The Ramsey Show - App - You Can’t Borrow Your Way out of Debt! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 23, 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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose and host of The Ken Coleman Show, where he talks about career and jobs all day long. He's my co-host today. We're going to be talking to you about your life right in front of you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Ben starts this hour in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Ken. So grateful to be on the show today. Thank you again for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world?

Well, the brief synopsis of the situation is I'm wondering if I should take on an additional student loan to go through a coding boot camp to, in essence, double my income so that I can accelerate my Baby Step 2 progress for my family. Okay. So I'm guessing you've not been listening to us for very long. It's been off and on for a couple of months. I know the short answer would be, of course not, don't be stupid. That's a good short answer. How much is the boot camp going to cost? So the boot camp is $13,900. And what is your expected increase in income from what now to what then?

What would you be making? Currently, I'm making $38,000 a year, and I would be bringing that up to anywhere between $75,000 and $85,000, depending on the position that I would get. All right, that sounds about right. And what's the long-term play in technology for you? Where do you want to go? I'd want to be, honestly, my dream job would be to be coding and developing analytics software for professional football programs. Okay, great. So you have a huge upside. So the answer is not just simply no, but it's not necessary for you to take out a loan. $13,000, if you really commit to this and you come up with

some incredibly intense ways of selling things, three, four, five jobs. You should cash flow this and move forward. So you're going to go find an additional $13,000 to pay your way through this and see that income increase and get through the baby steps faster. But don't go into debt for it. It's not necessary. The boot camp will always be there. So if you've got to wait, you've got to wait. How much debt do you now have?

The quote-unquote only debt that we have is my master's degree, which is $39,000 in debt. Your master's is in what? Music education, but I'm unfortunately no longer able to continue in that. Why? I had some bad choices that I made, and I'm just not able to continue teaching right now. Oh, you can't teach in the classroom? That's correct.

But you still have a master's in music? Correct. I still have the license, yes. Okay. It's just not doing me a whole lot of good right now. Yes. Okay. All right. So is what you've done made it illegal for you to tutor people on an individual basis? No, sir. Okay. All right. And so you can make serious bank doing that.

You know that, right? I would open a music tutoring school immediately. Private lessons immediately. 50 bucks an hour, and I'd go get me 13,000 bucks. You there? Yes, I am, sir. Sorry. That's okay. All right. I mean, traditional classroom teachers tutoring in traditional subjects are making anywhere from 30 to 50 an hour you can do online tutoring you can do in-person private lessons music lessons of different kinds and tutoring and with that degree if you have basic music ability

and i'm guessing you do for goodness sakes then I'm opening a tutoring business right now and I'm going to go like crazy all the time doing nothing but that I think you got put in the in time out based on what you did from what you thought you were going to be and so you you step back and you accepted a $38,000 position as a reality and I don't think that's the reality. I don't think that's a reality. It's not and I would also say that beyond the music tutoring you're doing anything and everything. It doesn't matter now $20 an hour job, $25 an hour job, you're doing it three, four, five of them to get the $13,000. You can amass that pretty quick. Those numbers add up. Get yourself a calculator and literally write down how many hours, how much money per month can I make, do I

need to make to quickly get $13,000, do the boot camp. Or to get the first half. Or the first half. To start the coding and get the other half while you're finishing. That's right. While you're in class. But the idea here is that the boot camp will be there and so will the technology opportunities. So don't further your debt. Don't put yourself further behind when you don't have to. There's zero reason to do this. See, the other thing is this. The overall concept, Ben, and for the rest of you out there,

the only time that the debt system works is if everything works. And everything never works so i went thirty nine thousand dollars in debt to get my master's degree in my dream job only it doesn't work yeah and now here i sit and i'm making thirty eight thousand and i can't justify the thirty nine thousand that i spent in student loans to get a master's degree in music ed because it doesn't work out. Life never goes down this, like this little, cute little yellow brick road. Finally, the yellow brick road. I mean, you just really, you can't keep, there's, you know, the problem with going to see the Wizard of Oz is there's flying monkeys between here and there. That's the problem.

And so you got to count on the flying monkeys. They're part of the program. And so when you do that, all of a sudden the debt looks doesn't look so delicious. But when you assume everything is a clean path of and everyone's following the speed limit and no one's talking on their cell phone while they're driving beside you and no one's eating a Big Mac while they're driving beside you and no one is putting on their makeup while they're driving beside you. And so there's never any danger on the highway. When you make that assumption in order for your debt idea to play out,

you've set yourself up for the flying monkeys. You're going to get hit. And that's what happened to Ben on the first round. And I don't want that to happen to him on the second round. So when you pay cash for it on the second round, even if the flying monkeys knock you off, you don't have any debt. That's exactly right. I got the education, but I don't have any debt.

