The Ramsey Show - App - Turn Off the News and Stay Focused on Your Plan!

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

George Kamel & Dr. John Delony discuss: How to get started with money, Deciding on a job switch after life changes, What to do with an elderly parent's house once they can no longer manage it, Why you shouldn't sell your house to invest in the stock market. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ЗАСТАВКА МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ЗАСТАВКА From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you get control of your money, get ahead in your career, and help you learn how to live well. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey personality, joined today by my good friend Dr. John Deloney, and we are here to help you take the right next step in your journey, whether that's money, relationships, mental health, boundaries, in-laws, anxiety. We are here for you today, America. So give us a call. The number to call, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. John, we are hot off the Building Wealth live event we just did in Las Vegas last night.

Yeah, we landed about an hour ago and then got in your high-performance battery-powered car. Thank you for not making fun of it like Dave does. No, it's pretty fast. It's pretty fast. Elon got us here quick. And, yeah, we made it, man. We barely made it. It's good.

Lightspeed. I love it. Well, we're here for man. We barely made it. It's good. Lightspeed. I love it. Well, we're here for you. 888-825-5225. Serena's kicking off this hour in Champaign, Illinois. Serena, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. How can John and I help? Well, so I just graduated college in December. Cool. And I graduated with zero debt, and I started this new job. I have about $23,000 in my account right now, and I don't know what to do with it. I'm on my own. I have rent and stuff.

Well, let me high-five you first because you're amazing. Yeah, we don't get a lot of calls when people call and say, What do I do with all this extra money? Very well done, Serena. So what's your career now? I am a structural design engineer for Chastain and Associates. Structural design engineer. Okay, you're really smart.

So that explains it, John. You design bridges? Yeah. Hey, listen, just take a look around the country. We need you. Thank you for doing what you do. Bridges are important. That's awesome. Okay, so you got $23,000 sitting in savings. What's your whole financial picture? So you're completely debt-free right now. Do you have any other money in savings? I have a 401k and a Roth, but other than that, no. Okay. So this 23,000 is your total liquid cash?

Basically, yeah. Okay. Well, it sounds like a large portion of this is going to be your emergency fund. Do you have that already or is that, is this it? That's it. Okay. So what I would do is I would block off a portion of that, three to six months of expenses, and put that in a savings account, maybe a high-yield savings account, a money market account, and just park it for emergencies. What would that look like for you? Do you know that number off the top of your head?

It's probably around $7,000. Okay. Let's round up to $10,000 for easy numbers. So now you've got $13,000 left over. Are you renting right now? Yes. Do you have any desire to get in a home in that area? I'm not quite sure yet since I just started.

I mean, I really like my job, but I don't know where it's going to take me quite yet. So you don't know if you're really planting your roots here? Right. Okay. Okay. Well, are you investing 15% of your income into that 401k IRA? 10%. 10%. So at this point, if you're completely debt-free,

and now you have that emergency fund, I'm going to bump that investing up to 15%. How old are you? 23. 23. Serena, you're going to be a multi-millionaire and you're so smart. You got your whole life ahead of you. So I feel good about this. I wouldn't rush anything, but the next step in your journey would probably be a down payment on a house. And so I would

continue to save up, set the money aside for the emergency fund. The rest becomes a down payment fund. Maybe you need to upgrade a car eventually, things of that nature. But I want you to enjoy some of this. People like you, they tend to be such sticklers with the budget and saving, John, that it's hard for them to let go of any of it and enjoy it. Yes. Hey, Serena, in 30 seconds, can you do me a huge favor, solve a lifelong mystery for me? Yeah. What are those wires hanging down from some of these giant bridges? What do they do? The wires.

