The Ramsey Show - App - What’s the Best Way To Save Money? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality Personality is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for joining us. We're glad you're here. Sarah is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Sarah. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave and Ken? Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? All right. So my husband and I built a house about three years ago, and the equity, the value of it has really went up.

And we have about $625,000 in equity right now, and we're just really on the fence if we should sell and downsize and probably get a little bit older of a home and pay for cash and have no mortgage. And we just can't seem to get there. We want to. We know it's the thing we should do. Why should you do it? I'm not sure you should do it.

You don't think we should do it or you don't know? I don't know. I guess it's just the no mortgage. What's the house worth? It's probably worth a million. Okay. And what's your household income? About $200,000.

Okay. That's not out of line. So how much is your mortgage? I know. What's your mortgage balance? What's your balance? $373,000. Okay.

You got other investments that are not retirement? I do. And we could probably pay about 60% of it off with our non-retirement money. So like $200,000 of the $300,000? Yeah, probably. Yep. And then you got a $200,000 income and you knock off $100,000 worth of mortgage. Yeah, I guess so. I think that's what you're going to do.

Okay. Okay. Like you're going to be debt-free house and everything in 24 months okay okay the thing is we we put an offer on a property about a month ago and we said if they take it it's meant to be and they said no because we came in low um and they just came back to us two days ago and said are we still interested and so it's just uh no because you're only moving down here because you're having some kind of emotional like uh shame or like like we're afraid to do good i mean why are you afraid to have a nice house i don't know i don't know because i live i live amongst people 25 years older than me,

and I think I probably should go to a different neighborhood. I don't know. You mean just because you don't feel like you've earned the right to be there? Yeah. You make $200,000 a year. You earned the right. Okay. All right.

I don't hear anything you're doing wrong. If you don't like the house, I don't hear anything you're doing wrong if you don't like the house i don't care if you move down but it feels like you're moving because you feel like i mean there's almost like a shame in your language yeah i guess i just feel like uh you know we could get i don't know live life faster i guess maybe we're down to our third kid he's a freshman in high school. We've got three years to go. We've already gotten two out of the house.

Do you want that house when you're an empty nester? Yeah, I think it would be fine. Any house I live in, I'm fine with. We've lived eight houses. It's not like it's some kind of super – I mean, it's a nice house for a million dollars in Jacksonville, Florida, but it's not like it's a nice house for a million dollars in jacksonville florida but it's not like it's a 20 million dollar house i mean you know it there's a lot of million dollar houses in

jacksonville florida they're all over the place you know i mean yeah right what do you mean by you started to give us something what do you mean by live life a little faster i don't know i think for so long we had kids young at age 20 and um and we've just been working hard our whole life and it just feels like if we could just not have any debt maybe we won't have to always be thinking about what we should be doing all right that's it okay so so this is when you get out of debt it doesn't give you a pass on thinking. Right. I know.

But I actually think you don't. The idea of you going hard at paying off this house is a little exhausting to you. It feels to me like you just want to downshift because you just want to slow your effort and pace, and you just want to chill. It doesn't seem like you want the house that you would be moving to. it's like you want what you think that house is going to give your pace is that closer to what's going on uh 100 yeah okay so that's that's that's a little different animal and i'm not sure again that you need to sell this this house to get that that's what i would push you now i would say i'd say 24 months you're going to have that in this house.

I think so, too. Using your mutual funds and your income to knock the mortgage out. That's what I would do. Karen is in New York. Hi, Karen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken.

Hey, what's up? My question is I started late with listening to Dave Ramsey a year ago, and now I'm 66. I only have about $180,000 in my retirement, and I have two houses I'm still paying for, which will be paid off in the next five years. And my main objective with money at this point is to have something to leave for my kids. So will it be a better investment for me to invest in term life insurance so they get a tax-free payoff, or will it be better for me to invest in the mutual funds

when I'm not sure how much compound interest I'll be able to accumulate in who knows how much longer I'll live, you know? Insurance is not an investment. It's an expense. You don't make a return on insurance. The insurance company makes a return on it. And so, no, you don't buy term life insurance to create an estate. No, you don't buy life insurance of any kind to create an estate.

