The Ramsey Show - App - We’re About To Lose 85% of Our Income… What Do We Do? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: Navigating an 85% drop in income. Paying off rentals quickly, Working together with your spouse to provide for your family. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET 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 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is done, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, host of the Ramsey Network's podcast, The Fine Print, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money.

Merry Christmas, America. Fine Print is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Merry Christmas, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brant is going to start us off this hour. Hi, Brant. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

I appreciate it, and Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas. How can we help? Well, my wife and I just kind of have a quick question here, hopefully, but I'll give you some numbers. We're 32, and we're kind of on baby steps, six-ish. We live in two places because we work in two different places. One of our homes in our states is paid off, and it's worth about $380,000. And then the other house that we have is worth about

950,000 and we owe about 540 on it. And then we also own a commercial building that my business operates out of. It's worth about 300,000 and we owe 170,000 on that. Our retirement account is at 260,000. So the kicker here is that we have a two-year-old and a four month old, and my wife makes about 220K a year. And she'd like to become a stay at home mom and I don't know, about 18 months or so. But so when she leaves her job, uh, we'll probably sell one of our homes in one of those places. We't decided where yet um and then we'll probably go down to an income of about 40,000 maybe 45,000 a year um what do you make now yeah like 45,000 in a 300,000 commercial building yeah so basically I bootstrapped a business from the ground up.

And so because I'm essentially not there half of the year, it's that. I don't pay myself a whole bunch of money because I'm not there, just to make sure that I can keep employees kind of operating while I'm away. So what are you doing when you're away? Taking care of my kids. So you're staying at home half the year? Yeah. She's in a different city. Yeah. So we live together every time in each different city. So when she's working here in Austin, I'm here in Austin, but I'm taking care of the kids. When we go to Minnesota, that's when I work,

but then she stays at home and takes care of the kids. What does she do? She's in academia. She's a professor. Okay. So that's kind of, so you know kind of what those income levels look like. Okay, so we're going to combine households and land in one place. Which place are we going to land, Austin or Minnesota?

We don't know that yet. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I like your value system and where you're headed because the way you're living life now is kind of cray-cray. And so I like, you know, the direction you're living life now is kind of cray cray um and uh so i i like you know the direction you're moving with this but um but i think your destination needs some refinement um meaning i don't know why she has to go from 225 to zero there's a lot of options in academia that uh she could make eat you know work uh just a few

hours a week and make 50 to 100k if we line this up properly and um and you know we're not going to accept your business which absolutely sucks as our final destination. Okay. You two are, you two are high capacity people. You should, your goal should not be, we're going to live on $45,000. Okay. I think you can land better than that and still get the quality of life all in one city and her being at home largely with the kids if not completely with the kids um and and that's a good baby step in between these two but just to suddenly take a machete to this thing

you've built is not a good plan okay so i think you need a better plan on where you're going to land and she needs an adjusted plan on where she's going to land and that's going to put you guys well up over a hundred and you've got a sustainable situation then that's not as bizarre as you originally outlined when you came on because dude i mean you have to admit what you're outlining is pretty bizarre oh yeah it's wild yeah that's why we called yeah what kind of business are you running so it's it's like a retail it's um it's a retail business it does like we do some um uh like training we do some like like physical fitness training things like that and then we have some products and random things like that and i don't we i don't foresee that being our full-time business uh you know it's just like right now if we had a fallback

and because her family is there and that's where our families are up in minnesota we could operate yeah it's like we could operate there for as long as we wanted um i wouldn't land there out of convenience what i want you to do is have some intentionality about both of your careers and your location and go okay then that will tell you how you can back into this and say over the next 18 24 months whatever we can make these six moves uh two of them on her career two of them on your career two of them on real estate decisions and then that will put us in this this this other position that is a sustainable life then with a standard rhythm to it but um i mean i don't blame you for wanting to change the way that you guys are living now it's it's kind of wild and um it's

