The Ramsey Show - App - When the World Goes Crazy, Control the Controllables (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 17, 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. Jade Walshaw, Ramseysey personality is my co-host today. The phone number if you want to talk is 888-825-5225. Nikki is starting this hour in Miami. Hi Nikki, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, hello. Hi, how can we help? So I was calling to see if I, in your opinion, can afford or should I buy a $1.5 million house. Cool. I know it sounds like a lot.

It's not a lot in my area. It's actually, I would even say a fixer-upper for $1.5 million, but it's in a great desired neighborhood for schools. Okay, cool. So I wanted your opinion if that's a move we should make at this point in our lives. Absolutely. If you can afford it. Exactly.

And that's my question. Can I afford such a big purchase? So what's your household income? Yes, so that's the complicated part. So my husband and I, we make $290,000. However, we do have rental properties. As soon as we turned 25, instead of having a big old wedding, we took our money and we bought our first investment property.

We paid it off, moved on to the next one, paid that one off, and we've been building slowly. So two rental properties, free and clear? Free and clear, yeah. We have four in total. We have one left to pay off out of the four. Can you tell me the first three? Can you tell me what they're worth? Of course. So the first one, we bought it for $200,000, and now it is worth $800,000. Wow, good. What about the second one? And my rental, my cash, my net cash every month is close to $2,000 after all expenses.

My second property is paid off as well. Bought it for $250,000. Now it's worth $800,000. Sweet. Way to go. What about the third one? Yes. Then the third one also paid off. And right now it's currently worth $350,000. And what do you owe on the one that's not paid off? $330,000. And that one is worth around $700,000. Okay. And is there any other debt that you have?

Just our cars. We owe between both of us $46,000 in cars. They're fairly new. We ended up buying them just a few months ago. Anything else? No, no student loan, no credit card, nothing like that. Do you have any cash? We do. We have about $150,000.

And then aside from our income of $290,000, we also have our rental income, which nets to about $95,000 a year. So that's separate from the $290,000. That's correct. That's an addition, too. Okay, and do you have any other investments? No, just of retirement for 1K. How much? Close to 160. How old are you guys? I am 37 and my husband is 40. Well, you've done extremely well. Congratulations.

Thank you. Very well done. Thanks for my parents. And you're fairly new to this Ramsey stuff, I think, aren't you? I did. I started watching the show and your videos just a couple of weeks ago. As much money as you've got and as well as you've done, why do you care what we think? Both my husband and i were accountants so we've gone so far we've been we sacrifice so much in our 20s and 30s to get where we are

i don't want to make the wrong move over a dream that is expensive i don't the reason you built wealth, accountant, is to live the dream, not count the coin. Correct. Okay. So you're going to give up some of your rental income in order to live the dream. If I'm you, anyway. I've got a bunch of rental property. I love rental property. I love real estate.

All of mine's paid for. I never borrow money for anything. My house is paid for. Everything's paid for. Everything's paid for. Everything's paid for. So I'm going to have you in a paid for dream house by selling off some of your rentals if I'm doing your deal. Now that makes you a question whether you really want to do this or not, because now the accountant is fighting with the little girl who wanted a dream house. Now who's to win it is well look it is we have discussed that option but we don't want to let go it's cash flow yeah it is but would you rather strangers live in the paid for house or you that's the way i look at it i'd much be willing to clear i'd probably clear rental number four

since there's debt on it anyway i'd sell that one and get three hundred thousand cash and drop one of the eight and then i drop one of the eight hundreds and pay cash for this puppy and you're the one living in the paid for house not one of your renters no makes sense yeah right it's funny i'm renting my houses out and i live in what do you live now what do you live in now that's i rented all of my houses, and I'm the one living in an apartment. Wow. Okay. Okay. And you're a 37-year-old multimillionaire with an income approaching a half million dollars a year.

Mm-hmm. And I'm still questioning what I should do yet. Well, listen, let me help you with this, okay? There's three things you can do with money, and you need to do all three all the time. Be generous with it. Invest it and enjoy it. You're only good at one, investing, and you are a world-class investor. But you suck at enjoying it.

That is true. Yes, my husband says the same thing. We had this conversation last night. I said Taylor Swift tickets are too expensive. Oh, God. This has nothing to do with Taylor Swift. But they better go see it. Y'all better go see that show.

