The Ramsey Show - App - When Can I Afford To Self Insure?

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: The possibility of self-insuring for long-term care insurance, The best way to find scholarships for college, Finding a side hustle with a criminal background, Balancing a side hustle with family time. 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

🎵 We'll be right back. shorts. This is the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is a show about your life. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today as we answer your questions. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Matt starts off this hour in Huntsville. Hey, Matt, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Yeah, Dave, thanks for having me on. First-time caller, long-term fan. Well, thank you, brother.

How can we help today? Well, I went to some of my first financial peace classes about 10 years ago. My wife and I worked really hard at becoming debt-free, which we did. Good for you. About a year and a half ago. Good for you. And now I'm a half ago. Good for you. And now I'm trying to figure out, you know, next chapter of my life, how do I plan for, you know, potential early retirement

and or, you know, just doing something different. And one of my concerns is long-term care insurance. And I'm sort of a, I mean, I hate to say this, but I'm sort of an anti-insurance guy just because of the cost. That would be all of us. Okay, good. We believe in never buying insurance unless it's absolutely necessary. Exactly, exactly.

And so anyway, so it's one of those last pieces that I'm trying to figure out, do I really need it or not? How old are you? From a financial standpoint. How old are you? I'm 55. Okay. And what's your net worth now? $4.2 million.

You don't need it. Great. Okay. Simple. Now let me tell you why I said that and see if you agree with me, okay? Sure. The average nursing home stay is 2.4 years. Yeah.

The average. And the average is about $100,000 000 a year so let's call it quarter million dollars okay so your risk is zero to 500 000 right yeah if i did those numbers right you can handle that risk if you burn through 500 000 mama's left with three and a half she's gonna party when you're gone yeah yeah for multiple reasons she's got plenty left to throw a party a big wake is because we're all gonna be sad but yeah i'm just i'm talking to you like my wife talks to me so there you go but uh no i get it i get it yeah i mean you you got and you got five years by the way, if you do nothing with that net worth except keep it invested at around a 10% rate of return,

your four and a half in seven years will be nine. Yeah. And you'll be 62. The chances of someone going into a nursing home and spending a dollar with a nursing home prior to age 60 is very close to zero statistically. So let me ask you this would you recommend you know kind of putting that into some sort of a safe fund for the future or just keep on investing and just keep on nine and a half million you can come up with a half million yeah okay got it yep you're gonna be fine i mean you just got a big old chunk of mutual funds in your 401k she needs to write

some checks the nursing home because you get early dementia or whatever onset then boom she writes checks and she burns through a half million she's more than good because here's the thing 75 percent of the ladies outlive their husbands yep and so the normal scenario with someone with a three or five hundred thousand dollar net worth is papa goes in the nursing home, burns through the nest egg, cracks and scrambles the nest egg, and gets taken care of and dies and leaves mama broke. So this is why if you've got $300,000 to $500,000 in net worth, you definitely buy long-term care insurance the day you turn 60. It's your birthday present to your wife.

Yeah. But in your case, you're self-insured. I'm self-insured. I'm 61. I didn't buy it. Okay? I got plenty of money. Sharon's got plenty of money. wife yeah but in your case you're self-insured i'm self-insured i'm 61 i'm by it okay i got plenty of money sharon's got plenty of money she's got too much money if i die it's not good so i'm having to sleep with one eye open but yeah so that's yeah you're good matt you're good so yeah and so long-term care insurance is a little bit like um old Willie Nelson joke about taxes, right?

You either want to be broke and the government provides you with nursing home care through Medicaid welfare, and you're 100% broke, or you need to be so wealthy that you can, you know, $10 million and you can afford a half million. It's the folk in the middle that can get burned up with it and the old joke with the wayland jennings told uh willie nelson was he said you know the irs is suing me for a million dollars and jennings said that's really good because if it was fifteen thousand dollars you'd have a problem since it's a million dollars they got a problem it's true it's that kind of thing so you want to be on one end of the other of it. But it's a really good kind of insurance to have if you're in that slot where you've got less than a million dollar net worth, greater than poverty level net worth, because you're going to go through some serious money and you're going to feel. People have this emotional reaction as if the nursing home somehow robbed you know, robbed them, you know, pointed a gun at them.

