The Ramsey Show - App - We Were Too Broke to Buy a Loaf a Bread (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Well, as I do that open, and I've done that open that way for many, many, many years, I'm bound to tell you that there's a big announcement coming tomorrow. And so you need to make sure you tune in tomorrow because I've got some really fun information for you guys tomorrow that you're going to enjoy. Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Glad to be back with you.

We had a couple days off for an executive committee, an operating board retreat last week, trying to plan the future of this place. And where there is no vision, the people perish. So we decided we didn't want to perish, and so instead we would have a vision. And that's what we work towards all the time around here. And so a couple days off out in Sedona, which is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. Been there several times, but this was absolutely beautiful. Fabulous time.

So good to be back with you guys for the entire week this week live. Be sure to check it out. Those of you that are friends or fans of my friend, my new friend, Ben Shapiro, one of the hottest names out there right now in podcasting and, for that matter, in talk radio. Launched the talk radio show earlier this year. Very bright young guy and a lot of fun to listen to. I did his podcast that aired this Sunday, the Sunday special, as a guest on his show, his Sunday special show. So you can catch it on the Daily Wire YouTube channel and watch that interview.

It's about an hour long. But if you're having trouble sleeping, you can pull it up, and we'll help you out with that. It was fun hanging out with him. He's very, very bright, very quick, very quick. I'm pretty quick on the draw myself as far as comebacks. People ask how we prep for the show, and the way we prep for the show is we pray because we have no idea what you people are going to call about,

and we just have to be able to answer it. So it's a quick on-the-draw thing. As part of the talk radio deal, you've got to have that gift, and he certainly has it, that quick intellect, and a lot of fun to hang out with him and their staff, their team behind the scenes putting that whole thing together. They're very professional. They really know their stuff.

So if you're a Pirro fan, that's just a heads up. If you're not, you may be after you watch this. He's a, again, it's a lot of fun. So check him out. Open phones here today for you at 888-825-5225. Cherie is with us in Fort Lauderdale, kicking this hour off. Hi, Cherie. How are you?

Happy Monday, Dave. I'm finding myself. Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I had a quick question for you. My husband and I were having a little bit of a discussion, and we wanted to get some insight. We received a letter from our mortgage company saying that we have a shortage in our escrow for $209. We can either A, pay it off right off bat or have it distributed equally over 12 months. We're selling babies up too. So I prefer to have the savings of the $200 and put it towards debt, but he wanted to pay it off. Either way, our mortgage is going to decrease March 1st.

It'll decrease by $54, but if we were to pay the escrow up front, it would decrease by $71. So we wanted to get some advice on what to do. Well, I don't think with the numbers you're giving me that it's going to matter much five years from today which one you do. It's more a matter of which gives you the emotional push to continue with working a program. My personal tendency, I'm just a rip a Band-Aid off guy, and I probably would just write the check, not because it lines up with the baby steps

or not because it lines up with that snowball or something like that, but I'd probably just write the check just because I don't want to screw with the mental exercise of keeping up with it for $200, you know? Well, it's automatically deducted. I know, I know, but you've got to try to remember the next, you know, when's that run out and when's my payment going to change and back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So, you know, you can do either one. Neither one's going to cause you to be wealthy or not cause you to be wealthy.

The good news of the whole conversation is is that a you're doing whatever you do on purpose and b you're discussing it and deciding together those are the two data points in this conversation that tell me you're going to do good with money it's not going to be the actual net result of this decision either way but you're working together and you're doing crap on purpose, which you didn't used to do, and now you're doing that. And that's a big, big deal. That's a 9 out of 10 on this discussion.

The other thing's a 2 out of 10. It's not going to matter much to me. I don't even really have a good opinion about it. Whichever one you guys decide you want to do, do it, and then just don't look back, because it's not going to change anything five years from now. Good question. Thanks for calling in.

Rocky's with us. Rocky's in Memphis. Rocky, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, I need a bit of advice.