How did Taylor Swift get in this conversation? Because she put Kelsey on the map, Dave. Oh, Jesus. Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord. I'm just kidding. how did taylor swift get in this conversation because she put kelsey on the map dave oh jesus help me lord help me lord it's so expensive i can't pay for those tickets what happened and he asked me what happens if you thought i will ask for it he made me think at that point i said i gotta think about it i gotta justify the account yeah so here's what would i do listen listen i believe i teach people to get out of debt. I teach people to save people that spend all the time, people that spend all of their money on fun and have no life, consequently, except of stress and problems.

So most of the people we talk to, Jade and I are on the other end. We're telling them grow up and quit being a child and quit having all some fun. Right. Instead, have some generosity and some investing in your life. So I want you to insert some generosity in your life. You didn't talk about that. I'm not saying you don't have that, but I want to make sure it's there. And I want you to enjoy some of this money.

Here's the deal. With the money that you make, if you sacrifice one and a half rentals, the one that's paid for and the one that's not, and you get a nice home and you take a normal amount and start investing it from this point forward you're going to be worth 25 to 30 million dollars at retirement wow that's where you're headed mathematically and you're an accountant you can do compound interest and you know what it looks like you have this fabulous income yeah and better than that you have this

thing called self-control yeah and discipline i mean you're weird it's awesome yeah but you need to go get your good house girl you earned it you sure did very good this is that's so fun way to go way to go nicky to go, Nicky. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. When something in your home breaks, remember the Neighborly done right promise, which is it's not done right until it's done right. That's cool. I like that. Download the neighborly app today, schedule your appointment, and you know you'll get great service when you're working with neighborly's network of home service providers. That's right. Great company. Yeah. Today's question comes from Rachel in Missouri. She says,

I've been listening to you for over 20 years, and I'm so grateful for your financial principles. My family is close to paying off our mortgage, and then we are completely debt free. Will you please give perspective on our world events, talking about the Israel at war, etc. What's the best advice to prepare financially for our own home and how to invest with so much turmoil? This is an interesting question. Dave, I'll give my two cents on this. I'd love to hear your side of this. Rachel, things like this, whenever there's calamity, whenever there's uncertainty in the world, I think about COVID and all those things. I really go quickly to controlling what

I can control. And in this case, like you said, you're close to paying off your mortgage, you're close to being completely debt-free. Do those things that you know to do and continue walking down that path. And then for me, I just also have to accept, it's like in one hand, I control the things that I can control.

And then on the other hand, I have to accept the things that I can't control. And one thing that I have found that helps me accept the things I can't control is I tend to want to lean into generosity a little bit. And then there's kind of just like, okay, I can't go overseas and I may not be the one that can save people, but I can be generous in my community. There's things that I can still do. So that's the way that I would approach that. And those are the two things that have given me peace in times like these. What about you, Dave? Now, that makes a lot of sense. Control the controllables. I mean, when we were in the

Fauci pandemic, you know, we didn't know what was going to happen. You know, we'd never been in a Fauci pandemic before. You didn't know what to do. Right. And so, you know, you just kind of got to get in there and wind your way through. That one actually showed up in Missouri. I don't think Hamas is going to show up in Missouri. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure of that one. Might be wrong. I mean, sure as I say that, it'll be tomorrow,

but I don't think so. I think you're probably okay. But then the question is, what does world, what do global events do to your investments? Well, if you're invested in the stock market, for instance, in your 401K, sometimes global events temporarily affect that. A scare in the Ukraine, a scare in Israel, a war in Israel, a war in the Ukraine can affect uh stock market usually fairly temporarily um certainly an event

in the homeland an event in the united states proper would affect the stock market but even 9-1-1 when the towers were uh attacked by those cowards um and they you know they they fell and they fell if you don't know literally within blocks of wall street the actual new york stock exchange is right there okay you couldn't get to it for a day or two because of the rubble and so but also we traditionally shut down the stock market exchange the new york stock exchange and for that matter the uh the nasdaq which is in chicago will shut down trading during during horrible events like an attack on american soil uh we shut it down well it was so shut down the 9-1-1 was on a tuesday stock market didn't reopen until monday and as soon as it reopened you know what it did it dove 500 points in a matter of moments

you know what it did and then it went down like for a week it just kept going down and everybody's like oh they thought they they've they've crashed they've crashed the towers and they crashed the american economy no not even close i kept telling people people, look, buy, buy, buy. It's time to buy. It's going down. Buy. It's on sale. Buy.