That's right. And so let's go do it. Let's go pay for it. Roll up your sleeves. Work like a wild man. All you're going to be doing, Ben, is working. That's it. Just work, work, work, work, work it. Just work, work, work, work,

work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And you don't have to worry. You won't die from it. Right before you die from hard work, you'll pass out. Don't worry about it. That's right. Someone will be there to catch you. By the way, there's a return on effort when we don't have to take a loan out that we're going to just in the distance pay off. We say, I've got to gut it out, hustle it out big time to come up with 13 grand to change my life boy the return on that effort is so much better you're going to find yourself paying better attention by the way in boot camp yeah most people get better grades in grad school than they did in your punk school yeah also known as undergrad this is the Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I love this guy. I love his

books. I'm so glad I got to hang out with him today. Back at Christmas, two different people gave me the book Comfort Crisis. If two people give you a book, even if it's on weight loss, you should take it seriously. Comfort Crisis is a serious book. It is a great read. And I got to know Michael through that and had him on with Mike Rowe and I and a couple other guys as we're talking about the status of work ethic, the state or the, I don't know, the condition of lack of work ethic in America today. We did an event on that a few months ago that was highly

successful. So when we heard Michael was going to be in town, we put him on a bunch of our podcasts and asked him to stop in here on his new book, Scarcity Brain. Welcome, my friend. Thanks for having me. And congratulations on the huge success on both of these books. Comfort Crisis is, you know, it kind of came on a little bit late. It was a late bloomer, but it's become a huge book. Yeah, like a good horse, man. Breaks late, I guess. Yeah.

I was as surprised as you are. I'm not surprised. I'm just, I love a book that breaks late like that because that means it's got legs. It'll be with us for a while because the contents is so, so strong. Okay, so scarcity brain versus obviously abundance brain, I guess. Yeah, exactly. The both sides of it. But the human lizard brain for survival teaches us to think scarcity first, right?

Correct. We hone in on scarcity. We're very sensitive to scarcity cues, which is basically pieces of information in our environment that make us think things are scarce. And our reaction is to acquire more. I think I'm hungry, but it's really, I'm just low on sugar. Yes. You think you're hungry, low on sugar. You think you need to buy that third thing on Amazon prime for the day. And so you do it. You think you need more information. So you spend more time on Twitter on and on and on all these things that I think we overdo in life today, track back to that they were things that would have given us a survival advantage in the past.

It does lead us to obesity. It does lead us to materialism, the loop, the scarcity loop, the scarcity brain, this constant striving to do something that's totally not, I don't need to eat again. I just ate and I sure don't need to eat again i just ate and i sure don't need to eat 12 more donuts i just had one i mean you know i don't need to buy another gun my wife said but i did i bought another one and so you know but i mean what is it about that how's that work well i like to say that everyone knows that everything is fine in moderation, yet why are we all so bad about it? Bad at it, right? And I do think that these tendencies we have

when we overdo things, it's usually with things that would have given us a survival advantage in the past. So for all of time, pretty much everything you needed to survive was scarce and hard to find. Food. Food.

Safety. Safety, information. Community. Community, even status, the number of people that you could influence possessions right tools so we sort of sounds like a video game so yeah so we default to more of those if you were the type of person that defaulted to more of those you would survive now the difference is that we sort of have that ancient drive for more in a world where we have an abundance of all those things. And we don't necessarily have a good governor that tells us, oh, you've had enough food or you own enough guns or you've got enough information on this event unfolding in the world. And you don't need to spend all night up till 3 a.m. scrolling Twitter to get the next little death scrolling.

Yes, death scrolling. Exactly. So why do we get stuck in this loop? Do you think? Well, I think that one thing that's interesting is that technology has really pushed us into more. It knows what is going to work to get us to over consume. I was part of this book.

I went into a casino in Las Vegas that is brand new. It's cutting edge, but it's not open to the public. It is a casino laboratory that is used entirely for human behavior research. Now, if you think about something that people overdo over and over and over, it's a slot machine, right? And so they've really unpacked- Completely illogically. Completely illogically. But they do it anyway. So I identify what I call the scarcity loop.

And it is the sort of ultimate behavior loop at pushing us into more. And you can think of a slot machine. So it's got three parts. It's got opportunity, unpredictable rewards, and quick repeatability. You got an opportunity to get something of value that enhances your life. Unpredictable rewards.

