The Ramsey Show - App - When Can I Upgrade the House? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

Dr. John Delony & Ken Coleman discuss: Renting vs. buying, and investing in a 401(k), Whether or not to file for bankruptcy, Upgrading the house. 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 and Storage Studios, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about life, specifically your money, your relationships, your work, everything that is connected and in between all of those heavy categories. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney. We're Ramsey Personalities.

We host our own shows as a part of the Ramsey Network. And this hour, we are your hosts. We are here for you. John, what are we going to talk to them about? Everything. Relationships, mental health, what's going on in their lives, what's going on in their workplace, their money, whatever's going on. We'll sit here with you and we'll walk alongside you. There you go.

Alright, let's go to Noel, who joins us in the Big Apple, New York City. There you go. Noel, how can we help? Hi. Pleasure to talk to you guys. I just moved to New York City to take my dream job and doing well.

The salary is decent for the city and I have no debt. But I was wondering, I don't think I can afford to buy something for a very long time. And I'm wondering if it's okay to just increase retirement or should I still put money aside to be able to buy something eventually? How long is a long time? Well, I mean, I don't know, probably 10 years. Well, can you continue to save aggressively over a 10-year period and continue to pay the rent that you have to pay and get there in 10 years? If you really lock down and get the down payment there in 10 years, can you do that?

I think so. And, you know, I probably within, I'll probably have some inheritance, but I just want to know if it's okay to do more than 15%, you know, if I think it's out of reach to buy something. Well, is it okay? It's certainly never wrong when someone invests more, but that's our rule of thumb as Dave has prescribed the baby steps. And there's a reason for that. So if you think about baby step four, so if you're new to our program, just kind of reset real quick so you can get caught up with where Noelle is asking the question. Baby step one is we ask you to put, or we recommend you put $1,000 in your savings account just to handle any kind of rainy day pop-up emergency. Then you take on all of your debt in baby step two. That's what we call the debt snowball. And you go after your smallest debt first, moving up to the largest debt so you get momentum.

And every time you pay off all the smaller debts, you roll that payment into the next largest debt and that gets you tremendous momentum. Baby step three is saving three to six months of your expenses. So now we're really juicing the emergency fund. Baby step four is to set aside 15% of your income, what you're taking home into a matching 401k or a Roth IRA. So that's where we stand right now, all right? Baby step five is people saving for their kid's college. Now, they have a step that was kind of developed later, 3B, where people go after the three to six months of expenses into saving for a house. And essentially, that's where you would be, right? Is that you would be saving for the house, but it's going to take you quite some time.

And I wonder if you're going to be in New York long term. You know, you sound like a young man. Is that true? Is it possible that you'll be moving out of the city or you think you're there long term? Well, I'm young, but it's been my goal to get here. And I've been dreaming for 12 years to get to the right job and situation to do it. And I do think I'm going to stay here for the foreseeable future. So there's something underneath the purchasing question besides

dollars and cents. What is it? Well, um, I guess since I'm, here's why you're saving for a retirement someday, so you believe that you're going to accumulate X number of dollars down the road, and you're willing to invest to make that happen. You are not willing to invest to make a home happen. Why? Because it seems like to get a substantial down payment is just going to take me a good amount of time to do that.

So you're just going to, are you just going to quit on that? Um, no. Well, so right now I'm putting, so my, my salary is 90,000. I'm putting a 1200 a month to various retirement accounts and I'm putting 500 a month in my savings account. So as that slowly builds up, which that'll take quite a long time to get a down payment for a house or a condo up here. So I'm wondering if that $500 a month in savings, should I just divert that to my retirement account? I don't know. I'm not certain. So I'm not going to make the mistake of putting a stake in their life, which is fluctuating housing costs by taking that equation off the table. That's why we tell people pay your mortgage off, even if you have a great interest rate, because it just takes that off the table.

