The Ramsey Show - App - What Should We Be Saving Up For? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: " I feel bad for spending on our wedding" Saving for college vs. paying off the house, "We are scared to go into debt for a house" "Should we update our house even if we move later?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Lindsay's with us in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Lindsay. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing great. How are you guys Hey, Dave. I'm doing great. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

Yeah. So I just recently got engaged, and my fiance and I have been following your baby steps for a few years now. We are debt-free. So now we are now planning and budgeting for the wedding, which we will be able to cash flow. Phenomenal. Yeah. and budgeting for the wedding, which we will be able to cash flow. But yeah, but I, I am finding myself having a lot of guilt over spending the money on the wedding. We are both anticipating

we are going to need new cars soon. We're at the phase of our life where we'd like to start saving for a down payment. I don't want to jip myself of the wedding that I want, but I am having shame about wanting to spend so much money. Well, I mean, it wouldn't be shameful or guilt-inducing unless it is too much money. And how do we say too much money? It's in relative terms to your situation. Okay, if you make $2 million a year and you want to spend $50,000 on a wedding, How do we say too much money? It's in relative terms to your situation. Okay. If you make $2 million a year and you want to spend 50 grand on a wedding, that's not too much.

If you make $40,000 a year and you want to spend 50 grand on a wedding, you're crazy. So what is it you want to spend on the wedding? I think it's going to be about 25 to 30 grand tops. Nice wedding. And what is your income? Household income is probably about 90,000. Well, there's not a household yet, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But yeah, that would be the numbers we're dealing with anyway. So, well, the average household income in America right now is about $70,000 and the average wedding is about $25,000.

Okay. Okay now so that that's the average but we do want to keep in mind that normal is broke so we don't necessarily want to aim at average but the point of that is is you're not completely out of control but now you start to make value judgments and go every five thousand dollars i cut this accelerates the other goals and so it's the trade-off that you're going to make the rest of your life if i spend money on a i don't have it for b it's called opportunity cost and that's what i'm struggling with yeah like i don't want to have the wedding and then what i want you to do is set a set a number stick to that number and never struggle again okay now you should uh i i do want some of this negative emotion to keep you from overspending your budget. And so what would I do if I woke up in your shoes?

I would probably say, you know, I just don't feel okay about 25 because you're not feeling okay about it, by the way. I'm kind of keying off of that, okay? It wasn't like you're going, this is because, let me just tell you, the difference in a $20,000 wedding and a $25,000 wedding, no one that visits will know. That's a napkin arrangement. Yeah.

That's the chairs you chose for the reception. You know, I mean, oh, my God. And then when you start laying out the actual wedding budget, you know, so you put a big number on it, and then you say, based on that, I'm going to spend X on the videos and pictures. I'm going to spend Y on the dress. I'm going to spend Z on the reception. And every one of the band, the DJ, the preacher, the whatever,

and you just line item this out like it's a project because I'm sorry, darling, but it is. And then you stick to that. say okay i've got this much budgeted for catering and they go well you can't get the sushi if you do that well then we won't be having sushi darling so this no is a possible answer to some of these questions and so um but the thing that will give you great peace and no guilt is if you'll set a number detail it out and then stick to it you'll never think about it again but if it's constantly floating around and you feel like then i can buy happiness or i can buy joy for three thousand dollars more you're not going to find it there

it's not there and it is a it's a wonderful thing to have big we have big parties we're ramsays man we like to party all of our weddings were huge we love big weddings and everybody dancing and and good food and man it's a fun time and it is one day and it's gone it is it does evaporate but so is travel or so there's other things we spend money on so right but there is no you do know there is no correlation between the size of the wedding budget and the success of the marriage, though, right? Yes. If anything, there might be a negative correlation. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Well, I'm just glad we're not going into debt for it, but I do have that guilt. You don't have to say I'm not glad. I chose not to go into debt for it. You're like being a grown-up and stuff here. Yeah. Is the person you're about to marry are they guilt tripping you or saying man if we weren't doing a wedding like this like where's this guilt coming from me um i guess because we we have worked so hard the last few years to pay off our debt and now we're in a finally in a really good financial spot so are you kind of a tightwad you have trouble enjoying money yes um and and i just i'm worried

