The Ramsey Show - App - We Might've Made a Million Dollar Mistake

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

John Delony & Ken Coleman discuss: Buying a house during a divorce, When your parents give you an ultimatum, Dealing with losing your income, Regretting a home purchase, Taking a risk for your dream job. 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

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show from Nashville, Tennessee, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your life, your relationships, your work, your purpose, everything. Give us a shout, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined here by Ken Coleman, and we're taking your calls live about just about anything. Whatever's going on in your heart and mind, give us a shout, 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Lori in Connecticut. What's up, Lori? How we doing? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. So I have so much going on right now that I don't even know where to begin. But I guess the main purpose of my call is my husband and I are separated and I'm sure we're going to be, you know, heading for divorce and I'm going to be moving out of the house we live in now to a new home. And to you, I haven, figured out exactly the details of that. But one thing I'm wondering, should I rent or buy a house?

Like I hear all the time how rents are going up and there's so many crazy prices and it's not good to do that. You know, and I kind of like the idea of buying a house and getting a little bit more settled and that kind of thing. So that was like one of my questions. Can you give me any advice on that? I would absolutely 100% not buy a house until this divorce is six months to a year in your rearview mirror.

Okay. Even though you're separate. Do not. It's about to shake your world like a snow globe. I've got people in my life that I'm walking through that with. They will ask questions and you'll produce documents from years before and text you. Didn't even remember. It's going to shake everything.

Make sure you want to be where you want to be and how you want to be and that you can afford to be where you want. All that stuff. I wouldn't buy anything until this thing has a period at the end of it and you are on your way to healing. And then you can say, okay, what comes next? So rent, rent, rent. And, Lori, renting is not a silly proposition because you just mentioned stability in the form of a home. But I will tell you that stability is safe, warm, right, a place to lay your head down at night, you and the kids. So until everything shakes out financially, there's no way you can even plan for that

until all this stuff gets – John's absolutely right. So I want you to understand that renting is stability in this particular situation, as opposed to trying to get into a major debt situation with a house and everything up in the air, not to mention your emotions that John was talking about. So stability in this case is renting. It's freedom. So what's your next question? Okay.

So then the next thing, you know, everything seems to happen at once. So I'm going to be getting laid off from my job in like two months. Oh, I'm so sorry. You know, this whole COVID thing and, you know, departments getting eliminated, that whole thing. And so, you know, I'm having a real hard time focusing on finding another job, you know, with everything else going on. Sure. And can you help direct me to get started on that? Yeah.

All right, let's just start with, because, again, normally I would coach someone, Laurie, you know, and, by the way, I'm going to give you my Get Clear Career Assessment. I'm going to give you From Paycheck to Purpose. These are resources that I want you to take your time and go through. Normally, I would say, okay, let's get really clear on what you do best. That's talent. What kind of work do you love?

That's passion. Then what results do you want your work to create? I think there's so much going on with you. I think it's going to be really hard to be clear. What I would focus on first is talent alone. All right? Because, see, talent, think of talent as your skills that you have developed over your working life.

You've got personal skills as well. So hard skills, people skills. skills plus your experience right as assets or tools to be able to do work that is valuable and you've got that you have talent and you've got experience that's transferable true or false oh yeah no absolutely it's just more the focus and you know the figuring out you know piece and yeah but here's the deal the focus is on the jobs that you have the talent and, you know, the figuring out, you know, piece. Yeah, but here's the deal. The focus is on the jobs that you have the talent and experience to do. That's what I'm trying to help you do. I don't want you thinking about your dream job right now.

Normally I do that with folks, not folks that are going through major emotional trauma. And, hey, I want to hop in. That's the word that Akindish used is correct. And, Lori, one of the most traumatic things a human can go through is divorce yep one of the most traumatic things a human can go through is the loss of their job one of the most traumatic things a human can go through is the loss of their home and you're experiencing all of this at the same time yes so when you think i can't focus, it's everything spinning around, that's because your body is in fight or flight.

