The Ramsey Show - App - What Do These Millionaire Careers Have in Common? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss:  "Is it smart to sell our rental property?" "What should I do with a Social Security payout?" What most millionaire careers have in common, Financially preparing for a job loss. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of The Ken Coleman Show, number one best-selling author on the subjects of work, job, and career. We're here to answer your questions about life and money. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Ken will be my co-host for the day. Irene is in McAllen, Texas starting this hour. Hi, Irene. How are you? Hi, I'm doing really good. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up?

So my main question is, should I sell my rental property? We became, as you all call it, landlords by default. And I'm not sure if we should sell it where we are right now. We're in Baby Step 2 with about $5,000 to go on our credit card. And we do also have a car loan that we're paying off with our LLC. So I don't know. I'm sure that's also part of Baby Step 2. Doesn't matter. Your LLC is not liable. You are. No matter how you're paying it, you signed the note personally. It's personal debt,

so it is Baby Step 2. So what do you owe on the rental? It's paid off. Okay, what's it worth? It would go for about $160,000 to $170,000 right now. Cool. And your personal residence, is it paid off? It's not paid off. We bought it two years ago. We still owe about $183,000. Okay. And what's your household income?

$75,000. Okay. I would rather have a paid off house than a paid off rental my personal home yeah yep i agree so my um i guess issue or not issue but doubt is um we've never really been there's out in tents and I'm feeling kind of like using this rental property would kind of be like an easy way out. We did just start following the baby steps in January, and we've been able to pay off $13,000 in debt since then.

So we are, you know, going through the baby steps, but I just am feeling a little bit weird about kind of, I don't know, I feel like I'm cheating by using that rental property. Well, you're not cheating if you've changed your habits permanently. If you're not, if you pay off all this stuff and then you maintain the, go back to the same stupid habits you used to do, then yeah, that was cheating and it didn't have the positive effect, right? But there's nothing that, there's no data that says getting out of debt easy is a bad way to get out of debt. Okay.

I just wonder if that's a really logical excuse for holding on to the rental. Not really. I'm really not in love with this rental. It's in a great location, but it's a little older, and it's kind of become not so passive. We're constantly having to fix things and go out there. So I'm not attached to it. Then I would sell it and get over the guilt of fast-forwarding.

But here's the thing. The two of you have to look at each other and say, if we're going to do this, then we've got to do the whole thing, not just the sell the rental and get out of debt thing. We've got to live on a budget. We have to live on less than we make. We save up and pay for things from this point forward. We keep an emergency fund. We're going to finish paying off our house as soon as possible because this doesn't quite.

By the time you clear the car and the credit card, you don't have enough to clear the house. And so you're going to have to lean in and get the house paid off as soon as possible it's not going to be paid for so you're not done you've got to play all the way through and if you're but you can't commit to just doing parts of what we are telling you to do or parts of what we teach around here that can actually be harmful to you not really but it just's ineffective. And then you say stuff like, well, that Dave Ramsey stuff doesn't work, and that's not true. You just didn't do it right. So it does work if you do it.

So you've got to do the whole thing, though. You can't pick and choose. It's not a la carte. We're not at a buffet line. You do the whole puppy. This is chef's tasting menu. You get every course all the way through. If you do that, Amanda, I mean, Irene, you're going to be just fine.

Amanda is who we're talking to next. She's in Lexington. Hi, Amanda. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So I recently got remarried, and me and my new husband, we are doing the Financial Peace University, and we're on baby step two. I was in a previous marriage before, and I have a 12-year-old son from my previous marriage. And his father, well, he never paid child support, but he actually passed away about a year and a half ago. Oh, wow. And he draws Social Security money from him, from his deceased father. Right. money from him from his deceased father right um so before i got married i was a single mom and i had saved like six thousand of it which i ended up spending four thousand of it for braces this

week for my son so he's got two thousand left in his savings account and then he gets 900 a month so my question is should i invest that for my son put it towards a bit snowball or i'm just not sure what would be the smartest way because i haven't really been smart with my money but being my new husband like we're on track to we're on your plan but we want to make sure we're doing everything we're supposed to do good okay well let's be clear. I've raised three kids, and you're obviously raising kids. You can't raise a kid for $900 a month. It costs more than that. And the whole scope of their life, it costs more than that.

And this money morally, not legally, but morally should be used for the care of the child. If you're taking care of the child, you're spending more than that. So if you blend all the money in with your whole budget, as long as you take care of the kid and all of his needs and expenses, then you've done nothing wrong. I would blend it into your budget. Okay. Should I go ahead?