And I don't want the nursing home to get all my money. You know, it's like, well, you don't want the restaurant to get all your money, but you keep going over there and eating, you know. So they provide a service. You pay for it. There's a third option. Stacey and I have discussed this. I don't know how serious she is.

But, you know, I get to that point. Instead of paying the nursing home, I just told her to take me out to the Alaskan bush and just let me wander off and let the Kodiaks take care of me you know ken it's a joke to you with the kodiaks and you that i just it's not a picture i can deal with it's just you know he'd be out there coaching him on a new career i would be i'd be uh well i'd be talking to a tree you know kodiak let him just go out there and wander off. You're horrible. I know.

Paige is in Salt Lake City. Hey, Paige, what's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? My question is kind of a two-parter one. I am a college student, and I was just wondering what's the best way to find scholarships online without being scammed? college student and i was just wondering what's the best way to find scholarships online without

being scammed and what site what do you think about the sites that find the scholarship for you but require subscription fee to do so uh yeah we've investigated most of them actually consider buying two of them uh on the subscription and the problem we we found is there's kind of two classes of this scholarship stuff that shows up in these databases. One class of scholarship is kind of hard to find because they don't spend a lot of money advertising the fact that they give out a scholarship, and it's a legitimate scholarship. It's the Kiwanis Club there in your county, and they put out $2,500, but they really don't have like a big site and

they don't spend a lot of time putting it on one of the subscription sites and paying them for it to be on there so they can give away money that's who you're really after then there's another kind of scholarship that we don't talk about a lot here but we're finding it as we do research in this space because I'm dying to build some kind of product to help you guys and I just haven't been able to figure out a way to do it yet our product team has been working on it for about two years but um that's why we've investigated but the other that's there's this litter this clutter in the space and it's their scholarships but they're they're not really scholarships they're really putting the scholarship out there to collect your data and to get you to sell you something.

And so it's kind of a fishing expedition on their part. And those are the ones you're running into that are pissing you off, I can tell. You're talking about scammed. I mean, you know, so you don't want to pay to do that for sure. So the truth of the matter is, is that you've got some work to do to dig out the hard-to-find ones and to comb through some of the subscriptions. If you get one scholarship and you paid for a subscription of $200 a year and you got a $1,000 scholarship, you came out, okay?

But you are going to have some crap in there that you've got to wade through to get to it. And, you know, just keep following Christina Ellis, our Ramsey personality. She's the absolute expert on this stuff. I just saw a study that really made me sad. It showed that families owning life insurance in the U.S. was at its lowest point since the 1970s. After what we've been through the past few years, I'm just lost on how people don't make this more of a priority. How are you going to make sure your family needs are met if something happens to you? This is why getting term life is an absolute necessity.

Rates have never been cheaper and the whole process to apply is pretty simple, with many companies not even requiring an exam anymore. This is why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for almost 25 years. They'll make sure you get the right protection at the lowest cost possible, and they're there for you and your family every day. I challenge all of you to make sure your families are protected. It needs to be a top priority. Call Zander at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com.

That's 800-356-4282 or zander.com. We'll be right back. Imagine the energy of a jam-packed arena filled with people ready to change their lives. Picture all your favorite speakers on stage to help you do that, whether it's marriage or career or mental wellness or becoming a millionaire or leadership or getting out of debt. It's not just another pep talk. This is thousands of people just like you. It's called Smart Conference. Craig and Amy Groeschel from Life.Church will be speaking on marriage. All the Ramsey personalities will be speaking on their chosen topics.

