The Ramsey Show - App - What Do I Do After Paying Everything Off? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

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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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality and host of the Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. The Ken Coleman Show is all about your career, all about getting in a job and in a career field that you love, doing work that matters, that you're good at, and where you can actually show up and be glad for the time you spend at work and the way to maximize it. So you've got career questions.

I need a job questions. Well, Ken is here to help with that, and he's going to comment on everything we do here today as well. So we're welcoming you in. The phone number is 888-825-5225. So, Ken, this from Forbes. Car shoppers on limited budgets can't get a break. The average transaction price for a new vehicle is expected to rise to a record $38,255 in May, according to J.D. Power, sending many consumers looking for bargains on used car lots. No such luck. The combination of high demand and high wholesale prices dealers pay to acquire inventory

has led to record high prices for used cars. Toby Russell, co-CEO at online used vehicle marketplace Shift.com, told Forbes, the surge in used vehicle demand is causing bizarre, bizarre behavior in the form of used car prices appreciating. Given the strong demand for consumers the tight supply situation it seems likely that used vehicle prices already at all-time highs will continue to rise there's a silver lining for those looking to trade in their current vehicles vehicles demand such as pickup trucks crossovers suvs are bringing top dollar and the amount paid on a site right now is increasing 15 to 20 percent, in some cases 30 percent over the last year for the same used car. First time in history used cars have gone up in value.

Well, they haven't over a period of a year, but that same exact vehicle. All caused by the COVID economic disruption. Yep. People in factories not making cars. That's right. Also, I read about this. People not in factories making cars, I guess not making cars. That's right. Also, I read about this, too. People not in factories making cars, I guess I should say. Yeah, that's right.

Well, I also saw that because travel was literally almost suspended, that rental car companies are a big source of used cars as well, because they'll order cars from manufacturers. They'll rent them to folks like us, and then after a certain point, they'll sell them back, and that becomes a part of the used car inventory as well. So you have two things, manufacturing as a whole, also orders from car rental companies, so it's really fascinating. But I will tell you this, I am in the market, I can't even believe I'm saying this, Dave, my oldest is going to be 16 in November, so I'm already beginning to look just to see is there something right now that I could jump on and get it, get a great deal, put it in the garage.

And for him, and so I've been looking a lot just direct to consumer. Facebook Marketplace is a great option there. There's all kinds of auto trader. And so outside of the dealer, I still see, in fact, I spent a good time this weekend, a good amount of time looking. There still are great deals if you're buying directly from someone else. But to the dealers, there's no question the prices are up. I see that. Yeah.

And so the other thing that's happened was I bought a used car last week, and I bought it at market. It didn't pay. It was not up. Took a little work, though. Yeah. And I actually looked at the new version of that car and uh there's such a shortage on it that dealers are charging 20 000 over sticker for that particular car and uh now it's an expensive car right but they're they're adding a premium on it on a on a new car because

they gave me a quote on a new one and i'm like uh dude i buy it invoice and guys like not today you don't right and not right now you don't. He goes, across town, this same brand is selling these for $20,000 over sticker. He said, we'll sell it to you at sticker. And I went, eh, I think we're going to go used. So I bought a used car. And so, but it's, man, I mean, this disruption, and it's just like the new housing market is screwed up. And so it's screwing up the used housing market. And then people go cray-cray, and they get the chasing stuff and get the fever.

And it's like, oh, God, oh, God, I'm not going to be able to get what I want. It's like a little kid on the cereal aisle having a hissy fit. Yep. And then they overpay for stuff. And so, yeah, used vehicles, there's a shortage. Definitely. And so, yeah, used vehicles, there's a shortage, definitely. And there's a shortage for the new, because there's a shortage on new, because the factories were not dialed up, and it's going to take a little while for it to catch up. It's like it's going to take a little while for lumber supply demand to catch up.