that after the wedding our cars are going to go and we're going to need they are they are 100% 100% chance and you know what on my honeymoon when i'm just going to fry in 15 years you'll be a funny footnote to a great wedding yeah let this be a great experience for you to you worked so hard so that you could honor this i like this cool ceremony right that's why you're going to work so hard after this wedding to you're going to get new cars so that you don't end up on the side of the road you're going to work really hard to pay off your house so that you can give recklessly to people in your community you're going to do these things so that right and y'all have worked really hard to get right here i would challenge you to dial it down to 20 absolutely 18 5 come up with a number yeah and then just then just lock it in and go based on that i've got to

do the dress this way based on that i've got to do the catering this way based on that i got to have friends go pick some uh daisies out of the farmer's field because we don't have money for a florist based on that i don't know what it is but i mean i've had folks on this team in the last two years three years four years many many many of them have had some incredible weddings for under 10 grand yeah but it involves it involved friends pitching in moms cooking stuff for the reception. I mean, it involved all kinds of different things you can do. You don't have to do that. You're not doing anything morally wrong or financially wrong

if you just say the budget's $20,000 and we're going to hire it all out. That's okay. But my point is that you can have a really nice wedding for $20,000. And one thing that helps me in these moments of spend and feel guilty is if you you had this $25,000 budget and you decide to roll it down to 18.5 make sure you take that gap money and you apply it to one of these things on the back end like I'm going to use this for a car I'm going to use this for those things and so you'll feel like you're getting ahead and you're getting this great wedding but I'm like you Dave we've i've seen some pretty inventive and creative weddings over

the last couple years because of covid and they're awesome and they're all still married and they're not a hundred thousand dollars in the hole no no you don't i mean no you don't borrow for a wedding no no no no no no no but she's not doing that she's not doing that she's what a great young lady very Very credible. This is the Ramsey show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney show. If you've not tuned into his podcast, you need to.

It's pretty fun. And you'll learn some stuff about yourself and about others and about relationships. It's good stuff. Number one, bestselling book on Own Your Past, Change Your Future as well. And, John, you have a big hit on your hands. These questions for human cards, they have become a thing. They are definitely a thing. Having a blast.

They're selling like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And why do we need questions for humans cards? Because we have lost the skill. I'm not even going to say it's a character issue or some kind of you're a loser. We've lost the skill of being in the presence of other real humans and not waiting for our turn to speak, but actually listening to somebody and actually posing good questions and engaging in dialogue.

We still know how to do it anymore. And that's fine. That's where we are. Let's figure it out. Yeah. So because my guess is we've learned to text. We text each other. We email each other.

We fight each other. We argue. We thumbs down each other. We have a lot of arguments. Especially on social media where we have much more courage. And here's another crazy thing that's emerged. The number of parents who thought that their kids don't want to talk to them or the number of kids who think my grandparents don't

want to talk to me or my parents just don't want to interact with me. And so you've got people passing each other in the night and parents would do anything to sit down and have a great conversation with their kid. I mean, kids would do anything to have parents put their stupid phones down look them in the eye and ask them um some deep important questions or just some fun questions some laughter questions so um that's what these questions for humans are doing man and it's it's it's it's been incredible like i would never in a million years would have anticipated the response yeah the sales are off we have trouble keeping them in the stock but we we've got them, and we've got decks for everyone. If you're dating, if you're a married couple, if you've got a girls' night event,

a guys' night event, parents and kids, friends edition, and they're flying off the shelves. And so it's just a conversation starter, and they're a lot of fun. Again, a lot of them are humorous. A lot of them are stuff like, you know, what's your first car? What's the dumbest thing you ever did in high school? What are all these kind of stuff, right? So all these decks will get you spending time laughing and learning and

