The Ramsey Show - App - What’s the Best Way To Invest Right Now? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

George Kamel & Ken Coleman discuss: The best way to invest, Moving to California, How to stop using credit cards. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving in storage studios, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined today by my colleague and good friend, Mr. Ken Coleman, bestselling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show. And we're here for you, America. We're taking your calls about life, money, career, toxic bosses, moving across the country, switching jobs, paying off some debt. Let's go. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. That's 888-825-5225. We're getting started with Chloe in Idaho. That's where she is. Chloe, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for taking my call. It's so great to talk to you guys. You're such great mentors to me.

Oh, we appreciate that. How can we help today? Ken is very flattered. Yes, very nice. Thank you. So I just wanted to give a little background on myself before I ask my question. So I'm 18 years old, and I recently graduated high school in May, and I'm currently in my first semester of college, and I'm raising money through scholarships and doing that for college. And I want to be not getting in debt. I'm trying to save as much money as I can so I can prevent myself from getting in debt. And my question is, I want to start saving now for

my future. And what do you think is the best option for me as an 18 year old? Well, Chloe, you are wise beyond your years. Where did you even pick up all this stuff? Well, my family loves you guys in the Dave Ramsey show. My grandpa absolutely loves you. He's a great mentor to me. He would sit each of us down, us grandkids, and teaches about budgeting and the importance of not being in debt. Way to go. Well, I love that you're studying. You're going to college. What are you studying there? For my undergrad, I'm doing communication sciences and disorders, and I'm trying to get my master's degree after that in speech-language pathology, and hopefully a doctor's degree if I'm feeling up to it.

Wow. Taking it all the way. What do you want to do with that? Do you want to be a speech pathologist? Yes, yes. Cool. So this sounds to me like you've got a lot of school ahead of you, which means you have a lot to cash flow. Yes. Cool. So this sounds to me like you've got a lot of school ahead of you, which means you have a lot to cash flow. Yes. And guess what else that means. It might mean we are not investing until we are done with school.

Okay. It's hard to focus on three things at once, because what happens is you start to cash flow school, but now you're investing, but now you don't have the money to cash flow school, so then we go into student loan debt, and then we can't invest later in life because we have student loan debt. Do you see how you're kind of the dog's wagging the tail here? Right. Yes, definitely. So I can feel in

your heart that you are, you want to get started investing and you're young and you want to make the most of the time. We're always preaching about getting started early with investing, but you have a lot of time ahead of you. And I have no worries that you're going to be a multi-millionaire if you follow this path. If you wait, cashflow college, once we have a full-time job, then we can go hard investing 15% and focus on paying off our house and giving generously. All right. How does that sit with you? I appreciate all of it. Is that not what you wanted to hear? It's pretty well. I mean, I would have loved to start now and just keep pushing at that goal, but if I have to wait, then I will wait.

Once you've got it all cash flowed, then you can start looking at that. But right now, are you working full-time while you're in school? Where's your income coming from? It's part-time. I'm working at Taco Bell currently right now. Cool. And I'm also babysitting as well. Awesome. Well, I would focus all of that energy on cash flowing school. Would you agree, Ken? Yes. And I would also caution you, Chloe, to not just assume that getting a doctorate or a graduate level degree is the best move. Now, it depends on which direction you're going. And you have a

pretty clear, it sounds like a general direction. But I really want you to be patient and be diligent. Patient to, number one, get through the stage that you're in now. Diligent to look into, okay, what is the best path for me to go forward? And if I've got to have that graduate level degree, I have to, meaning there's no way to do what I want to do without it, then I'm going to do it. But do you always have to, you know, go from four-year to graduate level right away? Just, you know, I literally spoke to doctoral students at Vanderbilt recently. And honestly, I thought it was a mistake that they asked me to come speak to him because I'm Mr. Education isn't the only way. If it's not the only way or

the best way, don't do it. I'm Mr. College is an experience just makes me want to throw up. If you got to do it, go for it. But just, I want to go to college. I think it's a complete waste of time and money. I know. I know. Freak some people out. But I'm an efficient guy. But they asked me to come and speak to them, Chloe, because these doctoral students at Vanderbilt, these are smart people. By the way, it was in the area of sciences and all this kind of stuff. You know why they had me speak to them?