I don't want to take advantage of a calamity. That's not the point. But the market's going down. This is not the time to sell. It's the time to buy. Because 54 days later, it returned to where it was. Which nobody talked about. And never made a single news headline. But the news headline, big, bold, across the front page of the local liberal pamphlet we have that's called a newspaper.

And big, bold, big, bold letter. Stock market crashes following terrorist attack. You know how much coverage they gave it when 54 days later it completely returned? Zero. Not one mention. Not one anywhere. Even CNBC, which is supposed to report on business didn't report it even fox business didn't report it because fox business was not in existence then so there and you know but there you go that's what that's how

this world event things work so what you do is you keep buying so dave you say just keep buying the rest of your life you keep buying until it's time for you to sell. You do not buy or sell based on world events because they always have a temporary impact. So we always say here that when you're investing, you're spreading it over four types, right? Growth, growth, and income, aggressive growth, international. And I feel like I've heard you say international is kind of like the wild child, right? No, it's the weak spot. That's the weak spot.

And that is because those economies have not done as well right and we know that overall in the united states foreign stocks as a category have not kept up with u.s stocks as a category but there's a reason for the last 40 years there's a reason that it's still a quarter of the strategy exactly because there are times that things like a bmw or a mercedes they're still owned by Germans, they're not now, but where they think of a foreign company, and there's a bunch of them that you ingest and do business with every day and don't think anything about it,

but their stock then is considered a foreign stock. And so there's times that they're going to prosper, sometimes on the back of the U.S. economy. That's true. But there's still that profit goes to a foreign company then. So it's not a patriotic issue. It's a math thing. And so you just keep investing.

You just keep investing, Rachel. And I got to tell you, if you're worried about a paid-for house in Missouri because of the war in Israel, you need to turn the television off. You're watching it too much because your reality is getting distorted as to what the real effect is going to be on your life. No one is happy about Israel being attacked. Well, some people are happy, but, I mean, none of the people around me or people like me are happy about it.

We're all horrified with what's going on. It's absolute evil. But I mean, none of the people around me or people like me are happy about it. We're all horrified with what's going on. It's absolute evil. But from a financial or economic perspective, a year from now, it'll be a distant memory. From a political perspective, 10 years from now, it'll be a history note in a book. That's all it'll be, just a note. That's true. Like the 1967 1972 same the same dates in israel right same thing just a note in the history book and so but while you're living

in it it's a real thing and so but you can't get caught up in things that are happening somewhere else control the controllables yeah it's tough i think um the way the world is there's social media there's 24 hour a day network news right and it's constantly feeding us the worst possible things happening in society and if we don't put boundaries around that we will destroy our brains like we will we will be in fear 24 7 it's a 24 7 news cycle 24 7 fear 24-7 fear cycle. It's fear porn. And not to say that the Israel thing is not real. Of course. It is obviously real.

It's obviously horrid. It's a tragedy. It's a disaster. Yeah. It's all of those things. But is it going to affect Rachel in Missouri? No. No.

Other than pray for. I was going to say. Pray for peace in Jerusalem. Yep. Other than in the way that we can show compassion. That's all you can for peace in Jerusalem. Yep. Other than in the way that we can show compassion. That's all you can do. Hey, thank you. Thank you for your question, Rachel.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. By the way, there's lots of information on the stock market history that is very intriguing when you dig into it. One piece of information I saw in one of the brochures one time is if you had invested at the worst possible day in the stock market in the last five years, and you did that every five years, you would have so much money. The worst possible day, yeah. Because you were buying at the bottom. Yeah, cheap.

And you say, okay, this is the horrible thing that happened. Right after 9-1-1, if you had invested, right? If you had invested after Black Monday in 1987, which the market just dove like 20% in one day. It was crazy. It was a weird day. If you'd invested on the worst possible days, if you'd invested at the highest possible days,

how much money you'd have. And it's still a lot of money. Something. So the point of the chart or the illustration is keep investing, keep investing, keep investing. The only people that get hurt on a roller coaster are those that jump off in the middle of the ride. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today derrick is in salt lake city hi derrick welcome to the ramsey show hi dave hi jade hey what's up hey um i'm getting married in

less than two months congratulations well thank you very much. She has about $23,000 of consumer debt. I do not have any debt outside of my mortgage. So my question to you is, should I stop baby steps four, five, and six and save up to be able to pay off her debts after the wedding? Or should I continue four, five, and six till after the wedding? So you don't have 23,000 cash now? I do, yes. Okay, why would you need to save up then? I'm currently finishing my basement, and so I'm doing that debt-free, and so I'm only going to have about 15,000 left. And is she contributing any to this $23,000? She's working to pay it off right now, but when we get married, the line share will still be there. Okay, so you've got $15,000 that you can put towards it? Yeah, I would. Yes, to answer your question, I would stop my 401k