And it is running or hiding or swinging at everything. Probably a mix of both. Or all three, am I right? Right, yeah. Because if I'm not focused on,

you know, one thing, I'm focused on the other thing. You know what I mean? But Lori, listen. Listen, it's right. You don't have a choice but to focus on,

the good news is you've got a two-month head start. That's right. But your full-time job outside of your regular job right now and being a mama and a wife who's going through divorce is I need to get my skills and my experience aligned to go, all right, what are the jobs in Hartford, Connecticut or wherever you're going, what are the jobs that are posted right now? We are in the hottest job market in the history of the United States, Lori. I want to encourage you. This isn't a motivational speech from me. We are at the lowest unemployment rate in the history of the collection of the data. People need you, Lori. There are companies that will bend over backwards for you. You might get a nice raise out of this deal, but you are focused on only one thing. I have talent, and I've got experience.

What is that? Make a list. John can speak to this. It's a powerful psychological tool to get out of your head and write it down. So a quick example. Give it back to John. Write down three to five of your top skills i don't care if they're people oriented or technical in nature just write them down and

then go okay and then i want you to write down what your most valuable experience is think of your entire work life this is very valuable experience and what you've got there is is a really rough draft of a job description. Do you understand what I'm saying? I do, yeah. Because here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to take out the focus issue and just go, oh, it's right there. And I've got to look for jobs that are available right now that match up to what I just wrote down and then pay what I need to make.

And it's encouraging if you apply for something that you know you're qualified for, probably even overqualified for, and they don't reply. It's like, oh, my God, another blow. And right now your brain is so highly attuned to rejection and loss. And so every one of those is going to not feel like the mosquito bite it is. It's going to feel like a punch in the nose. And there's this old developmental tool called Maslow's Hierarchy. When I get like you,

and I've never experienced what you're going through, but when I feel like it's all chaotic and I have to make a thousand decisions at once and I'm struggling and I'm hurting and I'm experiencing loss, all that, I know enough to know about neuroscience that I can't do this by myself. The greatest leveling tool you can have,

the greatest thing that helps your heart rate slow down a little bit is other people. That's it. So I want you to reach out to somebody or two people or three people and say, I need you to walk through hell with me over the next three months. Can I count on you three? And oh, by the way, 10 times that amount to go, hey, I'm getting laid off in two months. Here's what I do best.

Here's the experience I have. Will you help me find a great gig? Lean on relationships. That's where jobs come from. Go to relationships. Go to relationships. That's right. Hey, we're thinking about you.

So sorry. you know we did a survey recently looking for ways that we could serve you better. One of the top things we learned is that people need help when it comes to life insurance. Most people know it's a top priority and oftentimes money's not even the issue since term life is really just cheap. Some feel guilty for not taking action. Some need encouragement to follow through while others are confused about the options. This is why I hammer away every day talking about Term Life and Zander Insurance. You've got to get this taken care of, and Zander is the only company I recommend. They've built their business to serve. Whether you just want information or you need that extra attention to get things done,

in the end, they will help you make smart, confident decisions for your family. Wherever you are in the process, whether getting a quote or getting your policy approved, please take the next step. Go to Zander.com or the number one online retailer of custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promo codes they run every month, you'll save even more. Use promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Kaniya in Michigan.

I'm in my last year of college and work for my parents at their bowling center. I have been working there since high school and I'm ready to move on. My career goal is to work in communications and broadcasting and I found a full-time opportunity at a local radio station. Between this opportunity and my school schedule, all of my time will be booked, which would help me get out of working at the bowling alley. My parents have said that if I live under their roof, I have to work for them. So, if I were to quit, I will need to be ready to also be out on my own.

This is not a horrible thought because I want to experience life on my own. If you were in my situation, what would you do? Well, I'm torn with this question, Kenia, because I've got to tell you, as a high schooler, I would have loved to have worked at a bowling alley. Just a little side note that has nothing to do with my answer. What are you doing, Kenia? This is a dream. I'd move out personally because

everything about this is check box check the box check the box check the box and i don't like mom and dad's position and i also call bs on them i'd call their bluff uh that's just me but i have issues with authority again being transparent right um i don't believe them but that's not about advice i just don't believe them um i do it and um and if we can help you with budgeting you know the every dollar app you need to grab this kind of stuff now and learn this okay i got a great gig that's getting me in the world that i want to be in um yeah i'd go so this is the way i west young man i tell young folks is when you're going to make grown-up decisions, you have to have... They come with...