Why is that? Because they had no freaking idea what they wanted to do with their career. But they're getting doctorates. They just kept going to one more school. wanted to do with their career. But they're getting doctorates. They bring in the simple guy who doesn't even have a degree, period. And they want me talking to all the smart eggheads. Why?

They're just getting a degree to keep staying in school and there is a growing movement here. So that's a big, long speech to say, hey, you're 18. You're extremely young. Your entire life is ahead of you. George's financial advice is absolutely spot on. But I would just add, hey, you're 18. You're extremely young. Your entire life is ahead of you. George's financial advice is absolutely spot on. But I would just add, hey, let's continue to keep our eyes up, head on a swivel. Where do we really want to go? Why do we want to go there? What's the best way

to get there? Is there only one way to get there? And then you make those financial decisions based on what is going to allow me to get where I want to go. So the investing will take care of itself. But don't overcommit and don't assume that you've got to go get all this high education. That's all I want you to hear. That's like my little dad speech because I've got kids your age. All right? All right.

Thank you so much for that advice. I appreciate it. You bet. Thanks for that soapbox. I enjoyed that. But it's so true because you hear, I'm going to get my master's, I'm going to get my PhD, and you go, Sloat, can we get a job for a little bit and get some experience while we're at it? It's a lot of time and it's a lot of freaking money. And yet we tend to remove logic from education conversations. But every parent I

know would go, now wait a second, if they were going to spend $100,000 on a car, and they come home and go, hey, I want to buy that new Tesla that George is driving, and it's $100,000. Your parents would go, wait a second, whoa, slow your roll. Terrible idea. But you come home and go, I want to go to college. I'm going to spend four years, and I'm going to come out of debt,

and $125,000. They go, attaboy, dad's so proud of you. There's an assumption that it's always a great investment. You know why? Because it's a great status symbol, George. We throw logic out the window because, well, it's a status symbol. You can't go wrong with a degree you can't use and you can't afford. Are you saying that parents use this to improve their own reputation

by going, well, my daughter, she she got a phd ken i don't think it's as insidious as that that's the cultural message that parents have now taken on as the norm meaning we've digested it we go oh well i mean you got to go from high school to college we look down our nose at the trades how many parents are excited to go to the block party and go hey we're really excited for buster jr he decided to skip four-year college and go to the local plumber trade school. But you should be that proud if that's what Buster Jr. If Junior's making $70,000 straight out of trade school, no doubt. Forget about the money for a second.

What if Buster Jr. likes working with his hands and serving people and fixing problems? And it gives him great joy. And Lord knows we need plumbers, Ken. I can't turn a wrench to save my life. Neither can I. So there's dignity in all types of work, and college is not always the answer, and student loan debt is never the answer.

So let's make some wise decisions here. Let's move slowly and talk to your kids about this stuff. Don't let them wander into this. That's how you create the nightmare we're in today. This is The Ramsey Show. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel. Joined this hour by Ken Coleman.

We are taking your calls about life, money, career, the pursuit of happiness, impact, and income. It's all here on The Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Patty joins us up next in Austin, Texas. Patty, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. What's going on? So we have a decision to make as a family.

We are currently staying in Austin. We bought a home. We closed the home last year in November. So we have been staying in this house for since March of this year. My wife got a new job offer in California and we were wondering if moving to California, does it make sense based on the salary hike that she's getting? And if yes, then what do we need to do with this house? We don't want to sell it. So does renting this house make sense?

