The Ramsey Show - App - Wealth Is a Slow Game, Don’t Rush the Process (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of Breaking Free from Broke. He is my co-host today. If you want to break free from broke, you're in the right place. He's here to help. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Allison is in Little Rock.

Hi, Allison. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for what you do, and thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? All right. Sorry, I'm a little nervous.

I would really like to go on a beach vacation, and my husband says that we cannot afford it. Okay. Can you afford it? Well, I think it's worth the expense. That isn't the question. The question was, can you afford it? Do you have the money in cash to pay for it?

We do. Okay. But we do also have debt. Okay. Then the question is, how do you define afford? Okay. So you called folks. If he told you to call us, he set you up, by the way.

No. Okay. Sure. We teach folks that until you're out of debt and have an emergency fund in place you really can't afford to do anything that's our definition of afford you can't afford to go out to eat you can't afford to go on vacation you can't afford to buy a couch you can't afford to upgrade your car you're in debt and you're broke you can't afford it until you get those things cleaned up.

And so for a short period of time, you sacrifice those things, these lifestyle decisions, which is all they are, in order to get out of debt so that you can travel and do anything you want to do later and you can afford it because you got the money and you don't have debt. But let's say you owe, do you have credit card debt as an example uh no it's um cars and my husband's student loan okay so what do you owe on car number one uh my car you owe five you you owe what oh five thousand $5,000. Oh, you owe $5,000. Okay. And how much is the vacation we're discussing? If only myself and my kids win, it would be about $500. Mm-hmm. And your household income is what?

$85,000. Okay. All right. And how long have you all been married? We celebrated our fourth anniversary last month. Okay. So you're like late 20s? Yes, sir.

Okay, cool. Good. All right. So the big thing that this all points out, Allison, is that you and he need to get on the same page about what your goals are and what price you're willing to pay to get to them. That's the thing. Absolutely.

That helps you get the proper and agreed upon and aligned definition about what afford is. Because really what you're arguing about is not can you actually afford it. What you're arguing about is what afford it means. And what your priorities are. What's the definition of afford? Because what he's saying is if you spend $500 on a vacation, that's $500 less we put on the car. So it's just like we borrowed $500 against our car for you to go on vacation. That's what he's saying.

Oh, that's a good point. Darn it. I'm sorry. But that's his definition because he's got a goal to never have any debt again, it sounds like, like he's got a goal to never have any debt again it sounds like like he's working our stuff right um i'd say i'm more of the ramsey listener than he is oh so he's not okay he's just a tightwad then well like i said we've got some money in savings and we could be debt free um how much we wanted to we probably have about 54 000 in liquid what and how much debt do you have again

total um let's see 19 for his student loan 30 for the truck the last time i checked it's probably lower now and then 5 000 for my car okay so you can be debt free by nightfall you said if we wanted to so you're telling us you don't want to be debt-free. I really do. Prove it. Liquidate that bank account and pay off the debt today. I think that he would divorce me if we didn't talk about it. Well, no, I don't want you to do it without talking about it. I never said do it in secret. No, we're not suggesting that. I think the two of you need to get on the same page.

So here's the thing. The discussion about the vacation is not really a discussion about the vacation it's the symptom of a bigger problem and the bigger problem is you all don't have an alignment on what your long-term goals are and what winning looks like financially i mean for purposes of just loving you guys like you're our friends i don't care if you do our stuff we think our stuff is the fastest best way and we've proven that so i'll try to sell you on doing that but i'm more concerned that the two of you get aligned and you're in agreement on where we're going right now he's just working his butt off and he's scared

and there never seems to be enough and you want to go spend money on vacation and so the tightwad and him raises up okay um but you guys are you're not talking about the bigger issues of clearing off all this debt having all the savings and you could clear off the debt by the by dinner time uh you're not talking about the bigger issues of living on a budget together because let's pretend you were debt free and had three to six months of expenses set aside and you didn't have any payments but a house payment a 500 vacation is very affordable in an 85 000 household income agreed oh totally but i gotta tell you the guy i'm listening to the guy you're talking about he's a great guy he's a good man he works his butt off probably 100 yeah but he has absolutely no plan