It is a day-long Smart Conference. It's back. There's going to be about 8,000 people in the room. We've already sold almost half of those tickets. It's October the 22nd, a Saturday in Dallas. Tickets are a whole $39 and when you spend that money and you come spend the day with us, you will be smarter! It's the Smart Conference. RamseySolutions.com slash events and you can always join us there. We've also got

four building wealth events in the fall in orlando phoenix sacramento minneapolis and san antonio make sure you get out to one of these events we would love to meet you sign your book take a pic with you hang out do all that smiley stuff because we love people and we think people should be around people people need people yeah right now now i've turned into the loony. I'm singing off key. It's awful. And I'm here for it. I'm right here for it. It's what's called co-hosting.

I love it. Get to endure this crap. All right. Nick is with us in Indianapolis. Hey, Nick, how are you? I'm great, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you in Kingsville. I've been listening to you for years and years.

Sure. What's up? Your phone is all scratchy and bad and ugly. Can you make it pretty? Hello? You hear me better now? A little bit. Let's try it.

Okay. I've went through a lot in the past few years. I have went through a divorce and lost both of my parents all within five years or so. I have a criminal record i have a dui on my record and um other possession charges i was a heroin addict for five years after my parents died and uh i've been two years sober now good for you yeah i've i've i'm having a hard time budgeting because i don't make enough money. I make half of what I used to, and it just feels like I'm barely surviving on what I make.

What are you doing right now? What are you doing for work? I'm a mechanic. I went to trade school right out of high school. So auto mechanic or what? Auto mechanic at a dealership. I used to be you know for uh and then i went to school you got your driver's license back after the dui yeah okay so you're driving you just have a record and you've been dry for three you've been dry off the heroin for three years yeah and the the the insurance companies at the dealership, they won't accept any DUIs within 10 years.

So I have to work at a private, like a little small lot, and they don't pay as well and other things. What are you making right now per hour as a mechanic? $20 an hour. Okay. What could you make if you didn't have any of these record issues? What would the rate be that you would expect to make? $40. Okay, so the insurance at the dealership is to insure what? Your health insurance?

No, so like the insurance the dealership has to insure me to drive all the customers' cars. Oh, I see. Just the liability that they have for me to drive. I got you. How long ago was the DUI? Three years ago. Okay, how long before it drops off on this issue?

They said that they can go back 10 years. I think it might be seven, but they said 10. Okay, how long before it drops off on this issue? They said that they can go back 10 years. Okay. I think it might be seven, but they said 10. Okay, all right. So we know what we're dealing with. Basically, I'm trying to make it by until then, and then I'll be fine after that. No, I don't want you to make it by until then. I want you to go beat the system.

We've got to figure this out. Yeah, so the gap here is you're making $20 an hour hour and you're barely making ends meet making $20 an hour. So we've got some financial stuff we've got to look at. And then we need to look at professionally, where else can I work as a mechanic? And outside of a dealer, you know, I go to a local mechanic. Stacey and I take our cars to a guy. And they're not a big corporation, small business. And, you know, I think there's some good people out there that probably have enough work going around

to where you could find a much better paying mechanic job than just a really small shop. I'd least want to challenge you on that, to look for that and consider that. And I will just tell you this quickly because I want Dave to address some of the financial stuff on why you're not making ends meet and what we can do there. But I want to challenge this premise that all people are going to judge you because of your legal past.

A lot of people do, and it's unfortunate. But the reality is that through relationships in your local community, there are enough people that know who you are, who you were, and who you are, and how you've been clean, and how you're making a better path. And it's through relationships that you will get opportunities. Because as a mechanic right now, this is a wonderful time. You can make a lot more money than you're making right now, even if you take on a side hustle. I think you can get back in the $40 range without working for a dealer.