Because we haven't started him a college fund yet, so should I go ahead and get that started, though, like right now, with, you know, go ahead and do that, or wait until we get to that baby step? How do I get to that baby step? I would blend this money into your budget. Again, this money, there is no moral or legal reason to separate this money off and set it aside for him while you owe on the you know you set 900 aside over here and you spend 1400 over here right and that you know that that didn't accomplish

anything and so you're going to take care of your child if you're going to take care of your child and you're not you know using his money to snort cocaine or something then you know as long as you take care of your child that's the point and it's going to cost you more than you get in child support or in Social Security payments. And so we always blend child support and we always blend Social Security payments into the budget. It's part of the household income. And then the household is under the responsibility morally, ethically, spiritually to take care of the child. And that includes someday they go to college, and that's going to be a great expense to you,

much greater expense than the money the government gave you, including raising him, including putting braces and so on. So I just make it all in one pile. And I'm assuming when we do that that you're a great mom and you're going to take care of your baby. And as long as you're doing that, then that's a great piece of advice. And that's what I would do. Good question.

Thank you for joining us. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by neighborly your hub for home services neighborly is the place to find reliable help for your home from trusted locally owned businesses like glass door precision garage door service and mr handyman visit neighborly.com great company today to find some home experts available to serve you today's question comes comes from Brad in Idaho. Why are teachers consistently in the group of people that become millionaires? I'm going to add to this question. He's referring to the Ramsey Solutions study, the largest group of millionaires ever done,

over 10,000, and they were in the top five school teachers of net worth millionaires. That's what he's referring to. He goes on to say, is it because they marry well and have a spouse with a better income, or is there another reason? Are there other career fields I should look into that consistently make it into the millionaire club? They are missional. They care deeply about their role. We also found in that same study that 96% of net worth millionaires love their work. And in the teacher case, they're very dedicated to be instructors. They care deeply about serving kids. And they've chosen work that is meaningful to them. And thus, they've decided that what they make is enough. And they've made the choices to live on lesson they make and choose a lifestyle that actually supports their work not the other way around and i think it's about deep

meaning and purpose and thus they've been disciplined and they're very methodical and i think that's a part that plays too dave what would you add to that or do you does that square with you i think that's you know true of any when we got the data in, it was interesting to us. You know, the top five career fields of the millionaires in the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, number one was engineer, number two was accountant, number three was teacher, number four was business professional, which can mean almost anything, and number five um lawyer uh medical doctor didn't even make the top five and number six and they are stereotypically worse with money than music artists i mean it's ridiculous and so um not all in other words not all of them but i'm saying the stereotype is is there for a reason so what we figured out is is that okay why is it why do

these five land there and and even when we look at further down the list why do some of these what what is what do they have in common and what it does disprove is that your income causes you to become a millionaire because one-third of the millionaires that we studied, 33% of them never made over $100,000. So it's not your income. In other words, you can't earn your way out of stupidity. So what did those, what does an engineer, an accountant, a lawyer, a business professional teacher have in common? And I think you hit it on the head when you said method,

they are systems people. They work with a set of principles, and they don't have free reign to make up their own rules. When you're a lawyer and you go before the judge, you have to follow exact procedures, even exact ways of addressing the court if it pleases the court your honor you don't talk to humans out in the out the gas station that way it's a set of procedures that you use there's a proper set of motions that and you don't have a choice you don't get to you know well i'm creative you're you know old man in the robe you don't get

to say that okay you get to say if it pleases the old man in the robe you don't get to say that okay you get to say if it pleases the court your honor i mean you don't have a choice in this you don't have a choice when you're an engineer designing a bridge there's basically one way otherwise it falls yep and you know and accountants don't say well this is creative they call that embezzlement you know i mean it's like right and so accounting is a set of generally accepted accounting principles gap and the process of doing accounting there's one process and you submit yourself to proven principles and methods to be successful in any of those careers and money works exactly the same way right you have

to submit yourself to a set of proven principles. You live on less than you make. You're generous. You invest. You have a written plan. You're in agreement with your spouse. These are set principles that you don't get to be creative. Well, I don't think it works.

Yeah, yeah, I don't agree. Who gives a crap if you agree? This is the way the bridge is built. This is the way that you do a lesson crap if you agree this is the way the bridge is built yeah this is the way that you do a lesson plan if you're a teacher right this is the proper methodology for instructing it is so structured and so they're used to functioning in in a structured environment and submitting themselves to proven structured processes which money and wealth building are and that's what the correlation was.