My wife and I, we are debt-free with the exception of a piece of land that we purchased about two years ago for the purpose of building our home on. Is your current residence paid off as well? Our current residence is not paid off, no. Okay, so you're debt-free but the land and the house. How much do you owe on the land? We owe roughly about $45,000. Okay, good. And your question is what? And it's probably worth about $90,000. Okay, good. And your question is what?

And it's probably worth about $90,000 or so. Okay. My question is, I just recently received a bonus from my employer, and I was wanting to know what I should do. I have not fully funded my 2018 Roth. So the first part was I can use part of the bonus to fully fund my 2018 Roth, then fully fund my 2019 Roth, and put the excess money left over on the land, or use the entire bonus and pay the land off in May. Okay. Are you putting 15% of your income into retirement,

not counting these Roths that you're talking about doing? This year, yes, I will be. Not counting those Roths? Correct. Okay. Well, our baby step four is put 15% into retirement, five is kids' college, and six is pay off your home, which in this case would include

this land because that's the future home um and um don't put more than 15 into retirement until you get baby step six done which is debt free on your real estate right that would tell me that you don't put any more into retirement and you put it all towards the land. Okay. The same decision-making process. So if you're already doing 15% and not doing these Roths, if you do these Roths, it's going to be over 15%. No, I would throw that money because I limit it to 15% until you get your house paid off. And in this case, you're moving towards building on this land.

When are you going to build? Probably next year. Good. I good thinking about breaking ground sometime next year early spring excellent excellent very good i have one other question i would knock it out then yes sir your other question um this one i haven't heard you address my wife and i we live fairly frugal but we love to travel um we absolutely love to we make a pretty good annual income and what would you suggest to allocate towards family vacations on a yearly basis? I mean, do you have like a percentage that you kind of lean towards?

No, I don't. Because what happens there is a couple things you told me very dramatically. I mean, if you make a million dollars a year, I wouldn't give you the same percentage to allocate towards vacations as I would if you make $100,000 a year. I mean, it would be completely absurd to put 10% towards your vacations if you make a million dollars a year. I guess it wouldn't be absurd. It would be a lot different than putting $10,000, putting $100,000 instead of $10,000 towards vacations. So I think you've just got to look at that and gauge out that against your other goals.

What Sharon and I would do is we'd put that against, parse that against building this house. Why in the world would you trust some random guy in a cube when getting your mortgage? Do you really think he cares about your long-term money goals? Well, he doesn't. Those companies care about getting you into whatever home loan program they're pushing that week. When it comes to ordering a cheeseburger, the meal deal works fine. But let's get real, people. We're talking about the largest investment you'll probably ever make,

so don't be naive and trust an order taker who pressures you into a pre-packaged loan. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been helping my listeners for over 25 years. Call Churchill Mortgage and get custom solutions from an expert within 10 minutes. It's simple. They'll shoot straight with you and quickly show you the real way to save money. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement.

NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickory Blvd. Redwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for being with us, America. Myesha is with us in Houston. Hey, Myesha, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Andrew? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Okay, I have a few things going on. I'm a fairly new listener for about maybe six months, but I kind of made some big decisions before that. I have a car for a $20,000 car, and I have about a $410 payment. I'm recently unemployed, like in the last few weeks. And basically, I'm trying to figure out if I should sell my car and how. And also in 2017 I was evicted from an apartment, and I'm trying to figure out if I should use my tax return to pay that off or if I should hold off and just wait. And how much is your tax return?

They're usually around $3,500. Okay. All right. And how's the job hunt going? Pretty slow. I'm looking for temp agencies right now, but pretty slow. Okay. What were you doing before? I was a teacher. Okay. A full-time in the public school system? Yes, sir. Okay. And how'd you lose that job uh that's complicated that's complicated i tried to get it back but um basically i resigned and it didn't work out for me okay so you're trying to be a teacher again uh it's a it's a huge possibility yes okay good very good

all right um and so um what are you doing to land in? Are you picking up substitute teaching jobs, or what are you doing? I have applied to be a substitute, but that takes about three more weeks. It's a process. Are you married? No, single, and I have a child. What are you using for food? Well, I still have some savings, and I got my last paycheck, which was substantial,

well, somewhat substantial. What's substantial? The last check was about $4,500. Okay, and how much do you have in savings? About $1,000. Okay. All right. And what would you do if you sold your car? That's what I don't know. I mean, I've been listening to you, so I understand that, you know, having a high car payment and my interest rate as high is not good, but I also know right now I don't even know how to go about that, but I know that I'm paying a lot for the car.