Like tension wires? I guess it keeps the bridge from falling down since you call them tension wires. Well, that kind of makes me feel dumb. It keeps it so that the bridge isn't either in uh compression or tension so that it's stable i'm so glad serena's in this field and not you john i just gotta say america is happy that i'm not designing bridges wow i didn't know they were called tension wires now i know there you go i know so much more now well let's go back to serena and her problems john it's not all about you and your

desire to know about bridges and i i do what i can to avoid using google and so i met a person and she could help me out without question well serena i would sit down and maybe it's with a friend of yours uh someone that you trust someone that you admire and help set some goals for your life of hey what are my next things what's my one year goal what's a five-year goal what's's a five-year goal? What's a 10-year goal? And start to go, all right, I want to go on two awesome vacations. I'm going to start planning for that, saving for that. I want to upgrade the car in two years. Here's what that looks like. Here's what I want. Here's the kind of house that I'm looking at. Here's the price point. Here's the down payment. Start to get a little bit nerdy and excited about that future. And that will definitely help guide where that money's going.

Any thoughts on that, John? No, I think that's super wise. It's so rare to hear somebody that is that ahead of the game, right, that has followed the steps all the way through college, got now debt-free, and is now sitting on a pile of cash. What do I do with that now? We talked about this at the event last night, but with the crippling student loan debt, $1.7 trillion,

people want to be in Serena's shoes where they graduate and they go, oh, I have options. I have money left over. But most of America can't because they graduate and they thought they were going to make 100 grand, but they make 50. And they didn't understand that $100,000 of student loans with interest looks like a $1,200 monthly payment. Right. And I think it's real important to note that when you find these transition points in your life, whether it's graduating from high school, graduating from college, getting married, you know, you're always going to have a series of questions. And I always want to land on the side of which set of questions are going to be questions

about freedom and opportunity and not questions of survival. And so she's not asking questions like hey i just got a my dream gig i am a an engineer and i'm really smart and i got to create new job i don't know how i'm going to get to move there because i don't have i don't know how i'm going to i don't know how i'm going to make rent in this town right she's asking questions of opportunity what can i do with this extra money that I have? How do I steward this and manage it? Because I've lived this way. And folks like Serena,

they make decisions along the way in college about I'm not going to put this night of drinks on the credit card. I'm not, like they make different choices. I'm going to take a semester off and work so that I can keep doing this debt free. And it's not pretty. And it's not in the quote unquote the plan.

It's not how they draw it up in the magazines or the movies, but I'm just going to keep figuring out ways to do this, and suddenly you look up and you're 23. It's no surprise that she's done really well academically. She's figured out a way to do it financially, and then now she's in the spot that she's in. Well, let me remind our listeners, John, our millionaire study that we did, over 10,000 of them, the number one profession, yeah and engineers understand systems and if you follow a process it leads you to a certain result right and so people like serena and engineers out there they're the most

likely to become millionaires because they're willing to follow a proven plan that's right they're willing to use the tension wire i'm just i was trying i was i was hoping you make a bridge analogy i was gonna try We were so close. I'm not that smart. Well, hey, we're here for you this hour. 888-825-5225. Call us and we will guide you wherever you find yourself in this wildlife. This is The Ramsey Show. building wealth is a hot topic right now there's all kinds of opinions on how to do it.

Plus, inflation has everyone freaking out. Well, it's time to cut through all the noise and learn how to build real, lasting wealth the right way. That's why this year, we're hitting the road for our Building Wealth Live event. Joining me will be Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Dr. John Deloney, and Ken Coleman, and we'll be in Vegas, Orlando, Sacramento, Minneapolis, and San Antonio. At Building Wealth Live, you'll hear us tackle the latest trends and dive deep into investing, saving, and planning for retirement. I know that might sound super overwhelming, but it's way easier than you think. Plus, while you're there, we're going to be signing books and taking photos. Seats are just $25 a piece, or you get a four-pack of passes for only $60. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to get your seats before they're gone. That's

ramseysolutions.com slash events. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney. Listen, folks, one of the most important types of insurance you can have is car insurance or motorcycle insurance if you live on the edge like John. And fun fact, it's actually the law. And most Americans don't have enough car insurance, and you're probably one of them. So if you get into an accident and you don't have enough insurance, you'll have to pay for your own car repairs and medical bills plus the other driver's car repairs and their medical bills and their passenger's medical bills. This is a big yikes. This can cost you thousands of

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a buck. They want to help you, period. So if you're ready to work with an insurance agent who's actually in your corner, visit ramseysolutions.com slash auto to connect with a Ramsey-trusted ELP. That's ramseysolutions.com slash auto. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. Desiree joins us in Phoenix. Desiree, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello. I can't believe I'm actually talking to you guys. I can't believe it either.