been you know it's obviously run its course it's time it's time for you to do something different so um but but i think the uh the fact that this season is over has led you all to just this extreme thing of nothing. We're going from 100 miles an hour to full stop. And I think you can go from 100 miles an hour down to 50 miles an hour between the two of you, income-wise. And by the time you're located and get the efficiency of being in one location, sell off a piece of real estate, open a business, don't open a business, expand the one you've got, take a different career field. I don't care. And part of this is getting rid of some of this debt. And so the commercial debt, the personal debt and the mortgage, the sooner you guys are completely debt-free in your personal life and your professional life, the easier it's going to

be to make these kinds of financial decisions. Yeah. Yeah. That that's gonna put you in the right direction. But the the beautiful part about both of your skill sets is they can be scaled up or down. They don't have to go zero or a hundred miles an hour. You don't have to be all or nothing. And so higher ed is like a lot of things is being impacted by by the digital world and is morphing. And so she's just got other choices that she can look at now. Teach a few classes online. Doesn't have to be zero. Scale it down.

Yeah, the amount of mentoring and tutoring, all kinds of different things. I don't know exactly what she's doing in academia, but there's a lot of options in that world right now because they don't have a lot of choices. They're going to have to provide options. This is The Ramsey Show. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today if you've gone through financial peace university chances are it's because someone in your life lit a fire in you. Mom and dad gave it to you as a gift. Your pastor offered it at your church. A friend that wouldn't stop talking about it. So finally you took the class.

You worked the baby steps. Now everything's different. You changed your entire future. Well, maybe this is the time you light a fire under someone else. You can give someone you care about, Financial Peace University, and share the same hope that you discovered with money. And if you're a last-minute Christmas shopper, it's pretty easy to do this. It's not too late for Financial Peace University. We've got a totally digital way to send it directly to your loved ones

so you're not stressed about shipping. This Christmas, give the people you care about a gift that actually matters the gift is hope the gift is freedom to buy fpu as a gift go to ramsay solutions.com slash give fpu ramsay solutions.com slash give fpu bonnie is in kansas city hi bonnie Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Happy holidays, Dave and George. We are very new to the journey of becoming debt-free and learned about your methods about five months ago through a friend on Facebook.

They posted that they paid off their home, which was really awesome. And I'm very, very happy to have come across your debt-free program as I despise bills like most people do. We're one month away from completing baby step two. We have several rental properties with one of them being a fourplex. We're at about 58% LTV and we're currently cash flowing in all the properties and we really want to keep them. We want to aggressively pay off their mortgages with a gazelle intensity. And we're so serious in paying off these mortgages that we've moved into one of the rentals with the lowest expenses. So the mortgage is like 625. And my question, Dave, is related to, I actually have two questions related to Baby Step 3.

Is saving $70,000 for emergencies just for the properties too high or too low, is that a good ballpark? And my second question is related to Baby Step 6. After we pay off the property that we're currently living in, which property should we attack? Cool.

Way to go, Bonnie. Good job. Very well done. Okay, so the total debt on all the properties combined is what? The total debt, well, I would say annual or like the overall balance. No, no, the balance, the payoff balance. On all of the mortgages is 1.7 million. Okay.

On how many properties? Uh, it's nine units that are rentals. Okay. And you're living in one of them. That's correct. Okay. All right, cool. And, uh, what is your household income?

We bring in take-home with the rentals is $26,000. Without, it's about $10,000. That's your total household income? You're living off of these? So that's what we're bringing. That's what we're bringing with monthly. I mean, you don't have careers separate from the rentals? Oh, yes, we do. It's $10,000 a month. A month? Okay, God, I feel so much better. Scared.

Okay. I was asking annual, and you said $10,000 in 2016. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Good. Okay, so you make $150 a year, and then you've got the rentals on top of that. Okay, so what I would tell you is set up a household emergency fund of three to six months of expenses to operate your household. That's nowhere near $70,000. That's going to be $15,000 or something like that, okay? And then you should be able, if you haven't already,

to run budgets on your rentals. You have enough rentals that you should see a pattern of repairs that out of nine, I buy a heat and air unit one a year or I buy 1.5 a year. Out of nine, I spend X on this problem and that problem. You have a predictable repairs pattern on a portfolio that size, and that should be built into your budget on your rentals before you're taking money out of the rentals. You should be setting aside money for that predictable in