Right now, lumber's selling for more than gold. It's unbelievable. It's true. And drywall. I've talked to a builder friend of mine. sheets of drywall exploding everything plywood the glue going into plywood there's a shortage on they're saying it's going to go up 4x before it comes back down but it'll come back down and these used cars will as well yeah there'll be plenty but the good news is this if you're out there and you like just decided i'm going to get out of debt, and you're like, I've got to get rid of this really stinking overpriced.

I bought too much car. I got a $30,000 car. I owe $28,000. I owe $32,000. This is a great time to sell it. It really is. It really is. It's a great time to move down in car.

It's a great time to get rid of a car that you're trapped in. So that's the good news. I'm curious to know what the trade-in value is, how much it's gone up, because traditionally that's way, way lower than what you can get if you sell it yourself. Yeah. So it would be very interesting. You know, the other parts of this article, which I didn't read, but Mannheim is the largest wholesaler, the auction houses that wholesale to the dealers, and they're seeing across

the board about a 10% to a 15% bump. Wow. And then, of course, that's of a used car going across the dealer auction. The dealer puts that back on his lot, and they're not in the business to lose money, so they're going to be marking it up that much. Wow. We're seeing this. I knew there were going to be shortages because of COVID. We talked about that at this time last year because these factories all just shut down.

And it took them forever to come back. And you knew there were going to be shortages. But what I didn't, for some reason I didn't, I was dumb. I should have been obvious. I did not see the price increases as a result. But because it creates a shortage and drives prices up. Simple supply-demand curve stuff, and, you know, you get into that. But you're right.

The rental car company, Hertz, owns Dollar that sponsors the Dollar Car Rental Studio. So we've had discussions with them. I didn't realize until we were sponsoring them, and we were actually talking to them at this time last year because no one's renting cars and so they're all screwed they're all going into bankruptcy they're all you know right on the teetering on the edge and what they did was they just sold off half of their inventory liquidated these used cars like crazy they dumped them on the market well now the market's gone the other way and now they can't get the new cars and so it's gone back the other way. So a lot of rental car companies have a shortage of inventory to rent to you.

Oh, we see that all the time. It's not unusual. Very normal. It really is interesting. And Hertz is the third largest car dealer in America. Massive. That's amazing. Well, it's like you said, Dave.

It's like we had all this extra supply, but we burned through it, and now the factories are trying to catch back up. So it's going to be this way for a while. I created a new thing as you were talking, the MSRP. Now it's IIWII. It is what it is. You like that? So don't buy a new car anyway.

So we don't tell you to buy a new car unless you've got it and then some. But now it's the time to stay away. Yeah, yeah. Here's a plan. Not right now. I don't need it that bad. Don't need it that bad. This is The Ramsey Show. People all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way

of meeting health care costs through Christian Health Care Ministries. Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, is a non-profit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses. And they have successfully shared each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. See if CHM is right for you by visiting chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book, The Proximity Principle, is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Joel is in Dallas. Hi, Joel. How are you? Dave, I'm doing great, sir. Good afternoon to you and Ken. I want to say thank you so much for what you guys do every day. It's important to a lot of folks out here that are trying to better their lives and figure stuff out. So thank you. Well, thank you, sir.

How can we help today? So here's my question. We're on baby step four, and I've got a 401k question. The company that I work for does a very generous match every year. It's a profit sharing. It's not actually a match. And it can range between 10% and 15% of my total salary. Not sure what it's going to be every year. It's not set in stone, kind of fluctuates. Right now, we are putting 15% into the 401k, the traditional 401k every year,

and have been for the last three or four years. So we're looking good. But my question is this, do I need to be, according to the baby steps, do I need to be putting that much in, given what my company is also contributing? And then the second part is, do I need to be looking at adding the 401k Roth option in as well in addition to or separate? Well, your 401k will either be traditional or it will be Roth, and it's better for it to be Roth. And so I would change it to Roth from this point forward. Now, the matching portion that they give you cannot be Roth.