I can't. I'm stunned. I'm stunned. I can't believe it. We're so happy to talk to Desiree in Phoenix. What's going on with you? Well, I am needing some advice. I'm finding myself in a crossroad in my life, and I'm not really sure which way to turn.

So long story short, 13 years ago, I'm 33 right now, and I went to school for nursing, and I had finished all my prereqs for it way back in the day, like a million years ago. And I never finished. And then just job after job, um, I find myself, I have a really good job right now. I love what I do. It is not in the medical field. Um, but, uh, last year, I'm probably going to cry. Um, to cry, I lost my brother. I'm so sorry. To COVID. Yeah.

Oh, man. I'm so sorry. So being with him in the hospital, it opened my eyes, and something inside me just switched. And being there, I realized that being a nurse is what I'm supposed to do. So I am going through the process right now of going back to school. I'm going to be starting a class here in the summer to work my way to that. And I was just offered a promotion at my current job now. And I'm just really torn if I should take it or if I should kind of stay where I'm at and focus on my school. First off, I'm so sorry about your brother.

So much loss the last few years. I'm so, so sorry. You love that dude? What was his name? What was his name? Paul. Hilarious? He's a funny guy?

Yes. He was one of the best humans to ever walk this planet. Oh, that's so good. It was tough. Are you married? I am not. I am divorced, and I am a single mom to an 11-year-old. Man, I hate to be the person that comes next

after having that kind of example in your life, right? Your brother's at the bar high, right? Yeah. That's awesome. All right. So one of the cornerstones of healing from grief, you'll miss your brother forever. Okay. And anyone who says you just need to get over it and that kind of language is complete nonsense. You're going to miss your brother forever. It will hurt less. You'll be able to breathe. You'll be able to laugh at some of the memories, which is hard to do right now. But you will heal. And one of the cornerstones of that healing is making meaning of it. Who am I going to be in light of how my life is different because I knew this person? Right? How am I going to live? And it's not uncommon for somebody to spend some time

watching the miracles that nurses perform the care the love the attention and then the hand holding on the back end and think they are contributing to the world right and so you already had that what why did you why did you not you not finish your classes back in the day? What took you away from that? Well, I was young and dumb and just got caught up in a job at the time that I thought, oh, I'm making great money. I was in love with my boyfriend at the time and just thought that I didn't really need to do it. And throughout the last 13 years, I have found myself in different life obstacles,

you know, moving, getting a divorce, losing a job. And every single time I always tell myself, I just need to go back to school. I need to go back to school and finish my degree. And this is- What's your current job now? I work for a container shipping terminal that's based in long beach um so i deal a lot with imports and customer service and like uh you're like george costanza you justports. Very cool. That's all you have to say. Import-exports.

Normally, I try to find a link between what you're doing and this pull to this, not dream job. This isn't dream job. This is mission for you. This has been in your DNA for a long, long time. Based on what you've just told me, I don't know how you can't not do this.

And here's the fallacy. Um, you're starting nurse salary. What's the comparison between that and what you're going to be making with this new promotion? Is it half? Is it one third? Um, so nursing based off of what I've looked online it ranges anywhere from like 70 to 80 okay um right now i make 74 salary and then if i get this promotion it would bump me up to 85 shut the front door in the face today. Tell them, hey, I'm grateful for the opportunity. And bye, Felicia, I'm going to school. Yes.

And it's real tempting to think I can't do either or. You can. Okay? You can figure it out. It's miserable. You can make that work as long as you can until you get into your rotations. And you may have to do a semester where you've saved up some money so that you can live so you can be at school full-time. But here's the thing.

That's what you were put on the planet to do, and you got to hold your brother through a really hard, hard season, and you're going to be able to be that blessing for countless other people in the future. Desiree, do you have any debt? I am debt-free. I love to hear that because this gives you options. It gives you a launch pad to do this without a lot of risk. And so here's what I want you to do.

I want you to cash flow all of your nursing education. And if that means you have to take this promotion and do this for a little while in order to do that, I'm okay with that. What I don't want you to do is go into debt for this thing, and then it becomes a curse instead of a blessing when you jump. And so do it the smart way. There's no crazy urgency here, but I know you have to do this. We know that.