That's not the purpose of life insurance. So don't do that. Take what money you have, and let's get these houses paid off as soon as possible, and let's build this nest egg some more. So in seven years, your $200,000, your $180,000 will be $400,000 if you don't add anything to it. If you've got it in good mutual funds, it'll double every seven years. Okay. I'm so glad I called you.

So at 73, you'd have $400,000 there if you don't add anything to it, and you're going to have the paid-for properties. And the properties are worth what? $400,000 each. Okay. So $800,000 plus $400,000, so $1,000,002. How many kids have you got? Four. Okay. So they're going to get $300,000 or $400,000 a piece if you live to your mid-70s.

Okay. I know, really. Why do I want to do this? Why don't I want to spend money on myself? But I appreciate you guys so much. You've saved me because I always make ridiculous money decisions. No, I think you've made some pretty good ones. You're doing pretty good.

You're doing better than you feel like you're doing, I think. Yeah, I think you're going to be able to live an inheritance with the investments that you haven't used. I also do want you to enjoy some of those investments. And, you know, because you're under no moral obligation to leave an inheritance. You're not a bad mom if you spend all this money and then die. You're not a bad mom at all. Matter of fact, you're like the party mom if you did that. The fun mom.

Mom's going everywhere. Look at mom. Look at what mom did now. That's cool. Yeah, because you've worked your tail off your whole life and you've done a good job. You're not hungry. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Fall means football, ha-ha, and changing colors, but it doesn't mean the time for lawn care is over. Neighborly is your source for experts like Grounds Guys and Lawn Pride. Download the Neighborly app today and find the trusted pros in your area. Great company, Neighborly. Today's question comes from Gabby in Washington. I'm a recent graduate with a bachelor's degree in health and human services. I love serving my community, and I'm currently with a non-profit. The problem is I make about $2,000 a month and have student loan debt of about $55,000. I have come to the realization that while I love working for non-profits, it is not going to help me pay

off this debt. I really do not want to go back to school, but I would love to move into a higher paying field should I apply to these higher paying jobs? Even if I only have about 40 to 50% of the qualification, I would love any extra words of wisdom. Well, that's a tricky question because there's a lot of evidence on both sides of the aisle. One side being a lot of companies will put out all these qualifications, but if you're a good candidate, that they feel that they can train you and that you've got the core of what they want, they'll hire you. And then there's the other school of thought that you'll never get through the online application system if you don't lie about the qualifications. So my take on this is I like to meet in the middle. I think if you've got the

core qualifications, you've got the chutzpah to go after it, and you can use the connections you have. I wrote a book called The Proximity Principle. That's what you need. And so if I can make connections, I know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody. It could be three, four levels. It could be a direct connection to these organizations that have the higher-paying jobs. I'm going to go about it that way, and I'm going to get around the AI application software, and I'm going to give it a shot. I have nothing to lose. I'm certainly going to do that, Gabby, before I think about going back to school. And again, if a degree is the only way or the best way to get re-qualified in this case, if you knew a different direction, then yes, but we want you to cash flow it.

That's the only option that we tell people for school. So just going back to get a degree that I can't afford, get into debt, to hope to get another job is not the best way to go about it. So I would take that background, the education you have now in health and human services, it's a lot broader than you realize, then use the proximity principle and go about it that way. And I think you can get there. Yeah, I think you can get around the lack of qualifications if you get to humans. That's correct. You get your resume out of the stack and get it past the AI screener into the hands of a human.

So a guy that I met with three years ago sent me an email this morning. His daughter's roommate. Okay. This is like my cousin's uncle's sister's aunt. His daughter's roommate. Okay. This is like my cousin's uncle's sister's aunt. I was keeping track. Yeah. Right? Okay.