There's no risk in it. You are completely on your own at that point. And what you're choosing to do, if you think about it, you're choosing to be at the mercy of a fluctuating market over time, which we all, I think it's just going to be, I think it's going to be fine, but that you're putting yourself in that on that roller coaster. And at the same time, you're choosing to remain forever in a land of increasing rents or increasing, Hey, your building just got sold. And so we're going to sell it to somebody else who's going to jack your rent up. It may move your rent down here. You're signing up for a life of chaos. And what I hear is resignation. You're just quitting. It's going to take a long time to get this. So instead, I'm just going to put all my money over here

in retirement. And I'm just going to bet on the gap there between whatever rent escalation I have, whatever money I think I can earn in the market. And I think long term, that's not a good move. Okay. What do you think the next three to five years looks like as it relates to opportunity for your income to increase significantly? Well, I definitely want to stick with my current company. I came in at kind of low- management level. And I do see opportunities within the company. So... My point is, it would seem to me that you're going to be making 150,

200 in the next three to five years. You got a shot at that. Is that too much for me to assume? That seems reasonable, yeah. Okay. Well, so, John, this comes back to we recommend the baby steps for a reason. Right. Your life moves with you as you go down these baby steps. Do you have any other debt besides – do you have any other debt? I have no debt.

Okay. No debt at all. And you've got your three to six months expenses, yes? Yeah. I have about $20,000 as my emergency fund. Maybe it should be a little more, but what's the number you need? The down payment number? Well, prop. So I guess 20% of, I'm not looking for anything big, so it's probably going to be like, like a four or $500,000. Drop it down to 10%. Can can you get fifty thousand dollars in the next 24 months i probably yeah i can almost guarantee you could yeah put ten percent down on

it put fifteen percent down on it and get yourself a condo get into a place where you can control the rent escalation yeah um for the next 20 30 years of your life man yeah yeah i i and again i think we're pausing. Aren't we pausing baby step four here for him to just pile up that money? At his age, I would. I would. I think you're 3B.

And I think that I would stop the 15% investment and just pile up the cash, get in, like John said, and now we begin to pay that house off and you can start reinvesting. You're going to get caught back up. You're not going to lose ground. You're staying in New York long-term. That's the play. I agree. Hey, thank you for the call, Noel. The best is yet to be. Don't move. More Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend Ken Coleman.

We're taking your calls on money, life, work, mental health, whatever's going on. 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Terrence in Cleveland, Ohio. What's up, Terrence? How you doing? Good. How are you, man? I've been better. How you doing, man? Oh, man. What's up?

So I'm currently faced with the idea of filing bankruptcy. I currently have about $70,000 in debt. I make about $20,000 a year. I've been working for about a year now. I was in a nursing home for a year before that. And as of now, I just had a recent bad incident. My car was stolen back in August. And with the repairs, I've defaulted on my car note. I actually got two months deferred already. and now I have to pay a large deductible to get it from the mechanic.

And I'm still, you know, faced with the car payments, which is more than half of my monthly income right now. And I've been considering filing Chapter 7 to remove a lot of my debts and try to start over, because it's to the point where I'm not able to save anything at the end of the month. Yeah. Terrence, can I ask you, what are you doing for a job right now? I'm a custodian. Okay.

And did I hear you right? You're making about $20,000? Yes. Okay. And then you said you were, did I hear you say you were in a nursing home? I was, yes. Okay. Do you have any physical limitations right now that would

keep you from doing any other type of work than being a custodian? Well, I have heart disease, minor neurological deficiencies, like my endurance is very low, so I have to expend my energy twice as much to do normal functions. Is the custodial job, I don't want to assume, but is it a physical job? Obviously on your feet a lot and doing a lot of physical labor? I mean, yeah, but I work at my own pace. I got employed through this organization called Vocational Guidance and it's pretty much geared towards disabled persons like myself. Okay. Another couple quick questions here. How much do you owe to get that car from the mechanic? What would be the fee you've got to pay to get it back? $1,000. $1,000. And what would you say the car is worth versus what you owe on it?

It's worth about $20,000 and I owe $35,000. I I'm sorry you broke up you owe what I owe 35 I owe 35,000 and the car is only worth about 20,000 okay all right uh the reason I went that direction John and Terrence the reason I'm asking you about what you're doing and what your physical limitations are is because even though you have limitations, and I know you went through an organization that's trying to help you out, man, I'm willing to stake my entire name and reputation on the fact that you should be making and you can be making way more than $20,000, which would help us in this financial situation. To come up with $1,000 to get the car, then we could sell the car, get a smaller loan. It's the only time we recommend loans, maybe from a credit union, and to pay off the rest of the loan and then start fresh.