Okay. So excitement level on a scale of one to 10, one being no excitement, 10 being throwing a party. How excited is your wife? And then how excited are you about the potential of moving to California for this job? I think my wife is pretty excited, not because it's California, just because of the role that she's getting. She likes the company and everything, and I think it's going to be a good growth project for her going forward. Okay. In that sense, she's pretty excited. And I'm also very supportive of her because in my job I can work from anywhere so just financially does it make sense?

That's the question Well, so on the financial piece break it down for George and I so what's the cost of living increase? From her standpoint is she getting a nice bump in salary? Right, so I'll walk you through our current situation and the situation in

California. So all in gross income. So right now I make 140,000. She makes 125,000 base. Plus each of us in total would make, are making close to 29,000 in bonuses each year. So total income, you can say 294,000 right now in Texas. When we move to California, I'm assuming my salary is going to stay the same. That's the worst scenario, right? So I'll be making same 140 days, but she is getting 195,000 in California. Plus, bonus structure will remain the same,

but because her base is increasing, so the bonus would be around $33,500. So, total would be $368,000. Plus, she's also getting stocks, and yearly the stock listing is close to $100,000. So we're talking about a 70K bump in income. And so then it comes down to the math of we know the taxes are going to be higher, the cost of living is going to be higher in California. Does that equate to under $70,000? To where it's still a net win for you guys?

So even when I put, so in this assumption, I'm thinking that our current home would go on rent. So even in that terms, if I make that assumption, I would, we would be saving close to $10,400 more compared to what we do here yearly in California. How much do you owe on the home in Austin? Close to $340. What's it worth if you sold it today? I checked Redstone. It says $525.

Okay. And then what price point have you done your homework on homes and what they cost in the area where you guys are going to be living? I don't think I'm going to buy property in California so soon. So we would be renting at least for next couple of years in California for sure. If I'm in your shoes, I am selling your property in Austin. I'm with George. For a few reasons.

Number one, being a long-distance landlord is a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And number two, you guys aren't in a financial position. Obviously the income is great, but you're going to be paying rent on top of hoping that you have a responsible tenant who pays on time that can pay the mortgage, right? That's always, I put that in air quotes. You can't see unless you're watching, but that's the part that worries me. And so I would get, I know it's, it's, there may be a stupid tax involved here because you guys just moved in recently. And so after realtor fees, and it may not have appreciated that much, you're going to have to pay capital gains on the profits as well.

Because you've only been there for a few months, correct? Yeah, so I mean, she's still after joining the job, so she still has six months to eight months to move to California. So I think we can stay one year in this property and make it a long-term capital gain instead of okay that's better at least yeah so i'm still selling it i think you guys will leave with uh what 160 and change in equity right that can help kickstart your journey in california and if you're in california long term you're going to want to buy something, even though it's insane. And that might mean you save up $600,000 with your amazing income and buy a $900,000 property years from now. Okay.

And another thing that I was thinking, what if we pay off this property? Does it make sense to hold on this property and rent it out or still paying off doesn't make sense? You're still a long-distance landlord the question is when you're in california would you go buy a house in austin to rent out right yeah the answer is probably no no and so i think the time to be a real estate investor is once we can pay cash for another property and our current home is paid off and you guys can do i with this income, it won't take long for you guys to do that. If you keep living on less than you make, you're clearly very intentional. You're a super smart guy. And so I think you can get there. But right now, that wouldn't be my go-to. I have a follow-up question, Patty. Is this a

hybrid model? Even if you were to move to California, will she be required to be in the office every day? Do you know that? Because I know she's working remote for a season in Austin. Yeah, she has to be in office. It's a manufacturing company. Gotcha. All right. Okay. And you've looked at rent in that area that's close by to her work? Yeah. So worst come worst, it would be like, if we go for a single family home, it would be around $4,200. Okay. But we can move into apartment. I mean, we have been staying in apartment from past 15 years.