I think you can get back with other mechanics. Let me ask you this. How old are you? 34. How long ago was the divorce uh three years okay all right so you're so what i'm hearing is dui and dry and divorce all the three-year mark that was the bottom wasn't it yeah that was the one okay i i my parents died in 2015 within like uh two years apart and then i was basically spiraling down since you know 2015 let me uh let me throw a guess at you i was 28 when i lost everything and went bankrupt and it was my fault the reason i went bankrupt is i was stupid

and i signed a whole bunch of short-term notes and so after i went bankrupt i had to recover financially but i also lost my confidence for a period of time and then i started handling money god's ways biblically, common sense ways. And I started gradually rebuilding my confidence. But part of the process for me becoming valuable again in the marketplace was to first forgive myself and get over my past. Because I was pretty stinking ashamed. And I kind of think that's holding you back more than the actual marketplace is holding you back i think you're a stud i feel like i deserve to make questions because

exactly because you lost your family your heroin you lost your mom and dad you had a dui and this is your punishment well son your punishment's over yeah as of today you're no longer being punished you're a stud listen dude anybody kicks heroin is a superman that is a tough one to bust that's a tough one that's no lightweight that's not vaping okay i mean that's serious crap so you are a stud and you are coming back and you are worth forty dollars an hour because you can work on a car as good or better than the other doobers that are doing it for forty dollars an hour you may not be able to do the test drive around the block you might have to pay the guys next to

you 50 bucks a week to do your test drives for you, and you sit in the passenger seat and listen to the symptom, and then you go back and turn the wrench. I don't know. There's a way to skin this cat, though, dude. But it starts with you saying all of the crap is in the rearview mirror, and it's smaller than the windshield because it doesn't count as much. You're worth this, man.

You can do it. I've been trying to get side hustles and stuff and side work, fixing cars for people, but because of all my trouble, my circle, I don't have Nick, listen. Expand your circle. You just agree with what

Dave said. Now act on it. You believe what he said. Now act on it. Expand your circle. Go out right now. The people that do believe in you, ask for opportunity. Start fixing stuff on the side anywhere and everywhere you can. You need to have people that when they look over across your back, they see a Superman cape. Yeah. Because that's who I see.

You can do this, young man. You can do this. And I understand. I've had those exact same feelings for different reasons, but I had those exact same feelings. And I became valuable when I started believing I was valuable again. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Dead Free Stage. Kaylin is with us. Hi, Kaylin. How are you? Hello. I'm doing great, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do you live? I'm from Oklahoma City. Ah, I love Oklahoma City. Good town. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off? $157,000. Woo! How long did this take? Took six years, but the last three years I paid off $136,000 of that. So really a hundred, really three years. Okay. And your range of income for the last three years? I paid off $136,000 of that. So really three years. Okay. And your range of income for the last three years? I started off around $64,000 and now making about $90,000. Good. What do you do for a living?

I'm a doctor of audiology. Oh, cool. Good for you. I diagnose and treat hearing loss, balance disorders. Got it. Cool. Yeah. Got a good one in my life. I wear some good hearing aids because I'm wearing these headphones all my life.

Yep. So 30 years of these things will blow your hearing out. Well. Ah, $157,000 of what kind of debt? So $40,000 of that was my vehicle, $117,000 of that was student loans. Ah, okay. All right. When did you get out of school?

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2016. With your audiology degree? That's correct, yes. All right. And cool. So three years ago, you kicked this into high gear. What happened? I was actually living in Birmingham, Alabama at the time, and I had just gotten out of

a really rough relationship and kind of just decided I wanted to move back home and be closer to family. And my mom said, you know, why don't you just come back home, live with me for a little bit, kind of get back on your feet, decide where you want to be, what you want to do. And she actually had followed a lot of your stuff and had told me about the debt snowball. And at that point, I had not watched any of your videos or anything like that. But I decided to go ahead and move back in with my mom. And she was gracious enough to let me live there rent free. So I was able to put all of my check toward my vehicle. Nice fresh start.

So yeah, it was good. I basically just started paying everything that I could toward my vehicle and followed her advice on the debt snowball. And I paid off my vehicle in March of 2020, three years early. And fortunately for me, just about the time I paid off my vehicle was when COVID hit. Yeah. And the student loan interest rate went to 0%. And it was a pause. And I just decided, you know what? I'm going to take advantage of this.