Daughter's roommate of your friend. Of a guy I met with three years ago. Yeah. An acquaintance. I have not talked to him in three years. Okay. I like this even better. Okay.

Okay. Sent me an email this morning and said, my daughter's roommate has applied at Ramsey. Oh. Can you help me with her resume and I'm like absolutely not I can forward it to HR to Armando Lopez our director of HR and I will promise you that they will look at it but that's that's all I because I don't do hiring here I haven't in 15 years and um but I but you know what her resume from an uncle's aunt's cousin's brother's sister's roommate got into the hands of the director of hr and he sees it and he's gonna

look at it because it's thousands of applications a month that's correct that he never sees right when her application came in the first time right he never saw it right but now it's he's does that mean she's going to get hired no no but you did help but did she but i put it i put it that's in front of someone that can decide now right so the no promises that's correct but she's like 98 ahead of everybody else oh yeah to at least get a look. No question. You know, you get a look, and then it's up to you once you get the look. And so that's the proximity principle.

That's exactly right. That's exactly what you teach and teach people to do. Did I look at her qualifications? No. I don't even know what she was applying for. But will they look at her qualifications yeah when they interview her for a certain position they certainly will and then will they look at her character and will they look at all the things that we look at at ramsey before we hire someone it's very difficult to get to go

to work here because we only hire thoroughbreds we try to keep the donkeys out of the building can't win the kentucky derby with a donkey that's right you You can get hired at the CIA a little faster than you can here. Yeah. And I don't like working with crazy, so we've got all these crazy screens to keep the crazy people out. I don't want to pay crazy people. That's crazy. So we don't want to do that.

So anyway, we've got all this stuff, and so she'll have to go through every bit of that. But you know what? She's way ahead of where she was 24 hours ago when she was in the stack with everybody else without question that's the proximity principle and that's how you work around i don't know if i have the qualifications do you have the personality do you have the character can you get the job done do you have the initiative are you hungry humble smart as our friend pat lencioni says are you are you going to be an ideal team player that's the title of his book that's

right and you know are you going to do these things and player? That's the title of his book. That's right. And, you know, are you going to do these things? And then if you can convince the hiring manager of that, ding, ding, all of a sudden the qualifications, unless you just simply are incompetent to do the job, don't matter as much. Yeah, that's right. There you go. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rashad is with us in Baltimore.

Hi, Rashad. How are you? Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call, Dave and Ken. Thank you. Sure. What's up? So me and my wife are at a bit of a crossroads with each other,

and I'm hoping for some wisdom from you guys. With each other? With each other when it comes to our side hustle. So we're currently on baby step number two, where we are attempting to pay off our debts so that we can eventually save up for a house and our emergency fund. Okay. But at this stage, we are kind of hitting a wall with each other because she keeps talking about our side hustle. She keeps talking about doing something called Amazon, uh, selling products

on Amazon. And, you know, she keeps talking about like buying a house so that we can eventually invest in real estate, which I know you've done. So I'm just hoping for some guidance because I'm honestly at a loss and I'm actually a little terrified about losing whatever little money that we actually do have right now. Okay. Amazon dropshipping, you should not have to invest any money. Is she proposing you invest money into that venture? No, it's not really.

It's basically like, how should I put it? What she does is she'll go out to, like, department stores and look for deals on certain products. Oh, that's not drop shipping. No, it's just selling at a higher price. Yeah, that's not drop shipping. She's just flipping. She's flipping products.

So she's going to tie money up in inventory. Correct. Yes. Yeah. I'll pass. Yep. Yeah. So I mean, like, so for me, it's like I work full time. I have a full time job, which brings us money. And then I have a part time job that brings us money. And I'd rather go to my part-time job that actually brings me money rather than just sit over there and figure out this, this stuff, you know, figure out, try to try to find products.