It will be traditional by law. The matching portion does not affect our Baby Step 4. Baby Step 4 is you put in 15% of your income. If you get gravy on the biscuit, extra gravy on the biscuit called a match, that's just that much more wealth you'll have. But I don't depend on them at all the point of the baby steps is you are controlling your destiny and so you put in 15 percent if they match if you have a match you certainly take that match and so matches better than roth is better than traditional that's the order of attack the rock paper scissors so to

speak and um so yeah switch it to a roth and you put in 15%, which it sounds like you are, and you just continue to do that. Ken, so in the old days, like when I first started this show 30 years ago, still at that time, a lot of companies had the traditional pension plans. Now, 78% of companies have done away with pension plans. They don't have them anymore. And so it's pretty much a Roth or a 401k or an IRA. You're going to do your own thing, and you're going to do it through your company,

and that's the bad news. The good news is a lot of them match. Over 70% of the companies do match because they don't do the pensions anymore. Yeah. Why did they pull that? Did it come down to taxes for companies, or is it too much to manage? Why the shift from – I didn't know that number. I wrote it down because that was really shocking to me that that many companies aren't doing pension plans.

Why would they do away with them? Well, they're super expensive. They're super regulated to manage. They're a pain in the butt to operate. Right. Because can you think about it? I mean, you have a team member that joins you at 40. At 60, they retire.

And you now manage this pension for them for the next 25 years. Yeah. It's too much time and money. And so it just becomes very cumbersome. And with regulations on them, they don't perform that well. They're not allowed to invest the way that I would invest or the way I teach people to invest. So they don't make a good rate of return. But it's bad for the individual because now the only way you have money in your 401k

is you have to put money in the 401k it's good for the individual though because the 401k is yours yeah and the pension is not if the company goes broke it's an asset of theirs you could lose the you know the old story the mine the mine closed up papa lost his pension that's right you know and so because the the pension was not his it was an asset on the books of the mining company that went broke. And so they lost it. Now, that doesn't happen as much with the regulations and the insurance and stuff we've got now. But the union mismanaged the pension and frittered it away. You know, these are real stories that have happened to real people.

When it's a 401k, the company goes broke. It doesn't touch your 401k because it's not in their name it's in your name uh you know accessing it with a broke company with the hr department closed down maybe a bit of a cumbersome thing but the money is still there it didn't leave and so you you are controlling your own destiny you're you're responsible for it and that's both a blessing and a curse that's right because just like it is when everything that we're responsible for it, and that's both a blessing and a curse. That's right. Because just like it is with everything that we're responsible for, we have to actually step up and man up, woman up, and get her done. Miranda is with us in Charleston, West Virginia.

Hey, Miranda, how are you? Great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So my husband and I, we're working on Baby Step 2. We're going to Dell Intents, and we're looking at our numbers, trying to figure out how to get our payments to go down. We have a car. It's a Ford C-MAX, a 2004. And Kelley Blue Book has offered us $10,000.

We owe $21,000 on it, and that loan right now has a 5.9% interest rate. Good Lord. Yeah. So what is this car really worth? Is Kelly Blue Book shooting you that low, or are you financing negative equity from the last deal into this one?

No, we owe $21,000 on it it and they're offering us 10 000 i know what they're all i heard that part that's ridiculous so i'm guessing the car is worth 15 and they're trying to steal it from you probably um it's in pretty good condition it's 2004 it's a it's a hybrid did you finance equity? Were you in the hole when you traded in? Yes. Okay, so some of this hole is from the other car. Mm-hmm. Okay.

So you need to do some more research and find out what the car is really worth. Because if a wholesaler, Kelly Blue, I didn't even know Kelly Blue bought cars, but if they do, I'm sure they do. And if a wholesale, they're buying it at wholesale because they're going to resell it for a profit, which means that you put it on the market. We were just talking about that coming into the show. You're going to put the thing on the market for full value. So check kellybluebook.com, not counting this, and just look up the value. Do an appraisal on the car.