And I'm going to keep paying the student loans. That was kind of difficult to do because there was a lot of talk about canceling student loans. And I thought, you know, what if I pay all this money and then they come back and they cancel it. But I eventually kind of came to the conclusion that that probably wasn't going to happen anytime soon and I could go ahead and get it paid off. And so that's what I did. I paid $3,000 a month on my student loans for basically the last two years and knocked that out pretty quick. Very cool. How does that feel? It's amazing. I mean, it really is amazing to see it go down that quickly.

And I got to be honest, in the beginning, I was kind of doing what Dave refers to as financial peace-ish. So I was kind of still doing like a single for life plan. I had some money I was trying to save for a house and I was trying to pay off my student loans at the same time. And you actually came in early 2021 and you preached at Life Church in Oklahoma City. And that was where I got on board with Financial Peace University and watched the videos and kind of realized I was doing this part way where I was putting some money in one bucket and then using the other money to try to pay down my student loans. And about that time, Dallas and I reconnected, and we're together now.

And he was like, you know, Dave says that you're not supposed to do it that way. Like, you're supposed to do it. Yeah. And he told me, he's like, you know, you need to stop saving for the house. He said, you need to just put all of that towards your student loan debt and get it paid off. And so that's what I did. So he's my fellow weird person. And it's really, you know, made a huge contribution to me getting where I am. He supported us. We live together now. And he supported us for the last seven months so that I could continue paying my debt down. So it's been fantastic.

Well, way to go, guys. Very cool. Very cool. Very proud of you. Thank you. And, man, you got to feel kind of accomplished. I do. I definitely do.

I mean, like I said, I think it's still kind of surreal. Like,. I definitely do. I mean, like I said, I just, I think it's still kind of surreal. Like it hasn't set in yet. You know, like what, what can you do with this money that you have now? I mean, it's like, I've been on such a track, just hardcore, you know, trying to just pay, pay, pay. And all of a sudden you've got all this income coming in and you don't have any more debt. It's like you break through and now you can fly. Yeah, that's it. Exactly. So it's a wonderful feeling. And, you know, we've got plans now saving up for a wedding. So it should be good. I'm super excited about what's to come and, you know, what's coming next for our future. Yeah, very good. Kaylin, I want to ask you, what's the difference in the emotion of having over $100,000 in student

loans and wondering, is the government going to pay it off? And whatever that emotion was for you, however you process that, and now here you are on the other side, and you've paid it off, and now there's nothing holding you back. Describe the difference in the mindset now. It's just, you know, it's that feeling of independence of, you know, I'm not relying on somebody else to do this for me. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I didn't wait on somebody else to do it for me, that, you know, I took control of my life and I did it for

me. And, you know, and I'm not waiting. I'm not sitting around waiting on somebody else to do it for me or, you know, waiting to see what's going to happen dr john calls that um mental health mental health you know where you are in control of your life and you are in control of your destiny and you know it that's a big deal way to go thank you what do you tell people the biggest key to getting out of debt is you just got to stick with it on the days when it gets hard you have to keep the which is most of them yeah it is i mean you give up the small things but i think you just have to keep the end in mind about you know what's coming on the other side of that and what you can do once you don't owe that money anymore it's a pain in the butt but now you make 100k with no

payments so life's good you know yes and planning a wedding yay life is good good stuff well we got a copy of baby steps million for Millionaires for you. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. Also a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to give away to someone, maybe get them started on a journey like yours. And I'm also going to give you the one-year subscription to Financial Peace University. Awesome. And if you haven't been through it, you guys go through it as pre-marriage counseling together. And if not, then if you have been through it, then give itriage counseling together and uh if not then uh if you

have been through it then give it away to someone and sign somebody up so they can take the trip that you've been on because you've been on a good trip i'm proud of you thank you very good stuff and i'm sure uh when i pass on to pastor craig groschel that it's all his fault he'll be proud of you as well thank you always send him an email when we tag teamed on something good so that sounds great yeah let him know because that's that's where I heard all about you. That's where I did Financial Peace University after that. So I really dove in headfirst after that sermon. So thank you for that.