But one of the things we've got to do is get you into a place where you can make more income but not have all the physical exertion because you do have some physical limitations. And, and I want to try to help you on that. We may not be able to solve it all on this call, but I at least want to put that out to you so that you have a mindset that you don't have to look at chapter seven to get out of this mess. Do you understand what I'm saying? I know you feel like that's the only option you have left. How does that hit you?

Push back if there's some pushback, something that John and I don't know. It's been very depressing, you know, dealing with it all. I never even considered filing bankruptcy ever in my life. Sure. So Terrence, filing for bankruptcy, if we look at the data, has a lot of external consequences besides money. And you're feeling it right now, right? It feels like it's going to be this big freedom and this big release. And there is a release to it,

but man, what it does to your psyche, what it does to your ability to navigate certain things moving forward, it's just such a burden. It's, it's, it's very similar to divorce. I'll never recommend somebody get divorced. That's a decision someone's got to make on their own. And I don't ever recommend that somebody filed for bankruptcy simply because I know the downstream consequences are so heavy. Sometimes it's your only option. Dave's talked about it. He's, he did it. Um, and he is probably one of the last in lines to say, Hey, he went and developed a plan so that nobody ever has

to go through that. Right. Um, I've spent my career up until I joined Ramsey solutions, working with people, um, with learning exceptionalities and with special needs. Does this agency place you in a place where they said this is all you can do? Because right now when I look at the wages, even at minimum wage places are paying double minimum wage in certain places. They're paying a lot more than $20,000 a year to work fast food right now or to drive Uber. And I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of a couple of places that you could work and then get another job driving around where you could just listen to music or listen to podcasts or talk on the phone. And if you have those days where you're just worn out, um, you can stay at home. You don't have to work that shift if it's Uber or if it's Uber Eats or if it's one of those Lyft or anything like that. My question for you is this. Instead of just saying all I'm ever

going to do is be able to do $20,000 a year, do you have a mentor or a friend or someone who will walk alongside you that's outside of the agency that you trust that you said, hey, we got to figure, I got to make more money and I need your help looking at jobs, applying for jobs, going to interview with jobs. Would you be willing to walk alongside me? Is there somebody else that would help you with that, or is the agency all you got? Not at the moment. They're literally all I have right now. I haven't even considered trying to find other like people of that caliber to talk to. Okay well Terrence

I want to challenge you on something because John and I know you can get out of this. I know you can. And we want you to borrow our belief if you just got John and I today I'm telling you Terrence yes you have the physical limitations but John is right.

We're talking Walmart and Target, late shift, something like that. You can make as much as $18, $20, $22 an hour. Not only that, Kroger just announced, I don't know if you had, but I'm giving you ideas to where you go, wait a second. The world is much bigger than this agency just placing me somewhere where they have a relationship because more money changes your life dramatically am i right or am i wrong you're right i mean i want you just for a second to imagine making twenty dollars an hour how would that change your life it wouldn't worry you so much come on man you'd be able to get that car out of the mechanic pretty quick and john John's right. I mean, that what people are paying, listen, and can I tell you this? I want to paint a bigger picture. Walmart, Target,

just two big companies. They are also giving tuition reimbursement to where not only you work and make more money, you could take the next chapter in your life and get qualified for something and they're going to reimburse you. So you've got to know there are more possibilities for you, and you can get the car out of the mechanic, and you can pay the debt off. You can walk through this, and we're going to walk through this with you. Let's give you Financial Peace University. We're going to gift you a full year of that,

and I want to give you the book, Dave's book. He sold 6 million copies, something like that, and counting. Total money makeover. If I give that to you, will you promise to, something like that, and counting. Total money makeover. If I give that to you, will you promise to read it? Yes, I do. Do you believe, Terrence, that you can come out of this?