Grown-up decisions come with grown-up consequences. So I'm going to move, and I think that's the right thing to do. I think you should move out of here. And it's going to come with bills. That's right. And rent and food and all the things. And so let's prepare like a grown-up. Yeah.

Right? Not like a child. Let's get a budgeting app. That's right. Let's get some people in our corner and let's figure this thing out. Yeah. Or go get a roommate, man. Go look around and get a roommate.

Or this is going to sound bonkers. This happened every year I worked in universities. Seniors move back their senior year. Yeah. On campus. It's all taken care of. Move back if you can afford it. Right?

Find a place. You'll find a place to live. Or, hey, pay mom and dad some rent. See how they throw that one at them. Make them say no to that. This sounds like a mom and dad power rent. See how they throw that one at them, make them say no to that. This sounds like a mom and dad power move. It's 100% a flex. It grinds on me a little bit.

Like, let your senior, whatever. I don't like it. I don't either. Let's go to Nick in Cincinnati. What's up, brother Nick? Hey, how you guys doing today? Good, my man. What's up?

I know you guys' time is precious, so I'll get into it. We're here for you, man. What's up? So, I got introduced to Total Money Makeover back at the end of 2020, 2021. And at the time, naturally, I had credit card debt, car payment, mortgage. 2021, my finances got worse. Due to a loss of overtime, I lost probably 30 to 40% of my income over the course of 2021. And naturally because of that, I wasn't able to stay current with credit cards. Flash forward, I'm in a situation now. I've got a plan on trying to get out of things. I really would like y'all's advice on what you guys think of my plan.

Give me some criticism and maybe just help me make a better decision. So money number wise, I got a $150,000 mortgage. I owe about $14,000 on my car. and I got about another $15,000 in credit card debt. I don't make enough right now in my base salary to keep the credit cards current. With that being said, basically all my money every month is going towards the house and going towards our car payments. I live in an old house, so my utilities are pretty high. My mortgage is pretty high for my income, and I'm skimming by. I get a couple hundred dollars left every paycheck.

Is it just you? So there's me, my wife, I got a two-year-old son and my in-laws. I'm working. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Your in-laws live with you as well? Yes. Are they not paying, helping out with mortgage? Yeah, they do. They pay rent, but basically the rent money I get from them every month is my free,

is about all the money I get, you know, after everything's said and done. Oh, okay. Is this a, Nick, you're giving us a math problem here, so we'll address the math problem, but this sounds like a existential issue. This sounds like this is

a husband who got married and all of a sudden has a little kid, and now is also a caretaker for her parents. This is a lot. I hear a guy who's tired. Yeah, you know, I had my dad with us too up until last January. You know, that's kind of one of my big whys right now is to kind of kick me in the pants to get my stuff together.

And I want to go debt-free. You know, it's my wife. You you know she doesn't work right now and she thinks i'm a little crazy because i listen to you guys all the time and and talk about you guys and want to do it but uh you know i'm trying to right now sell the house i'm hoping to get enough equity out of the house to kind of pay off the car. Okay, so where are you going to go, man? Yeah, where are you going to live? Where are you going to go? Well, so that's the thing we're trying to figure out.

We've got family that we can stay with. Oh, no. No, no, no. Okay, can we just pause the family stuff really fast? Sure. You lost a bunch of income. What were you making last year? So for about the last four years, I've made between $80 and $90. Doing what?

I work as a warehouse supervisor in a manufacturing facility. What are you making right now? My base salary is like $59. Doing what? I'm running a warehouse for a FDA-regulated manufacturing facility. Okay. I've been there for about 12 years. Okay.

Could your in-laws watch the child while your wife was working, theoretically here? Yeah, but my wife struggles with anxiety and depression and, uh, you know, that's kind of, that's kind of where we've been for the last six to eight months. All right. So, so I'm just addressing some of the money things we got to do because you're trying to solve this thing with money and there's a lot of things going on, but money is a big piece of this. Um, I don't think you should be selling the house.