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Kaylin from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. $157,000 paid off in six years, but in three years, 136 of it, did it make it 64 to 90. Quite a journey. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

I'm debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Well done, kiddo. That is fabulous. That's about as good as it gets, you guys. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.

We'll talk about your life and your money. The psychologists, like Dr. Deloney, call it locus of control. When you are a person who feels like that other people in other situations control your life, you lose an element of your mental health because you've lost an element of I am in control of my destiny. Now, we all know that things outside of us do impact us. It's absurd to think otherwise. But too many people give too much power to something outside of themselves

to run your life an example of that is i'm waiting on the government in some method to fix my life forgive my student loans or give me biden bucks or whatever or whatever it is it's going to make me okay if you're waiting on the government to fix your life your life is always going to suck because pretty much every endeavor that the government is involved in sucks. The only thing they do well is national parks. They do a good job with those. They're great at borrowing money as well.

And the military. Yeah. And as much as we love the military, those in the military will tell you they're not very efficient. So, you know, you don't want that locust. You don't want to turn over control of your life to anyone else. That's exactly right. You know, this empowerment, this idea, I am empowered. Who's going to straighten my life out? Me!

The guy in my mirror! This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman-Rims, the personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. James is with us in Chicago. Hi, James. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that I get to talk to both of you gentlemen. It's an honor. Sure. How can we help? Well, my wife and I have four kids.

They are about 8, 5, 3, and 18 months. And we're trying to save up for our first home, and we're struggling to make progress with regards to a down payment that would get us within that 15-year mortgage quarter take-home pay boundary for our first home purchase. Are you out of debt? Hello? James. I'm here.

Are you out of debt? Yes, we are out of debt completely. Okay, and you have your emergency fund in place. Yes, sir. And your household income is what? We clear about $6,200 a month after taxes on average. Okay. All right.

So did you pay off some debt already? Yes, sir. We paid off about $110,000, and we got completely out of debt right before the COVID lockdown. How long did that take you? About five years. Okay. So you're saving at a rate of about $20,000 a year, or you were reducing debt at a rate of about $20,000 a year. Yes.

And part of that was selling off some cars and vehicles. We had some gifts that enabled us to clear some more debt, so it wasn't just our personal income that paid off and got us out of debt. But at this point, we can squeeze maximum $800 a month out of our budget. You make $100,000 a year. And you can't find $10,000. you're squeezing to get 10 grand i'm i'm really confused are you doing a written budget yes sir every dollar has a name and both of you are agreeing to it yes sir absolutely we've been doing it faithfully that's how uh that's how we got out

of debt and that's that's how we're living. Where is all your money going then, since you know? So we have a $2,000 rent payment, and then we had $550 a month for school. The rest of it is basic living expenses. We live in Illinois, so our gas is a little bit higher. We spend about $900 a month on groceries. Trying to think through what other perhaps out of the ordinary expenses we might have. But those are the main things. We have to spend about $400 a month on gas. We've got a minivan, and I drive a four-cylinder. But, yeah, that's more or less where we're at. We do a budget, and we're largely faithful to stick to it and adjust accordingly if something doesn't go right.

Okay. All right. And so, overall, what's your question? I need a little bit of direction on what I could do to increase my income without burning my family out. Like I said, we've got four little kids. My wife does work part-time. She's the director of worship at our church. And I just don't know what I've got to do to accelerate the uh what do you do for a living i own a window cleaning business we do commercial and residential window cleaning okay and are you a one-man gang you got some employees how big is your your operation

uh i am a one-man band and um that's not the way it had always been. Because our expenses have gone up for our personal lives, I haven't felt that we could afford to hire an employee just yet to help lighten the load. But the issue for you is increasing your client base. That increases your revenue. the load and yeah but the issue for you is increasing your client base that include that increases your revenue so are you full are you maxed out as to what you can do as far as window cleaning yeah just about i could maybe squeeze in another five hours but i'm cranking out 50 55 hours and uh you know we we uh so you So you could do more if you had some help.