actually looking at each other instead of its screen so pick up one two or even more of the questions for human conversation cards conversation starters uh little deck of cards is what they are and you can get them at ramsey solutions.com slash humans and notice it's not an app it's not an app it's a physical product with your screen it's not on your phone yes it's humans looking at other humans i just think that's an important thing yeah yeah we actually toyed with that man because it'd be so much easier and cheaper just to throw it online and but man there's something powerful about putting your phones in your purse or in your in your back pocket and pulling these things out yep yep yep yep open phones at 888-825-5225 colby is in greenville south carolina hi colby how are you hey guys how are you thanks for taking my

call sure um so my husband and i are in baby steps four five and six we have two kids and we are really wanting to also pay off our mortgage so we're wondering how do we split um like our extra income between 529 investing for our boys and paying off our home there's no perfect formula but what i have always done when I'm working with customers like you, or I'm looking at it for myself is I'm trying to say, okay, how old are these kids and how much have I got to have to get them going into college? I got to at least have a good start there, right? I got to, I got to see a way they can go to school debt free.

And so if you've got a three year old and you want to do $50 a month for now and then attack the mortgage a little more aggressively, fine. If you've got a 16-year-old and you've got no money for their college, you're probably not putting anything towards the mortgage much right now because you're probably going to be trying to catch that war chest up that's really, really thin. Does that make really really thin does that make sense it does yes it does and and and or i gotta have a plan i gotta have a way i'm gonna get there my husband was in the military my wife was in the military so i got gi bill or i've got this or i've got that but the plan can't be student loans right

so how old are your kids and how many um Two, four years old, and one year old. And what's your household income? It should be about $200 this year. And how much do you owe on your home? $157 as of yesterday. Okay. If I were in your shoes, I would set up $50 to $100 a month with my SmartVestor Pro on each of these kids and their 529s just to check the emotional box

and start to build the muscle that I'm actually saving for college. But we're really not saving much money right now. And then I would use your fabulous income and pay off this tiny little mortgage you have really fast. And then you can circle back and easily finish out funding the college. You got plenty of runway here, plenty of plenty of yeah runway and i'll tell you i i think and dave tell me if i'm wrong here but the fact that you can get this thing paid off in two years 18 months i love the idea of almost deciding let's be just a hair under a gazelle intense just to get this thing done and then let's let's live our let's have a fun life that's what me and my wife i mean i i like

that plan if you can do it in this tiny little window there's something about let's just sprint and get it done yeah it's right the finish line's in sight you can do a lot of stuff you know it's you you find energy a burst of energy in the last last mile of the race so that you can do that that that's good there's nothing wrong with that at all. The whole thing is just be thoughtful. And I would not ever tell you to do zero towards kids' college because I want you to start building that muscle and start to have that system and process in place, even though mathematically we're not really doing that much yet.

Okay. It's kind of like when you first start giving, sometimes you just start giving a small amount to start to build your generosity muscle and then over time you'll increase your giving to uh to a much greater level think of it this way it's about the identity shift we talk about i'm a person who saves for my kids college and it might just be 50 bucks this time because i'm also a person that doesn't owe anybody anything and we're going to sprint towards that. It's just an identity. I'm a person who gives. And the other thing is we are going to see in this coming 15 years

more of an upheaval in higher education than in any 15-year period in recent memory. I 100% agree with that. There's going to be a price war. There's going to be a come to Jesus with the culture on quit teaching stupid butt stuff that's not usable in the marketplace. There's going to be people are going to quit. I hope they quit paying for prestige that doesn't have any results um uh you know we we have taken the for the last many 15 year periods we have taken the uh the the common sense off of education

yeah we've lost our we're dumb about education which is actually an irony of iron we've made it about dollars and cents instead of common sense well not even i mean we don't even look at the dollars and cents. We just go, whatever it costs. No, I'm not saying us. I'm saying the business. Oh, yeah. The higher ed people did.