Yeah, okay. I would use the $4,500 and the $3,500 to buy a paid-for $2,000 or $3,000 car and get your car sold as soon as possible, but I'm a little bit afraid to do that until you land enough income to eat with. Right. So I'm more concerned that you land some kind of a job immediately, that you go get something now. There's all kinds of stuff out there you can be doing. And I would land into something, a nanny position. I don't care what it is, tutoring position,

something where you use your teaching and skills with children as soon as possible. And once you can get an income where you know that you can pay your rent, your food, your lights, then, yeah, I'm selling this $20,000 car. It's a nightmare. And I'm going to use the $4,500 and the $3,500 to do that and to buy me a used car that I pay cash for. Do not borrow money for your replacement vehicle. Okay.

Pay cash for it. If it's a $1,000 car, pay cash for it. Okay. Do not borrow money again If it's a $1,000 car, pay cash for it. Okay. Do not borrow money again. You cannot repeat this same mistake. Jay's with us in New York. Hi, Jay. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Not much. So basically, I've got a lot of student debt between me and my wife. My wife just started a new job. And we're looking at trying to pay off both of our student debts. I don't graduate until May, but she's already just started a new job.

Cool. We were wondering if we should aggressively pay off the debt or pay off more than just the principal. You know, our principal is $768,000, we could put $2,000 to it. Or I've been pretty decent at investing. The question is whether or not we should put it towards the debt or put more towards the principal. Let's say the extra $1,000 that we have, more than that. But I could put, you know, $700 towards the principal and then $300 in the market. And the idea is that hopefully we're earning 8% or 9%. Yeah, the idea is that you're borrowing money on a student loan to invest in the market,

and I would never do that. And effectively, from a balance sheet perspective, that's what you're doing. All the data that we have on millionaires and multimillionaires says that the shortest distance between where you are in wealth is to first become debt-free, thereby getting control of your largest wealth-building tool, which is your income. How much student loan debt do you guys have? So my other point is PA school costs us about $120,000.

My undergraduate in engineering costs about $40,000. We just did the math. And that means you have to wait for another six months. What did it cost that? What did you borrow? So you got $160,000 in student loan debt? No, no, that's how much debt it cost us. Oh.

That's how much loan I took out. So you have $160,000 in student loan debt. Yeah. And she's a PA. I know you don't like this. That's okay. Just calm down. Just a second.

Just a second. Just a second. So she's a PA. Yeah. And you're getting ready to be an engineer when? I graduate in May. Great. And I have a job lined up, so I'm expecting 70 starting by August.

And she's making what as a PA? She's making $105,000. Okay. So we have $175,000 income. And 20 minutes ago, you were broke college students. Yep. And you have 100. So you're used to living like broke college students.

$175,000. We're still going to live like broke college students. Good. And so $2,000 a month going towards your student loans is a freaking joke. That's lame-o and wussified, making $175,000. That's $24,000 a year out making $175,000. That's $24,000 a year out of $175,000. You're going to live on $150,000? That's not living like a broke college student.

Uh-huh. Follow me? Yep. Okay. I love you, man. You guys are two bright guys, and you're what, 24, 25? I'm 25. My wife's 24. Yeah, you guys are awesome. You're very, very bright people, and you have a huge future ahead of you.

The best thing you can do is attack these student loans like your freaking life depended on it, and that means you should be debt-free in two years or less. You think two years or less? Two years. 80,000 out of 175, which means you're living on 95,000 minus taxes. Wah. Right. What do you think should go towards how much would be in an emergency fund? $1,000 is your start, beginner emergency fund.