Hey, and let me tell you this. You mentioned a couple times it was a million years ago, and I'm kind of, my mom went back to school in her 40s. I was a kid. My little brother, my sister. My mom went back to school, and it was tough. Dinners looked different. I'll never forget my mom walked me down when I was in sixth grade.

She had the box of Tide, and she sat on the washer and says, This is how this works. Merry Christmas. I had to figure some stuff out. box of Tide and she sat on the washer and says, this is how this works. Merry Christmas. This is on, right? I had to figure some stuff out, right? And let me tell you, watching my mom go back to school midlife and be successful and the countless hundreds and hundreds of students that she has influenced over the years has been such an inspiration to me, my wife, my kids, and kids and great-grandkids that my mother will never meet. So you're not too old to do this.

Go get it. Do it wise, like George says, but go get it. This is what you were put on the planet to do. Desiree, hang on the line. Kelly's going to pick up. We're going to send you a copy of our friend Ken Coleman's book, From Paycheck to Purpose, to encourage you along this journey. We're so pumped for you. Call us back when you land that nursing job. This is the Ramsey show I'm George Camel joined today by Dr. John Deloney number one national best-selling author that feels good to say john congratulations again it's better than a guy it's just my buddy yeah actually it feels good well you already had doctor in front of your name so you already had some cool accolades but this is and it's well deserved hey here's what was super cool um after so we get noticed that i'm number one and i felt pretty good about it

and then the next day uh i flew home late, real late, and I got home, and my daughter woke up, and she was like, did you bring me anything? And I was like, no. And she was like, ugh. And my son came out, and he's like, hey, what are we going to do this weekend? And I was like, maybe talk about how awesome your dad is. Oh, man.

And then I ended up changing my oil and running to the dry cleaners, and my life just went on. So it's really cool, and then you're about to helping people and doing your life, man. So, John, as you know, I'm a dog dad, which frustrates you to no end. Mainly because that's not a thing. I know. Not a thing. I just do it to make you angry now. But what I've found, I have a theory that kids cause you to be a little more selfless and a little more humble.

Yes. Is that true? Correct. So I think everyone should have kids for those reasons alone. And interestingly, I think people, I don't know, like you, who over obsess about their dogs, it makes them more narcissistic and self-centered and a little bit more self-righteous. You think? I was trying to make you look good. I was like, look at this, number one national best-selling author.

Oh, I thought we were just telling the truth. Yes. I think owning dogs makes you lovely. But to be fair, I did just show you pictures of my dogs at daycare. So, on that note, we'll take some calls. Just let that sink in, America. It's Friday. All right.

Let's let that sink in. 888-825-5225. That's the number to call. 888-825-5225. Is it really called doggy daycare? I don't know what they call it. It's an industry term, John. America, what are we doing?

This is the lingo. What are we doing? Kale joins us. Kale is in Atlanta, Georgia. What's up, Kale? Welcome to the show. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

How can we help today? So I'm trying to help out my mom. She's 71 years old, starting to have some health issues. She has COPD, so she can't really get around too well. But she didn't really save. So all of her money is in her equity for her house, which she can't take care of anymore. go into a different house that's smaller, but everything is so expensive, she would be in a 30-year loan, which I don't like, and I know you guys don't like, and she wouldn't have any money in the bank because she'd have to put it all into the new house. Or is there just some other option that I'm not thinking of? Because renting sounds, you know, the rent's variable every year, so I don't know that that's sustainable. Yeah. Is she, are y'all thinking about long-term care? Are you thinking about skilled nursing?

Where is she there? No, she's able to take care of herself. But, you know, she's not going to go mow the yard. And she's not going to, you know, be able to vacuum, you know, a two-story house and do those kinds of things. But she can cook and she can kind of take care of herself. That's not an issue so i i'll let george answer the finance part but i feel like you've painted yourself into a corner here um that i want to free you from okay uh is this a an important family house or is this just her home i mean does this like have meaning to you uh it does but i'm not holding on to it okay what about mom that's not the issue uh no

well i'm sure it was but she said that she's she's kind of gotten over it so she's okay with getting out of it okay i don't want you to paint yourself into a corner well with which is we don't have any money but we can't do this and so now you hear i'm saying anytime you find yourself with two options i want you to shake the snow globe and reevaluate find more options yeah back Yeah, back out another 20,000 feet, another 30,000 feet, and go look at the problem differently because a lot of us make choices that we ultimately regret. We get a real unrealistic sense of urgency.