And I feel like that's just a waste of time when I can actually devote that same amount of time to going to work and actually bringing in a fixed amount of money, a fixed income. And I don't know how to talk to her about that. I don't know how to make her understand. I feel like that's a waste of time. Oh, I think you've said that.

It just didn't get through. Right. You told her that exact thing, didn't you? Yes. That didn't go well, did it? We had several arguments. We had several arguments about it no you got a messaging issue i'll just quickly say this that you know the waste of time we've

already shot that bullet and so we need to start talking about my emotion that you have the risk of tying up money uh come at it that way a little bit more logical with some real emotion instead of calling what she thinks is cool a waste yeah it's right i can't this terrifies me because i see us losing money instead of making money that's different than you're stupid and this is a waste of time so it scares me because i don't think it's going to work and it bothered and i don't know i don't know how to talk to you about this because you don't seem to see any risk with it but you could buy a bunch of stuff and it sits in our garage and that scares me.

I don't want to do that because I'm trying to work so hard to get out of debt here. If we had some extra money and we wanted to try that, that'd be different but right now we're broke. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Show. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. Welcome. Good to have you guys. Where do you live? Amarillo, Texas. All right. Bit of a haul over to Nashville.

Just a little bit. Yeah. Good to have you guys. How much debt have you paid off? $582,000. Goodness. How long did this take? We started in 2013 and then just finished up here, I think it was in July or August.

So 10 years? 10 years. Wow. And your range of income during that decade? It was anywhere from $65,000 to $114,000. We sold some houses, and I sold a business in the midst of that, too, so it kind of had some variation there, too. Gotcha.

But that was my W-2 income. Gotcha. What do you guys do for a living now? I actually work for the Department of Energy, but before this, I've always traded commodities or traded some type of feed. So I just didn't like that. And actually, I read Kim Coleman's book and decided to take a change in life. Really? How's that working out? Love it. Good. It's a great change. We're on the 13th day of our road trip to get here just to have a vacation and Dollywood and everything.

Oh, come see you guys. Yeah, come see y'all guys. Wow, there you go. Five-year planned of a trip right here. There we go. Lottie, what do you do? I'm a stay-at-home mom. Good. We have four kids going on five. Oh, congratulations. Well done. All right, what kind of debt was the $582,000? Oh, we had it all. Some of it was just I farmed and ran cattle, so I had a lot of farm debt. I had a house, a $50,000 Duramax, man, zero interest. They'll do it every day of the week for you. Wow. I had a Nissan car, and we had our house.

It was about $235,000. Tiffany's rings for this young lady. That was, you know, they financed that too. Don't worry. I had about $20,000 worth of student loan that she paid for because she saved money before we got married. So she came into a mess before she decided to take me on. And then, yeah, I had some farm debts and stuff like that.

And then I also took even a $5,000 trading class to learn how to trade commodities or trade futures or online. Come to find out you can't trade unless you have money. So, yeah. It's kind of a table stakes. I tried to tell her. Yeah, she tried to tell me. I'm going to claim that one's one of my stupid tax rates. I don't have any money because I just spent it all on the class that tells me I need to

have money. Yeah, I was kind of sitting there about halfway through it thinking, man, this is dumb. I think there's something on my shoe now. I think I stepped in it. Yeah. Wow. Good for you, man. That's so cool.

Yeah. So you went from playa to cleaning up the mess because everything you said there was like, I do everything, man. Oh, yeah. It was like, boom. And now you're just like boom straight and narrow yeah it really what drove me onto this deal is uh i for when i first came out of college i bought cattle for a major packet company i spent a lot of time western kansas and there was only am radio over there there was dave ramsey uh i was focused on the family and rush limbaugh. That was my theology in life.

And every day, I would just spend time riding around looking at cattle and listening to you. And basically, that started in 2006 and never stopped. Wow. Well, thank you. We appreciate you being out there. Yeah. Good stuff. Okay.