Then we're going to attack the debt like our hair is on fire. When we're debt-free, we're going to build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses once we've done that we're going to start putting 15 of your fabulous income away and if you do all of that you will not only buy a nice conservative home shortly thereafter you'll pay it off within five to seven years my prediction is if you'll follow what I'm teaching you, you will be millionaires or multimillionaires by the time you're 35, one decade from now. Okay. And then one last question for you. This one's sort of important. My wife's work is willing to match up to $10,000 if we put $10,000 in her retirement. So should we take that deal or take that $10,000 and put it towards the debt? No. When you started dating her, the reason she married you is because you focused on her.

What you focus on is what you win at. So I'm going to focus 100% on getting out of debt. It's mathematically incorrect, but it will cause you to get ahead one decade from now faster than anything else. Again, you guys are very, very smart. Very smart. I mean, a PA and an engineer, dude, you are so set up. But don't drag this dadgum student loan around like it's a pet.

Execute Sally Mae and throw her in the street, man. I'm serious. Do away with this woman. She is ugly. Get her out of your life. This is a bad idea. I'm serious. Do away with this woman. She is ugly. Get her out of your life. This is a bad idea. So hold on. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, that will show you

exactly how to do exactly what I'm talking about. I've done it with millions of people. Millions of them are millionaires now. And you guys are so set up. You're so smart. And if you'll just be wise while you're being smart, you're going to go so far. Hold on. I'll send you a copy of it.

Speaking of everyday millionaires, we're doing an Everyday Millionaire Theme Hour this week. And if you are an everyday millionaire, email Kelly right now at DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com. We want to tell your story. We want to interview you this week. DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com. What will your family do if you die? Did I get your attention? Good. If you're a father, mother, husband, or wife, it's your responsibility to have life insurance.

No matter where you are in the baby steps, you have to deal with this right now. How will your family pay for the mortgage, put food on the table, or pay for education? How will they deal with retirement and stay the course for getting out of debt and accomplishing something with their lives? This is what life insurance is all about. I knew when I started this show it was something my listeners had to have, so I went out and found a company I could trust to offer the plans I believe in. That's why I've been talking about Zander Insurance for over 20 years. If you haven't dealt with this, please go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 and let them help. This is a priority. It's not expensive, it's not complicated, and you need to do it today. That's Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Kenny and Lucy are with us in San Francisco.

Hi, guys. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Good morning, Dave. How are you? Congratulations. I see on my screen you're debt-free. Yes, we are, thanks to you. Well, I didn't pay it.

You did. Way to go. How much have you paid off? $62,877.23. Love it. How long did this take? Ten months. Ten months?

Wow, that's rocking it. And your range of income during that ten months? We went from $75,000 to $100,000. Okay. $100,000. What kind of debt? What do you guys do for a living? I am a welding foreman in a shipyard.

And I work from home as an admin assistant. Excellent. And what kind of debt was the $63,000? So we had $20,000 just about in consumer debt, and the rest were cars. A whole bunch of stupid. Okay. So you had $43,000 in car debt. Yes, sir.

And so did you sell one of those vehicles? We sold both of them. Whoa! Yeah, we sold both of them. What kind of cars? We got real crazy. What kind of cars? I got real crazy. What kind of cars? I had a 2015 Chevy Silverado.

Ooh. And a 2014 Suburban. Oh, nice cars. So you guys got radical. What are you driving now? I have a 2003 Honda Pilot with 200,000 miles. Cool. And a 2005 Honda Odyssey. Oh, no not bad not bad at all okay

those aren't exactly hoopties i mean you're doing pretty good and you're 100 dead free yeah so yeah you guys you guys were deep in the car crap i mean and you just decided to amputate the suburban man i mean and. I mean, and the Silverado. Wow. Tell me your story. What happened 10 months ago? You went radical. So I went to go buy bread one night, and I couldn't put a dollar on my credit cards,

or we were living check to check. And I came home, and I was about to cry. And I was talking to my wife about it, and she brought up you. We heard about you seven years ago from my boss at the time, and we just weren't ready to hear it. We were check to check then, and we lived that way until 12 months ago, basically. And we just decided, let's listen to Dave Ramsey. Let's see what he has to say. And we got the total money makeover and started our debt snowball.

