The Ramsey Show - App - We're Paying Off Our House...What's Next? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

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Welcome Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is Common Sense for your dollars and cents, teaching you to live on less than you make, a concept Congress can't grasp.

It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Cameron is in Kansas City to start this hour off. Hi, Cameron. How are you? Doing well, Dave. How about yourself? Better than I deserve.

How can I help? I'm just looking for some advice between the balance in terms of paying off our mortgage early and our long-term investment plan. So I'm 29, married with a 2-year-old and another kid on the way. and our long-term investment plan. So I'm 29, married with a two-year-old and another kid on the way. Wonderful. We currently owe $245,000 on our house. We put about $100,000 down about a year ago.

Good. And we have $65,000 in cash savings. What's your household income? I make $125K in base and bonus, and then my company does more in ESOP, so about 11% ESOP contribution on top of that. Okay. Here's the program that we have used to lead tens of thousands of people into being millionaires, having a million-dollar net worth or greater.

We call it the baby steps, and you may have heard them. Baby step one, save $1,000. Two is be debt-free with your house. You've done those two. Three, I think you've done those two. You're out of debt except the house, right? Correct. Okay.

Three is having three to six months of expenses set aside for emergencies. $55,000 would qualify. As a matter of fact, it's probably a little high for your emergency fund. Beyond that, we do baby steps four, five, and six simultaneously, which is to your question, and that's 15% of your income going into retirement, which is a substantial amount right now with your great income. Then we start putting something in Baby Step 5 towards the kids' college, and you can decide how beefy you want to do that.

But I want you with a couple kids be doing at least $100 a month or something. Just get started at least. If you want to get beefier, that's fine. Beyond that, I throw everything I can get my hands on at the house. Now, until it's paid off. And then once it's paid off, we max out all retirement that's available and become very wealthy, which is baby step seven. Now, why do I do that? Well, number one, at baby step four, you're putting 15% of your income away, which at 29 years old is $30,000.

And so you've got millions of dollars at retirement in that account if you do nothing else. You're going to be just fine. But you're not going to do nothing else, not with what I just outlined. You're also going to save up and pay cash for your kid's college and baby step five. And in six, we're going to go and get the house paid off. Now, we've completed at Ramsey Research the largest study of millionaires in North America ever done. Ninety-three percent of them did not become millionaires from inherited money. And I can unpack that if you want me to.

Point being, they all did something to build wealth. What did they do? By far, the vast majority of them we found in almost every time, to the point it was almost stereotypical, in almost every case. To the point it was almost stereotypical. In almost every case we found they had done two things. One is they had significantly and steadily funded their 401k Roth IRA retirement plans. And that, like say I found somebody with a million and a half dollar net worth. That was oftentimes a million dollars.

The second thing they had done is they got their home paid off, and that was oftentimes a half million dollars. So for an everyday or a baby steps millionaire, someone who followed those baby steps, under a $5 million net worth, what we typically found was their house was about a third of their net worth, and it was paid off. That element and the big loaded up retirement was the two main things we saw over and over again. The point being, Cameron, that we didn't find hardly anyone who had a big home mortgage because they put it all in investments. Sure. Yeah. And I think that's really where my

question comes in is, you know, I've basically 11% of my compensation goes into our ESOP. I'm contributing 8% to my Roth. Are you putting 11% in? The company contributes 11%. Okay, I'm asking you to put in 15% of your income. So I do 8% to my Roth IRA. Yeah, I would have you put in 15% of your household income into retirement. In addition to the 11%?

You're not putting in the 11%. They are. They're not taking it out of your check, are they? Yeah, so that's a huge piece of... Oh, I'm sorry. Are they taking it out of your check, or are they giving you money? Are they putting it in there? They put it in there. Okay, it's not coming out of your check or are they giving you money are they putting it in there they put it in there okay it's not coming out of your check so the income and figures you gave me were not including that correct it would be like 140 yeah so this is like a match in a way okay yeah better than yeah

so you don't you don't worry about that i mean's nice. That's gravy on the biscuit. But I want you to take your household income before income taxes are taken out and say.15. And I want that much going into retirement. That's 15%. That's a lot more than you're doing right now. Sure. With what I'm doing right now, I mean, the calculations spit out, you know, $10 million, $15 million of a future retirement, which then feels somewhat silly to still be paying a mortgage right now. You're not going to have both. You're 29.