I think that creates way more chaos. You're already dealing with all kinds of this. I don't think you should be selling the house. I think that creates way more chaos. You're already dealing with all kinds of things. You have an income problem to add to everything else you've listed out. And my friend, you need to be making 80 to 90. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. You're already tired. You have got to make more money. You've got to make more money. You've got to make more money because then you can walk the baby steps out. And you've been with this group for 12 years, and great, they've served their time, but you need to put those skills out on the market and see what you can get. Yeah, and I've been job shopping.

I haven't had a whole lot of success with it. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You have to eat to live. And if I told you, you had to kill four bucks between now and the end of the year, your family starves, you'd find a way to kill four deer. Would you, or would you not? Right. Yeah.

Then get after it. I'm not, listen, I'm not getting on you, but this is an urgency, my man. And you got a lot going on in your life. I get that. But right now you've got to bring in some in your life. I get that. But right now, you've got to bring in some more income, and you and the wife have got to get on the same page and go, we're going to get out of this financial mess. Because you can't. I want to encourage you. $14,000 on a car and $15,000 on a credit card, if you're making $90,000

and you're disciplined, you can get out of this. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. What's the car worth? I don't know. Probably about what we owe. Why don't you find out? Yeah. Dude, you need some urgency.

Urgency is your friend right now. And that's why I'm going to go back. You sound worn out. Are you all right, man? It's been a – my wife and I weren't in a good place because, you know, I kind of leaned on her pretty heavy last year to help out. And, uh, it just, it just didn't, it didn't really pan out. So, so here we are, hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of my new book on your past, change your future. And with it's going to come a month

of free therapy for better help. And I want you to make that phone call as soon as you get the code yes you need to talk to somebody and i'm taking care of the first month for you you're going to make a plan and this book's going to help you make a plan too but you deserve and your family deserves more than what y'all are trying to shuffle the deck chairs on the titanic okay you need a plan let's get some urgency. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Let's go out to Paige in Salt Lake City. Hey, Paige, what's going on? Hello.

How are we doing? Oh, good. I'm just super nervous. We are, too How are we doing? Oh, good. I'm just super nervous. We are too, so we're all in this together. What's up? Oh, good. So me and my husband got married when I was 21. I'm 31.

And we got a Dave Ramsey book given to us for our wedding, and we read it and we loved it. And we have spent 10 years really um doing our best to follow those those goals and we my we graduated college and my husband went to graduate school across the country and we've had babies and we've been very tight he graduated from graduate school and we moved to Washington State for him to do um a loan repayment program. We had about $250,000 in debt. And the loan repayment program was for $50,000. And over a three-year period, we paid the whole thing off.

Wow. Good for you guys. And it was a joyful process for us. We were very tight with our money. But I don't know. It gave us a lot of purpose and unity together. And we really, um, we, we loved the process of it. But a year ago when we were, um, about out of debt, we were like, look, we're in Washington. The winters are really rough. We're far away from family. And, um, we wanted to get a job back in Utah near family, and we applied and got a really awesome job here, and we came back.

And something I have kind of had in my mind my whole life that I would do is take care of my grandparents. And we moved back here, and the home prices are really crazy here. It's one of the worst housing markets in the country and stuff. And we have been so conservative. And a year ago, we agreed to do – sorry, I don't know why I'm cranking. That's okay. We agreed to build a home and to put my grandparents in the basement. My grandma is estranged from my dad, and I grew up not having much to do with my dad.

And she was my only connection to my fraternal side. So I have felt this desire to really take care of her and all this stuff. But anyway, we looked into building so that I could accommodate her. And we just made choices that I really regret I really regret a lot and I wish I could go back a year and make them all over again but we started building and we agreed to build this home that was almost a million dollars and I kind of had this wake-up call a few months ago when the builder we were almost supposed to have seven seven stairs to get inside and the builder um listed the house way more out of the ground than we were planning and there's going to be 13 stairs to get inside now and we and that seems like a little

thing but it really gave us a moment to reset and be like what are we doing like my husband we've been conservative our whole marriage and my husband just makes over 200,000 and I don't think we have any business to be getting into an almost million dollar home even if it's to take care of my grandparents and so we talked to them and we talked to the builder and the builder has agreed to try to sell the home which I think it will sell just fine here but um you know they said we could not finish the basement we could still have it for about eight hundred thousand and a lot of family members and people are like, what else are you going to do? Like homes are just going crazy here. And I'm scared. And I feel like the inflation is really scary. And we've been so good our whole marriage. And part of me is just like, wants my husband to