I mean, yeah. I do believe in myself. Let me take one step below what Ken's saying. You've been told you're less than haven't you I have ever since I got sick and suffered a traumatic brain injury and all of that stuff yeah that's right you've been told this has been very sharp you've been told you're broken you've been told you're less than you've been told you go over there. And Ken and I are both calling bull crap on that.

We believe in you more than you do. And I want you to believe in yourself as much as Ken and I do. Stay on the line. We're going to get you these tools in hand. And, man, trust us. There is light on the other side of this thing. We're so proud of you, brother. Terrence, somebody needs you to show up and be the best version of Terrence that the world has ever seen.

That's where we want you to get to. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Kit Coleman, joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we are here for you taking your phone calls. 888-825-5225. That. 888-825-5225. That is 888-825-5225. It's a free call. Folks, give us a shot. It is a free call, and we care deeply about you.

You may be just one phone call away from breakthrough. If you've got something that's a little bit sensitive, know that we're going to protect you and take good care of you. We'll change your name, your location, everything. If you feel like you need to talk to somebody today, we are here for you. So give us a shout. Bradley's going to start us off this segment in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bradley, how can we help? Hey, how you guys doing? We are having a blast. What's up? So I'm going to give you a little background. I'm 24. My wife's 23. We've been married since the middle of last year. We just had a new son. He's about three months old. And we currently have been living in our house right now. We have a mortgage on it

for a little over three years. And we now, because of our son, we're wanting to move close to the family and, you know and different school districts and stuff like that. And we want to do that within three to five years, give or take. And so I didn't know if it'd be best to keep throwing additional money into the mortgage, try to pay it down as quickly as I can, or if I need to draw back on that and instead use that money towards anything past my emergency fund to put down towards the next house, that kind of stuff. Three to five years, let me say it this way. You're going to get your money back out of your house more than likely. So personally, what I do is I dump all that money into my house um if i was going to

move i dump all that money into my house let me get it back when i sell it um it feels it it's like a pseudo like a warm blankie to feel like i've got a checking account over here with some other money in it but it's it's going to end up in the same pot um three to five years you're right on the cusp on one end and you're right at the beginning of a cusp on the other end, right? So if you told me, hey, in three years we're out of here, two and a half years we're going to put our house on the market, we're going to start looking to get out of here, I'd probably tell you to sock some money away and try to sell that house.

If you tell me I'm going to be there five years, I'd try to pay that house off as fast as I could, right? So you're right square in the middle. Why did you pick that time range? Like what is magical about three to five years? Well, the actual, well, the limit would be, you know, five, because that's when our son would be roughly starting school.

So that's why I kind of mentioned, like, the school district thing. So let me rephrase it. Why not move right now? Why not move this summer? Mainly, well, I mean, we're just kind of saving up money right now, i mean you know obviously our minds you know the more money put down the better we want to finance as least as possible so we're kind of building you know that nest egg up at the moment okay yeah but here's

the deal john is absolutely right bradley the reason he's right and uh how old did you say you were 24 24 taken from dudes who are twice as old as you, and it's certainly me. I don't know about John. You're close. Close to twice. A lot can change in one year. Your life can look unrecognizable in three to five. And I like John's advice because investing in the current house,

there's no negative. You keep paying that house down, he's right. You're going to get that money back most likely. And you've got yourself so much more net worth, so much more equity. You've got options. Life can change. And I love the plan. And I'm not in any way trying to poo-poo or scare you. I just want you to understand life can change. And I think John's advice is right. I would pile everything into the house. That effectively becomes your down payment that equity and again i hadn't thought about that but um i've just been through it you and i've been married a long time well let me back it out

three years ago i was in my dream job at one of the top universities in the country and then two years before that i was in another state in a really great job do it right so man to forecast five years in my life and i ran into somebody and now i have i'm a youtuber as my as my son says so man you have no idea what happens in five years whether a boss comes and taps you on the shoulder you get fired your wife gets promoted who knows right so it's important to plan it's important to have dreams and it's important to be very specific about those dreams and it's also important to live with principles in the present right here's who i'm going to be every single day in route to wherever it is we're going yeah i love the advice john uh bradley i couldn't couldn't agree more just pile it into the current house and then when

we get there when there shows up uh you're going to be in great shape. Thank you for the call. Paul is up next in Cincinnati, Ohio. Paul, how can we help? Hey, Ken and John. I'm actually really glad that you two are on hosting the show today because perfect combination for this question. Hey, nobody ever says that, Paul. Thanks, man. Yeah, can we record that, guys, in the booth?