It took us a little while to figure it out. And let's also understand that they have to be intentional to win with their income because they can't rely on big increases in income. No, but again, one-third of the millionaires never made over $100,000. That's right. We need to keep that in mind. But, Brad, let me address one other thing. Are there other career fields I should look into that consistently make it to the millionaire club? No.

That's right. Do not pick your field because you think it's going to make you rich yeah let's never do that but are there processes that you can submit yourself to yes that will get you into the millionaire club absolutely there are but you don't pick your career field because what you'll be is a miserable human being with a big income. If you pick the, you know, I'm doing this just for the money. Money wears off, man. You eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap. So true.

There's just not, there's only so much money, so much money will do. And so, you know, you don't pick your. No. You know, it's like you don't pick your wife based on the net worth of her father. You know, that's a bad way of doing it. You know, you're going to get yourself in a mess you know you know that won't turn out well no it's going to go poorly so yeah you you know you pick your career field based on purpose and meaning and can you actually do it you know and so what you've got is again with teachers or any accountant they enjoy process accountants enjoy process and they're talented at it. Teachers enjoy instruction. They're good at it. That's the mix. And then you choose to make your

money work. That's what I love. By the way, we've got a lot of new people joining all the time. We love this. We're here. We're growing like crazy all over the place, podcasts, YouTube, everywhere. Here's the thing. The median salary right now for teachers in the United States is about $61,000. You need to understand net worth millionaires at that level, it can be done. And there's this generation that's watching too many TikTok videos and Instagram videos, Dave, where it says you've got to make millions of dollars a year to be wealthy. And it's just simply not true. You can't out earn your stupidity. That's a fact. I've tried it. it didn't work you just got to not be stupid

and so you can't make enough money to be stupid it won't work you'll lose it i know i did it i did it it was zeros on the end i know what it looks like exactly how it feels i know whatever bit of that experience no thank you i don't want to do it again so um you know this is what you need to dial in on do something that you love and find a way to do it in an unusual way. Yes. Okay? Yes. If you're a teacher, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a classroom teacher.

There's a lot of ways to be a teacher. And a lot of things you can do. I have a gift of teaching. Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm a teacher. You teach financial principles in a lot of ways. Yeah. You've done it on 60 Minutes, and you've done it in 600 stations for years,

and then you've done it in front of hundreds of thousands of people. And that's a very good point. If I love instructing, I'm not limited to a public school classroom. But that is also a wonderful place to do it. Yeah. But it's not the only definition of a teacher. That's correct. So now, again, for purposes of that study, these were probably classroom teachers. do it yeah yeah but it's not the only definition of a teacher that's correct so um now again the

for purposes of that study these were probably classroom teachers yeah yeah that's what we talk a lot about sure yeah but the uh i mean i don't think someone identifies in a survey of millionaires that they are a teacher if they're on the radio that's probably not what they're that's probably not what they're doing right so um that's not the plan so that's a really good question don't pick your career based on how much money you can make only it should be a consideration but um but but don't pick it based on that only and go oh i'm gonna make a lot of money and that'll make me happy while i'm doing stuff every day that i hate doing no that won't work but also don't pick a career that says, oh, this is going to make me happy and it's okay if I'm broke.

That's not necessarily either. No. You should make more money if you're doing something you love because you're good at it, because you care about it, because you're creative, because you've got energy. You should make more money, not less. Yeah. So that's the way to get at it.

Good question. Thank you for joining us. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Paolo and Elizabeth are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good.

We didn't know we'd be following Nate Bregazzi, so a little intimidated now. You never know around here, brother. Hey, good to have you. Thanks for coming by. So where do you guys live? Toronto, Canada. Oh, it's a bit of a trip to Nashville. Well, good to have you.

And how much debt have you paid off? $624,000. Yay! I love it. And how long did this take? 38 months. Whoa. And your range of income during this time? Ranged between $290,000 to $310,000. Okay. Wow. What do you guys do for a living? I'm in commercial real estate leasing.

And I work for the Government of Canada. I'm also a gemologist. So during the pandemic, I opened up an online Etsy store where I sold vintage and antique jewelry. My side hustle. Yeah. Nice side hustle. Very good. So what kind of debt was the $624,000?