And so if your mom is able to take care of herself, she doesn't need skilled nursing, it's just a matter of the house is increasingly becoming a lot to maintain and manage that's a totally different conversation than um we've got to get her out right now we don't have any money okay yeah well the the only i think urgency for me is is that since she has no money in the bank really if something breaks on the home she has no money to fix it okay i think the underlying solution is she needs to get some control of her money, regardless of her housing situation. She can't keep living with zero

dollars in the bank, regardless of where she lives. So what's her income right now? So her income is based on her pension and her social security, and it comes to $2,800 a month. Okay. If she sold the house today, what would she net? Approximately $200,000. Okay. So the question is, where can she find a $200,000 one-bedroom, two-bedroom condo townhome in that area? Right. Is that an option? Have you looked at the prices? Yeah, I've even engaged a realtor who's been looking for probably the last month with no success, really. Everything's kind of above 300. What's left on her mortgage? Her mortgage is 165 left on our mortgage. Yikes.

How long has she been living in this house? Well, let's just say she owes more now than when she bought the house. So not a lot of good decisions there. Was there second mortgages, HELOCs, refinancing, all that stuff? All that stuff. Okay. Well, does she know that she's on fire? Does she have a sense of urgency that you do?

I think so. Well, I think she just feels stuck. And so she may have just thrown her hands up at this point. I don't really know. Is there a chance that – are you married? I am married. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have a sister who, yes, who lives out of state. Okay.

Have you all, it doesn't sound like you have, I'd recommend you all have the conversation about, is there a moment that one of us, if something gets to point A and then it moves to point B, is mom going to move in with one of us for a season? I was hoping you were going to tell me the house was $700,000. $200,000. George, even if you sell it, that just gets you a couple of years down the road.

That's not a huge amount of money. She could take on a smaller mortgage, which would help with her payment and make it more reasonable with her income. That's the only solution I'm seeing. Because you sell this house, you clear $35,000. You're saying he would net $200,000 if she sold it? You would net $200,000? Yeah, she owes $165,000.

She could probably sell it for $400,000. Okay, okay. So she would net $200,000. So I'm going, can she buy some with cash so that she doesn't have that expense? She can live off the $2,800. But I would also look at, okay, how much can she afford based off of that? I'm looking at, I mean, $700? Yeah, approximately.

And so then I go, okay, what mortgage are we willing to take on for that? I don't want to take on any, but I know the housing market's crazy. Maybe you wait six more months and see what happens if things at least taper down with the $100,000 over asking and 85 people sight unseen wanting that same place but i think you're gonna have to help her paint this new picture of what this new life looks like and what level of sacrifice it's going to take yep can do how old is she she's 71 so um this is a hard conversation do you live in the area with her? Yeah, I live probably 30 minutes from her. Okay. This is not a spring it on you conversation.

This is a, and if your sister is in everybody's good graces, it would be good if she could be a part of this too in person, even though she lives out of state. And this is something you plan and say, Mom, we're going to talk about finances and we're going to talk about the future. And so we're going to have a breakfast together. We're going to go somewhere. We're going to – I'm going to come pick you up and bring you back to my house or we're going to meet at your house, whatever. And we're going to get very, very specific on the realities here because the realities here are scary.

And there's no long-term care insurance, right? Correct. Does she have health insurance through her pension plan? No, she pays $400 a month for health insurance. Golly. And it's probably not great, right? She seems happy with it at least. Well.

It takes care of all her medications. Okay. And when she does have to go to the doctor, she's not having to pay. Okay. These are hard conversations with our aging parents, and these are done in love, and these are done, I would write down what I'm going to say and be very specific about math, and then come up with a few options. We can sell this house and try to move here. You can rent.