It'd be great if you could send that home to our wives and kids. That'd be wonderful. What's up, Paul? So, my best friend suffers from debilitating anxiety, and it has had him out of work for about the past year and a half. And I'm wondering what I can do or what I can encourage him with that might help him move back into the work field since he's been making some progress with his anxiety.

That's awesome. So I would reframe that statement a little bit and say something about his life has set off his body's alarm systems and the noise is real loud. So putting anxiety to the side, what is it about his ecosystem or his environment that has begun is suffocating him is it his marriage did he lose somebody is he have childhood trauma he's dealing with like what what is it so i'd say it's mostly from his childhood trauma okay okay and so he's found himself in an adult world and his body is struggling to live in a world that we've all created for ourselves that none of us can live in right yeah okay uh hey by the way he's lucky to have you it's pretty awesome um here's what i will tell you two two two important things number one you can't fix him and the more you try to help him by fixing him as though he's a puzzle and you've got the missing pieces

the more he becomes a project and not somebody you the missing pieces, the more he becomes a project and not somebody you love. He becomes an engine to fix, not a friend. And as somebody who's been where he is just debilitated by anxiety, the greatest thing, my friends, and there's a couple of them, John, a friend named Todd, a friend named Randall, a friend named John, like guys who leaned into my life. They were very clear about you're with us. We're inviting you over, even though you come over and you're annoying, or you want to talk about how the end of the monetary policies come, like all these crazy anxious things I had all the time. They always invited me over and a couple of my buddies called me on my nonsense. And Here's something important for you to understand. That debilitating anxiety is a context.

It's his body getting his attention and he sounds like he's on the path to healing. It is an excuse to show up in your life. So I had a friend who one time came. I had, you know, you may have heard my story. I thought I was seeing cracks. I thought my house was falling apart. He came over to my house. He looked at it. His dad was seeing cracks. I thought my house was falling apart.

He came over to my house. He looked at it. His dad was an architect. He grew up on construction sites. He walked around. He took me outside. I was like, look at this, look at this. He took a breath, as a good Texan would do.

He exhaled and he said, your house is strong. Your house is fine. This conversation is over. I don't ever want to hear you mention this again and here's what he gave me in that moment that was the first time someone had said stop with this nonsense and it allowed me to walk away and think huh maybe the issue lies with inside of me not projecting out all over but you see what i'm saying but he wasn't ugly he showed up he came into the i i invited him into my life, and he showed up. And he loved me enough to hold me accountable.

Are you taking care of yourself? Right? You see what I'm saying? So you can't fix him. You can love him. And that's real frustrating for a good friend like you, right? Well, you can also do a couple other things, Paul. John's absolutely right.

You've got to love him. But you know what you can do? You can encourage him. be very, very positive. Just a voice of positivity and consistent positivity. That's the encouragement. You can also connect him to people that you know to say, let me tell you about my buddy. He's had a rough life, but I know he's a good dude and I want you to give him a shot. You can connect him to opportunities through your relationships. And then the third thing is you can endorse him. Endorse him to as many people as possible.

That's what a friend can do. Your question was, how can I help my friend find a job? Well, you can look a little bit for him, but at the end of the day, you've got to connect him because I think he feels wounded, John. Oh, yeah. I think he's a little bit maybe shameful, embarrassed, whatever. Finding a job is exposing. Leading him to a situation is one of the best things a friend can do.

That's exactly right. And just showing up, being there. So connect him, man. Open up your Rolodex. Put yourself out there for him. But in doing so, tell him, hey, dude, this guy stopped. Yeah, yeah. Because I believe in you.