You can go to edmunds.com as well, Edmunds Car Guide, and pull up and say private sale. If I put the thing on Facebook Marketplace or Neighborhood Marketplace or whatever these things are that are out there, and, you know, Craigslist, and people still do that, and so on. I don't know. Is Craig dead? He could be dead. I don't know. But anyway, that's, you know, so along those lines, you're going to sell the thing.

I know Trader.com you can use. And you can sell it direct. Like Ken's out there looking for a car for his son. He talked about that a minute ago. And so, yeah, you're going to probably find that car's worth $13, $15, something like that. It's probably not worth $10. $10 sounds insanely low. Yeah, you'd have to know the mileage on that.

But you can get a really good value on that very easily. Multiple sites, and you could really hone in on the condition of the car. And I think you get the most as you possibly can for that. Because right now, as we said in the opening segment, your car is competing against the dealers who are selling used cars at a premium. So if you sell it actually at market value, you're going to be very competitive, a lot more attractive than a dealer. And there's a shortage. So, yeah, definitely.

Definitely make sure you have your values right. So, Miranda, a good rule of thumb is this. In a negotiation, which selling a car is a negotiation, buying a car is a negotiation, he with the most information wins. He with the most patience wins. And he or she with the most options wins. I don't need to sell. I got lots of options.

I don't have to sell it. I'm not desperate. Okay? So you got lots of options. I don't have to sell it. I'm not desperate. Okay? So you got walkway power. You find out every detail about what every car like that at every site is selling for, and you become a dadgum expert on the used car market around that particular car. Information. He with the most information.

And then you just slow your butt down. You don't get the fever. People get emotionally, like, people when they sell stuff, they get emotionally like it's already gone in their minds, and so now they have to give it away. No, no, just plan on keeping it a while. And be a little hard to get along with when you're selling it. You know, come on now.

Maximize this asset. You need the money. You're broke. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Mikkel is with us in Seattle. Hi, Mikkel.

How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have a question that I feel like is probably splitting hairs, but I wanted to know what you would advise. We currently have a 20-year fixed-rate mortgage, and I'm wondering if we should finance down to a 15. Not for that reason.

Only if you get a better interest rate. Because if you take a 20 and you calculate what the 15 payment is and you just pay that much extra, it'll pay off magically in 15. Sure. So you don't have to refinance to do that. So what is the interest rate? Currently, it's 375, and I talked to Churchill, and they said they could get it down to 275.

Okay. What's your loan balance? $235,000. Okay. So 1% saving is $2,350 a year, right? Mm-hmm. And if it costs you $5,000 to refinance, you get your money back in two years. If it costs you $7,000 to refinance, you get your money back in three years.

So you don't make any money until you get your money back. Okay. So are you going to be in until you get your money back. Okay. So are you going to be in the house a while? Yeah, for a long time. We plan. Okay. I probably would refinance it, and while you're at it, put it on a 15. But you don't need to refinance.

Let's say you had a 3% 20-year mortgage. I would tell you to just sit on it and pay extra. Okay. You don't need to go to just sit on it and pay extra. Okay. You don't need to go to the refinance cost to pay it off early. You just pay extra and it'll pay off early. But you refinance if you can save not sending them as much money as you used to do, you know, as you used to send them. And so, you know, you're going to send them $2,350

less per year for the next many, many years until you pay the thing off, 1% savings per year. So I'm refinancing that if you're staying. And while you're at it, do it to a 15. Charlie's in Los Angeles. Hi, Charlie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Really appreciate it. What's up? I am a small business owner out in California, and I've been luckily a pretty rapidly growing company over the past six years. And I'm dealing with an employee of mine who is my general manager, I think has a bit of a spending addiction, which is making me kind of wonder if I need to feel