So who decides 10 years ago we're actually going to do this stuff? Well, we started off trying to kind of cheat it a little bit because some people say i'm cheap i like to say frugal but um when i saw the price of the envelopes i was like we don't need the envelopes we'll just kind of do it you know and so after about a year of that and we were still fighting about money um we decided we need to take this seriously um you know if it's not don't fix it. So we went ahead and kind of got the, we lived out in the country, so we just got the at-home study program and watched through that together. Financial Peace University at home, yeah.

Bought the envelopes, started doing the cash system, set up our budget. We had to do that budget meeting, you know, every month, sitting down together and kind of getting that going. So that was kind of the hard part at first, but then once we got the ball rolling, we found other things to fight about, but we didn't fight about money anymore.

And so it just, it kind of made everything organized. We knew what to expect of each other and where we were at. And it just kind of went from there. And like you say, it's just that boring consistency. You just do the same thing over and over and then you see it make progress, and it gets really exciting. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. And for her, it just was a security thing. I mean, that was one thing that I noticed that really, she just, that was the rough part for her. Even for me, I mean, growing up as a kid, I mean, my parents, they're good people, but we just, we had some financial problems growing up. We had bankruptcy, and man, that just, that that i don't want that for my kids yeah and i want them to know that what we've done as a sacrifice as a as a couple yeah now you're free yeah yeah you're

free when you talk about the grass feeling different there's some truth to that yeah there is a lot of truth and that's one of the i of the, I mean, I don't know if we, we actually, before we got our debt paid off, we passed the millionaire mark and it was just, I don't know. I still don't believe it. I kept looking at the spreadsheet because I was a spreadsheeter

before you had the EveryDollar app and kept looking. I'm like, that can't be possible. But it's just a lot of dedication and a lot of time. And that was probably the hardest part for me a decade in you're 100% debt free and baby steps millionaires yeah and we just we that was the consistency like there'd be some times where you're just like man i when does this end and but there was if you saw it on the paperwork you knew it eventually

was coming to an end i want you to talk about that stay right there because a lot of people that are in the middle of their journey and we know they're watching and listening and they feel, they're feeling it today. They're going, I don't know if I can finish. Yeah. What did you do

or what would you tell them? How'd you keep going? What'd you tell them? Well, you know, honestly, that one, that was,

I'll bring our faith into that one. I mean, God was good to us. Even, I'll admit when we were, we made the least amount of money, we made the most because we were the best with it at that time. More money, more problems type scenario.

And that's probably where we were as a group, as me and her and even the Lord in our life, that's where we really had to bunker down and just be tough and not go, forget about it. We're just going to go on vacation. We just didn't do that kind of stuff. You know, you just have to stay strong and it comes through. You didn't wig out. Yeah, I didn't wig out. Yeah. I think we both got to the point where you realize you make a mess of your life, you

know, and that really God's the only one that can fix it. So it's great to have a program and it has great principles in it. But if you don't have God at the center where you can take your mess to him, then the principles only get you so far. And so God really was central to our story and got us through a lot of the hard things that we went through. Amen. Amen. Well, and it, you know, when you're a person of faith and you're leaning into that and you realize the system I'm using has the principles from his word in the system, that tells you also i'm gonna be okay yeah you know i got reassurance from that when sharon and i were walking that out you know it's like

okay i get it that some of you people don't understand but i don't care this is what dad says to do and dad's really smart my heavenly father and sometimes even what he says doesn't make sense and you don't understand it i just have to assume he's smarter than me exactly i'm gonna go with it because i'm not doing so good on my own so yeah he's smarter than me i know that i'm sure of that yeah i've never made a world so i'm pretty sure he's smarter than me that whole that whole you know the the debtor is slave to the lender and that is i mean i took my first loan out was with the the USDA when I was nine years old on some cattle. And I wrote my life away at nine years old, and I knew nothing else until me and her got married. Yeah.