quit a job and move somewhere where the housing isn't so expensive. And I feel like we've had this purpose, our whole marriage of like paying off debt and being really conservative. And now that we have money and we don't have debt, I feel a little disoriented. There you go. And so. So here's what I hear, Paige. Number one, I hear a very brave and simultaneously scared woman. I also hear somebody who is a great person, who's got a great marriage, you know,

of shared values. And you also care for the people in your family. And you've got some deep wounds that resurface in common ways and in strange ways, unique ways. And so y'all made an impulse purchase. You thought about it. This was going to be a way to both live out the fantasy of keeping the family together and honoring your legacy and fill in the blank, fill in the blank, fill in the blank. And here we are. And then you had the moment of the seven stairs, right? Y'all can get tattoos that just say seven stairs on it. And you said, what in the world are we doing? Right? So can I free you from something? Yeah. Maybe you bought too

big of a house. You're not a bad person. In fact, your grandparents are lucky to have you. For you to be loving them like you do. So now the question is not to revisit and revisit. We've always been, we've always been. Okay, great. You still are. You messed up.

So here we are. Okay? So let's put a period at the end of that sentence. There's nothing we can do to go back and edit that. We're here. Let's write something new. Are you in for that? Yes. So, Paige, what that means is you have an exit.

The builder has agreed to sell the house. Yeah. Essentially letting you out of the contract. Am I understanding that right? Yes. Okay, then. So do it. Who cares what all the family members say?

They don't get a vote. It's not their call. So the good news is you're debt-free, you make really good money, and if you've got to rent for a little bit to reset and figure out if Hubs wants to leave Salt Lake or not, this is not a crisis. You're actually okay. You haven't blown it.

I think this is a do-over you get. It's a great, I mean, it's almost a this is a do-over you get and it's a great it's almost cosmic lottery type do-over it's okay celebrate this you almost made a million dollar whoopsie do and you got an out and now you're like alright and if you and your husband

go rent a one bedroom apartment for six months and you tell your grandparents we're unable to support you right now your husband go rent a one-bedroom apartment for six months and you tell your grandparents we're unable to support you right now we just simply can't afford this big house and here's the thing your family is going to be be um nudging you towards this house why because you're taking ownership of all of the stuff of grandma of granddad of all the family drama page is going to take care of it so of, they want you to do this. Go get a one-bedroom apartment.

You have a picture in your head where you take care of your grandparents, and it may not be the season for that right now. It may not be the housing market for that right now. It just is with that. That is you owning reality right now. I thought I heard Paige starting to say, but. Am I right, Paige? Yeah, I just, you know, I have three kids,

and I feel terrible that we've moved them and we're renting right now. And this house that they thought we were going to move up to, we're not moving into now. And now maybe we're going to go rent somewhere else for a little bit. And, you know, a lot of people are like, you need to hurry and buy something else because everything's going up. There you go. There you go with all these other people again. Boy, you sure do. You sure do care a lot about other people's opinions. You know the greatest gift you could give your kids is to take them out for dinner and to sit around the table and say, hey, me and your dad almost made a huge mistake.

We got so excited. We love our family so much. We were going to do this. And we got you guys all excited. And everybody's disappointed. Us too. And you'll probably cry because it's real close to the top of your heart and your husband may shed a tear. And what you're going to do for your kids is two important things. They're going to get to see mom and dad

say the words, I'm sorry. They're going to get to see mom and dad have emotion. They're going to get to see mom and dad say, Hey, we almost made a huge mistake. So here's what we're going to do next. And nobody likes what happens next, but this is the world we're in. And you're going to give them legacy gifts. This is changing family tree gifts. How old are the kids? Eight, six, and three. Eight, six, and three.

Okay, first of all, the three-year-old has no clue. And the six-year-old won't remember any of this. Yeah, and the eight-year-old's kind of like, after about two minutes of the tears and all the nice stuff, they're checked out, too. No, I'm serious i mean page you you and i'm having fun with this but i'm also dead serious they're not going to resent you over this decision they are loved big time are they not page yeah those kids don't want for much do they page no Paige? No. Stop this.