As long as that rent is about 25% of your take-home pay, that leaves you with plenty of margin to live the rest of your life, invest 15% of your income into retirement, pay off the house early. Do you guys have kids? No. Okay. Did she get recruited on this or did she go seek this position? of your income into retirement, pay off the house early. Do you guys have kids? No, no kids. Okay. Did she get recruited on this or did she go seek this position? She got recruited. She has a pretty good experience in launching on electric vehicles.

She used to work for Tesla before this. Okay. Let me ask you this. This is a very quick point, but I got to know, if a company in Texas had called and offered the same position, and so you have now one in Texas and one in California, which one would,

let's say it was the same thing, which one would you all take? Texas. Yeah, I got to tell you um when someone recruits you it feels really good it does it feels good to be wanted um right but i i just wonder if long-term financially if you guys if she doesn't go all right what if i look for something in a different state that's not as expensive what if i look for something in the te state that's not as expensive? What if I look for something in the Texas area and I can further my career in Texas? You don't have to take every good offer because I just want to throw it out there. I'm not in any way trying to talk you out of going

to California at all. I'm not anti-California, but I'm being very realistic on the financial implications of moving to California to do something that she can do in another state. So if it were me, I would be sitting down going, okay, if we want to move up, can we move up in other places? Do we have to take this opportunity, which is a good opportunity? I don't know that this is a great opportunity. You may think it is, and if you think it is, then do it. But I at least wanted to put that out there. Are they paying any relocation costs or paying for any visits? Oh, yeah, they're covering everything. They're covering everything and just giving us $10,000 more for miscellaneous stuff.

Oh, yeah, that's good. I'd go visit for sure and check out the area, figure out what the different neighborhoods are, where you want to rent, and that'll make you feel a little more peace about the move in case you do it. But I think to Ken's point, it doesn't have to happen. And so think about the future and what you guys it. But I think to Ken's point, it doesn't have to happen. And so think about the future and what you guys want to do long-term as well. I just have so many friends that are moving here in our state where we have no state income tax

and the amount of money they are making by simply moving out of a high-tax state. It's realistic. Even taking a pay cut sometimes. Or to your point, George, how much money and how long it takes to save up money to just buy a house in a state like that where real estate is so high. You've got to think about the big picture. Well, they have a great shovel at least, and that helps with this whole situation. Absolutely. Way to go. This is The Ramsey Show. The This is The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Camel. Next to me, my friend Ken Coleman. We are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. But we interrupt the scheduled programming to bring to you a debt-free scream on the stage. We've got Dave and Holly. How are you? Good. How are you?

Where are you guys from? Outside Philadelphia. Wonderful. The city of brotherly love. Oh, Ken's a big history buff. He can go all day about the Liberty Bell. Don't get him started. So, guys, all the way here to do a debt-free scream.

How much debt did you pay off? Yes, sir. We paid off $117,335 in 28 months. Wow. And what was your range of income during that time? We were right around $120,000. Awesome. What do you guys do for a living?

My primary profession is a teacher, teach health and phys ed at our local high school. And then also I work at our church and also paint and power wash on the side wow busy guy can i just say quickly george that it's nice to see a pe phys ed teacher that looks the part yes that is true i actually just say i chuckled a little bit in my mind because i went he actually looks the part yeah for once if i'm a senior or junior who's got a bad attitude about push-ups i I'm going to pay it. Then this guy looks like he's done a few. I could outrun all my PE teachers growing up. So this guy I could not outrun. My PE teachers growing up couldn't get up the stairs.

Were you going to say you can't fit in my skinny jeans? I was. I was. That's a sick burn. Hey, George, one of your legs is all of George's jean combined. That's what's going on. Chicken-like Coleman over here. Well, guys, back to your story.

That's what we're here for. So what type of debt was the $117,000? Before we say that, my wife is also a ministry coordinator at our church. Oh, nice. That's great. You guys are plugged in. We are. That's awesome.