I put my name on it. You're going to show up. You've got to show up, and you've got to deliver. And I believe you can show up. That's it. I think that's the right thing to do. And then, as John said, Paul, you've just got to be his friend and love him. You can't do it all for him.

But great call. Thanks for calling. This is the Rangers Show. We'll be right back. The Ramsey Show continues. I'm Ken Coleman. John Deloney joins me this hour. And we're here for you. 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225. Taking your money questions, taking your mental health and relationship questions, taking your work and burnout questions. We're here for you. We want you to win in your life. Let's go to Silva in Houston, Texas. Silva, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thank you for the time. I have called a few times, so it's a pleasure to do so again. Great. How can we help

today? Yes, sir. So the question is, I have a wonderful career. My wife does too. We both are completely debt-free, and we are wondering if it would be a bad idea to quit our jobs to pursue this business idea that we have. Yeah, that's it. That's the question. Okay, so you guys have any debt? No, we don't. No debt, okay. We have nothing, yeah. What kind of emergency fund do you have? We have about, we have $20,000, which translates to about six months, and we have

$30,000 outside of that that we currently have. We're invested in relatively safe investments. We're happy to be a joint banker for our work. Okay, great. And what's your joint income? Joint income before taxes is just under $100,000. Okay. What's the business? Yeah, you said you had an idea. Yeah. Does it mean it hasn't launched?

What is the idea? Well, maybe I misspoke, but it's not an idea. I actually already have it registered to the state of Texas, and it is to do DIY furniture. It's the foot furniture, pottery, paintings. Think of it like the new, it's like a new home goods store. It's a brand that is, you rewind the brand, rewind the belt, and via that brand incorporate handmade items such as DIY furnitures,

custom furniture, plates, pottery, paint, anything you would have used for decoration. Got it. And so what's your revenues right now and where and how are you selling those? And what I mean by that last question is, is it all online? Are you doing some pop-up shops in the area? How are you doing this now and what's the revenue? Currently we have nothing. We haven't started making any income right now.

We're still in the beginning stages of building the brand and creating the online presence, getting in contact with local farmers markets and other avenues who can use here in person to eventually sell these things. So we don't have anything. Okay. I got good news and bad news. Okay. The good news is, you got an idea. You guys have put a lot of effort into it. It sounds like you guys are in agreement as a couple. We want to do this. That's the great news. The bad news is you're not going to be able to quit your job anytime soon,

and I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm not trying to be in any way a discouragement to you. I'm telling you that my guess is a three- to five-year play because my advice is that we don't want to touch that emergency fund. So the emergency fund is an emergency fund. Now the $30,000 cash that you have saved over and above the emergency fund, I like that and I'd like to add to that, but I'd want you two to start doing this. So let's just start making some chairs, rocking chairs or start whatever, and let's start selling it locally at farmer's markets

or flea markets or antique places and get a booth. And let's just prove the actual product. I love that you're thinking about brand, but the reality is, is I think you've got the cart before the horse here. I want to prove that we can actually sell furniture and decor and things of that nature. And so let's say that we start out in our first month, we do it on the side and you two sit down and I'm making this up because this is the mental process I want you to think through. So how many hours a week, you don't have to answer this, but how many hours a week can we, you and the wife, put towards this business? And let's just say it's 20 hours for sake of conversation. All right. So we're going to spend that 20 hours around just making and selling.

And let's prove that. Let's say we make $2,000 the first month. Again, I'm making all this up. The $2,000 goes right into ABC Bank Account, whatever your brand name is, whatever your company is. And we're going to build up, build up, build up. And it may take you two years. Maybe you go nuts.

Maybe in a year's time, you guys can put your $100,000 of joint income in the furniture decor bank account. For anybody to leave a stable job and go full-time into a business, I want you to have at least six months of your income in the bank. And that would be the soonest that I would make the move to quit your jobs and go full-time into that business. Just trying to keep it simple. I'll stop there. I hit you with a lot. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? It does. It does make sense. You're just allowing me to prepare for the worst and take it with logic rather than with the dream idea. Makes sense. Yeah. And I would even say this. It's not that we're preparing for the worst.