Stop this nonsense of everybody else telling you what you should do. Your tears and the way you and your husband have lived your life to this point is what matters. So, Paige, what you've created in your head is a picture of the way things are supposed to be. And what you have to make peace with is that picture's not going to work. And the challenge before you is to paint a new picture and it's best done with your husband over a half day time y'all take together get one of these family members who can't mind their own business

to watch the kids for a half day and you and your husband say okay we dodged a bullet like the matrix what's this next picture going to look like you get to choose what that is stay on the line I'm going to give you a copy of my new book own your past change your future y'all can read it together and it will give you a path out of this mess we'll be right back guitar solo Today's scripture of the day is Isaiah 32.8. Generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity.

The great Helen Keller says, Life is an exciting business, and it is most exciting when it is lived for others. Outstanding. I love it. Let's go to Heather in Seattle, Washington, home of Pearl Jam and the gang. What's up, Heather? Hey, how are you? Outstanding. What's going on? So I'm just calling because we are in Baby Step 2, and our next personal death is an RV.

Hey, Heather. And then after that... Heather, I'm sorry to interrupt. I know you're in Baby Step 2, but it also feels like you're in a wind tunnel. Is there anything you can do to help us with that? I am in a wind tunnel. Oh, literally? That was a joke.

All right. Yeah, it's Washington. Oh, I got you. You can never... All right, that's much better. That's much better.'s much better guaranteed okay um so we're in baby step two and our next personal debt is an rv that we have and then it's my student loans and we use the rv as sort of a short-term rental last summer it made us like

10 000 just in a couple months and then this summer we're projected to do about $15,000, and that's conservative. And so I guess my question is, do we use the proceeds for that to pay off the RV, or do we just sell the RV and not have that, I guess, as a benefit? How much would you make if you sold the RV? So we owe about $34,000 on it, and we could make, or we could sell it for $43,000. Oh, you owe on it. Sell it today. Yeah, because go ahead and pocket and get out of the debt, because that thing is devaluing quickly.

It's not a great rental thing long-term, so don't talk yourself into that or let anybody tell you, well, it's an asset that you can rent. No, you have too much debt on that. It'd be one thing if you owned it clear and free, but I'd sell it, pocket the profits and put it towards the other debt. How much student loan do you have? $70,000. Yeah. Sell it and knock it down. You'll have $60,000 to go. You'll be on your way. Okay. And then I guess we have rentals already scheduled for this summer, so do we just sell at the end of the summer?

I think you can sell it with the rentals in mind and let them know, hey, we've rented this out. I don't know the contracts. I don't know what you've agreed to. I don't know if this means you're out of the rental business forever, etc. I don't know the ins and outs, and so I'm not going to give you any insight on what to do with the contract, but it is what it is.

I thought that was a sound effect from the booth. Oh, I thought that might be that, but it was clearly a child. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? Figure out your rental contracts, and if you can get out of them, I'd get out of them and sell. That's right. If you can't, well, then you've got contracts, and you've got to wait.

You've got to hang on. The problem with that is it devalues every month. So, yeah, get out of the RV. Yeah, dude. If you had owned it outright, I would have said hang on to it. Yeah, sure. Because it's making money. You don't.

It's $40,000 just staring you in the face. Let's do that. Let's go to Phil in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What's up, Phil? Hey. Can you guys hear me? I know it's Minneapolis. I just always say Minneapolis.

The chagrin from Kelly's face in the booth, folks. I wish I had a snap to pick. Not good at my words. Minneapolis. Minneapolis. What's up, Phil? Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking the call.

Of course, man. So here's my question. So me and my wife are kind of fortunate. We have a great life here. We're debt-free. We make a lot of money. But through the pandemic, I think we've been sort of rethinking

some priorities in life. So my wife wants to have, we don't have any children, and she wants to have a kid next year. And then when she does that, she wants to sort of go to sort of mark a part-time role. And I also kind of want to switch careers.

And what I would ideally like to do is sort of take a few years and try and build some video games. But that's a really kind of high-risk field. You could sort of have multiple years where you make no money at all. So what I'm trying to figure out is, you know, my current plan is to sort of wait until we're 55 and then just sort of quote unquote retire early and then try and do this, build a video game while my wife kind of continues to work part-time. I kind of want to know if y'all think that's a reasonable idea. Do you think I could do it sooner?