and so his tightwad his inner tightwad raises up and slaps down anyone that wants to spend money because and that's a symptom of he doesn't know where we're going even though he works his tail off and so he'll he'll get a tremendous amount of freedom by you two getting on an agreement for instance if you if i could get you to agree to do the baby steps both of you with enthusiasm then you take this money you clean off the debt you'd rebuild the emergency fund very quickly you'd be able to go on vacation he'd be able to fund his retirement he would have he would relax because he's pretty tight inside right now i can feel it just thinking about him yeah why do you think he would be against using the savings to

pay off the debt because he doesn't see a plan if he saw it as a part of a plan he just goes no we worked hard to save up this money we're not using it the plant the savings is a cushion but if you if you no one would logically do that but you only reason you logically do it is if it takes me somewhere right it's got a we got to know that we're going to a replenish it and then b we're going to build serious wealth because we made these moves, because we take these stupid butt car payments and stupid butt student loan payments, and now they become investments. You stop paying for the past, and you start building for the future. Absolutely. That's the difference.

But when you've got that as a part of a plan, then you'll release that $54,000. But just saying individually, can I go on vacation? It doesn't make sense. Individually, can we pay off the 54 000 no you can't you gotta look at this as a part of a whole strategy and then you get tremendous power from being aligned on it but you guys not being in alignment is what this vacation discussion exposes not that he's right and you're wrong or you're wrong and he's right both of you are wrong because you're not in alignment and you don't have an overall game plan that takes you where you want to be in 10 years.

You're sitting over here dabbling in the edges of the Ramsey stuff. He's over here working his butt off trying to stack cash. Meanwhile, got debt clawing his back off. I'm also confused what part of the world you live in where you can go on a beach vacation for $500 with a bunch of girls from Little Rock, Arkansas. I'd be impressed if you pulled that off that's gas money yeah and food no lodging no fun yeah sleeping on the beach this is the ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co. Folks, we now have officially crossed the line.

The EveryDollar budgeting app is the world's most powerful budgeting app. It is insanely popular. Tens of millions of you are using it, and we are honored by that. Thank you. It is absolutely an incredible piece of software that drives this app it does everything for you it makes budgeting simple you can not only track your expense expenses but when you do the premium every dollar version you can walk through the whole paycheck planning thing we'll actually using the digital model it's so robust it'll help you

work the baby steps and it'll call you out if you're not doing it. Like you want to call in here and go, Dave, I'm not really doing the baby steps. Every dollar's going to go. Shut up. Don't even call, Dave. Just don't do it anymore. It's like going to smart off at you. Right?

Doesn't it, George? That's a premium feature. You get Dave to yell at you inside of the budget. There's a little sass built into the software, I'm just saying. Well, it is ours. Why would it not be sassy if it's not ours? I mean, come on. It's not ours i mean come on it's not lifeless it's got a little personality to it and that's a cute little personality every

dollar the world's best budgeting app you can start for free on the app store or google play or you can go to every dollar.com and check it out uh if you don't you're going to be one of the few people in america pretty soon that don't have it or for that matter around the world i'm amazed at how many of people are downloading this thing thank you thank you thank you thank you but um i gotta tell you it's it's working and the guys are improving it every day i'm watching some beta tests on some of the things that we've not released to the public yet some of these features this thing in a year is going to be i mean it's amazing right now when you go over to that floor they are just whittling away santa's

workshop is right with a bunch of serious nerd programmers yeah instead of elves but they're similar very similar in personality anyway you can find both at comic-con there we go jeremy's with us in cedar at rapids hey jeremy what's up hey guys thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, so I've really got a two-part question. The first part being the company I work for, I've been employed with them for 17 years, and they just announced the sale of the company that's projected to close the middle part of next year. So my question really is, should I stay on board and take part in a severance package that would be available at close that I would be walking away with about $40,000 in a severance package,

and then I have two stock options that would best as well that would be around $18,000 to $19,000. So that's the first part of my question right there. Or should I be looking to jump ship and finding out what I want to do for my next career now? What do you make? Around $95,000. Okay. So we're talking about a $58,000 swing in this discussion. Did I get that right?