You get to work together in that capacity. Sometimes. Yeah, it's awesome. That's cool. Yeah. So our debt was primarily student loans. We had $8,800 in our car, and then the rest was all student loans. Wow.

Yeah. Heavy on the student loans. Whose degrees were they? Well, mostly mine, because I was a nurse for 10 years before I quit and started working for our church. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Cool. Okay, so you guys decided 28 months ago, we're not going to wait around for forgiveness.

We're just going to get rid of this thing. How did you get started on this journey and plugged into us? Well, um, the summer before in 2019, we, I'm a like saver and, um, he's more of a free spirit in that aspect. So he was like, let's build a paper patio. And I was like, great, let's do it. Do we have the money? And he was like, yeah, yeah, we'll be fine. And I'm like, okay, great. So we got into the project and then we realized maybe we weren't so fine. And that just sent me into like a panic. And then in January, our church offered financial peace. And I was like, we were both like, we need to do something because one month we would have way over what we needed. And then the next month we wouldn't have like anywhere near what we needed. So we started in January of 2020,

which was such a blessing because that was right before the world shut down. And if we wouldn't have done that, we would have totally panicked and not been able to survive. Wow. That's awesome. Without knowing it, we were Dave-ish. We didn't believe in credit cards. I read one of Dave's books long ago from a friend and I was like, ah, that's good advice. But, you know, education loans, like that's necessary. Like a car loan, that's necessary. And then after taking those classes, we were like, no, this isn't necessary. We know too much now. There's such a better way. Ignorance was bliss. Yes. And then we realized we're broke. Maybe we should learn something. Yeah. That's awesome. So proud of you guys.

So what was the hardest part of this journey for you? I guess the hardest part was the last push. We had several smaller loans that we got that snowball rolling and it felt really good. We had some money saved initially that we were able to throw at it right away. And that kind of gave us like a jumpstart, but the last debt was like over 40,000. And so even as we're rolling our snowball into it, we're like, this feels like it's going to take forever. Um, and so that last push was hard. Um, but it was also fantastic. We had like the little chain set up in our, uh, in our house. so the kids could help us cut off the chains. And we have like little prize chains that we got every 10,000.

We were like, okay, here we're going to do a little celebration. And here we're going to do a little celebration to push through. Wow. Wow. So I want to stay where you are talking about how hard it was. You're talking about the push. If you wouldn't mind, I want you to share maybe both of you. What was specifically,

like really specific, what was so hard in that last push? Was it maybe a fear of missing out? Was it, I mean, I want to know what the real challenge was, whether it was mental, emotional. What was tough for you guys in that last push? Well, I just think like

when you're building momentum, you're excited. You're like, yay, yay. And then it just seemed so big. And so like all of our friends were like, we're doing this. And we're like, we paid off so much. We're so close and yet so far. So our friends always wanted us to do stuff. And we're like, sorry, we're still working hard. So yeah. And it was hard because I mean, the Lord provided lots of opportunities for us, but like he was working all the time. So, cause I mean, he doesn't tell you opportunities for us but like he was working all the time so

because I mean he doesn't tell you he also coaches wrestling and he was like picking up side jobs he'd be like so what are we doing this Saturday and he'd say uh you want to come paint and power wash with me and so that's how we spent a lot of our weekends and the kids came with us so painting and power washing as a family has become you know that's so cool yeah we say more is caught than taught and I bet those kids saw some really cool stuff. With that kind of work ethic and discipline and sacrifice, that sticks with them. Absolutely. I mean, we saw the Lord's provision time and time again.