Okay, you're not going to only have $10 million and never pay your mortgage off because you're going to pay off your mortgage long before then. Even if you hadn't called me, you would have done that. But you don't need to stop doing retirement because, oh, I've done enough and I'm counting on them putting in 11%. No, you put in 15% and you go ahead and put the balance that you can find in your budget without straining too much and not taking, you know, your wife still gets to buy a couch, you still get to go on a vacation, and you'll find money out of there to chunk and you'll hit bonuses and stuff you can chunk towards that house.

You're going to have that house paid off in five years, even putting 15% of your income away, and you're easily going to hit both. But no, I would not back off and say, oh, retirement's handled. No, that's the other direction I wouldn't go. So I wouldn't. You're going to be fine. I do think your prediction is accurate. This is not discussing whether you're going to be bankrupt or not.

You're doing a great job. A, you're paying attention. You're being very intentional with your decision-making. You're thinking about this. You're using good critical thinking skills. So you're not going to make a big mistake. But if you were following our plan, which is what I would tell you to do, because it's called our plan, you know, it'd be 15% of your income into retirement, and then kids

college, and then getting your home paid off. So, here's what's interesting about Cameron's call, and about what some of you are thinking while you're riding around listening to the show right now. You're thinking, that sounds so simple. You know why? Because it is. It's very simple to understand what to do. The problem comes in the doing it. Oh, there's the problem. You know how you lose weight? Take in less calories. That's a problem though. This boy likes chocolate donuts.

They're in danger if I'm near. I know what to do. The problem comes in the doing it. I saw some recent financial statistics and there was some pretty troubling news. When families were asked how long it would be before they faced financial hardship if a spouse died, nearly one-third said they'd be in trouble immediately. Another 44% said they'd be financially drained within six months. People, it does not have to be this way. Term life insurance plans are just plain cheap, and companies have made it even easier by not requiring exams in many cases. There really is no excuse to leave your family in this situation by not having life insurance. This is why I talk about Zander Insurance every day. They're committed to protecting families with the only products that I recommend, and their team keeps the entire process simple and affordable.

Go to Zander.com for quick online pricing or call 800-356-4282. This has to be a priority. If your family is in this situation, you need to get this done. Well, the housing market's a bit hot, isn't it? Woo-wee! Talked to a guy who put his home on the market over the weekend. 87 people looked at the house. He has 17 offers in 24 hours, all of them over asking price. Some poor guy who bid $50,000 over asking price, 16 of them are not going to get the house. That's a hot market. Wow.

And is this going to continue at this rate? Probably not. There are several leading indicators in the market that the rate of housing price climb inflation is going to slow. Lumber has finally caught up and has no longer spiking in price with a new record every month. New housing is starting to catch up in a lot of areas so the market's not going to reverse itself and it's not going to collapse in on itself or something like that but we're going to continue to see prices increase it's not going to be as hot as it's been now here's the trick you do need to those of you keeping your homes and not selling in this crazy market you do need to check your homeowner's insurance because it has a stated value on it. It does not cover what the house is worth. It covers what the policy says.

And so if your policy hasn't been updated in a year, your house could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was at this time last year, and you're not covered. So you need to make sure that's done. And while you're at it, you ought to price your homeowner's insurance because you're probably paying too much. The market has really shifted on that. So our endorsed local providers for insurance are independent agents, which means they shop a gazillion different companies

and get you the best possible deal. So what you do is you text HOME to 33789. Text HOME to 33789, and you'll talk with a trusted insurance pro, a Ramsey-trusted insurance pro, about finding the right coverage for you they're going to shop a bunch of people get you the best deal oh and make sure your home is properly covered it used to adjust based on market value but those were old policies and they're just about all gone now you have a stated coverage amount and that's you got, plus or minus a little of an inflation factor, but you're not covered if you haven't kept yours up to date.

Text HOME to 33-789. Gary's in Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, Gary, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, my wife, Christine, and are here. Um, and, uh, we've, we've sold our boat. That was a paid off boat and our paid off truck in this market. We got top dollar and we're using that plus a little bit of savings, uh, to pay off the house tomorrow.

Hey, way to go. Yeah. Thanks. So, uh, you know, we've, you know, we've kind of worked hard and, you know, increased our income to where it's at today and paid off all the bills. Congratulations. Net people anyway, thank you. But, yeah, we started watching your show, and now we've consolidated all our bills together, which made us waste less money. But now we're at that point.