Correct, yes. What would be wrong with lining up the next thing to start the day after you got that $58,000 package? That would certainly be beneficial, yeah. I mean, it's a year out, so I'd have to make that work. I know, but I mean, why don't we use that strategy? What would be wrong with that strategy? Is there some downside to hanging around until the end if you've got the next gig lined up? Right.

Yeah, I think the fear maybe is just more finding a job that would allow me to still provide for my family. Since I do make $95,000 000 i don't know that there's a lot out there in that range uh for me currently what do you do um i work i've been in sales my whole career um but i work in operations currently i transferred to that about a year ago well you make 95 000 in sales almost anywhere dude yeah if you know how to sell you can always find a job right i want something that was going to provide a better work-life balance for my family than sales and that's why i left why does sales have a bad work-life balance uh i'm in retail sales well you don't

have to be you could just be in sales sure i got sales people that come in at 7 30 and leave at 5 30 and they make more than 95 if you know how to If you know how to sell, you know how to sell. You don't have to be in retail sales. Sure. Yep. And so, I mean, that certainly could be a lane that I look to pursue. I was really just trying to figure out the best plan to handle it. The best plan is to have the next gig lined up that makes $110,000

that starts the day after your $58,000 package drops in your lap. That's the best plan. Okay. Because you make $58,000 signing bonus going into the next deal, and you make more money going into the next deal, and you've got a year heads up to go find the next deal and line it up to start then. I've started about 10 people here, let me think, that I personally was involved in the hiring decision on,

and we had to delay their start so they could run out the end of their severance package. So we could be on the receiving end of getting great people. In other words, we would want you. And so we would allow you to go ahead and make the decision. We'd make the decision to hire you. And we normally would start you in two weeks, but you're not able to start for four months because you got to run this thing out and get you an extra 58k that i'm not going to pay you when i hire you and so i'll

put up with that as the hiring side of the equation in order to get this i've and i've done that with high level executive positions too i mean i had one that had several hundred thousand dollars on the table that that that person was going to get when they came here and they did get but we had to delay their start date and we wanted them in order for it to line up with their other deal vesting in does that make sense yeah that makes total sense i guess my concern was just uh how long would a company hold a position it sounds like basically depends on how bad they want you. Yeah. And there might be another one that opens up a year from now when they get back in touch because you made the connection. Yeah.

I think you've got to get your pipeline full of possibilities, and then your worries go down. Got it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Right now the unknown is what's driving you crazy. Yeah, that's the direction to go. But if you can line it up. Now, if somebody

comes along and offers you 200k and you got to start tomorrow forget the well screw it walk away from the 58 because you just got 105 000 raise right you can do that math but if they're going to offer you 95 to 95 and you're going to have to walk away from 58 i'm going to keep looking and i got to quit tomorrow no i'm not no we're going to ride this walk away from 58, I'm going to keep looking. And I got to quit tomorrow? No, we're going to ride this thing on out if you got that much in there. And I don't know what those stock options, you need to understand what the sale is going to do to the value of those stock options. I don't know what that is.

You seem to have that nailed down, but I'm not sure exactly how that works in that world because I don't know this stock and I don't know this deal. But I'd want to learn those things too. But, yeah, thing to do so george one of the things that ken coleman talks about a lot and i love discussing with him is um and this guy you know he he didn't say this but a lot of people in these situations i lost my job okay because that's basically what he's saying it's just a matter of time he's lost his job immediately the first thing that happens to any human being uh when that occurs is fear if not you're weird right your first thing is you get afraid but immediately after you get afraid what we want to train people to do and ken's talked about this a lot is uh possibility thinking

rather than – because what happens is I talk to people and they go, yeah, well, you know, I'm going to lose my job in two months and, you know, I'm not going to be able to get a job making as much. Why not? Why don't you get a job making more? Why is it that automatically you have to take a pay cut just because you're changing? Why don't you get a pay increase when you're changing?

You would never have left the job voluntarily to make less money. And so, you know, you haven't been out there looking around yet you don't know how real they're just a belief you might be prettier than you think you are you know that's the hope and usually what happens is that next job ends up paying more rarely do people go to the next thing and it's wildly less and so what it is if they accept defeat before they actually fight the battle yeah you know look go ahead and don't surrender. We haven't been fighting yet. Go and raise the flag just because you quit.