And not in a, you know, God just gives you money, but in a God-provided opportunities for us to work. And then he gave us the discipline to be able to put it in the right place. Wow. I want to pause there, Ken. This is interesting. The opportunity was not a winning lottery ticket. It was God provided an opportunity for work. Yes. That's interesting. A lot of people don't see that. He's working all the time. And not only is that hard physically,

that gets to be hard mentally and emotionally when you don't see those cute kiddos your beautiful wife and you start going goodness gracious and yet you keep pressing on what is that what is that and you've just walked through it i want you to tell people who feel right now they're where you guys are they still have 40 000 60 000 100 000 left they go we've paid off a lot but it feels like we're never going to get to the top of the mountain. I think you can preach right now. What kept you going? Power washing, painting, never seeing the wife and the kids. I mean, Dave says all the time that no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. And that is

so true. That while in the moment, it's pleasant, you know, that what's on the other side of that is totally worth it. Uh, I think this course and this, this whole program is so aptly named financial peace, um, that you can experience peace outside of finances even in, in all of your life when you know that together as a family, you're heading towards the same goal. Yeah. I think it's important to like, we changed their future and like our future. So like we took all like, our parents were always like, yeah, like, dad is good and it's okay to have dad. You need a credit score. And we, like, we're, like, now in this place where we can say to our kids, that's not where you want to be. Like, you can do this without it.

And so we've been super blessed to be able to, you know, change their lives. And that's, like, the motivator. I love that. We'll bring them up on the stage. What's their names and ages? Who do we got with us today all right we have mara and she is five and this is levi and he's seven cute i love it and they're not scared of work they've been seeing dad and mom hustle on the weekends and they love it guys we're so proud of you thank you we've got a copy of dave's number one book,

Baby Steps Millionaires. That's your next chapter. As you said, changing your family tree, not just financially, but character. And you've seen that and you've walked this walk and we're so proud to have you guys. We also have a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to give away to your friends

who are confused why you couldn't go out and hang out with them and eat out. And you go, this is why. This book changed our life. On top of that, we're going to give you a financial peace university and every dollar all part of Ramsey plus for a whole year. You can give that away or go through it again. We just updated with some new lessons. Maybe the kids can enjoy it too. Yeah. All right. Before we do that, can we just give a shout out real quick to a couple of people? Um, our friends that are with us, Kaylee and Ducky, uh have some folks at home, Aaron and Kelsey, who walked through this with us, and then also Keith and Stacey, who are on

the other side and encouraged us saying, it's good. Get there. I love it. Got to have those cheerleaders. All right, let's get to it. It's Dave and Holly, Levi and Marl from the Philadelphia area. $117,355 paid off in 28 months, making $120K. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo!

Wow, a lot of power from little Mara and Levi over there. They practiced and they performed. They brought it because they were a part of this journey. Love that. So beautiful. That's what this is all about, guys. If you think you can't do it, watch the show. Listen to these stories. These are everyday people just like you who decided things don't have to stay the same. And we believe you can do it too. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me this hour.

The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We're helping you win financially. We'll help you win professionally, help you win relationally. George and I teaming up today on money and work calls. Your greatest wealth building tool is your? Income. Thank you, George, for paying attention.

That's why we're a dream team, Ken. That's right. We're talking about work and money, so if you want to upgrade the gig, get out of a toxic, dead-end situation, I'll help you with that today. And George is here, of course, to answer your money questions. Let's go to Maggie, who joins us in Chicago, Illinois. Maggie,

how can we help? Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call. You bet. I'm really glad it's you instead of Dave today because I had a credit card question. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I've never heard a caller say that before.

This is fantastic. It's the opposite, though. I want to revel in this for just one moment. Okay, that's enough. Dave, are you listening? Okay. Yeah. Well, okay, so here's my question.

I know credit cards are bad. I totally get the philosophy behind it. I 100% get that. But all of our main fixed bills come out the first half of the month. So when we get paid twice a month, if we pay everything the way we're supposed to, we really don't have money left for our day-to-day stuff, our groceries, the kids' stuff that pops up, all that until we would get paid the second half of the month. So what ends up happening is we just kind of put everything on the credit card, do our fixed bills out of the first paycheck and then credit

card and, you know, a couple other things out of the second paycheck. So it works, but I know that I could be saving more money if I wasn't pulling out the plastic, if I had cash for everything. I just can't come up with enough cash to make that work. Does that make sense? It does, but this is just a budgeting issue. Yeah. And you need a little buffer in the checking account, and then we need to start budgeting for those bills.