We're hitting maybe step seven and next step. And, yeah, we have more money than we know what to do with. What's your household income? Household income this year should be right at 360 wow how old are you guys i'm 38 she's 40 yay and what's the house worth um 325 to 350 excellent how much is in your retirement accounts your nest egg? Collectively around 360. Okay. All right.

Cool. But we max them out each year. She started sooner than I did, and I started recently. Well, you guys are doing a great job. I mean, in about 20 seconds, you're going to be millionaires, and you're on your way. Well done. What can I answer for you? Well, yeah, we have some money in stocks have about you know six figures in in stock still and now we're

about to have a lot of disposable income and while i haven't been wrong on my individual stock that i've been investing in uh i know that you teach to diversify, and I think that's a very wise move, and I'd like to go that way moving forward. Okay. So just some of your suggestions of now we're going to have a disposable income anywhere between $7,500 and $9,000 a month. So what do we do with it? Excellent. Well, such choices to have. Yeah, it,000 a month. So what do we do with it? Excellent.

Well, such choices to have. Yeah, it's such a problem. Well, it goes back to philosophically or theologically, there's only three things you can do with money. You can be generous with it, and you should. So label some of it for generosity. You can invest it, and you should. So label some of it for generosity you can invest it and you should so label some of it for that and you can enjoy it and you should so label some of it for that uh and and so there are some items out there in your

future that two years ago would have been immature and silly but two years from today you'll be able to purchase that item and pay cash for it and it it will fit right in, and you won't have to worry about it. It's a non-issue because it's small enough as a percentage of your wonderful world that you'll be able to do that thing, go on that trip, buy that classic car, buy that piece of jewelry, that piece of art, I don't know, something that you enjoy. Then you're going to invest. Now, I only invest in two things. I invest in real estate that I pay cash for, and I invest in good growth stock mutual funds

spreading across the four types. I'm a little heavier in real estate than I am in mutual funds for two reasons. One is I bought about several, about $100 million worth back in 2008, and I bought it at about $0.10 on the dollar, or about $50 million worth, actually. So it ended up shooting way up because I bought it way at the bottom. I hadn't been able to buy anything like that since. So I love real estate, but I'm heavy in real estate for that reason because my returns have been better there because I bought at the worst time in the last 40 years probably, which is to my advantage.

So anyway, buying real estate that I pay cash for and then investing in mutual funds. And whichever one you're more comfortable with. Some people don't like mutual funds, so they're light in those. Some don't want to deal with tenants and the hassles of owning real estate, and so they don't have any or hardly any in real estate. You know, if you have something else you want to play in, that's fine. If you want to buy a little bit of single stocks, I don't suggest you have more than 10% of your net worth.

In your case, that would be less than $100,000 in single stocks because it's just too risky. But if you really have a thing for it and you want to put that much in there and play with it, you'll be okay. You're not going to mess it up doing that because you've got a small enough amount in there that even if you lost the whole thing, which you would never do that, but even if you lost the whole thing, you still would be worth over a million dollars in just a few minutes here. So all of that to say congratulations.

The trick is now take that disposable income and just label it. X for fun, Y for investing, and Z for generosity. And then you're going to be very intentional about your investing, very intentional about your fun, and very intentional about your generosity within that set amount of dollars. And so that allows Sharon and I to do some really fun things with the amount of wealth that we've built, and we don't even have to emotionally sweat it. Oh, are we bad Christians if we buy that? No, we've been very intentional, good stewards, and it's a small percentage of our world.

And then when we get ready to do some generosity, we're like, oh, have we messed up our whole estate plan because we gave too much away? No, we're not being crazy. We're being very wise and yet outrageously generous. But when that money is already earmarked to give away and you set it aside, it's interesting. Your emotions have already given it away. You just haven't transferred the bank account yet. And so go ahead and do some of that. When we move our money into our family foundation, it's already given away. Technically

speaking, it's already given away in that case because it's a foundation. But also emotionally, we're done with it once we earmark that money going that direction. And it just gives you a lot of peace that all three things are happening the way they should. Fun, generosity, and investing to create more fun and more generosity. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Josh and Allie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Sporting some good-looking t-shirts, straight out of debt, baby. I like it. Congratulations. How much have you paid off? We paid off $31,033.45.

Great. How long did it take? Four months and five days. Wow. And your range of income during that time? $90K to $95K. We didn't really get a raise. We just had a couple of stimulus and we sold stuff. Okay.