No, no, no, no, no. Roll up your sleeves. Go get it, baby. Go get you some. And there's plenty of stuff going on in the marketplace right now. This is a wonderful time to be looking for a job. Yeah. for a job yeah and let me just tell you if you can develop the the the skill of serving people by helping them do business with your company that's called sales if you can develop the scale

the say not not sales and manipulation and and easy tactics and greasy grimy slimy stuff but if you can develop this the skill of serving people well with something you believe in i believe in our every dollar app i don't i have zero qualms about telling you to go get that that's me serving you that's selling you and i'm going to do that the rest of my life and so you find something like that that you can represent with integrity and you can serve people and you develop that skill of talking people through that and letting them see the brand differentiation the value build value for them if you know how to sell you're always going to have a job you'll never go hungry ai can't replace

that i'm just saying and there's no digital thing that will replace it. Human beings talking to other human beings in a way that causes them to be served is a very, very old profession, baby. It's not going out of style. Yeah, and it's going to be around. So this guy, he's a lot prettier than he feels like he is, right? I like that. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225

Jay is with us in Fort Lauderdale Florida hi Jay how are you Dave how you doing good man how can we help well um I'm new to the show and I'm sure you get this question a lot, but I've never heard the answer. I'm trying to figure out why I should pay off a 2% mortgage with money that's making 5% or 15% or whatever. I mean, I can pay it off, but, man, 12 years left on a 2% loan, I can't. What's your balance? Find the reasoning. $92,000. Okay.

All right. So I understand your question, and as a math nerd, I used to make all of my decisions through the math lens as well. The more I've developed a teaching this stuff and learning about it over 30 years and working with very very wealthy people one thing a couple things that come to mind and i i completely grasp your concept it seems ludicrous in the way you're looking at it to do that um but let's let's first break down and say what are you really making okay so at 92 000 i'll round it up for your benefit to 100 so the math is real easy

and so if you're if you're paying out two percent and let's just say you're making seven percent you're netting five agreed yes okay and so that's five thousand bucks right yes okay what's your household income uh it's about 140 okay all right and well it's actually more than that because i i uh collect a pension as well how old are you i am 63 okay so am i so okay so can can we agree that five,000 a year, $400 a month, is not going to make substantial difference in your wealth? I mean, we can agree that, yeah. It's $400.

A lot of families spend that on pizza. Right. Okay? So, I mean, it's not a lot of money we're talking about. So more than anything, we're talking about a concept than an actual fact. And the reason I know that is that we ended up a few years ago studying millionaires because I became very interested in what makes people wealthy. And we did the largest study of millionaires ever done.

We studied 10,167 of them. And we found, by the way, that 89% of them were like you. They're first-generation rich. Because I've got a feeling you're a millionaire. Are you? No, not yet. I've got a feeling you're pretty close, though. How much equity do you got in that house?

I got, where I'm at right now, I probably got about 150. Now, what do you got in your nest egg? I got about, I don do you got in your nest egg uh i got about i don't know 400 so i'm not you're about half about half out halfway then 650 okay yeah you're sitting on pretty good coin though you're not a broke guy okay no so you've done well congratulations so what we found as we study these millionaires was we asked them questions of what caused them to build their wealth where did their wealth come from uh and because we want to know okay if 89 of them are first generation it's important to know that nine

out of ten millionaires in north america today became millionaires by doing stuff so what did you do the number of them that said i kept a mortgage and invested it because I made the difference was almost zero. It was weird. Well, I get that because, I mean, traditionally we haven't had 2% mortgages. Well, but even if you had a 6% mortgage, if you had it in a mutual fund and you're making 12, you ought to be making 5 or 6% on it. You ought to still be making that five thousand bucks spread but the point is that five thousand bucks is 430 or 416 dollars a month which is not spit it's not enough to cause you to become a millionaire so it's weird what we did discover in further analysis