Just like that. We did the show every day and stayed consistent and communicated each week. Never went outside of our budget. And it just changed our lives in every aspect, in our marriage, our family. Just, it was remarkable. How old are you, Kenny? I am 33. Cool. how long have you guys been married uh seven years seven years and they're flashing pictures up on the youtube screen of your uh

three children's cute cute family and um so you're a dad you're 33 years old, you've got little kids, and you walk in and you can't put a dollar on your card to buy bread for your family. That had to cause you to just snap. Tell me how that felt. It was the worst feeling that I'd probably ever felt. You know, I'm not the sole provider sole, well, I'm not the sole provider of my family, but I'm a majority of it. And to think that I couldn't buy, buy bread, it really, it really hurt. And I realized that, you know, I was never taught about my finances. I was never taught. My parents never sat me down and told me about how to manage my money.

And I'm just so thankful that my wife actually brought it up, the total money makeover. And so you guys jump on the book, you jump on the podcast, and as soon as I started saying sell the car, sell the car, sell the car, which I say every day, um, what, what was, how did that process go down emotionally? Cause I mean, you guys, when you buy cars, like you have bought with your incomes, that means you love vehicles. Yeah, we really did love our cars. We were a Chevy family.

My husband was proud to be in that new truck and, you know, the kids were comfortable in our Suburban. Real roomy, real comfortable. So it was a big change and it took some getting used to, but when we sat down and realized we had literally a thousand dollars of car payments a month that we could be using in so many other ways. It just hit us like a brick. He went to buy bread in that nice new Silverado, and his card was declined. So what is it even worth at that point?

Yeah, it's just like we'll do anything. We're not living like this anymore. There's a level of stuff that happened inside your emotions and inside your relationship with each other where you guys just joined hands and said no we're going the other way yeah and i think when when we made the budget and we've seen that every month without me working any overtime we were a hundred dollars in the hole. And when we seen that, it really brought things in perspective about how far we had fallen behind. And making a budget was really, really, really important.

And we still make it every month. We sit down as a team, talk about it, we execute, and it just, making a budget is so important. So you're driving old cars. You don't have a payment in the world. Nope. How's that feel? It feels amazing. Feels amazing.

I love my Odyssey. I'm riding that thing till the wheels fall off. Well, you probably got a while. That Odyssey's a good car. It'll last. Those other cars you had were good cars, too. They would have lasted, but they were killing you guys. One day I want another truck, but we will pay for cash, and I definitely don't need no 2015 truck.

But one day, well, one day in the future, but not right now. We're on baby step number three, and that's way more important than a nicer vehicle yeah you'll be everyday millionaires and then you can drive whatever you want oh yeah that's what that's where you're headed you're headed there you'll be there in no time you'll be amazed at how quick this turns around because the hardest change has occurred which is between your ears and once you make once you made that decision everything's different from then on you look you will never look at purchases you will never then on. You will never look at purchases. You will never look at money. You will never look at a money conversation between the two of you the same again.

It has changed permanently, and it started with that wonderful event when you were declined to buy a loaf of bread. What an awesome event. And you need to write this down because you need to tell your grandkids this story because this was the day your family tree was changed. Totally, 100%. Proud of you guys. Very proud of you.

Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Our family, definitely. They've been on board the whole time. Some of them talked about doing your plan, but we were the ones that stuck through it. Yeah. Yeah. We started with a few people on board that actually tried it, but at the end of the day, we're the only two remaining. We were sick and tired

of being sick and tired. You were. You didn't care what people thought. You were just doing it because it was time to do it. Well, very proud of you. We're going to send you a copy of Chris Hogan's number one bestseller, Everyday Millionaires, because you are going to be one. You are right on track. You're doing all the right stuff. So proud of you. All right, Kenny and Lucy, San Francisco, California, $63,000 paid off in 10 months,

sold $43,000 worth of cars to get there. Boom! Making $75,000 to $100,000. Income went up, too. You guys are doing everything right. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. We're debt-free!