You can move into my house. You can move in with sister. But we got to have some really tactical steps for moving forward. This is a mess. Cale, you can jump onto a mortgage calculator at ramseysolutions.com and walk her through the numbers

and go, hey, listen, we're not going to do more than a 15 year. I want you to retire with dignity and enjoy your life and not stress out every day of how you're going to make it. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. John, you know what one of my favorite things to do in the world is? Guess.

Pet your dog. That is on the top. It's in the top three. Look up an app. Give away Dave's money. I love giving away. I do love that too. Especially when he isn't here.

He can't defend himself. So here's the deal. It's a great time telling everyone we're giving away $500 every single week in May plus a grand prize of $3,000 in our Ramsey Cash giveaway. So just think about this for a second.

All the things you can do with that extra cash. Pay off some debt, put it in the emergency fund, maybe go on a nice trip if you're debt-free. To enter this giveaway, go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. And bonus, you can enter every single day for extra chances to win all month long. No purchase necessary, but you must be 18

or older to win. Sorry, kids. And we're not stopping here. To help you crush your financial, personal, and professional goals, we are putting our number one best-selling books and tools in the Ramsey $10 sale. That's 67% off, and I love a good deal. We also have a new addition to the Ramsey $10 sale. This is very exciting. Dr. John Deloney's Questions for Humans conversation cards. This is going to get your family and friends to ditch the screens for just a moment to actually connect to real conversations, if you remember what those are.

And so, John, I thought it would be fun to play a few with you. You got some here? Yeah, I got some. It's out of the friends box. I thought we were friends. We've done the kids friends. We are. Should we have done the kids one? We are.

Parents and kids? Hey, if you got these 500 bucks, you could upgrade your dog's package at the doggy daycare thing to the... They don't have packages, John. Okay, it's just a neighborhood thing. Just don't overthink it. You ready for your first card? Let's do it. All right.

Questions for humans. Here we go. Who in the room, which is me and you, John, is most likely to become famous and why? Oh, clearly me. I'm a smoke show number one. I'm just kidding. Probably you because you speak in complete sentences and you don't mumble a lot.

That's not the prerequisite for being famous. You are just deadly handsome. Yeah, you can grow a beard. I can't do that. Yeah, but you have a chiseled jawline. I use my beard to hide whatever's underneath this.

That's very fair. I think you'd become famous, John. You've got an electricity to you. It's kind of a third rail vibe. It's a static electricity. It's very dangerous, but people are drawn to it. That'll get you killed.

Like a moth to a flame. Okay, there's that. Number two, what's the best rock song of all time? Oh, my goodness. It's like choosing your favorite child. That is.

Okay, let's run through these real quick. The best metal rock song of all time is Walk by Pantera. The best just straight-up rock song is probably something off... Nickelback's album? I'm going to go with a hard pass on that one. Probably off the Black Crowes record or maybe the uh guns rose record so and then probably the greatest ballad of all time rock ballad is i remember you by skid row i get choked up maybe maybe when i see you smile by bad english oh those are good we have very different tastes i'm going bohemian rhapsody queen see it's

fantastic it goes places. It's epic. It's a journey. That's what I want out of a rock song. I just want my heart broken and repaired in one song. Oh, gosh. What's one word or phrase that is way overused? I like George Cam. I'm just kidding.

Way overused is... Didn't you write these cards? I feel like you should have answers Well I mean I didn't have the answers That's why I wanted to know the answers to them What do you think? I'm going with literally Because 99% of the time

It's not used in the correct sense And it just bothers me as a grammar nerd I like that It literally drives me crazy John Oh really? It drives you crazy No no I'm a writing Like I'm writing is

I'm a stickler for good writing. And when people write the word that a lot, it makes me crazy. Passive voice in writing. Use an example. Use it in a sentence. Mr. PhD. We went to the store versus, the store is where we went to. Who talks like that? Every freshman through senior college writer that's fair that's fair

what's a fashion trend that needs to die your skinny jeans have got to stop they're too small why are all these cards a personal attack john well we're friends we're hanging out what do you think the fashion trends i'm going with crocs i think it was so lame that it became cool again which is like how Gen Z kind of operates. Yeah. Like the less cool it is, the more cool it is. I know. I've seen like the flowery skate shirts are coming back.