was with the actual data of real wealthy people not discussing, but discussing the people that really did it, was the freedom that they felt by having zero debt allowed them to negotiate with their employer different. It allowed their relationships to be at a different level because there's zero stress. And you would purport to say there's zero stress here because I'm not stressed about this, but you have stress that you wouldn't have if you were debt-free. We have to all say that. If you you had zero debt your stress level goes down oh and by the way that actually has a physical component to it too the number of people with hypertension in america is at the highest level it's ever been high blood pressure is at the highest level it's ever been heart

attacks at the highest level they've ever been oh by the way debt levels are at the highest level they've ever been there is a correlation and a a cause effect series here in the data. And so as we get into all of that, what we've bottom line is you can keep doing what you're doing. We wouldn't call you stupid, but the data says that people don't really do that that are building wealth. They really pay off their mortgage and they really take their old mortgage payment and invest it in their 401k so that they have more money. That's what the actual data tells us. And that's good news. But, you know, and we talked about this in the investment seminar a little bit, that the difference in the thing we're leaving out of this discussion is risk. The beta.

Yeah. You're not talking about risk. You do carry risk when you carry a mortgage, because we've done research, 100% of the fore. You do carry risk when you carry a mortgage, because we've done research. 100% of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. And there's a lot more to this. There's the mathematical side, like you mentioned. Most people don't actually look at their amortization schedule and their mortgage, because you might see, oh, I'm actually paying 600 bucks a month toward interest right now, because of how this thing's weighted right now. You're not making that. And unless you have the full 92,000 in a 5% account, which is almost nobody, doesn't sound like he had all that money sitting there necessarily, then it's not even apples to apples. And another piece is

people forget on the Ramsey plan, you're investing 15% while paying off the house. So it's not a trade-off of saying, I'm not going to invest it and said, I'm going to pay off the mortgage. Then on top of that- Yeah, but he's just saying in general, on the concept of why would you ever pay off a 2% mortgage when you can invest it and said, I'm going to pay off the mortgage. Then on top of that, you pay off. Yeah, but he's just saying in general, on the concept of why would you ever pay off a 2% mortgage when you can invest it at 10? That's a standard question. And he's right. He's a new listener. It's a good conversation. Thank you for calling in with that, by the way, because people think we're crazy for suggesting you do pay it off. But the rationalization or the justification, the reasoning, none of that, the reasoning for the advice is that it's right because the data shows that

um the borrower is slave to the lender the data shows your relationships are different your career path changes and you make more money because you're not if you're if you're running your own business and you have zero debt you make different decisions running the business and you take fewer crazy risks and more proper risks in your business because you can and it doesn't scare you anymore you're not so you're not playing desperate you're not playing not playing small ball and I've watched small business people prosper beyond belief because their brain is freed up they don't have this monkey riding their back living in your head rent-free the other piece is I want to ask different questions. Do I want to be 63 with a mortgage?

You know, like who dreams when they become homeowners? Man, I hope I get to hang on to this thing forever. I mean, there's just a life you get to live when you don't have a payment. I mean, mortgage means death pledge in French. Did you know that? Yes. Death pledge. That's what you're signing up for. And so I'm going to live more freely. I want to live in my 60s and free up a payment, invest it, and you're going to be okay either way. But in the meantime, goodness, I want to get that mortgage off my back. Yeah.

So it is, Jay, also doing the show all these years, I have noticed that people that have pretty serious wealth never ask this question. And that's not to make fun of you, but they just don't. It never occurs to them. They're on Georgia's side. They're like, I don't want to be in a death pledge. I want to be out of debt. And they don't even necessarily know why sometimes.

They just have this pension to get away from it. But your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. And when you don't owe anybody any money, you can use that income. That $140,000 is a lot more powerful than the $416. And any spread you could make. And Dave, I did this when I was in my early 30s. We paid off our house and, you know, my financial advisor and creator friends were like, dude, you're an idiot. I can't believe you paid off your mortgage at three point. And I'm like, guys, life is more than a spread. I got goals. You know, my wife is able to stay home now because we don't have a mortgage payment. And so you got to think bigger than just a mathematical spread on a piece of paper. Well, I've been doing this so long that I've seen people's lives change in all areas of

their life. And that actually has a mathematical effect as well. For instance, you don't have to work for a toxic boss. You can go work for somebody else that pays you more and you have a better quality of life. Your stress level goes down. Your doctor bills go down. All these things run together. More options, more margin, more freedom, more joy. I'll take it.