It's just we want to put ourselves in a – there's no reason for you to assume a lot of risk with this business. There really isn't. I understand. Well, Silva, stay on the line here because I'm going to ask Ken a question on your behalf. Is that cool? Please, absolutely.

Ken, this sounds like somebody who is more interested in the idea of having a business than he is in the actual business itself. Here's why I'm asking, and you take these calls all the time on your show, so I may be out to lunch here. I've got friends who do their day job, and then they go home, and the moment moment they get home they play guitar or sand furniture down or scour craigslist they can't help but doing it and they look up and they have no friends because they play guitar all the time and now they're starting to get a couple of gigs the business takes care of itself this sounds like somebody who is very interested in the idea of brand building and having a cool website but they've never even done the thing that they're about to jump off. Could be.

Silva, he breaks up a good point. Are you or your wife into the decor and the handyman stuff of designing and then building furniture from scratch? Yes. As a matter of fact, we just recently got married in April, and we needed to furnish our new apartment home. And I would say maybe 80% of everything that's there was handcrafted by my wife or DIY by us. And we've been doing this.

We get a lot of attraction from family and friends and all of us. I guess you could say feeling this idea, and we thought, well, maybe we can monetize this. And because of my background in banking, I have the foresight to take care of the banking side of things, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So I think what John's hearing, and I think that was a good question because it's smart to go, how much do you really care about this? But what I do hear, which I think you heard, is I think you're trying to do so much planning because you're a banker, you're a process numbers guy, and the plan will take care of itself. Just start making furniture and sell it. Let's start making something and selling it to people. And then we go, oh, we sold seven of this chair, but we thought this chair was going to work. Nobody gives a crap about it.

And so we go, oh, okay, no big deal. And then so we're just going to tiptoe into this thing, and then we're going to crawl a little bit, and then we'll walk, okay, no big deal. And then so we're just going to tiptoe into this thing, and then we're going to crawl a little bit, and then we'll walk, and then we'll run. And so I think it's back to that same plan. But you need to stop worrying about brand and all that stuff. You need to start proving concepts. And let's get – Absolutely.

This is going to turn off some of the listeners. That's fine. My son shot a deer last year. I just went and picked up the hide, like they made a rug out of it. Yeah. And I talked to the taxidermist today, and he said, as deer season's starting, it's about to get wild, and he said, dude, we could skip this deer season, and we have a year's worth of work already in the building right now.

So I'd love to see Silva along those lines, make a bunch of chairs, and have people start putting deposits down on chairs, and suddenly get a year or six months worth of work lined up, and then you can go, okay, now I've got cash in the bank, I've got these business going, now we're off to the races. Yeah, great, great point.

John, for folks out there that are in Silva's situation, John made a great point. You want to get that six months of your salary tucked away in that side business before you even think about leaving the steady job. Right. However, you make a very great point. You want to get that six months of your salary tucked away in that side business before you even think about leaving the steady job. However, you make a very great point. Get gigs lined up, man. Let's also have a pipeline. Yes.

And you should. If you're able to stack that much cash, you should have a pipeline of business. But you make a very good point. So I just want to reiterate that because we get this question a lot on the RFC show. Hey, when do we know when to move from the steady day job to the side hustle full time? Well, first of all, you have no personal debt. Okay, so you're walking the baby steps out. So you're already through baby step 3A at least. And then we've got money in the side hustle account, at least six months worth. That's the safe play.

But to your point, a very nice pipeline of future business. Now, there's no risk here. You're off to your point, a very nice pipeline of future business. Now, there's no risk here. You're off to the races, right? Yeah, and the risk is how well you manage that pipeline. That's different than finding stuff to eat. And by the way, friends and family will tell you they love something, but they're not going to part with their money for it. There's a total difference

in friends and family telling you they like something and the marketplace telling you they like something. Yeah, that's so true. Hey, Silva, thanks so much. Can't wait to hear back from you at some future point. Send us some pictures of those chairs. Hey, thanks to Dr. John Deloney, James and the team in the booth, and you, America, this is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. We just launched a brand new audience survey for The Ramsey Show, and we'd love your feedback.

You could be entered to win a $500 Visa gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at RamseySolutions.com slash survey. Music