Yeah. They were there like in the night. Come on, guys. Those can't come back. But no, I think the skate jeans. If your shoe has a sport mode, I'm out. With the Crocs, you know, you put the back up. That's called sport mode.

So they don't slip off. I know. It bothers me. I didn't think you could fall farther, and you just did. That's impressive. You're welcome. That's impressive. All right, last one.

What's the most overrated holiday? Oh, man. The most overrated. This one's tough, man. The most overrated holiday? Probably Valentine's Day. I'm with you on that. Really?

Yeah. Look at us being best friends. What do you think I choose like easter or christmas no no way man can't get into those thorny thorny discussions yeah valentine's day mostly because every day you should probably be honoring your significant other good answer and uh if you go to a store and think you know what i could get a piece of paper and tell the person I love how I feel in my own words, but I'm going to pay you $4.95 for you to some dude in a warehouse to write it and say it, then your relationship, I don't know, maybe you should. Well, some of us aren't amazing wordsmiths like you, John, writing prose. It's a World War II letter to the love of your life.

Or you get to say I love you. It's so good. Dear Sheila. Dear Sheila. Dear Sheila. It's been a long, hard month. Yep, see? Anyways. Fantastic. Alright, that's fun. Well, if you guys want to check that out, way more cards where that came from. There's all kinds of editions. You can get

it for just $10 for a limited time. It's a whole bunch of fun, and it's way better than staring at your phones and pretending like you're connecting. We've also got lots more books and tools to help you move forward in your life no matter what area you want to work on. So go check it out, Ramsey $10 Sale at RamseySolutions.com, and enter the Ramsey Cash Giveaway every single day at RamseySolutions.com slash giveaway. Good times there, John. Thank you so much.

John joins us in Phoenix. John, welcome to the show. Hi there. Hi, John. And I'm sorry, what's the other? My name is George. You're John. We got John, John and George. Perfect. There we go. The three J's. Hey, listen, a quick question I have. I currently live in my house that is fully paid off, holding a job for a $60,000 a year. And I have two rental properties that are fully paid off. Wow. I am seriously considering selling these two properties that are rentals and just solidify what I've got invested in there and the equity

that comes along with that. And so by doing that, I would like to know what to do with this cash that I'm probably going to be cashing in on if everything goes right. Hold on. Why are you selling the rentals that are paid for? Simply, I just want to solidify my investment in there and put it in a savings account. I want to be able to ride these away. What do you mean solidify? Do you think the housing market...

You mean cash out? Yes, cash out. Are you worried that the houses will start to lose value soon? Indeed. Where are you getting that from? Well, it's just the way the market is looking like right now. For example, it's so unstable. I mean... The housing market isn't

the housing market keeps going up and up and up yeah but here's here's the you're gonna you're gonna sell the homes that are appreciating to put your money in the stock market which is tanking right now right okay now is that a wise idea or not? No. I'm telling you that real estate is a solid investment, and the fact that they're paid for makes me feel even better about it. Are they producing income? Yeah, some income indeed. One of them is producing $1,000 and the other one $2,000. So you're bringing in $3,000 a month.

Exactly. What are these two pieces of property worth together? Together, probably about $750,000. Whoa. I feel like you're undercharging. They should be producing more income for paid-off rentals. Indeed, you're right about that. So I would focus on that before you sell.

I'm not mad if you sell them and you want to put your money into the market, but I want you to have a good reason that's not grounded in fear what what's the question underneath the question uh there's something do you want the money if i don't get the money i just see here's the thing i got in mind if i do do you remember the uh the early 2000s when uh when our market crashed and the real estate market went down. Yes. I remember.

I want to be able to cash in on that and I want to be able to put that money away and be ready to reinvest and never... I don't, man, I don't think this plan

is fully baked. I would sit tight on these homes. Don't let fear, greed, and headlines lure you away. You do that when you owe money, not when you've got

paid off houses. Yeah. I'd put pause on that man turn off the tv for a little while this is the ramsey show hey it's john deloney co-host of the ramsey show did you know over 18 million people listen to the ramsey show every week a lot of million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to ramseysolutions.com slash show.