other words retained earnings or emergency fund whatever you want to call it for your known repairs that are in a pattern on that many rentals so your rental portfolio probably does need 50 to 70 grand in liquid cash sitting around because you're probably seeing a standard rhythm of repairs does that make sense yes okay so yeah you do want to build that up uh but but as far as baby step three goes that that that second part of the discussion on the rentals is for the rentals baby step three is for you that's just 15 grand and then move on to baby step four uh and four five and four five and six is putting money into retirement five is kids college and six is we start paying off all real estate debt now the last question was what order

do i do this i would just run a debt snowball on them and and it's not a panic once you get out of baby step three we move from intense to intentional and so i want you to systematically say if we plow all profits from the rentals and we live on our incomes we plow all profits from the rentals and x number of dollars from our income into that snowball and you just list your mortgages smallest to largest how long is it going to take us to clear $1.7 million? My guess is five to seven years. Yeah, we're estimating about seven to ten years. Okay, not a bad guess then. Okay.

And the thing that will happen is, you know, rents will go up during that time. They generally do. Your income will go up during that time. Generally does. And you're going to get more and more and more focused as you go along. You generally do. And so that's where I think the seven is probably going to end up being the number or six or something like that, unless you get a landfall of some kind, and then you might even end up doing it faster. And something that you could do if you want to accelerate that is choose the rental that gives you the most pain in the in the rear end and sell one or two of them if you want to accelerate this thing and clean up the debt

faster so that's an option for you as well your least favorite one or two clean them out of the portfolio and use that money to accelerate this process and then when you are completely free and you're just cash these things are cash flow like a bandit then then you can buy other properties with the cash that they're throwing off and never be in debt again that's what i've done that makes sense yeah i just once i got free then all of my property makes enough money that i can buy more property just with that money without even having to look at my personal income or my business income or anything else. That's where it really gets fun. Yeah, it really does get, it really gets, it gets real fun.

It's less of a pain. Yeah. It's monopoly then, you know, you're just going around the board and collecting your $200 at the turn, right? And move on to the next deal. And that's, that starts to be really cool. So that, but, um, but I would not tell you to be intense once you get out of debt personally and have your emergency fund in place. Personally, I would tell you to be intentional.

Yeah. I mean, you want to live your life. You still want to go on vacations. And so you may want to get a primary residence that you actually enjoy instead of living in this rental property that you hate just because it has the lowest payment. So that would be a goal as well to throw in there, your own personal life. Yeah. But if you'll pay a price for that period of time, this next five to seven years, and the price is simply when we're faced with a choice, we're going to try to choose debt-free. We're going to choose debt-free.

We're going to choose debt-free. And maybe, like George said, peel off one or two of the rentals that you like the least, that you say hey 10 years from now i really don't want to be owning this thing yeah well dave some of your most controversial advice is to pay cash for investment property people go dave that's insane you got just leveraged it why would you wait and try to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars what do you say to those people uh i've never been foreclosed on since I went this route. I used to get foreclosed on the other way. Wow. I lost everything the other way. Using tic-tac plans, I went broke. Wait, you mean

the 17-year-old that told me how to get rich quick from real estate is not telling the truth? You're kidding. That was impossible. There's a 17-year-old on tic-tac? They're all over the internet. Oh, yeah. Telling people about real estate? At least he looks like it. He can't grow facial hair yet, so I'm not sure. Oh, God. Could be 22. What a world.

What a time to be alive. What a world. This is The Ramsey Show. ស្រូវានប់ពីប្រូវានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ព� George Campbell Ramsey personality host of the Ramsey Network's fine print podcast is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Zachary and Cassandra are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. Amazing.

How are you? Better than we deserve. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live? Chesapeake, Virginia. Well, welcome to Nashville. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. How much debt have you all paid off? We've paid off $97,181 in 11 months. 11 months. All right. And what was your range of income during that year? We started at $180 and then finished at about $220. Cool.

What do y'all do for a living? We're both engineers. Ah, of course you are. That's incredible. Okay, so tell us about this journey. What kind of debt was this for you guys that you were looking to pay off? I think it was a little everything. We had student loans.