I love it! Well done. Oh, that's fun. That is very fun. Congratulations, you guys. Very, that's fun. That is very fun. Congratulations, you guys. Very, very cool. You know, I hope it's interesting to me the way our brains, we the human animal, how our brains work.

Sometimes it takes something like a loaf of bread being turned down on a credit card to smack you between the eyes like a two before. I hope you don't have to get hit that hard. But if it takes that, I hope you get hit that hard today. Whatever it takes to cause you to change your life, baby. That's what this thing's all about. It's called The Dave Ramsey Show. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings.

Free samples, free shipping, new promos every month. Use the promo code RamseyBlinds.com. David's in Texas. I'll be renting in January 2021. Got a few options. I can withdraw, roll it over around $180K of non-taxed money, and receive a monthly income. The other is I do not draw a lump sum but will receive a monthly income,

but it would increase my income by $960 a month. Should I withdraw the 180 and roll it over or take the larger income? Oh, it's not renting. It's retiring. Oh, I was trying to figure out what renting had to do with this. Okay, good Lord, and I read it wrong. I'll be retiring in January, and I've got a few options. That's a lot better.

It makes more sense. I'm like, what in the world is a withdrawal? Anyway, my brain's blocked. All right, so let's see here. So I always take, it's a lump sum pension is what we're talking about, or a, and it should not be tax-free. It should not be non-taxed. I don't know why you would have a non-taxed pension. But either way, what you can do is you can roll over the lump sum into an IRA

in a series of good growth stock mutual funds. Get with a SmartVestor Pro. Click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com and get with a SmartVestor Pro in your area. They'll drop down a list of them, and you fill in your information. You choose from that list which one you want to work with. And these are the people that we say in your area are good to work with. And they'll help you select good mutual funds. And you do a direct transfer rollover as a lump sum.

Because with a pension, when you die, it dies with you. And your estate is $180,000 poorer. But if you roll the $180,000 poorer. But if you roll the $180,000 out into mutual funds, you will make more money per month out of your IRA, and you will have more money in your estate when you die. So it's better in life and better in death. Kyle is with us in Minneapolis. Hey, Kyle, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I just finished Baby Step 3. I'm on 4, 5, and 6. I met with some investor pros and I just had a question on some of the things that they're showing me. So I went to them and told them that I wanted the growth and income growth, international aggressive growth. And when I've heard you talk about that in the past, aggressive growth is kind of like the small cap. The growth and income is kind of like the large cap blue chip stuff.

However, the things that they were showing me, for example, like the aggressive growth had some small cap, but also a pretty substantial amount of international in there. And the growth in income had like blue chip with bond instead. I was originally thinking like growth in income was blue chip with dividends or something, but that was blue chip with bond. And then I was thinking just based off of the other things that the reason why we're doing this is that we're trying to capture the entire market. In other words, growth and income is kind of like large cap, aggressive growth is small cap, growth is mid cap and international, obviously.

International. So they were trying to give me a couple of solutions. So like one solution was was to have one mutual fund that kind of did it all. And then another solution was just to have the ones with, like, the large cap with bond and stuff like that. And I just wanted to make sure that I understood the reason behind the way you're allocating this, and if I'm correct in that it's,'s like small cap, large cap, mid cap. Yeah, I mean, you might sit down with a different SmartVestor Pro if you're not grasping what they're telling you. That's their fault. It's their job to be a teacher. And if you're not comfortable with where you are, you don't move forward ever.