And now the other day, your baby steps millionaire is not a debt in the world. Yeah. Amen on that one. I will tell you what not to do because you talk about some people are the nerd and some are the fun spenders. Well, he's definitely more of the nerd and so he he's a spreadsheet guy like you said um but he would make his spreadsheet and he would bring it to bed and be all excited like look at this oh boy we gotta have some boundaries here yes you're a romantic to bed and show me we'll talk about that over coffee in the morning i'm thinking i don't want

to see the spreadsheet now i could be wrong oh my gosh wow yeah that's nerdy for us so he's definitely the nerd i love you guys you're fun well done hey we've got a copy of the baby steps millionaires book because that's you total money makeover book because that's you and financial peace university because that's you you can give those away you can read them whatever you want to they're your our gift to you bring the kiddos up and let's have a debt-free scream what are their names and ages we have uh adeline which is our oldest and she's 10 we have august at 7 and then we have piper she's 5 and then we have dax and he's fixing to be 2 in november and then number five will be born in march love it 582,000 paid in 10 years making 65 to 11,000 to $114,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. You guys ready? 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! Yeah! That's how they do it in Amarillo, boys and girls. Woo! I love it.

Our Scripture of the day, Exodus 28 and 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Robert Frost said, by working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day. Isn't that true? Oh, my gosh, that's the truth. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

We're glad you're with us, America. Thanks for hanging out. Drew is in San Antonio. Hi, Drew. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you for taking my call, Dave and Ken. I'm really excited to talk to you. My question is I recently got laid off from a major technology company

actually located in Austin, a semiconductor company, and I'm kind of having a hard time with a career change. Do I still kind of go with the kind of the tech sales where I excelled really well, but I've been applying for jobs and I get a lot of like responses back. And I'm just really kind of, I need like a clear pathway. So I'm really excited to talk to Ken about this, about where I do with my career and check out like, you know, like another, you know, another certificate, like in cybersecurity. I know you were talking about code school one time. Just wanted to get your thoughts on that, please.

Well, so do you want to go into cybersecurity or coding of any type, or is this just more of a, well, I feel like I need another option? What's the want to behind this? It's the other option, sir. If you could snap your fingers and do anything, what is it? Yeah. If I could snap my fingers and do anything what is it yeah if i could snap my fingers do anything i i'd really want to run my own tech company i've had the experience for the last 15 years your own tech company what's the tech company do uh it's probably a financial technology app that would be able to help not similar to every dollar

but just help people manage their money in a more efficient way and so you've been in tech sales the last 15 years yes sir okay uh so in your mind what's the best path forward to get to that place is there some experience you're still needing or is it about capital or both? Both. Okay. So I'd be charting my path in tech for the experience that I would need to leverage one day for my own company.

So that's what I would be thinking about. So is that... That's not cybersecurity. Yeah. Is that cyber? Cybersecurity is a complete sidebar to everything you're talking about. Right. Yeah. You just pick cybersecurity because there's really stinking good money in it that's right yes sir you're right dave yeah so so here's the deal you need to be moving forward in the type of tech work that one day you're going to understand well enough to hire people who can do it and develop it so it it's all about experience. So to take you back to my journey, I wanted to get into broadcasting. So I had to

actually start doing small broadcasting gigs. It's a different deal. You can get paid full time for this. So you've got to get in that lane that is going to prepare you to run your own company one day. And quite frankly, you need the best financial opportunity because you're going to be stacking cash for years so that you can launch this company and do it the right way without any kind of risk other than just the cash that you've saved so what direction is that what is that tech direction it would have to for me to be able to as you guys, be on a shoestring budget, code the app, and as you would say, Dave, launch this on your card table in your house, making sure it's cash flow system, not going

into debt or anything like that. Yeah, but what is the direction? Is it coding? Do you need to become a programmer and really good at it? Yes. I would need to code part of it. Then that's the direction. So now back to your initial question. So you don't have to go to a four-year school to get this, to get the actual qualifications. Matter of fact, it's the longest route. It's the longest route.