That's a stimulus, too. Excellent. Yay! Love it, love it, love it. That sounds fun. Way to go, you guys. What kind of debt was the $31,000? We had two cars, student loans, a couple of credit cards, and some medical bills.

So normal. Kind of normal. Yeah. How long y'all been married? Since November 2nd. Oh! So not too, too long. That's kind of why we went on the journey together, to be honest.

Gotcha. Okay. So as soon as you get married, boom, game on, knock this out. Or right before you got married, you started it. Tell me exactly what happened here. So we got married in October and started on the 12th of November. Just like that? Just like that.

So I'm a mortgage loan officer, so I kind of talk about the debt snowball a lot, believe it or not. So it's one of those things I was like, you know, we should probably look into this. You know, if we want to have the life that we really want together, that we've added to each other, then we need to kind of do something about it. Okay. So how did you have this discussion while you're being engaged? Actually, after we got married, we had cash flowed our wedding without knowing that that's what we were doing.

And it was weird because when we were able to pay cash for the wedding we were like what have we been doing with we could have been saving money this whole time how did we do that so he brought it up to me after we got married like hey maybe we should pay off all our debt you know maybe that's the next best thing we can do in order to start saving since i talk about this to other people all the time maybe i ought to to do it. Maybe we should do it, yeah. It's easy to talk about other people's debt and other people's problems and not necessarily look at your own. And I actually grew up listening to you, but in my mind, as a child, a lot is caught.

And what I caught from that was that Dave Ramsey was for people that had their lives together, so we never really did that because our lives weren't really together yeah that's funny when quite the opposite is true but yeah that's so fun all right so it just kind of came together gelled and you said oh i had this epiphany we pay cash for the wedding we can do this i tell people to do this we can do it um and game on yep so just like that you joined arms and went after it. Yeah, and I kind of suggested to him after he brought it up, he's like, we should pay off debt.

And I was like, you know what we could do? We could sell a car. And he went, oh, well, I don't know. Because this would be my car that would be the one that gets sold. So naturally. That's where you start the honeymoon. Yeah. We did it.

We sold the car. That's how we started it. What was it? What kind of car? It was a 2015 Kia Optima. Oh, nice. We did it. We sold the car. Yeah, that's how we started it. What was it? What kind of car? It was a 2015 Kia Optima. Oh, nice car gone. Okay. What are you driving now?

2019 Kia Forte. Oh my God, that's not exactly a big... You're not dying. No, not at all. Oh man. And it's paid for, so... And it's paid for, so...

That's enough of a move to get the goal hit. Yeah. And now you're free and you can do whatever you want with this kind of income and no payments. How's that feel to knock that out that fast as your first order of business in a marriage? So when we first started, we did the budget.

We did the every dollar app and everything, and we were like, okay, we should be able to do this in about seven months. And then at that point, we weren't even tithing. So we were like, okay, seven months, no tithing so we were like okay seven months no tithing you know we should be able to do this and then we just kind of decided like you know we should really you know be thankful for like the position we're in the jobs that we have and so we started tithing and lo and behold we actually did it in four and a half months it was with tithing so we were like oh wow you know, you know, we listen to you a lot. And a lot of people go through it like they think that this is going to be a long process. And it doesn't have to be if you are a gazelle in tents like you say to people.

You know, you don't have to spend $200 on groceries. You know, if you budget everything and you can make it work however you want, sell stuff. You know, there's so many different ways to become debt-free. And, you know, the weight that it's so many different ways to become debt-free. The weight that it's lifted off of us is just unbelievable. The interesting thing is you get to decide how hot to turn the flame. I didn't call you up and go, turn it up hotter. You just decide, I want to get out faster.

I'm going to turn it up a little hotter. Or I don't really think I'm going to do that. I'm going to turn it back a little bit. You get to decide. It's your flame. How much do you want to cut? How deeply do you want to cut into this budget and you're in control it's not like dave ramsey's going to come knock on your door and check your budget and what's funny about that is you start off thinking that there are things that you need to do that you have to have and then as you get closer and you see your progress you know with the snowball you you start to realize that there are things you can live without.

You can make deeper cuts and sacrifice to get there faster and race against yourself. So that's something we kind of – It becomes kind of a little mental, emotional game, doesn't it? Yeah, and for sure. There's a lot of times where we didn't spend all our money on groceries, that we had budget for our groceries, and it went straight to debt. And then Allie was like, oh, you know, we can probably cut back on groceries. We have enough left over from the week before. And then you start becoming so obsessed with paying off the debt.