$420,000 of it was our primary home. And $204,000 of it was a piece of investment real estate we had. Two pieces of real estate. So you're all the way in Toronto, Canada. How in the world do you find out about this Ramsey stuff and how do you make the decision, touch over three years ago, you're going to go wild and knock all of this out? I've always been the nerd when it comes to the budget. So one day he comes home and he said, have you ever heard of this out? I've always been the nerd when it comes to the budget. So one day he comes home and he said, have you ever heard of this Dave Ramsey guy? And he said that he's an American from Tennessee and he really gives it to straight to his callers in terms of financial advice. So I checked out your YouTube, I checked out the podcast, and then I realized we weren't doing

everything that we could to become millionaires. So one of the things that you'd always said is get onto an everyday or every dollar budget, because that's one of the primary ways of becoming on the same page. So I approached him and I asked him, hey, let's do this let's do the advice that that Dave Ramsey gives I had supporting YouTube videos just in case he had any questions and he was on board right away so she was a little nervous that I'd say no well you're brought up the idea though I know I know but I mean she asked and uh you know one of the things I want to put out there for all the couples that are always saying you you know, about, you know, combining finances. She was worried about asking me and the minute she asked

me, I said, well, sure, why not? And I think that should be everybody's reflexes. If you give it at least three, six months, you'll see the results. Yes, there'll be budget fights at the beginning, but eventually the proof is there. And what's the worst case scenario you can go back to the way you were doing things if it was so good oh so i gotta know i want you to break this down for our audience because you're making between 290 and 310 you're paying roughly 200 000 of debt per year if i'm reading this right so how did you do that we were doing about a hundred thousand dollars a year of paying off debt. What happened towards the end is we sold off the investment property. So I owned half of it with

my sister and my family's back home in Montreal, which is about 300 miles away. And Dave brings up the concept of one, if it's too far and two, the whole concept about owning real estate with family. And we had the conversation. I said, you know what? We haven't had any of the problems that we hear some of your callers call in with, you know, owning rental real estate with family. And we wouldn't do it again because, you know, it was so far away. So we said, you know what?

I think it's time to sell it. And so that just turbocharged our way to the end. Oh, yeah. That's great. Blew it up for sure. Yeah, very cool. So you brought the idea to her. Have you ever heard of this Dave Ramsey guy?

Where did you hear about him? So I found you on YouTube. Okay, same thing. And I love the Southern twang, I have to admit. Yeah. It's my greatest attribute. I know. It's charming.

It has nothing to do with intelligence, wisdom, anything else. It's just the twang. The twang sells you yeah good for you man i'm thank you guys thank you so much i'm so proud of you how's it feel to be a hundred percent free with this huge income it's amazing it's absolutely liberating you know they've uh you use the uh the visual of chains to the debt. And when you say, you know, how does it feel? I think that is the proper visual to give people during your teachings because you really feel unshackled from it. Words can't describe how good it really feels. Wow.

I got to ask then, that was beautiful. What does it mean? You've heard Dave say, I'm sure you've watched enough, live and give like no one else. After you live like no one else, the baby steps allow you to do that. So what does that look like for you? What does live and give? What's your next big thing? Well, in terms of next big thing,

we've been driving nine-year-old cars that have about 150,000 miles on it. Yeah, you need a car. I'm a car guy. There we go. I've been very patient. You have, man. Yes, he has been. My patient needs to persist a little bit longer.

What do we get? People want to know. What are you going to get? Something that's new to us, but not new. Oh, he knows. Look at it. When he turns sideways, you know. I like the Jaguar F-Type.

I know Dave has had his Jaguar car. Oh, there you go. That is a great car. The sound of that car is just... That car, it's a wonderful car. The sound of that car is just... It's a wonderful car. It was designed by the guy who designed the Aston Martin. It's a beautiful car.

Well done. Good. I like it. Do it. They're a little hard to find, though. I'll tell you ahead of time. I've had two or three friends that have had them. They're wonderful. That's awesome. Good for you, man. Way to go, you guys. That's good stuff. All right. all right now when people are listening i know you had an unusual income but you had an unusually high result also so you know ratio wise you pounded this thing what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is uh for myself i would say you really need to be focused and you need to be on the same page with your partner.

The clarity is key. I think for me, it's the budget. I always used to say that my budget puts the fun into my funds. And I think that's the intentionality that you need. It allowed us to become everyday millionaires. It allowed us to really laser in on what our focus was. So what's your net worth now? $1.8 million. Baby steps, millionaires, debt-free, house and everything. Yeah, this is a ding-ding. Well done, heroes.