and go ahead and get ready for the post-honeymoon debt freedom. And then make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund and never dip into your emergency fund for anything. And that includes fixing a basement, which is by definition not an emergency. And then we will, after we have an emergency fund in place, we'll restart and put 15% of our new household income into retirement plans of some kind. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, that's just adjusting both of your lives to fit the post-marriage baby steps. Agreed? Definitely. Yeah, you were on track. You knew what we were going to say already, but you just want to make sure that the nuance was there. Yeah, I had a couple more questions for him. I wanted to know if he was spending his emergency fund to do his basement.

Well, he had $23,000. He's going to be down to $15,000. Yeah. So I don't know how far. That's what I said. You got to make sure the emergency fund's in place and the basement's not. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, that's. Yeah, we went from this real noble i'm going to

pay off my fiance's debt after we're married to i'm finishing my basement yeah your face was priceless finishing my basement yeah all right and there's that okay how are these in the same sentence you know that's good that's's okay. Maybe she wants the basement finished. It's okay. Nothing's wrong with what he's doing. It just caught me off guard. It was like a hard left turn. It was.

Morgan is in Sacramento. Hey, Morgan, what's up? Hi, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yay. I am calling because I have been a homeschooling stay-at-home mom for the past 18 years, and my kids have just gotten old enough now to where I all that fun going on, but we still have an abundance beyond that. And so we're trying to figure out how to, if we, in comparison with

elevating our lifestyle with paying off the mortgage. So you're on baby step six? I think so. Awesome. So that would mean for anybody listening, you have no other debt other than the mortgage. You've got three to six months set aside for expenses in an emergency fund. Yep. And you're investing 15% of your income before taxes. And then are you putting aside anything into 529s or anything like that for the kids college? No, that stuff is all taken care of. Okay.

How's it taken care of? Oh, wow, I'm sorry. I said wow. I said yeah. My oldest was given a 529 already and has done scholarships and is working her way through. So this is her first year. And we also have relatives that are helping along the way and are able to help. But we just really feel strongly, too, about our kids' work ethic

and being able to put themselves through. We live in an area, too, that has a state school and a community college. And here in California, community college is paid for by taxpayers. So there's just a lot of support. So they're able to go without debt. So that's good. Yeah. But you're

contributing nothing uh yeah correct okay so taking care of means that you think they have a plan yes yeah that's true okay i just wanted to know what you meant okay yeah and um all right so i i get it that's been the plan their homeschool and That's been the plan. They're homeschooling. That's been the plan all along, and they know that. They're not surprised by it. And you're actually coaching them and showing them how to do this debt-free, I hope, and without mom and dad's support and with the support of some relative money, money coming from some relatives. Okay, cool.

Yep. Well, I mean, there's two things to do with the overage then. It'd be baby step six, as you said, put it on your house or enjoy it. How much overage have you got? Probably about $1,000 a month. Okay. So what do you want to do? You know, little things like my daughter this year asked if she could have new soccer shoes instead of used soccer shoes.

Things like that. Like I really would like to do and what we actually did do, um, for my birthday, we bought a table at a banquet for a charity event for people. And that was so much fun to be able to do that. Um, my husband likes to buy dinner if we ever go out with friends. Um, so, you know, nothing huge, I guess. I mean, but then that's what we're thinking like, oh, maybe we could save up and go to next year's money and marriage event,

you know, things like that, that are super exciting. What I would say, what I would say, this is what Sam and I do. And we came up with this because we have variable income. And every month the question is,

what do we do with this extra income? And finally, we got to the point where we're like, it's just a percentage. And we know this percentage is going towards a mortgage, whatever it is, this percentage goes towards something fun we wanna do, and this percentage goes towards giving. And that kind of takes all of the guesswork out of it.

It kind of takes the tendency to maybe leave something that's important out so that you can do something else. And that way it's like, okay, we're covering every base every time there's extra money. And that's one strategy you could utilize with this because I do want you to be intentional about paying off your mortgage because it is part of the process. And it's very important for you to do that in order to build wealth. But like Dave said, you also, it's extra, right? And you don't have to be so, so intense about it. I just want you to be intentional. So you do have the opportunity to give some or save some as well. Yeah, I would, I agree with that. I think that's a great formula. And so it might sound like we're going to put 50% of all overage towards the mortgage.