I found out I'm a huge nerd. I didn't know that before, but I'm the nerd. I love it. Dial that spreadsheet up. Dial that EveryDollar app up. I like it. Very good. That's cool.

Yeah, well, you start redefining correctly what most people in America, including you, including me, have defined incorrectly, and that is the difference between a want and a need. Most of us have absolutely no needs in this country. There's very few people who actually have a need. Most of the stuff we call a need is a want most of the time. And then you go, I found out I didn't have to have that to live, you know, and I didn't have to have that to live. And look at that. And we can get a little faster.

And then when we're free, we can do a lot more and we can live like no one else and give like no one else. So what do you tell people when they ask you that the key to doing this is? I always say the key is just having, be consistent with it and don't fall into the stigma that debt is normal, right? Like seeing, I see credit reports every day and people have all these car payments. And for the longest time myself, I thought you're going to have a car payment until you die, right? That's just a normal thing that people think. Cars break down. Just don't fall into that stigma. Debt is not good. And it's one of those things, it's not a tool to use for things.

Just pay it off. You don't realize the weight that can be lifted until it's gone. Yeah. And it feels clean now, doesn't it? Yeah. Simple. Right. You're just swimming in a bad pool to a good pool.

I would just add also the budget because I thought that I, we thought that we were budgeting before. And we would go, where is all this money we should have where does it go we didn't have an answer for it so being very diligent about that budget that was a bad word in my family growing up sure it led to money fights and so i think i kind of avoided that um but it now budget's fun for us right yeah it's like oh we can like cash flow vacation in two months. You know what I mean? What are we going to do with all this money? Right.

And who can we help with it? And all kinds of stuff. It changes everything. Well, way to go. Very, very cool. And isn't it interesting that you made your giving a full 10% to your local church and didn't slow you down but sped you up? Yeah. It's oxymoronic it is

that was honestly like if i find me in honda's that was the hardest part for me was getting my heart right because i knew that i was being called to do that that we were being called to do that and it i was selfish but your math well your math brain says that's backwards yes right you want me to give money away but i'm to get out of debt faster. That just seems backwards. Well, that wasn't even the reason that we did it. We just felt that that was what we were supposed to do. We felt led to do it.

And it was like God was saying, hey, look, I got something better for you. Just let me help you because I can do this faster than you think you can. And then we fully funded our emergency fund two months after paying off debt. Wow. You guys are so impressive. Well done. Well, we got a copy of the legacy journey for you. That's your next step is to completely change your whole legacy,

and you are well on your way. You got a great start. So proud of you. Another copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody, get their journey started. You can pay it forward with that as well. And, of course, that's our number one bestseller by far around here. So congratulations.

We're very proud of you. Thank you. Very proud of you, too. You guys are impressive. All right, it's Josh and Allie, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. $31,000 paid off. The first order of business in four months of marriage. Make a 90 to 95.

Game on. Count it down. Let a 90 to 95. Game on. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Love it! Man, that's powerful.

Well done, you two. powerful well done you two very well done It is oxymoronic to think that generosity adds to prosperity. You would think if I had a bigger pile of money, because I hadn't given some away, that I would be more prosperous. And the truth is, the opposite happens, and it happens so often that it is a principle. Now, for those of us that are people of faith, evangelical Christians, we're taught and believe that the Bible says that we're

to give a tenth of our income to our local church. A tenth, a tithe, which is a Hebrew word, obviously, an old English word representing a Hebrew word, but it literally, the word means tenth, one-tenth of our income. Now, you may or may not agree with that. That's not up for discussion. You can agree with it, if you do that's fine If you don't then I get to do it It's my faith I get to choose

You get to choose what you do I'm not telling you you have to do something But that's what my faith teaches As an evangelical Christian And here's the interesting thing about that The Bible says in Malachi Test me in this Says the Lord of hosts

God says test me in this, says the Lord of hosts. God says, test me. Talking about the tithe. Discussing the tithe right before that. Regarding the tithe, test me. God says, test me. And see if I will not throw open the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing that you cannot contain. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.