You need to be comfortable with where you are. You don't move forward ever. You need to be comfortable with where you are. You don't do it because they said to do it or because I said to do it. But, yeah, the concept is simply to be diversified. It says in Ecclesiastes, spread your portions to seven, yes, to eight, for disaster may come upon the land. And so I simply want diversification. To start with, a mutual fund gives you diversification in general because you're in 90 to 200 stocks, as you know, versus just buying a single stock and trying to diversify among three or four single stocks, which will get you in a pinch. So to start with, we've got good diversification. Really,

none of the three or four different things we're discussing here are going to be deal breakers and keep you from hitting your everyday millionaire goals. The question is, how do you want to go about it and so forth? Now, I've got several different aggressive funds. I've got several different growth and income funds. It's not unusual for some of my growth and income funds to have some bonds. Typically, you will more likely see bonds in a balanced fund than you will a growth and income, because typically what you're saying is that growth and income would be more blue chip. But if it's got a little bonds in it, it doesn't blow my mind.

I'm just not a big fan of bonds. I don't want it to be too heavy there. And if my aggressive growth has got some international in it because some of their being aggressive happens to be, you know, some kind of a new or upstart or cutting-edge industry company that doesn't happen to be an American company, so they stick it into that aggressive, well, that doesn't bother me. I'm not worried about that. So, you know, but I wouldn't want my aggressive fund to be a wolf in sheep's clothing and look more like international because 70% of it's international. Then it's an international, you know, so we gave it the wrong name.

So I'm going to look at that. And if something but to have some have some different spices in your gumbo is not the end of the world. And but but, you know, you look at it and look at how that stuff's weighed out. And if you're not comfortable with it, if it's not giving you that safety that that diversification should give you in your mind, then ask to see some different ones or go see a different SmartVestor Pro that gives you a more traditional Dave Ramsey mix than that. But I don't think they're outside of the – I don't think they're over in the ditch. I mean, they're not trying to sell you a whole life insurance or something like that. But I don't think they're outside of the, I don't think they're over in the ditch. I mean, they're not trying to sell you a whole life insurance or something like that. So, but the good news is you're learning because you've got a lot of the terminology down and you're learning about how to do this stuff and you're being careful.

And people who are intentional and steady in their investing are actually the ones that win. The ones that try to catch lightning in a bottle and they want to find that one get-rich-quick thing, or they put money in stuff they don't understand and hope somebody else is smarter than them is going to take care of them. These are the people that lose their money. So you have to have the heart of a teacher from your advisor. You have the heart of a student, which you do. And steady is the way, and well-diversified and steady

and intentional is the way, and you've got all of that dialed in, Kyle. So you're going to be okay. You're going to be fine either way. But that's the whole thought pattern to this, and you can go a whole lot of different ways. I mean, my portfolio today, Kyle, is, if you looked at my total net worth, is out of balance considerably because I'm way heavy in real estate. But I love real estate. And the reason I'm way heavy in it is I stole a bunch of it in 2008, and now it's all doubled and tripled and quadrupled in value since 2008. And my mutual funds have not done that.

They've gone up, but they've not gone up as fast as the real estate has gone up because I bought the real estate so cheap when everything was down. So it's gotten the whole thing out of balance. But I'm not worried about that a bit because I love real estate. I'm comfortable there. I've got really substantial investments in mutual funds as well. And so I'm still okay. But, yeah, sometimes those things,

and I'm not going to rebalance my portfolio by selling off a bunch of real estate and taking a tax hit. No, I'll just sit there and smile while that stuff goes up in value and collect the rents on it, baby. So, I mean, that's the thing you're just looking at. You're just gauging it, watching it, and if you get into something and it's not doing what it's supposed to do long term, you lose faith in its future, that's when you get out. You have what my friend Henry Cloud calls a necessary ending.

And when you lose faith in the future of something, a relationship, a job, an employer, an employee, an investment, that's when you bring an end to that relationship because I lost faith in the future. I don't hang on based on the past. And something has changed that I don't in the future. I don't hang on based on the past. Something has changed that I don't like the way this is going and I'm not going to stay in this deal. That's what you come in. It's time

to leave that job. Time for you to leave our employment. Whatever that is. That's how this works. Hey, good question. The good news here is you're thinking and you're growing and you're learning. So you're going to be great. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.