We know when they're coming in. And you can actually call a lot of these companies and set a certain date of the month when you want to pay those bills. I also wonder, Maggie, before you respond to George on that, is this also an income issue? No, I mean, we're fine. We're debt-free. We're working on paying off the house early.

I just think it's kind of set up in a way. And, I mean, I've always done the bills, so I've always just kind of done the credit card and then just paid that off instead of. And I do take cash out. I should say that too. Um, like the first of the months when we get paid, that's going to be the mortgage and, um, you know, the insurance that we put aside and, um, those kinds of things. And then I do take out like, I take out cash for groceries. I take out cash for, um, you know, some cash, but I feel like I always, there's always something that I'm putting on the credit card anyway, whether it's,

you know, the kids, my kids are in sports. So it's like, Oh, well, you know, we just lost my football gloves at practice. Okay. Well, we got to run out to Dixon, get more batting, you know, football gloves or, you know, there's always something that I end up. So it sounds like there's things outside of the budget that catch you off guard. It is. It's not bills. It is. Cause you said there's certain bills i have yeah and i have a bunch of um like sinking funds so then i will just transfer like we have a kid's account so you know we put the money in the kid's account and then if i if i have to buy those gloves then i'll transfer money over but i

still i just feel like as well as i think we're doing with money, I feel like I still have that problem where if I didn't have the credit card as kind of a catch-all that we would be stuck in certain times of the month. Well, it sounds like this credit card has become a crutch and a safety blanket. Yeah. it. So I think if we cut that bad boy up and we have a little bit of buffer in our checking account and we start to get this budget dialed in, we figure out when the bills are coming in and we use our previous income to pay for future expenses, that would solve all of these problems, right? Yeah. So how does that work? Because we kind of do the zero. My husband always wants to put a little extra in the checking account for that reason. But then I feel like if there's extra in there, then we're going to go through it when we should be at a zero base.

Well, you need some check. Zero base doesn't mean you have $0 in your checking account. It means that you've assigned every dollar a job as far as your income goes. So you definitely need to have a buffer in your checking account. Maybe that's $500. Maybe it's $1,000 buffer in there.

But again, that's on you of self-discipline to go, we're not going to touch it. $1,000 is basically zero. That's our starting point. And I think that will help you alleviate some of these credit card habits to go spending. And make sure Junior doesn't lose his glove. Well, you can't do that, George. I mean, come on. 13-year-old boy, I'm over it. Thank you. She's done with with it you guys want him for the next five years i feel your pain it's on him to pay for that yeah well there you go george like she can't control that he's you know he's got a much better life lose one glove shame on me

lose two shame on you yeah well maggie george has no kids okay he doesn't understand the pain that you and i are dealing with i I understand personal responsibility, Ken. Oh, do you? Do you? Do you? We'll see how you understand that when your kid loses everything. Anyways, Maggie, I think this is part budgeting issue, and it's part a scheduling issue, figuring out when the bills are coming in. So if you know those bills are catching you off guard,

let's schedule them and say, hey, electric company, I want to pay on the 15th instead of the 4th. And you can set all those dates. My husband, we went from a 1st and 15th to his company switched to every other week, which has totally been throwing a wrench in the works because to try and, you know, we have our money that goes out, you know, into savings at a certain time every month and that's become an issue because if he gets paid one day later, it's like, oh, now I got to go back and change everything. Well, you guys are debt free. So why not have one month full of expenses ready to go in the checking account? That way you're not stressing about if you're going to have enough. And so that can be a budgeting strategy that helps a lot of folks to be a whole month ahead.