obligated to give him a raise or if it's best just to let him go when that time comes. If I can give you a bit of a background on this gentleman, he's in his mid-30s, three kids, works full-time for me 80 hours a week. He's a great asset to the company, and he's been in this management position for just over a year. 80 hours a week? 40 hours a week my apologies oh i'm on the bike yeah sorry 40 hours a week okay um now the issue is that he left my company before when he was a warehouse packer he came back and he worked up to his management role but since then, he has about $150,000, I estimate,

conservatively in cars and automotive toys. He kind of mentions and complains about money and stuff, but not really in like a, I'm expecting a raise type thing. I try to give him raises organically without him asking to award good work. What's he make? He makes 45K a year. Okay. And he just kind of casually in conversation asked me

if he could start leaving earlier Monday through Friday to come in a bit on Saturdays so that he could work a second job. And just because he has left the company previously, I just kind of wonder, you know, I'm not going to try letting him go, but if he does ultimately say that he wants to leave, should I try to keep him around or focus on my younger staff who have good potential and don't have as much? How many team members do you have total?

Right now we have 15. Okay, cool. Yeah, the question I have for you, Charlie, is forget the finance issues. Is this guy a great leader for you or at least a good leader with tremendous potential? Let's set aside just for a moment your concerns about his spending and him asking around about a raise. Is he a quality team member that you think, if he's healthy, you could develop him even further up? So the thing about my small company is that it's all been a learning experience kind of for all of us.

He didn't really have any managerial experience, but he's been doing a great job of learning. But what I really value about him more than anything else is that he cares about my company until I get to his own. And I feel like Doug genuinely wanted to see the company do well. Well, I got to tell you, that right there, to me, is one of the greatest characteristics of somebody, that they care deeply about your company. And so he's unhealthy financially.

And I would sit down with him and have a man-to-man, but come at it not from a judgmental standpoint, but to say, hey, here's what's going on. I don't have all the facts. Here's what I think I know. Help me fill in the blanks. Here's why I'm bringing this up. I care about you because you care

about this company. You've done a great job and you've learned and you've grown and you're mentioning some things here and there. Why do you need more money? Here's what a development plan might look like. Here's how you'll keep getting raises. Share a vision for him and see where he's at financially and see if you can help him and pour into him.

Listen, I'd get him financial peace. I'd put him through it and coach him up if he's willing to do that. Show him how, if he gets his spending habits under control, how it will change his entire life. I'd be willing to have that conversation if I were you because of what you just said about this guy. I think he's worth investing in. Now, I think you've got to have a point where you get to where you say, all right, I've invested and I've coached and now it's up to him. And if you feel like it's too big of a divide, he's not going to get there and you feel like he can no longer be the employee that you need, then you move on. But I wouldn't try to anticipate him leaving.

I think that's managing and leading out of fear versus being proactive. So when we were doing entree leadership a couple weeks ago out in Dallas, Pat Lencioni said there is no such thing as any kind of leadership except servant leadership. And so if you're going to lead him, then you need to care enough to serve him. And how are you serving him? You got to sit down and go, dude, $45,000 income, $150,000 in toys. You're doing Fauci math here. This doesn't work.

Okay. You can't. This doesn't work. You know, you're not in Congress. You have to stop this. For your sake, you can't win doing this. And I love you. And so I'm just looking at you man-to-man, friend-to-friend, and going, I'm going to serve you well.

And so, you know, I've had and our leadership team have had conversations with people inside of our organization over the years, almost on a weekly basis, someone we sit down with and say, listen, I love you too much to just not tell you this. You've got to know. This right here is killing you. This is hurting you. And so, because here's the thing, you're serving him. Then what you've got to do is you've got to go, okay, if he has a lack of judgment over there,

how long before that lack of judgment, regardless of how much he cares, enters into our organization? If his critical thinking skills have got him this far in debt, I mean, he's going to start making stupid butt decisions at work too. And so we've got to get him off the stupid butt train and get him on the train where he can learn. And that's just loving the guy well. That's serving him.

