. The things that were less important were highly unpleasant.

Yeah, I feel that. And you've got to do the unpleasant to get to do the pleasant. You can't just have it all at once. It doesn't work that way. To your point, there is a limit on math unless you're going unless you're in congress other than that the rest of us have to live with them within finite dollar amounts that's right and and we have to live with the facts and this arithmetic thing it'll kick your butt it will yeah oh gosh i feel that dave talking about you can still see the

rental there was a townhouse that we lived in with roommates and we used to come in and i could smell like in my mind now i can smell walking in the house the roommates cooking like ground beef or something i can see the old couch that they had your lip about ground beef what's your problem with ground beef i don't like the smell of it dave i'm not gonna lie really no i don't you are kind of a vegan yeah i am but it's just smell of ground beef smells like dog food to me that's neither here nor there but i can see the room i can smell the room i mean gosh because i mean that's good eating dave stay on track dave we're talking about the sacrifice dave hey i'm just saying smelling ground beef doesn't feel like a sacrifice to me. It smells like supper to me.

Well, look, some folks can't cook. I'm just saying. You're too much fun. So, guys, live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. You're going to pay a price to win. You need to decide intentionally which of these prices you want to pay.

What's your number one priority? What's your number two priority? And then you're going to take a hurting on your number three temporarily. 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.