We're going to splurge with 40% of the overage and we're going to give an additional 10 for generosity out of it, or whatever. You can switch those numbers around, or you can have different numbers, but obviously, out of $1,000, then I'd put 500 towards a mortgage, or 500, you know, whatever that percentage tells you, and that's exactly how Sharon and I do it as well. We increase our lifestyle by a very small percentage on all overage. We increase our generosity and our investing by a large percentage on all overage. But we're blessed in that our income is so freaking ridiculous that a small percentage is great for life.

So, I mean, our lifestyle increasing a small percentage is not a small dollar. So it's good. We just don't need to spend that much. It's just nuts. And we still have a crazy good life you do i think people do fear like lifestyle creep though yeah but if you don't be you should you should fear it yeah because i mean it because if you don't learn to control how much you spend on your consumption you will consume all of it the rest of your life no matter what you make and people will make 15 million dollars by 15 million dollars worth of stupid stuff then you know that's called mo money mo problems that's it and that's that's a you know mo immaturity yeah

so um it just keeps growing right but yeah i think you just gotta uh you're but the formula gives you permission to enjoy the portion that you set for enjoyment and permission to do the generosity without looking over your shoulder. Was I irresponsible? That's right. And permission to do the investing without feeling like I'm Scrooge McDuck counting my coins. Right. That's right. And so I love that where we allocate a percentage.

I use it. We teach it to high-income people all the time. But it works for anybody in four, five, and six on any amount of overage. It could be 1,000. It could be 10,000 overage, whatever it is. Good suggestion, Jade. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show. jade washaw ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225

james is in santa cruz california hi james how are you no very good thank you um i am a new listener my radio station just picked you guys up and a couple of questions on credit scores. We had bankruptcy years and years ago, and we've just been working real hard on bringing our credit up, and now we're in the 800s. And I heard you the other day saying that isn't that important. So I'm just trying to find out about credit ratings. Yeah. So James, well, number one, thanks for listening and thanks for even being open to what we're talking about here. The thing with the credit score is it's all about your interaction

with debt. And since you have started listening, we are of the camp that debt is, there's no such thing as good debt, right? We want you to pay off your debt. And when you do pay off your debt, your credit score goes to zero after time. Usually it's about a year that passes and it will go down to zero if you have no debt on the record. And for a lot of people, yourself included, I think that is completely new information. It's like, wow, I didn't know that that was possible. And it makes people a little bit nervous because our whole lives, the culture is telling us you need to have credit score, you need to have good credit score, and you need a credit score to get all the things that you want

in life. But when you really do look at that score, it's about how much debt you have, how long you've interacted with that debt, what types of debt do you have right the history of your debt what percentage of your debt that you're using that's all they care about and it's only good for one thing and that's to help you get more debt right it's not it's not an it's not an indication that you have a high net worth, a high income. It's not an indication you're winning with money. It's an indication you're winning with debt. And so it's a false measure of winning is our point. And do we want to purposefully destroy it if you've got an 800? No.

But the only way you've got an 800 since you filed bankruptcy years ago is, you know, after the bankruptcy, you've had a lot of positive interaction with debt, meaning you borrowed, paid it back, borrowed, paid it back on time or early, and you didn't get into crazy amounts of debt, I hope. Usually you don't get an 800 if you're way over leveraged. And usually you don't get an 800 if you've got a bunch of wrong kinds of debt. I mean, if you had, by wrong kinds, I mean the super dumb stuff, right? But it's not all credit card debt or it's not all whatever.

But, I mean, you've been living a fairly normal consumer life and have paid everything earlier on time. Am I right? Yeah, and, you know, we have four vehicles. Everything's paid off. We have, you know, credit cards, but, I mean, we pay them off every month. Right, right. And the only— But you didn't always, or you wouldn't have an 800.

No, correct. The credit—the cars weren't always paid off, and the credit cards weren't always paid off every month, or you would not have an 800. Right. The only thing we have is our mortgage, and I just looked it up yesterday, and it's worth like 1.2, and we owe 513,

so it's like $687,000 in equity. Yeah, way to go. We have two kids. Our girl is the last two years at Cal Poly. So we're paying their tuition. What's your household income? The wife is around $125,000, and I'm self-employed. And I actually retired this last December, which doesn't feel like it because I'm still working.