When I serve my children and they're growing up, it means I teach them how to behave and function in society. It doesn't mean the inmates run the asylum. Because I love my kids enough to serve. I'm going to serve you. I'm going to make sure you know how to drive a dadgum car before I give you the keys. I'm going to make sure you know how to behave and say, yes, ma'am, and yes, sir, and thank you, and gratitude, and, you know, that kind of a thing. And so you're serving someone by loving them well and by having hard, difficult conversations with them.

Yeah, you've got to sit down in this situation and you're going to say, hey, you're looking for a second job. That means more work hours a week, more time away from your family, and this is all because you're not showing discipline over here. And when you show them you're teaching, you're guiding, you're instructing, shoot them straight. I'll pay for you to go. I'll pay for your Ramsey Plus membership, and you

go, you know, that's what you tell them, and you go, I'll walk with you, and I'll coach you, because I think you've got huge rock star potential as a leader because of your passion for this place. And I really want to pour into you and lift you up. And you can set a model in place then on how you lead people for the rest of your life there. Really cool question, Charlie. You've got a good heart, man.

This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matt is with us in Springfield, Missouri. Hey, Matt, welcome to the show. How can we help? Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure. So long story short here, my wife and I

bought a house in 2012 at about $160,000. And we spent the last eight years paying off our house. And we just did that last year in July. And now my wife's wanting to move again. And because her office got closed down during the COVID pandemic, and she ended up working remotely from home now permanently. And so I'm having trouble coming to terms with wanting to possibly take on another mortgage. And so I'm kind of needing some advice on how I should handle this. Okay, so your current home is worth what? We bought the home for $160,000 in 2012, and right now it's probably worth about $280,000.

Okay. And what's wrong with the house you have now? Nothing wrong with it. One, she doesn't like the layout, and two, there's no office space for her. We're in a home, like she works from the kitchen table and we have you know kids and everything and uh it you know gets noisy and she can't you know do client calls and stuff like that because it's too distracting okay so why couldn't you buy

a two hundred eighty thousand dollar home though with a different layout and that had an office well we've been looking and uh we haven't found anything in our area of that price and uh with the layout because you haven't looked in that neighborhood you've been looking in those expensive neighborhoods you could say that yeah no i'm sure of it i mean yeah that's the phone you're looking in the wrong neighborhood if you want to stay out of debt right well i i do want to stay out of debt i don't know why are you looking in the wrong neighborhood if you want to stay out of debt, right? Well, I do want to stay out of debt. Then why are you looking in a neighborhood that has debt? That's a good question, but the area is just shot up so high that, you know, the house is shot up.

Well, then yours should have been shot up. I mean, a $280,000 home in Springfield, Missouri is no slouch, dude. That's a decent house. And you could have a differently configured home that included a different layout and included that for that same money and just swap houses. Yeah. But what we're doing is we're using all these other BS as an excuse to move up in-house. That's really what it comes down to.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess you could say that. Yeah. I mean, I want a different kitchen that's got, seventy thousand dollars more worth of crap in it and i'm using this i'm working at the kitchen table whining is my excuse to go into debt again so where in the process did you all lose or did she lose the vision of being debt free on your home is uh worth it uh well i think it's just been over the course of since she's had to work from home uh the constant interruptions with uh kids being in the area

and her trying to handle phone calls and get work done and um go rent her an office yeah we've we've talked about that um but we we do pay for a private school as well for our children and um we haven't been able to adjust by the cost of getting a rental office or her her business did have her set up to go to rental offices office spaces and then they got rid of that option what kind of work is she doing she She's a HR consultant. So she's on the phone 80% of the day? Yeah, she's handling, she does a compensation analysis, executive analysis. Who's watching the kids when they're not in school? How many kids are running around? We have two kids and it'll usually be me watching them. But I do shift work, so one week I'm working nights,

the next week I'm working evenings. So I have a crazy work schedule. I work weekends. Well, let me just tell you something. Let me just tell you something. Dave's absolutely right. You two, this is a relationship thing. You guys got to sit down and reestablish the why.