We had car payments. We had credit cards. We had outstanding tuition bills for grad school. We had taxes that we had to pay. A little everything. And you just collected it slowly over time, collecting this American dream that turned out to be the american nightmare just just creeped up on us how long you guys been married four years yep four years so what happened one year ago that started you on this journey because you got pretty intense here so four years ago when we got married she wanted to do

the the dave ramsey plan and uh when she mentioned that uh it must've Google heard something and a, and a real popped up for me. And it was a caller that their company was paying off their student loans for them at minimum payments. And, uh, you said, Nope, pay them all off. And I said, wow, that doesn't sound like a very good plan. I don't get it. And, uh, so we did nothing. Um, we just, we worked and we, we lived. And, um, three years later years later, we had our first child. And we moved to Chesapeake. And in the end of 2021, my dad ended up getting sick with COVID. And he wound up in the hospital. It was pretty serious. And he called me. And he couldn't really talk without getting winded. But he called me and he said, hey, a couple of years ago, your mom loaned you some money

and you haven't paid her back. You said you'd pay her back. You need to pay her back because she's too nice to ask for it. But if I go, I know you're never going to pay her back. And I was like, wow, yikes, that hurt. So that night I was putting our son to bed and I looked at him. I was like, wow, what kind of example am I setting here for my son? So the next day we were at work and Cassie came into my office.

And I guess I was just sitting there with bloodshot eyes. And she's like, hey, you ready to do that Ramsey plan now? She was waiting silently for three years. Wow. Patiently waiting for the wake-up call wait you guys work at the same place we do yes i work upstairs he works downstairs so you can just bother him at any time yeah she does she takes full advantage of that and vice versa so baby comes dad's in the hospital you get this wake-up call and you're like i have just been living la vida loca doing what i want to do it's time to really start taking care of my family yeah that's

exactly that's exactly what happened and uh so that night we went home and we watched the first two episodes of fpu and uh we just we just went all in and uh every time we saw tahoe on the road after that we're like man you gotta you gotta amputate the Tahoe. That's it. Yeah. And when someone was lazy, I'd be like, you're not being gazelle intent. No. Yeah. You're being like a deer. You're not a gazelle. I keep thinking of the quote, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And that's what it took for you guys. It took at least you, Zachary, being ready to do this plan. But when you were ready, goodness, you guys are engineers. You went, there's a process here here let's just follow it because it works that was it yeah we went all in how much did you owe your mom it was just it was like it was like two grand and so you was knocked out of

course we just yeah we just paid her as a part of this show how's your dad he's he's listening right now he made it and uh yeah he's he made it out i think 11 days or 12 days or something like that in the hospital but he pulled through so good there was a silver lining and everything glad so that's good news well and he busted your chops he still does he still does that's fun so very good all right what advice do you have to um someone who says i'm ready to get out of debt. What are the keys to getting out of debt? Wow. So it's hard to limit it to just a few things, but we've learned that there are certain friends that were like spiritual energy dementors. They sucked like all the, you know, life and

happiness out of us. Competition. It felt like having them as friends was competition. So getting more involved in our church, our Friday nights looked a bit different. You know, we'd take Isaiah to the church and we're like, this is our fun, happy place to be. You'd be celebrating and decorating the church for a vacation Bible school. So surrounding yourself with godly,

like-minded people was everything. And then giving each other grace. Man, you know, I was nine months pregnant, flipping furniture on the side and, you know, we beat each other's throats and we're like, we need to give each other grace. Like we're both tired. Having two kids is stressful. Working all the time is stressful. Yeah. Just being together through that moment. And we have so many inside jokes now and I think we're better for it. And lastly, like,

so I just had my second son here, November 3rd. And thankfully, since we were debt free, we didn't have to worry about the horrible hospital bill. I ended up rupturing my uterine artery and staying in the hospital for quite a bit of time.