So you're not wondering if you're going to have enough. But again, the better strategy is to do a rock solid budget, use your previous income from that check is going to pay the future expenses. And I don't want the audience to miss what George said, because it's really true. It's a simple little hack. Most companies will work with you. If you just call them up and go, hey, I'm going to put this on auto pay. They love that. So you've already got them at that point. So here's my debit card. Let's auto pay. But instead of hitting me on the fourth of the month or the third, I'd like you to hit me on the 20th or the 18th if I get paid. They'll work with you on that. Stacey and I have had to do that multiple times because the way we get paid here

as well, it's just kind of like, hey, and it's fine. They'll work with you. And that way you get things a little bit more uniformed and laid out that way. So that's a great hack. And a lot of them let you do it on your own online. So look into that. If not, give them a call, email them, whatever you got to do. You strike me as a guy who has everything auto-paid. 100%. You get a text all the time going,

Mr. Campbell, you've just paid your electric bill. Yes. Now, it's twofold. I put it on auto-pay, but I don't just let it go and not know what my bills are. So I get the email. Yeah, of course. I put everything on auto pay, but I don't just let it go and not know what my bills are. So I get the email. Yeah, of course. I put everything on paperless because you know me, I'm a millennial. I don't want any paper. What do I do with this paper? You really have a bad attitude towards paper. Not here. Even the papers on the desk stresses me out. So I get the email

so I know what the bill is so that I don't get it. You hear that, George? Oh, I can't stand it, Ken. That's the best of the paper. All of America wants you to stop doing that. I don't know. I think the people in the lobby are laughing. They like the sound of the paper crinkling. It's a win. We got to mention putting things on autopilot or on autopay doesn't mean we're not paying

attention. I think that's right. Good point. So we have to know, hey, what's your system? The bill was twice as much this month. You don't want that to sneak up on you. So do you get an email every time? That's what I saying you get an email or text that's what i was assuming you exactly so the electric bill i get the email at the end of the month saying hey here's what

the bill's going to be and i go cool that sounds about right and it's on auto pay so i don't have to think about it i don't have to get you know one of those late collection bills in the mail not dealing with that so i'm a big fan of auto pay, but you got to pay attention still. Yeah. Yeah. And I think when you hear that phone call like that, you know, sometimes people just feel like they have to play by everybody else's rules. And, you know, you don't have to, because companies want to get paid. Your system is broken. And I talked with our friend Craig Rochelle about this on the Entree Leadership Podcast recently. It's time for a new system. And that means replacing the old broken system and the old bad habits and replacing it with good, healthy habits. And that might mean having a buffer in the checking account. It may

mean scheduling your bills to hit on a certain day. And it's those simple little things that really give you confidence in the plan and go, oh, I can do this thing. I can cut up the cards. I don't need them. They were a crutch. They were a safety blanket. So if that's you, America, it's time for a new system. Well, and the theme here is underneath all of this is that you can control certain things. Take control of what you can control. And you can control your budget. You can control

your planning. You can control the date by which you pay the bills. These are all things that you can control. And that's really the Ramsey message at its core. I mean, it is. You can take control. Yeah. You got this. I'm curious that when your electric bill spikes, is it because of the incessant hair drying?

That's part of it. If you have more than one shower in a day? That's part of it. It's about four minutes a day, Ken. Yeah. You know. Little things about George that you find when you go on a retreat with him. He dries his hair with a blow dryer before going to bed, folks.

Hey, this volume doesn't just happen on its own, Ken. Yeah. You've got to happen to it. His room, Kelly, was next to mine. He's blow drying his hair at 11 o dryer before going to bed. Hey, this volume doesn't just happen on its own, Ken. Yeah, his room, Kelly, was next to mine. He's blow drying his hair at 11 o'clock at night. Let's not talk about your snoring, Ken. That's a whole other topic. Well, that was your hair dryer. Believe it. Oh, boy.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, folks. Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? It's your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.