I'm going to jump into this one thing and I'm going to hand this off to Ken. Okay, Phil? The big thing that is setting off my alarms here is you said, my wife decided she wants to have a baby, so she's going to have one next year. That should be a we decision. Yeah, as if you're not involved. No, no, it is almost certainly a we decision. You should participate in that.

You misunderstood that. I did. You should participate in that and both. You misunderstood that. I did. So you're in on this? Yes, absolutely. I'm 100% in on this. I didn't say the word we because the video game thing was just me. Okay, so I'll turn it over to Ken about the jobs.

Well, and I would also just say this too. I appreciate the spirit of the question, but guess what? Stacey and I struggled for years and years and years to get pregnant. So I just want to kind of – I don't wish that on anyone. We do, too. But it's not a simple thing as, well, we want to have one next year, so, well, that's going to happen. Well, we don't know that. And so I just – I want to put this out there to go because it does have context to my suggestion. My suggestion is it's a combination of the scenarios you gave us.

I absolutely do not like you leaving your very stable career right now that has afforded you the ability to be debt-free and all the other great things to go after video game design right now. That is very risky. Your words, not mine. And I don't like that risk. It's an unnecessary risk. I'm a fan of risk, but I'm a fan of an adjective in front of it called mitigated. I like mitigated risk, meaning we plan for the absolute worst. We know what the worst is,

but we have a plan for that. So it's kind of like my dad teaching me to ride the bike. My dad taught me. He was brilliant. Johnny taught me to ride the bike. My dad taught me he was brilliant. Johnny taught me to ride on a flat, grassy patch behind our house. That's mitigated risk. My dad's going, the kid's going to wreck the bike. The risk is high that he's going to wreck. But I'm going to mitigate it by he's going to wreck on the grass, and so he's not going to stick to the sheets for two weeks.

My dad did. Taught me on the highway. Yeah, your dad's an evil person. It's terrible right so uh phil here's my point what could you do nights and weekends even with a newborn baby i'm just thinking what could you do to progress towards the dream of full-time video game design why do we have to wait till we're 55 if we do it smart on the side don't over commit financially we piddle around we get really good at one thing uh do you understand what i'm asking like what's the part-time uh kind of crawl walk well before we run and by the time 55 we've learned a lot of things because we've tried some things.

We didn't risk much. That's kind of what I'd like to see. And then, yeah, I love the idea of 55 going after full-time because you're retired. Now it's like there's little risk at all. Does that make sense? Yeah, that is a fair point. I guess the only sort of thought was, again, what you just said,

which is if we have a child, it's going to, from what I hear, it's going to be really hard. And so I don't know that I'm going to have a lot of, because my job is fairly stressful. You won't. First of all, having a child is the hardest thing you'll ever do. Okay? John and I can tell you that. Secondly, I had three children under the age of three ran my own small business and pursued broadcasting it's possible you can figure it out it is not one of these there's no way i'd have

time kid how would i find the time trust me you can find the time you are you are a excellent risk mitigator, aren't you? Well, I mean, I don't know if you were talking to me. You are good at surveying the landscape and finding where the mines might be, and you're good at avoiding that, aren't you? Oh, absolutely. I mean, the fact that we're debt-free, I mean, I would say we're allergic to debt. Like, we really live well within our means. I guess the 55 thing was, you know,

was just like me thinking, I know we will be financially completely stable at that point, and then there'd be like no risk. But you've boxed yourself into an either or. It's either financial risk and security when I'm 55, or I quit everything and swan dive off the top of a building with a baby on the way. And what we're telling you is there's a thousand options in between A and Z.

Right. That's a fair point. There's the part-time option. There's the Mr. Beast grinding it out for year after year after year after year after year, figuring it out and being tired, and that's just part of it, of being somebody who's got a dream. There's all these different parts to it and components to it but you can make it happen don't box yourself into a well if this happens i can only do it like that's not how that works man chase it chase it

chase it phil hey everybody this has been the ramsey show live well be kind work hard and be generous we will see you soon on 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 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.