How long have you guys been married? 13 years. 13 years. And the last three years, we've been working on getting out of debt it was so 10 years otherwise and now you're done and here we go complete change way to go very cool and all because of some guy with a southern twang yeah on the youtube on the youtube show that's that's that's where it is for sure isn't that crazy this is where it all happens but it's beautiful yeah congratulations you guys hey we we've got the Live and Give bundle for you, the Baby Steps Millionaires book.

You already are one. The Total Money Makeover book, you've already done it. And the Financial Peace University, go through it or give it to somebody on all of those things. That's what the box is for. We want to say thank you for coming down here. So proud of y'all. You're fun to talk to.

You're great people. Your numbers are horrendously awesome. Absolutely amazing. Very, very, very well done very good stuff all right it's paulo and elizabeth toronto canada get this 624 000 in 38 months making 290 to 310 house and everything baby steps 1.8 millionaires gotta love it count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one we're dead free I love it. That is fabulous. Man, way to go, you two. Very well done. Now, you might not end up in three years with a $1.8 million net worth doing this stuff. It's possible. But you might not own an investment property, and you might not have a $310,000 income. But wherever you are, I'll guarantee you, you can end up there.

That's exactly right. It might be more than three years. Yeah. And let's not forget, I mean, Elizabeth had a little extra woo-hoo there because she was the queen of the budget. And she just said at the very end of that, if you caught it, she said, it was really hard. Yes, they sold some property, which fast forward to the process, but they also committed to it and driving older cars. And now there's a couple that are very young, by the way, and on their way to living like no one else, giving like no one else. Don't miss that. I mean, it is doable no matter what your income is, but it's hard no matter what your income is.

Let me just say out loud, if you have a $1.8 million net worth, you can buy a new Jaguar. Yes. Appetite. Kazash as well. Just like that. He just pointed at Dave. dave i heard you say that she's saying she's saying no we've created a fight for that's good no i'm giving i'm just saying all permission given once you're a millionaire new cars are okay if you got the

if you if you got the emotional bandwidth to pull it off this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day proverbs 19 21 many are the plans in a person's heart but it is the lord's purpose that prevails andy andrews our friend says when you know that everything matters that every move counts as much as any other you will begin living a life of permanent purpose. He does a lot of stuff on really good stuff on Butterfly Effect. Yes. Comes out of that. Mikael is with us. Mikael in Oklahoma.

I'm sorry, in Omaha, Nebraska. I apparently can't read. Hey, Mikael, what's up? A few years ago when we were in the Big Eight, I would have been out of shape about that. Very nice. Good job. My question has to do with tweaking

our budget. My wife found out today that she may lose her job. This wouldn't happen until November, and as an aeronautical engineer, I'm trying to stress test our budget. So my question has to be... Why would she lose her job in November? Well, the company she works for is, I think in lieu of doing straight layoffs, they're making everyone in human resources reapply for their jobs.

That's weird. Yeah, it's odd. She said there's an 80% chance that she won't lose her job, but again, I just want to stress test this and make sure that if we do lose her income, that we can still keep our four walls going. What does she make? She makes $125 in straight salary. I make $185 in straight salary.

I do get a bonus in stock options, which would bring up my pay to around $330, but I don't like to count on bonuses in stock, so I just use our straight salaries for budgeting. So you ought to be able to live on your salary, dude, really. Yeah. So my question has to do with do I pull back on, you know, 529s for our children and then right now we have fully funded.

You can't live on $180,000? Oh, we can. Okay. I'm just asking where I should tweak my budget. You shouldn't. I mean, you can do anything you're doing right now on 180 grand can't you yeah if we you know don't put extra money into savings accounts yeah we can there you go

so if in the 20 chance she loses her job uh you don't put extra money in savings until she gets a new job. You're killing me here. Yeah. What do you say? Keep stacking money. Keep doing everything you're doing. You're already stacking money like crazy.