They've been cleaning up. So all of you ought to be watching Borrowed Future, our award-winning documentary. It was one of the top documentaries year before last, and still very valid. But you're in good shape. You're in good shape. You in good shape you're going to be just fine colby you're doing all the right stuff but um the the epic student loan crisis

is not over yeah we continue to make the stupid student loans everybody's talking about around about how bad they are we had to forgive them but we keep making keep doing it man which is so intellectually dishonest it's unbelievable But that's the definition of Congress, intellectually dishonest. And so, you know, if Congress had, you know, if you really cared about America, you'd quit making these loans that are destroying America. I mean, it's just dumb. You're killing the next generation and the next generation. And even if they made an announcement, I've been thinking about how do you how do you unwind this even if they made an announcement kind of like they they made an announcement about um in 2020 whatever we we expect this many electric vehicles and in 2020 whatever we expect this much water reduction

whatever if you said in five to seven seven years we're done college y'all have seven years to figure this out you got five years you got three years to figure out your life without this. But we're going to stop putting these loans out. That's more likely than doing what I would do, which is just shut it off. Shut the spigot off, yeah. I'll just go, yeah, y'all have had enough. Y'all got enough. It's good.

We're good. Now figure it out. But that probably is not going to happen, so you're okay. You don't have to panic. Entire college towns would dry up if I did that so that's probably not a good idea this is the ramsey show dr john deloney ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage, Jack and Brittany are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Hi there. Good. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. Welcome. Where do you live? We live in Houston, or correction, Cypress, Texas, just north of Houston, Texas. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. All the way up here to do a debt-free scream.

How much did you pay off? We paid off $338,405. Excellent. How long did this take? About seven years and 10 months. Good for you guys. I love it. And your range of income during that time? We started about $107,000 and with a second job we are now about $200 200, maybe a little over. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I work in the fire department as a firefighter, and my wife's an elementary school teacher. Oh, cool.

What grade do you teach? Third grade. Oh, fun. Good for you. Thanks for being there. Thank you. We need people like you out there right now. Good stuff.

Well done. What kind of debt was this? $338,000 over seven years. Is that the house? It is. Yeah. It is. yeah. Woo! It is. It was a couple of small credit cards, some things we bought for that house,

vehicle loans, and then, of course, last and not least, the mortgage. I love it. Look at it, Weird People. How old are you two? I'm 36, and she turns 21 Thursday. Thank you. I'll be 35 on thursday happy birthday thank you way to go what's the house worth uh about 450 000 maybe you know maybe more 38 bids later i don't know and you own it and you're not even 40 i love it you guys are amazing congratulations thank you so seven years ago you're in your 20s and you decide you're not even 40 i love it you guys are amazing congratulations thank you so seven years

ago you're in your 20s and you decide you're going to be weirdos and pay off your house before you're 40 tell me about this story how'd you get connected to ramsey how'd you start this process um we were introduced to financial peace through my sister and brother-in-law um started watching the videos and just made the decision that we were ready to change our lives. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a love math. I love numbers. So when we started looking at a bigger house as we grew our family, that started to scare me a bit. So I didn't really know if we could afford it and that kind of thing with growing the family and child care and groceries and going out to eat and all that stuff. So, I mean, that's kind of how we got connected.

We haven't ever really been bad with money. We're just disorganized, if you can say that. Okay. But going into financial peace, you just said game on. Yeah, we did um yeah we we we laid out the the plan um as you said it and um it just went from there yeah you know the weird thing is is that our data on people going through financial peace is they average paying off their home in about seven years uh the average millionaire pays off their home in 11 years, and the average millionaire listening to our stuff is 10.2 years. So that's actual hard data.