Turns out God knew what he was talking about. Get rid of the death pledge. The borrower is slave to the lender. You don't believe me? Try paying it all off and see if you don't feel like you're free. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Luke 16 10. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Winston Churchill said, A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets a chance to get its pants on.

That's a truth, especially these days. Social media. Yeah, that's what the Internet's for. Everything on the Internet's true. Abraham Lincoln said that. All right, Chris is with us. Chris is in Miami, Florida. Hi, Chris.

How are you? Hi, Dave. Good. So my wife and I, we're going through, you know, we try and follow the Ramsey solution as much as we can. The only debt we have right now is a mortgage, and we have a home equity line as well that we took out to replace our roof. So we're attacking the home equity line to try and get that paid off.

The question that we will have is, we own both of our cars. Should I sell my truck to pay the equity line off faster? Our plan right now is to pay the equity line off in about nine months. No. If I sell my truck, we could probably do that in about three. No. You should just pay it off in nine months. Okay.

And you ought to cut some other stuff out of the budget and do it in six months, but you ought to keep the truck that's not enough time to you know if you told me it's going to take you three four years or something and selling your truck would cause you to do it in nine months i'd sell your truck but if you sell your truck now nine months later you're going to be looking for a truck because you'll be out of debt you don't have the money to buy a truck and you'll be out of debt. You don't have the money to buy a truck, and you'll be able to do that on the baby steps, right? Right. And the truck is paid off. The truck's paid off.

The only debt is the HELOC. The only debt, yeah, is our first mortgage and then the HELOC. Yeah. And what's the balance on the HELOC? About $38,000. Okay. And your household income must be over $100,000. About $275,000. Oh, God. Okay. Okay your household income must be over $100,000. About $275,000.

Oh, God. Okay. Okay. Shut up on the nine months. It's $38,000. Cut your freaking lifestyle and pay that thing off. And then get you some money saved so you're never doing this again. You make too much money to be the stinking broke. You're making $20,000 a month.

Hello? Yes. We're also $20,000 a month. Hello? Yes, we're also maxing out our 401ks. We both put $23,000 a year into our 401ks. Okay. Well, we tell folks when they're in debt to stop all 401k investing. But I wouldn't do that in your case either because you're going to be out of debt in six months or less because you're going to be able to just you know i don't think you pinch this budget hard enough i really don't i mean i don't care if you're maxing out your 401k

you're making for freaking quarter million dollars a year plus okay so you know you've got the margin in this you guys need to look at the budget and go look this whole thing of being broke was stupid we're almost through it now and we need to knock this thing out and then you get us an emergency fund hey hey wait wait just just just just just a second hold on come back chris where dave's not done with you where'd he go how much do you have in your savings uh we have about 15 000 liquid okay I would take that down to about $1,000, and then I would do this in about a month and a half, two months. I'd be debt-free, and then I would rebuild your emergency fund to a proper amount of three to six months of expenses,

and then I would start your 401K. In your case, you're going to do this so fast, I would stop and restart your 401K two months later because you're going to do this so fast i wouldn't stop and restart your 401k two months later because you're going to do this real fast if you you guys are are um doing about six things at once poorly does that make sense and all i want you to do is slow down and focus on one thing knock that out then knock the next thing out then knock the next thing out and and if you'll just do that and do that with a really tight budget and say look we're not spending any money till we're out of debt and have an emergency fund in place. No more spending people. We're turning off your freaking Amazon prime. Okay. We're turning off your stupid little thing you had planned for the summer. We are getting this mess cleaned up.