Yes, absolutely. So the help would pay for itself. You're acting like help is a net cost. Employees, you should always make more employees, make more on employees than they cost you. That's how business works. Yes, yes, that's for a temporary season, no less, I would take a substantial dip in my personal take-home pay because, like I said, we're living on a pretty high budget. Are you a seasonal business? Sort of. About a third of our revenue is seasonal.

Well, then this is – so here's the deal. Here's what I hear on you. I hear all these limitations. I hear roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, and I don't see the roadblock. So let me give you a really practical example. If you are seasonal, I talk to people all the time that are killing it in seasonal businesses, and they hire seasonal help, and they pay them very, very well.

And so I don't think that's a limitation i think you're creating something in your head if you paid somebody forty thousand dollars seasonally to help you and you made another hundred that'd be okay yeah and then what could you do in the off season that is uh run the other 67 of the revenue yeah plus what utility can you bring to the table that's similar to cleaning windows, but it's a service that's not seasonal? You have skill and you have experience that can be leveraged to make more money in the off-season. This is a function of you deciding how important this is and get after it. I think the answer to your question, in other words, is to grow your business.

Yeah. And you grow your top-line revenue by growing the capacity of the business, and the only way to do that is to grow your business yeah and you grow your top line revenue by growing the capacity of the business and the only way to do that is to add some help and that's why we call them help because they help and um uh you know the quote hired help thing you know there are people hired to help you and i've you know they become part of your team they become friends it's a small business it's a family business it's a wonderful environment for someone but i mean you could pay somebody pretty well out of the extra money that you're able to have come in because you were able to expand your capacity i mean if you could clean uh 40 30 more houses windows uh because you had one more person on your team and you were just that much

faster because of that i don't think you're going to get to 50 more but you probably could get to 30 to 40 more and so you move from the top line of 100k to a you know a top line of 150 or whatever and you pay the guy 30 or 40. I mean, it's doable. Dave, I think there's a follow-up that I think a lot of our listeners would benefit from, and you can speak to this very uniquely. There is some fear that is really holding him back there, this idea that employees are so expensive. And the way you come at so many things on the show is let's just look at the math. So for a small business person who feels like they're the chief everything officer and they can't grow because they can't afford to hire somebody,

what's the math process? They need to walk through real math and go, okay, how I can actually walk this out and see that it's not the big scary monster under the bed. What would you recommend they do? Well, there's two kinds of team members you have, ones that are fixed expense and save you money because they free you up. For instance, I hired a personal assistant years ago, which meant I didn't have to do all the documentation and all the other stuff, which meant I could be doing something that made money.

So it increased my ability to make money because I didn't have to do some of the stuff. So I offloaded some things. The other type of person is a person who directly impacts revenue that's the easiest one to hire that's right because you know you're going to cost me x and you're going to make y and if you don't make y then you're not going to cost me x because i can't keep you and so we're going to have to have the first guy i hired russ carroll okay we brought him in he was here for 20 years he's retired from here he's a wonderful friend uh i told russ i said you know he was going to do financial coaching financial counseling and i said i we need to get some financial counseling in here or your kids are going to be skinny

you know this was the conversation we had right yeah and so uh we had you know because i can't pay you except we get more money in here to pay you with, dude, because there ain't no money here. I mean, we didn't have financial peace. We were teaching financial peace, but we didn't have financial peace. And so that's the thing. And so we just had to work through that, and it worked out, obviously, because Russ was here for 20 years. But you're right.

It is scary, but the easiest one to have to add is one that adds more revenue than they cost immediately. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. 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.