The other stuff's anecdotal, the earlier one. But you guys fit the mold exactly. So well done. You're well on your way to being millionaires. Also, so how much is in your retirement accounts? Well, with the recent downturn of the market, that put us just under um so so you're millionaires yes yes you are yeah okay and as soon as the market turns back up a little you will be again yeah we're just just under the mark way to go guys and you're not even 40 baby step millionaires

i love it and i'm just a fireman, and I'm just a teacher. I could never make it. By the way, the number three occupation of people who become millionaires is teacher. And so, wow. Y'all are the fun ruiners. You're the excuse takers. Yeah. Anybody who's out there whining, I teach third grade. I'm a millionaire, but I'm 35. Exactly.

Yeah. how were you able to be a fireman without like a huge f-350 all jacked up in a hundred thousand dollar truck on payments how were you able to make it man yes uh it was it was tough they gave it to you huh as we we got nor uh further towards the end of our journey you know our income is a lot we're throwing a lot at the house and um you know new trucks right right there driving into the station every single so it's rough and they let you have it too huh oh yeah yeah they did they did they're not millionaires they don't have a paid for house that's true you keep your dad gum truck all right i love it that's just awesome man wow way to go how's it feel it feels great yeah it feels great you gotta be a captain of your own

destiny man i mean you're incredible yeah it does this this month uh well no probably maybe a month or two ago it's probably it's finally set in we paid the house off january 20 uh 24th i believe and uh we really haven't had you know january i wreck we we do a lot of dirt bike riding as a hobby so our headquarters had a wreck hurt my knee i had to repair the bike and things like that and then um ac went out in the house of course two months after we paid it off so just things like that happened so it wasn't till about april or may when we really started we don't have any plans for this extra money now you know that kind of thing so imagine 10 years ago versus when your air conditioner went out this time it was just

annoying it was it was annoying yes it wasn't what are we going to do you're not looking at two little boys saying what are we going to do right yeah that's made the process so easy and that's with anything i mean with gas going up to five dollars a gallon just about i mean it's just an inconvenience for us really it doesn't stop us from doing uh what we enjoy you know and uh and um and you know we're still investing and saving and and and just cruising right along giving you know that's one thing that we've really um that we've really noticed is is it's just it's huge yeah what we can give back yeah it's fantastic guys very cool good for you guys thank you well done well done we're proud of you all right you brought the kiddos with you what are their names and ages bring them up we have trevor who's 11

and owen that's eight all right very good good job good job all right what was the hardest part of this for you guys i mean you know we didn't have very many arguments over it you know we both were pretty you know together on doing it um but that's i mean no real hard part except for just sticking with it you know and and waiting for that light at the end of the tunnel yeah like i said earlier i was a numbers guy so i i wanted to throw just about every penny we had at at and then, of course, at the house. So, you know, we had a few disagreements about what we put in the envelopes each week or each month. We do ours every week. But we had a few disagreements then,

and she helped work me, loosen up a little bit and release some of that grocery money and fun money and things like that. Absolutely. Well, you should buy your own Baby Steps 4 through 7. Both those boys do have shoes on, so that's good. Way to go, you guys. All right. What do you tell people the biggest key to getting out of debt is?

I think it's like the other debt-free scream said earlier, the budget and communication. You know, when we started, we were writing it down, and now, you know, we've kind of gone electronically. But communicating and having those discussions, being content with what you have, and I think it all comes back down to the to the budget and and we you know we didn't stop spending we just put it down on paper and organized it and and still you know still did our our our snow trips um you know once we got out of our consumer debt and still did

um some disney trips and things like that but uh intentional but we just save for it you know it took us a year to save for it but we save for it you know and so and just making the money behave all the way that's it ever go back in debt uh no sir no sir no not even for an f-150 i got i got close uh and i don't know how much time we got left but i got super close and almost made a mistake a very small mistake and taking another loan and uh and my wife and Brittany, she snapped me back real quick. I didn't save for a year for Disneyland for you to get a death loan fee. That's right. I love it.