Yeah. What do you make? I'm on paper around, I don't know, 20 to 30. Okay. So here's the premise.'re a brand new listener the thing that we've discovered and i've lived and we have taught now for 30 years on this show is the shortest fastest way to an extremely stable wealthy enjoyment of money is to become and stay debt free because that frees up your income. It takes away the risk of problems, and you're living in a fairly risk-free environment right now. You have nothing left but a very small mortgage relative to the value.

And your wife has a good income. You've been very careful, calm, wise. You've not done anything super stupid here. You've done a good job a very good job and so it doesn't in your mind right now this idea of living without debt completely uh it's not that radical because you're almost there basically right and then then the point being the point being do you want to go back into debt if you want to go back into debt i would argue with you if you if you want to go back into debt you If you want to go back into debt, I would argue with you. If you want to go back into debt, you should protect that credit score because it's the easiest way to go into debt. But if you're not going to borrow anymore and you're just going to build wealth

and the next time you get ready to buy a car or put a kid in school, you're going to figure out a way to write a check to do that and you're not going to borrow money, then your need for an 800 credit score is very low now you don't have to worry about it it's not doing anything wrong it's just sitting there and there's no sense and like i said we don't need to shoot it or something it's not we don't want to destroy it uh but i'm not going to sit and fret like most of americans do about oh god it dropped 10 points who gives a crap i mean it doesn't matter. You're not using it.

It has only one use, and that's to borrow more money. And if you decide like I decided 30 years ago, and you've been moving this way before you even met us, James, you've been moving towards being debt-free and hopefully staying that way. If you decide I'm going to stay that way, then you have no use for a credit score. Right. Yeah, and the further you walk down the path, the easier it gets, right? When you first start out, you've got a bunch of debt and there's more risk in your life. You're thinking, well, a lot of people erroneously think, I need a credit card.

What if something happens? It's my safety net. And then they start to realize and get their confidence of, wait a minute, I can use my own money. I don't need this credit score. And the further you get down that line to where maybe the only thing you have left is your mortgage then it's like yeah what do I need a credit score for I've got everything and I was able and now I have all this extra cash because I don't have payments so if I do need something I can easily stack up the cash to pay cash I don't need debt that's it once you know that then you don't need a score yeah that's right James thanks for being a brand new listener Caleb is in Charleston, West Virginia. Hi, Caleb.

How are you? I'm great, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I do reside in Charleston, West Virginia. I own a roofing company. We're coming up on just over two and a half years in business and fairly healthy. We will be projected about $2.2 million.

Great. Good job. Well done. Thank you. And we've accumulated a decent amount of money. I've got, actually just checked it this morning, around $303,000 and change in the bank, but it is just sitting in the bank. So I can give you a little bit more details of kind of our family. We've got two young girls, and when you work pretty hard for that type of money, you seem to keep it closer to your chest. And I don't know if I'm doing this service to myself as well as the family if we don't pick up a little bit you know

and be more aggressive in well you need an emergency fund at home you need retained earnings at the office you need some money some cash at the office for operations for growth for uh for buying things uh so you don't use a line of credit to the office that kind of stuff so i keep a retained earnings fund here at Ramsey. And then at home, I've got an emergency fund. So some of that $300 will be allocated to those two things. The rest of it should be either used to pay off debt or to invest, or both depending on where you are in the baby steps.

Okay. Are you familiar with the baby steps? I am familiar. Okay. Where are you? Are you out with the baby steps? I am familiar. Okay. Where are you? Are you out of debt? No, and you're probably with the type of money. And again, it's one of those things where it's sometimes hard to give up some of the money that I've worked.

You already gave it up when you bought the item with debt. You just hadn't admitted it yet. Yeah, that's what I want to know. I mean, you did $2.2 million in revenue but does the business did you guys take out debt on the business no the business has zero debt at all what's the debt that you're ashamed of that you don't want to talk about 130 000 in my mortgage oh is that all is that all i have 130 i have 130 000 mortgage that's it that's not that's that's no biggie pay it off man, man. Yeah. Oh, God, pay that off today. Good Lord. I thought he was going to drop a bomb on us, Dave.

I thought you were going to tell me you had an $80,000 truck. Uh-huh. I really did. Yeah. Oh, my God. No, pay off that mortgage, man, today. Great. Ooh, exciting stuff.

Yeah. And then you still got a lot of money. $150,000. $150,000, $180,000. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here.

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