We make too much money to constantly live in paycheck to paycheck and asking a $38,000 question when I make $275,000. Dude, dial it in. Knock it out. You can do this. You can do this. Hang on. We're going to get you guys signed up. I want you and your wife on the every dollar budget together, and I want you all to sit down and have a serious discussion about avoiding this kind of thing. Again, you make too much money to even have to borrow this money in the first place to put a roof on. You should have been able to put a stinking roof on your house when you make 275 and so all of that and the reason i'm talking to you like this chris is um one of the things i discovered in my personal life as i went through going broke and losing everything and starting again and i've watched it with people for 30

years the people that win with money are not the people that feel like everything's okay they're the ones that get pissed off they get disgusted and they say stuff like i make too much money to be this broke that's why i'm saying it for you you make too much money to be this broke chris you need to be disgusted about that enough to do something about dialing this in managing this tighter you don't have to live on beans and rice but you do for about i don't know the next 20 about next two months because you need to get this thing paid off and you get your emergency fund built back up as fast as you can and then we'll start talking about going out to eat again

and we'll talk about doing all this other stuff again but But there's a lack of focus and an organizational laziness in your symptoms here. We need to change some habits. Selling a truck is a one-time thing. You got to change the habits that got you to this point. And that's where this next two months of sacrificing will help change that. Yeah. If you're willing to do something as radical as sell a truck, it's not what I'm asking you to do to get organized and and focused is less radical than selling your truck it's a few lifestyle tweaks less radical than telling you to cut off your 401k and i didn't tell you to do that even just because you're gonna do this so fast if you'll lean into the other things if you're gonna screw around with this stuff for six or eight or ten months on all of it you need to stop your 401k temporarily till you

get your till you get your crap together but i think you make enough money to do it without stopping without selling the truck or stopping the 401k for a short, because it's such a short time frame. You start it and restop it, it's going to create all this dadgum paperwork. Logistical nightmare. Same thing as selling the truck, turn around and buy another truck. So it's a good question. But, folks, let me tell you, this personal finance thing is 80% behavior.

So a healthy level of getting disgusted with your former self is part of a part is part of turning things around i'm not living like this anymore i don't want to feel like this anymore i don't want to have these discussions with my spouse that anymore that sound like this i don't want these words coming out of my mouth jade talks about when she was growing up that they would say we ain't got no money and she said i don't want to ever have a house where we have to say we ain't got no money so that's a that's a no it stops with me i'm breaking the chains i'm breaking the curse of my family tree it stops with me this is the last ramsey that's going to have this discussion about debt uh because the rest of them i'm going to disown them if they go in debt that's it i mean we're just not gonna do this anymore that stops with me and you know you can do this you guys can

make a decision to change your family tree all you gotta have those values and principles if you got nothing to stand on then you're gonna fall for the next thing that comes your way and that's where that value we don't do debt it's off. Yeah. And so roof needs to be fixed to make 275. We put the roof off 24. We put the roof off two months and we pay cash for it or three months, whatever it is. But yeah, that's, you know, when you take debt off the table as a possibility, it forces you to think differently about all the different things you're doing. And it forces you to move at the speed of cash.

Yeah. Forces you to change your lifestyle. Yeah. in but there's nothing wrong it's not shaming to say what i was doing was stupid and i'm not doing that anymore it's different than saying i'm stupid i'm stupid is shaming but what i was doing is stupid that's not shaming that's just saying i learned something about the law of gravity. I fell off the freaking porch. You know, that was stupid. That doesn't mean I'm stupid, but I had to learn a lesson about the law of gravity. And so, you know, man, I got to tell you, the number of stupid butt stuff I have done,

and I'm a pretty smart guy, is crazy. My only goal is to not do the same one twice. Shame. What is it? Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me fool me twice shame on you something like that i forget i don't know i'm not good at these quotes dave that that that that sounds right maybe a nursery rhyme but i just kept thinking of the george bush version of that

you know where he he fumbled it oh did he yeah i don't even want to know i'll show you after the show's over it's that good oh my gosh oh but that's a good life lesson and you've and i love one of your quotes dave you know what is it success is a pile of failure that you're just standing on top of yeah instead of laying under it that means i learned from my mistakes right the number of people that i know that are successful that made zero mistakes is zero there are people that they learn all the time they're always doing something stupid but it's just one more thing i stand on top of it's a you know success the gleaming mountain of success is really a pile of garbage. You're standing on it.

That's how it works, boys and girls. Sorry to upset your apple cart, but that's the deal. Good call, man. Thank you for letting us, uh, giving us a jumping off place. That puts us hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Bye.