Way to go, you guys. All right, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires at Financial Peace University. And total money makeover for you. Count it down. $338,000 house and everything. baby steps, millionaires in seven years. Make it $107,000 to $200,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! That's how it's done this is the ramsey show dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225 if you're a new listener and we know there's a whole bunch of you out there that are, and some of this that we talk about is like tribal speak,

the vernacular that we're using, the words we're using are new to you, like baby steps and dead snowballs and all that kind of stuff. If you want to kind of figure out where you are and start to plug into this whole thing, completely free, go to RamseySolutions.com. Click on the Get Started button. RamseySolutions.com. Click on the Get Started button. And, you know, that'll get you moving in the right direction,

get you where you're supposed to be. So our question of the day comes from Neighborly. It's sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services to repair, maintain, improve our home. Researching dozens of providers is a thing of the past. Neighborly is all you need to remember a nationwide network of local home service pros of all kinds. We love Neighborly. We're honored that they're sponsoring us.

Molly Maid, Mr. Rooter, Mr. Electric, to name just a few. Just really good stuff. neighborly.com and you can get some help near you all right today's question comes from molly in oregon molly writes my husband makes thirty thousand dollars a month take home well done and i'm fortunate enough to stay home with my daughter we have zero debt our rent is $2,100 a month and utilities are fairly cheap. We have visited Maui several times and are planning on making a move there. The thing is, I feel like even though we have no debt and a paid off car and everything, we are still scared to go into debt on a house. We're waiting for a good deal and think we found something really nice around $900,000.

We're making a trip out to see the house at the end of this month and if that doesn't work out, we have a property we think we might buy and build a house on for about the same price. Are we too scared to spend money? We've just been at a point in our life when we first got together where we struggled so much. And I think we both just get scared of being there again. Yeah. I mean, that's that story in my life.'ve, you've really helped me with that one, Dave. Um, I think when your identity is survival and I say it sounds identity when your body's trying to survive all the time, um, that, that you just develop a scarcity mindset. This all goes away in any second. Um, and then we live in a world that tells us it's all coming down. It's all coming down. It's all coming down. And so and so it's really easy thirty thousand dollars a month is a ton of money and um they still live like they're broke right they're still renting um it's just this terror that's in there um and you taught me dave that in my language

you got to practice your way out of this thing and for me the gift that you gave me was practicing using ratios and to stop looking at um like, for a couple that went broke, $900,000 feels like a billion, right? Let's look at the ratios. Let's look at the costs. Let's look at the actual percentages of things. And that's given me a lot of peace and allowed me to practice a new way of doing life. Well, it helps you use your intellect, your brain, to make the decision on facts. It's bringing my brain back online.

Yeah, I'm using facts instead of feelings. That's right. Because what happens is there's two things that cause, two situations, and they usually go together, actually. Number one, if you've gone broke, like I have, or like she has in this situation. You have to heal from that. And the only way you heal from that, move from this I'm always going to be broke mentality to I'm never going to be there again mentality is you have to practice and you have to do new things. The second thing that happens is when you start and you are making $30,000 a year

and then you're making $30,000 a month, what happens is the math grew faster than your emotional capacity. $30,000 a year, and then you're making $30,000 a month. What happens is the math grew faster than your emotional capacity to manage that. Now, I'm not saying you don't have the intellectual capacity to manage the money. I'm saying that, you know, I'll give you an example. Around here at Ramsey, okay, I mean, I grew up a normal kid, right? And I worked my butt off cutting grass and doing everything else, shoveling whatever had to be shoved all this kind of stuff right and what we spend on coffee at ramsey with 1100