Now, the word blessing there does not mean BMW in the Hebrew. It is not necessarily, the word blessing is not necessarily money or wealth. Sometimes people on the prosperity side of the Christian world quote that scripture and says, God promises to bless you financially if you tithe. That's not what the word says. The word is the word berakah, B-E-R-K-A-H. And if you look it up in the Strong's Concordance, which is where you get an English translation of the Hebrew word, you'll find that word, B-E-R-K-A-H, means peace, refreshment,

as a camel finds in an oasis. At an oasis, there's always shade, there's always water, as opposed to a dry, parched desert. Now, reread that. Test me in this, says the Lord of hosts, and see if I will not throw open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing that you cannot contain. Peace, as a camel finds at an oasis,

that you cannot contain. Now, what ends up happening, whether you're a person of faith or not, here's the principle that works. And it works, again, it's not unique to Christianity, although it manifests itself well within the Christian theology.

What happens is this. It's almost impossible to be a miserable person when you are a generous person. Generous people are almost always happier. A lower incidence of depression among generous people. Very few people that are generous are depressed. It's very unusual. Almost never happens. Generous people are attractive.

They smile more. They're not attractive because people want to be around them to get money from them. That's not the point. The point is that generosity is not just an act. It is a character quality that induces several acts, like integrity. Integrity is not an act. You have integrity. You are a person of integrity.

You are a generous person. It is a character quality, like honesty, integrity, kindness. It's something. Now, if you're a kind person, that's the quality. When you're out of your kindness, you do something. If you're a compassionate person, that's the quality. Out of that, you're compassionate to someone. Then that's the verb that comes out of your character quality.

And I think we can all agree joyful people, generous people, compassionate people, kind people are all more attractive. Oh, couldn't we use a little more of that attractiveness in our culture today? There's a lot of just ugliness out there today. And most of it is born in fear, which is not attractive.

Most of it is born in anger, which is not attractive. Most of it is born in selfishness versus selflessness, which is not attractive. So here's what ends up actually happening. The people who have as a steady part of their financial diet, the rhythm of their life, they are generous. People who tithe their weekly paycheck to their local church, people who give regularly, not just once a year, not randomly, but as a part of the rhythm of your life, like breathing and bathing. You're giving. You're catching somebody at the gas pump and you just buy their gas.

You buy the person behind you at the Starbucks lines next order. I don't care what it is. Those are little tiny things. Maybe you do some nice big things. Maybe you pay for an orphanage to be built. Maybe you pay for a hospital to be built. I don't care how many zeros there are on it. But when people have a regular rhythm of generosity, they are a different kind of a person.

And they're very attractive, and people want to be around them, and they want to have them as employees. And they want to work for people like that as an employer. They are easier to work business deals with. They're not functioning in fear and anger all the time. There's a little different sense of confidence and competence. And you know what all that leads to? More money. Generous people have a tendency to prosper because of that.

It's not really because they gave the money away. It's because their heart and who they were as a person was changed when they gave the money away. And it made them attractive, and attractive people have more of a tendency to prosper than unattractive people. I mean, think about it. If you're an employer, and you're sitting there, and you're looking at two candidates that are up for promotion, one of them is going to get the job, and one isn't. One of them is miserable, angry, fearful all the time. Every time you look at them, they look like they were weaned on a pickle. And you look at the other one, and they're smiling, and they hold the door open,

and they always put others first, and they're thinking about how they can make everything better instead of how they can make themselves better and bigger. They're equal in their talents, but that one character quality distinguishes the two of them apart. Who gets the promotion? Everybody answer with me. The generous person. That's who gets the promotion. Generous people have a tendency to prosper. Who are you going to hire to do your lawn care?

Who are you going to hire to fix your car? Who are you going to hire to do your hair? Who are you going to hire to someone's wean on a pickle? Someone's angry all the time and selfish, and they're figuring out how they can cut every corner on you? Or someone's got a little margin in their life. There's a little wiggle room in their spirit. Everything's not so freaking tight.

They're not about to explode all the time. Now tell me generous people don't prosper. I've watched it for decades. And this is why you will hear regularly a testimony, and it's not a mystical, weird Christian thing, but you'll hear a couple like that last couple doing their debt-free scream that says, you know, we started giving away 10% of our income because we thought we should. We were convicted of that by God's Spirit.

We thought God was telling us to do that. That's exactly what you heard them say. And yet they got out of debt three months faster than their original plan. In almost half the time of their original plan. Did the math really change? No, their income

went up only a little bit. They were able to sell his car, but what changed was them. Be not conformed to this world. Don't be normal. Normal sucks. You don't want to be normal. Don't be like this world.

Be transformed. How are you transformed? The renewing of your mind. You change your mind. You change your mind. You get information you didn't have and you install it into your hard drive and the operating system is permanently changed.

It's called living like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.