You're making so dadgum much money. It's ridiculous. Awesome. Way to go. Congratulations. And how quickly does she not, doesn she get re-employed really fast oh yeah easily yeah yeah nothing to worry about here so i mean what are you what are you really going to lose i mean you're going to lose one month of income or something like that and if they do all that they're probably going to give her a severance right yeah i i don't know i i think that this

is their way of not having to give people severances by making everyone reapply for a job i i honestly with what i'm hearing there unless there's something i'm not that i don't know uh if i were in her shoes i'm looking for a job screw these people it's wacky that's a nut if you think they're trying to figure out a way to not give people severance and they're too too uh uh wussified to just do a straight layoff because they're broke uh instead they go through this faux thing this pretend thing like reapply look if if you if you didn't want me just fire me you know that's so true why do you have to reapply so you can figure out you oh well we wouldn't hire you again well then fire them i mean my god yeah if i look around here and somebody i wouldn't hire them again that means their jobs

in trouble right so i mean this is bad leadership I'm probably out of there for those reasons anyway. Long before they get a rent. Let me, here, I got your reapply. Here's my resignation. That's exactly right. Don't wait for the shoe to drop, Mikhail. And here's the thing. He's a professional worrier.

And what I mean by that, by nature of what he does. Well, he should be. Thank God. He keeps airplanes in the air. That's right. And so he's looking for. If I fly in an airplane, I want him to be a professional warrior. So it's okay.

Mikhail, those are really good questions, but you didn't need us as much as you just need to look at, well, what would need to be true for us to be in really bad shape? And it's just not going to happen. You don't have a scenario where you end up in bad shape. You guys are fine. So you're stress tested, okay? You're done. You're just not not gonna stack quite as much money in your absolute worst case scenario oh well you're okay you're stress tested you're

good however you got some uh advice that you didn't pay for yeah and that is go ahead tell her go and quit yeah get a job yeah and and just say you know i'm gonna help you with this reapplication thing yeah or show up with an offer. Unless they're just wonderful people and this is the only stupid butt thing they've done. But I just about guarantee you that a leadership team that doesn't have the backbone to lay people off in a situation where they're broke and they can't, and they don't have the capacity emotionally to run their run their business that they're probably making many other leadership mistakes that are based on virtue signaling or some other bullcrap yeah and so yeah i i'm out of there man i'm i'm betting you i'm out of there but maybe maybe i'm wrong maybe it's a wonderful

place other than this one stupid thing but usually this is one of about 10 stupid things that that place is doing that's exactly i'm with dave that doesn't just that's not a one-off that's a really wacky philosophy on how to lead people it freaks people out you specialize in that you know you communicate well to our company you know and it's like why would you create all this unnecessary angst for some people well you got the whole you got the whole place on the chopper that's right it's weird instead of just going uh five of you are gone right you know uh the rest of you're okay you know i mean yeah i yeah it's just good communication and people appreciated they they appreciate bad news yeah more than they appreciate ambivalence that's correct we want to know where we stand and uh that's your leadership lesson for the day, boys and girls.

Tell people even if it's bad news. Because here's the thing. If they don't hear bad news from you, they hear it in their head, and they make up crap, and it's worse than the actual reality of the bad news. Boy, isn't that the truth. And so that's what's going on with this whole company. We're all going to reapply. I don't know what.

Somebody read some really bad book. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It happens, though. All right. John's with us. John's in Orlando. Hey, John, what's up?

Hey. I can't believe I'm on the Dave Ramsey show. This is so awesome. Well, I'm honored to have you, but I am a little short on time. Go straight to your question, sir. Yep. All right. So I'm 27, about to be 28.

I'm thinking about popping the question to my girlfriend who's 30. She is going to start nursing school, the accelerated program next month. Right now she has about $124,000 worth of student loans. After the nursing school program, she's probably going to be sitting in around 150k mark um i'm kind of just thinking of what's the best way to handle the loans um with our other debt and kind of the the best way to do it once after you're married yes yep yeah after you're married okay after you're married you work the debt snowball and she'll be out of nursing school how much longer she got uh so she starts next month in august and it's a 15 month program okay so you're probably

getting married sometime in the mid during that time i guess or maybe right after that and um i was thinking about popping the question towards the end of this year and then being engaged through all of that because she's not going to really have much time to do anything okay so she's out she's out she passes her bar and she's got a good income when you get married right yeah and what how much do you make uh i net about 110 115 okay so you're gonna have two hundred thousand dollar plus income and we're gonna attack this debt when we get married and let's talk about that before we get engaged because if we can be in agreement on how to handle money about kids, about in-laws, and how to handle the crazy people in her family and your family, that's the in-law part,

and about religion, those four things cause a high probability of a successful marriage. Be in agreement about those things before you even pop the question. Be talking about them. That's how you know you found a match. Good question, man. Good question. Honored to have you. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and 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. Hey, it's Ken. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramsaysolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you

based on your specific situation. Again, that's ramsaysolutions.com and click Get Started.