employees i i never made that much in a year right and we spent it on coffee oh my god you know i mean it's just like to get my emotional head around those numbers sometimes i have it's an intellectual exercise you know what we spend on copier paper in a building that's just like because of the scale right you know and it's like and we're not doing anything wrong it's nothing irresponsible the coffee's not ridiculous it's not starbucks i mean like starbucks and so uh but it's just it's not it's not inexpensive coffee it's not expensive it's just good coffee but you know it's not that it's just it's not it's not inexpensive coffee it's not expensive it's just good coffee but you know it's not that it's just there's a lot of it right and so the same thing's true when you're buying a uh you know you've been driving a five thousand dollar eight

thousand dollar car that breaks down and the tires are bare for the majority of your life to emotionally buy a fifty thousand dollar car even if you're worth $10 million. It doesn't matter. It's a difficult decision because you feel like weird. Yeah. Because your emotions are not used to sitting in that car. Your nose is not used to smelling that smell, you know, the new car smell. It doesn't come up. Well, for us, so for Sheila and I, when we bought our house in Texas,

I had a great job. I had a great job. She had a great job. I could not believe that a human being would spend this much money on a house. Dave, I didn't sleep for two or three days. Couldn't breathe. When we bought it and we closed, we went in with the key, opened it up. Sheila fell to the floor crying. She could never have believed that she could live in such opulence.

And we sold the house and I made enough money to pay cash for like a fifteen thousand dollar truck so we made a little money on it and we got 185 for it and then we moved to nashville and you you can't buy somebody's you can't i mean here's the thing i had and uh i'll use the word sinfully I had lumped people who buy houses that cost this much money into those are those people. We're these people. People like us. I had divided the world up into us's and them's in an unfair way. Sometimes people do that on race. Sometimes they do it on education level, on religion.

Sometimes they do it based on the fact they've been broke or they grew up broke. A friend of mine grew up in the hood, and and he said getting out of the hood's easier than getting the hood out of you uh-huh you know and that's the truth that's the thing and so the the what we're saying is every one of us have had down times or broke times or made more money than we were made in our life and it is it is normal for your emotions to struggle to catch up so molly you're normal yes by the house yes the way you fix this is you you have to do what john says about trauma of any kind you have to say facts are your friends these fears are irrational and so if you have six hundred thousand dollars cash in your bank account and you want to buy a $15,000 car and you have a weird feeling, it ain't the math, Bubba.

It's you. And acknowledge the feeling. Acknowledge it. I have a little thing that I write them down. I still write them down. Yeah. When they're obnoxious and they're dumb, I write them down and then we move on. Yeah, because it takes the power away from them.

That's right. Stacey's in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Stacey. How are you? Hi, I'm fine. Thank you so much for taking my call. Good. I'm very honored toacey's in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Stacey. How are you? Hi, I'm fine. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm very honored to speak with you both. You too. What's up?

So we have a daughter who's in college, and then our younger twins who will be going off to college in the fall. And we had a very lengthy, not your normal baby step to you and it's left us with a house that needs repair on everything and so i was my question for you is would it financially make sense to just sort of um get rid of the house as is, you know, sell it to one of those companies that just takes it off your hands. No, they take it off your hands at wholesale. You need to call a good real estate agent and have them come in and say,

there's ten things you could do. Six of them are worth the money. The other four you need to let the other people do, whatever it is, okay? But if you'll spend the money on paint on landscaping on the recarpet it's going to 2x your return when you get ready to sell the house and you're going to get the enjoyment of it so you need to make a list of projects the way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time that your real estate agent your future real estate agent gives you the priority on this is the most important one down to the least important one

and work your way down those projects with cash and then some of them you don't need to do because they're not worth doing. We'll let the next owner do it, but it's a retail buyer, not a we buy houses buyer. So we buy houses buyers, a wholesale buyer, and you don't need to take that hit because you don't have the energy to fix this house. Get the house fixed up, get a real estate agent to guide you through it, Get multiple bids. Prioritize it. Work one project at a time. You don't have to do them all at once and you don't go into debt to do this. So good question. You're on your way. You're on your way, Stacey. You're closer than you feel like our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone it's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app

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