And we never had to worry about bills. Yeah. Wow. Wow well one last thing yeah yeah i remember i was i was waiting for her you know they ended up taking you to try to figure out how to stop the bleeding and i was sitting there you know just waiting for something somebody to come say something to me the last thing the last thing i had to think about was what's the bill gonna be because i didn't care you know i was like we just paid all this off in 11 months we got an emergency fund going and uh we'll uh we'll do it again in 11 months if we need to you know it was it was peaceful good news is insurance picked up most of it i'm sure they did yeah and it was it was it was perfect. Yeah, good, good. Wow. Well, it does. It turns a crisis into an inconvenience, at least as far as the financial part goes. I mean, you still got to physically heal and still got to go through that process.

And it still scares the crud out of you. But aside from all that, the fear and the anxiety was not financial. That's the point. Yeah. So well done, y'all i'm proud of you good work thank you okay what advice do you have for the guy who uh found some weird reel that he didn't agree with on ours like you did um some nuanced weird piece of advice and he won't go along with this so i i when i saw that reel um of course you got to go into the comments

and that's where that's where the magic happens the comments are always you know that's where the truth is and the comments were all uh they were kind of hating on you that that was bad so so just take the comments and and do the opposite and that's that's actually good advice whatever the comment section about anything in life whatever the commenters say in social media or following an article whatever they say do the opposite that is wisdom right there i like that if yeah because if you read the comments you understand why some species kill their young oh my gosh it's unbelievable yeah yeah that's where the hate happens for sure and you got to listen to your wife in the first year marriage when she says uh let's do this Dave Ramsey thing.

Just do it. Don't wait until the fourth year. Just don't wait. We could have had our house paid off by now probably. But here we are. We're on Baby Step 3. We'll keep going. You're going to be fine.

You're going to be fine. I'm proud of you. You've done a great job. Way to go. You persevered through. You pushed through. Very, very impressive. We've got the Live and Give Bundle for you.

The Baby Steps Millionaire's number one bestseller book. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. The Total Money Makeover book for you to give away and stir somebody up, stir up a ruckus. And Financial Peace University, you can give that away as well since you've been through it. One-year membership to that. So very, very well done.

And you brought the kiddos. What are their names and ages? So this is Theodore, and he's just two months old. Way to go, Theodore. Here comes Isaiah, and he is about to turn two in January. So we road tripped out here with two under two. You're brave. That was an adventure in itself.

You're brave. Well, these little guys will never know the stress of debt in their household because of you. You have changed your family tree. Proud of you. Very, very well done. I bet your dad's proud too all right count it down zachary and cassandra from chesapeake virginia 97 000 paid off in 11 months count it down let's hear a debt We're debt free! Yay! Woo hoo hoo hoo! Oh man. A debt free baby smiling.

That's what America needs right now. Amen and amen. This is the Ramsey Show. Teksting av Nicolai Winther our scripture of the day psalms 112 and 5 good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice. Charles Eastman said, children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. Beautiful. Very good. Good stuff.

James is with us. James is in Houston, Texas texas hi james welcome to the ramsey show thanks for having me i appreciate y'all taking my call happy holidays happy holidays merry christmas how can we help yes um i was calling to get some advice for how i can can give my family and my wife the kind of lifestyle we want. It just seems like I've been hitting some roadblocks. I used to be a teacher, and I didn't have the patience for it, and I was really stressed out. and so I transitioned into truck driving and it's making a little bit more money but it's harder on my wife because her eventual dream is to be a stay-at-home mom and it puts me out a lot more and I'm not able to uh spend as much time with them and, um, you know, uh, just help her out in any way that I can.

What's your question? Um, how can I, my question is what, how am I able to, um, if we, if we keep on hitting these roadblocks of not being able to stick to a budget and just, sorry, I'm a little nervous. That's okay. We're having a hard time sticking to our budget. We paid off our debt. We're in baby step three, so we're trying to save up our emergency fund.

But how can we better stick to our budget so that we can get that emergency fund saved up? I can transition to a more home daily position, maybe start a side business so that I'm able to let my wife work or be a stay-at-home mom and still be able to support my family. So the goal is she stays home and you work locally and your income is more than enough to provide for the family? Yes, sir. That's correct. Is there a certain number you think would do that as far as income? Well, we both used to teach, so we made a little over $100,000 a year. But it doesn't seem like I can really do that by myself unless I start up a side business and eventually grow that to be more profitable.