Why did we do all this for eight years? What was the whole purpose of this? And, you know, this is a pretty easy solve. Number one, you're living in a $160,000 area. So to Dave's point, the 280, well, I'm saying that's what they were. It's what they bought at. And then so there's a couple of neighborhoods up. So I think it's unsafe. It's not like schools are awful. So I think this big, bad world you're in. The other thing is, is that she can work at the coffee shop or something and make phone calls and step out or do whatever.

I just think this idea that we've got to move somewhere for her to have a place to work besides the kitchen table, I just think that's a relationship thing where you guys have to reestablish the why behind this and then say, okay, we're willing to do this, but we're not willing to go beyond the $280,000.

And if we can't get happy with something for $280,000 cash, then you have to come up with another solve until you save up enough to be able to do something you want. What's your household income? $175,000 a year. Go rent an office. Yeah. Okay. Today.

Okay. And then if you want to trade houses, trade houses. But listen, the tail's wagging the dog here. You're making a bad financial decision for a temporary situation. Right, yeah. Her working at the kitchen table is not the way it's going to be for the next decade. Right. She's not going to be at the kitchen table for a decade.

And you don't go buy a house because of something that happened with COVID. I do not know when she'll be back at work or when they'll be funding the office, but you make plenty of money. And so for, you know, what, $400 or $500, you can go rent a single office in one of these office suites and just, you know, she can plan herself down there. And then she's got a work environment that's reasonable and then if you want to trade houses for a better layout that's fine you could guys can do whatever you want you got a lot of excuses for a guy that called in wanting help

not to do this and i'm just telling you don't do it there's no chance no chance that i'm going into debt in this situation none this is all a bunch of, I want it and I'm a little bit uncomfortable. And I'm sorry you're uncomfortable. I'm sorry she's uncomfortable. Whoopee. Don't put yourself back into a mortgage over that. You finally got yourself free, man.

Remember what it was like having that thing hanging around your neck? Don't go back into the noose. Don't stick your head back in there, man. Don't put your foot in a bear trap again. Them things hurt, man. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Please. Please don't do it. And, you know, but you, you know, is there a valid part of this that she's trying to do business in an unprofessional situation? Yeah. Go rent an office. You can do it tomorrow. That's what i would do in your situation i'm not going into debt for an office in your home over covet now you know what

the new thing is now is literally these uh closets that are offices it's like a new thing uh you look it up online i'm not kidding you Where people are turning closets into miniature offices. Jeez. You can at least do that. No. I'm not going in the closet. Not a chance. She makes $175,000. I agree.

I'm trying to give them a non-rent option. I just, you know, there's another place besides the kitchen table. But I agree with you. You can go get an office. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing. Where there is no vision, the people perish. If you work really hard to get out of debt because you believe that your life is so much better being debt-free,

you have so much higher probability of building wealth by being debt-free, you would never go back. But you quit believing that somewhere along the line and we're willing to trade that for the inconvenience of the current situation and i'm not willing to trade it no the the difference is that when we went broke and lost everything i said never again and i meant it never again are these bozos going to have their thumb on my neck. Never again is American Express going to call my house unless it's a wrong number. Never again. There's not a chance. I am not going back.

There's not anything you people can do to scare me enough. There's not anything you can do to make me mad enough. There's not anything you can do to make me greedy enough or passionate enough to go into debt. The borrower is slave to the lender, and I am free, and I am never going back. It's easy for me to say. And I can't imagine you and Stacey having that conversation being any different. No. Look, every time that you allow your emotions to drive you, then you lose sight of decisions that you have made.

You know what I mean? Your critical thinking skills just collapse. Your critical thinking is gone. And I feel this, I feel this, I feel this. And in this situation, you made a great recommendation. They can upgrade and still be mortgage-free. Yeah. It's easy.

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