So we actually work with Bethel Tech. They train internal folks for us. I endorse them. They have a $15,000 program for Ramsey Show and Ken Coleman Show listeners. Contact them, have them walk you through the program, and it's a nine-month online program, so you shouldn't do any interruption of income. If you need to get a job right now, so go get hired and get some stability,

then sign up, cash flow through a program like a Bethel Tech, and then within nine months, you're qualified and ready to go. We have stories of people that are starting out making $80,000, have gone from making $45,000 to $80,000. And so you can get on a nice track. We make it six figures in two years. And now you're on the path to funding your future. So you don't need to go to four-year school here.

And we're giving you one option to kick the tires with, but that's what the path looks like your future. So you don't need to go to four-year school here, and we're giving you one option to kick the tires with, but that's what the path looks like for you. But right now, you need to get hired, and you just applying, applying, applying doesn't seem to be working. I'm going to give you my book, The Proximity Principle. You're going to dial in on your relationships, and let's get a good job that will take care of you now and then allow you to pay for this next level of certification. Yeah, that's exactly the route to go. But in the meantime, it sounds to me like your current skill set is sales. Yes.

And you can make some really good money in and around the tech world in Austin, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, in sales around tech. All kinds of different sales and all kinds of different tech, for that matter. So, and that's a way to put food on the plate while you're executing on your small business launch idea. Yes. And learning your code. Yes.

All that stuff. So, beautiful, beautiful. Well done. Robert is in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Hi, Robert. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Hi. what's up

hey I've got um I'm not in any um super dire predicaments I'm just kind of trying to make a better life for my family in the future here I've got um I've got some debt on my vehicles right now. Um, I've got a debt on a four-wheeler loan that I bought last year. Um, and my house loan, it's really kind of kicking me in the butt here. How can we help? Um, so my vehicle loans, I have total up to about, including the four, they're about $12,000. Um, I am the single income bringer into my family of my wife and my daughter. What's your income? Um, I make, uh, 32 before taxes every month, 3,200. Okay. What do you want to do? I was curious, do you think it would be smart to pay off my vehicle? You have the money?

I have about $15,000 complete in savings to my wife and I. So that would leave us about $3,000 to take care of our house payments, take care of our kid, and so forth. Well, you work. You take care of your house payment and your kid with that. Yeah. You're not using savings to do that. You're using your income to do that, right? It's kind of digging in right now because my house payment just went up $100

and so did my insurance. Yeah, but you got car payments and four-wheeler payments. Yeah. Yeah. So, Robert, this will work if you use the money and pay this debt off, and then you get on a budget and you quit borrowing money for stupid stuff like four-wheelers. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking right now. It was a good idea at the time.

No, it was not a good idea at the time. You did not have the money. You're broke, and you have a baby and you make 32 000 there's no four-wheeler in that matter of fact you may need to sell it but um aside from that yeah so here's the thing if you'll get on a budget and you and your wife say we're going to get out of debt not just to get out of debt so that we take our income and build up a nice emergency fund back to $15,000, so that we can start investing, so that I can advance my career and make more money, so that we can build an emergency or we can build a college fund for our kids, so that we can pay off the house, so that we can become

very wealthy, outrageously generous, and change our whole family tree if That is what you do after you pay off all this debt then fine if you pay off all this debt And then just keep doing life the way you've been doing it well that probably wasn't very good advice on my part But I want you to play all the way through my man. This just starts the journey. It's not the end of the journey The reason we get out of debt is so that you change your family tree and um you start figuring out how i can make more money start figuring out how we can save and invest more money how we can be more generous you start figuring out how investments work and you change their whole way of looking at this world

that if that journey begins with paying off the debt, let's do it. Ken Coleman, good show today. Thank you, sir. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in 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 ramsesolutions.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 ramseysolutions.com and click Get Started.