Well, I think you can. It may not happen tomorrow, but it sounds like you jumped from teaching to trucking thinking it was going to be some kind of silver bullet, but it wasn't. Yes, sir. Why are you not able to stick to a budget? Give me an example of when the budget breaks down. Well, sometimes, you know, if we're, you know, my wife is stressed with things at the house and um she needs to um eat out or um yeah how old are you guys recently i'm 30 years old how old is she my wife is she's 30 as well okay and how many children do you have one child what age seven okay all right um i'm hearing some hints in here that the responsibility for all of this is on you that she's not taking any of the responsibility for this

am i missing something well i i am trying to be the head of my household. That's not what I said. It's not a matter of what the head of the household is. She is also an adult member of this household and has a co-responsibility for living within a budget and having to achieve household goals. It sounds like all of this goal achievement is on you, that she's not participating in carrying any of the load.

Well, I don't know. I feel like no matter what I try and do, I just can't seem to make it work. Because it's just you. By make it work, do you mean make her happy? Yeah, and, you know, get our emergency fund and be – But you have. You've worked through the – you said you've been working through the baby steps, but you keep falling off the budget,

and the explanation of falling off the budget was she got stressed and went out to eat. Well – And she wants to stay home yeah she has a lot of things she wants but i haven't heard where she's contributing anything to this conversation so here's the thing families that regardless of who's who's the head of the household you can we can have all kinds of theological or doctrinal discussions about that if you want to. But families that win, that are married, have two adults that are emotionally carrying the weight of the decision-making towards a set of shared goals. And I do not hear that here, bluntly.

I don't think that's what y'all are doing. I think you're running around trying to do all of this on your back by yourself, and I appreciate you trying, but I got to tell you, man, if she's not willing to say, oh, I want to be a stay-at-home mom, and so I'm willing to be a home economist, and I'm cooking from scratch, and we're going to coupon, and the kid's going to be in consignment clothes so we can get this crap moving to get things happening then we'll you know i'll carry that part of the weight of this because that gets us to because we're both in agreement that one of our goals

is her to be a stay-at-home mom i'm not disagreeing with the goal i'm disagreeing with you trying to get there by yourself and you're towing two children along. That's what I'm hearing. And I'm not picking on her. I'm just saying the way that she, the highest probability of you two achieving the goals that both of you are laying out, regardless of whether they were her motivation or your motivation, but we've agreed there now our goals is for both of us to lean into that and carry our share of the weight, which would sound like in her case as an example, I want to be a stay-at-home mom, so I'm willing to tutor from home to bring in some income after we make that move as a step, as a sidestep,

because you can make a lot of money today tutoring really really good money, while the kids take in their afternoon nap. So, and then you, you know, you're willing to go out there and bust it and give up some nights at home to get some over-the-road trucking income and to get your side gig going. So everybody's willing to pay a price, live like no one else so that later we get to our goals. But both of you have to be willing to carry that, James. And both of you, and a key component of that is the budget is not, it's not the master of this situation. And it's not because Dave said to a budget, but the budget is the way you freaking get there. And part of this, James, I sense some shame that has been put on you from her that you've created for yourself.

I'm not providing enough. And I just want you to see the true reality of the situation is not that you're not a good husband. It's that the framing of this conversation is a one way street. And you need both people contributing to this. And that means getting on a plan. Maybe you have a dream date together, setting the vision, saying, this is where we're headed. I need you to contribute in all these ways if we want to make this goal happen. And if she says no, well, then the goal needs to change because you're both going to be miserable. And so we have to do something about

this, and it can't all fall on you. Yeah. And you can get there. This is a doable, like you said, George, this is a doable thing. It might take 36 months, but the year that I quit doing real estate and did Financial Peace University launch and went full-time into this business, our income went in half, and for the following 30 months, two and a half years, I worked 16-hour days, six, seven days a week. Sharon will tell you she felt like a single mom during that time. But the part was we were in agreement on the goal, and the part she was carrying was the weight of the household.

I was carrying the weight of a startup business, and it got this thing off the ground. But there was a period of 30 months, two and a half years, that was very, very, very tough in the early days in order to get to our shared goals. You guys live like no one else. That puts this 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. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show channel on YouTube.