You know you'll get that thing of value at some point if you keep repeating the behavior, but you don't know when you don't know how valuable it's going to be. So with the slot machine, it's like, if you keep playing, you'll eventually get a win, but you don't know how big it'll be. Right. And then quick repeatability, you can repeat the behavior over and over. Now, the reason that this is important to know, because it doesn't just apply to slot machines. It's in all these different technological systems and institutions that really kind of determine how we spend our time, our attention, our resources. So this loop is being put in social media. It's what makes social media work.

The dopamine hit. Yeah, it makes dating apps work. It drives a lot of online shopping behavior. It's in the rise of sports gambling. It's being put in certain personal finance apps and on and on and on. And there's really- It's made the online porn industry the largest industry in the world. Exactly. Exactly. And so in the past, this wasn't a thing that was just part of our life at the scope and scale that it is now. But because we spend so much of our lives on screens,

now it's 12 to 13 hours a day engaged with digital media, it has this ability to sort of creep into our life and push us into behaviors that I think, although can be fun in the short term. They're always fun. They're always fun in the short term, but can hurt us in the long run. So how do you flip that and go to from this

false scarcity that puts you into a loop and go to an abundance mentality? Well, I think, first of all, if you have a behavior that you keep doing over and over and over, and that is hurting you in the long run, to be aware that it probably does fall into the scarcity loop. This leverages what researchers call the Hawthorne effect. So if you can observe a behavior, it usually changes the behavior just by knowing that, oh, this is happening, I'm doing this, like you'll start to change.

And then second, you can change any of the three parts of the loop. So you can change the opportunity. You can slow down the quick repeatability. So an example is if you're the type of person that is buying too much dumb stuff on the internet, even just having a rule that I'm only making my purchases in person, that inserts a pause because you have to get into your car, you have to drive down to the store, and then you have to scour the aisles to find that item. And in that time, you probably

realize I didn't even need this thing in the first place. I forgot what I was here for. I forgot what I was here for. One of the things that you discover in this book that I found fascinating is there is a way to actually thrive with enough, which is in your subtitle. You call it a very unlikely hack that you discovered. What is that? Oh, the abundance loop? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that – so when you look at, okay, well, why do we, why is this scarcity loop so attractive to humans? It probably helped us find food in the past. So if you think about the past, if you, uh, you needed food, right. And that was going to allow you to survive. And so you go to one point, no food, the next point, no food, the next point, jackpot food. That's the exact same architecture as a slot machine. Um, You can use this loop in habits that enhance your life. So for example, you hunt. Hunting is the exact same system, right? You know you're going out there to get an animal. There's your opportunity. You know you'll probably see an animal at some point, but you don't know how big. You don't know if it'll be the right one. You

don't know if it'll be old enough. You don't know all these things. And when you find that, there's a gamble too. Like, am I going to be able to pull the trigger in the right spot? Right. And then you can repeat that annually, whatever. But along the way, instead of a slot machine where you're sitting in a casino, you know, you're surrounded by smoke, you're indoors. When you're hunting, you're outside. That's good for us. You're also being physically active. That's good for us. You're probably hunting with other people. That's good for us. So you're getting all these ancillary benefits.

And you see it in hunting. You could see this through fishing, even things like foraging. So foodies will forage for mushrooms. But even something as simple as like, you know what? I'm really into collecting vinyl. And there's this album that is really hard to find. And I'm just going to walk around my city that I live in, and I'm going to go from vinyl store to vinyl store and see if I can find this thing.

And that'll be an exciting way to spend my time. Okay. Break the cycle. Michael Easter. The way we discovered him was through Comfort Crisis, the new book. Fix your craving mindset. Rewire your habits to thrive with enough.

It's called Scarcity Brain. Highly recommend it. I will be absorbing this this weekend. I have not gotten to it until now, and I will immediately. Good stuff. Absolutely great. Honored to have you on the show, my friend. Congratulations on these great works.

Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Check it out. Michael Easter, our EasterMichael.com, and you can follow him on social media at Michael Easter. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. We have a stage. It's called the Debt Free Stage. If you stand on that stage, it can only mean one thing.

Well, at least, paucially, it could only mean one thing. You're debt free. Tommy and Heather are standing on that stage. Congratulations, guys. Thank you. Where do you guys live? Right now, we live in Parrish, Florida, but we're originally from Torrington, Connecticut.

Ah, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. How much debt have you guys paid off? It was $112,000 and change. $112,000. How long did this take? Just over two years and three months. Okay. And what was your range of income during that time? It started at $110 ended at 150. Cool. What do y'all do for a living? So before we relocated to Florida, we worked in a syringe factory in Connecticut. And with COVID, we had a lot of business. So there was unlimited overtime. And then in 2020, we decided to go get our real estate license okay and uh yeah our first year we had 14 sales so that took off and um and moved to florida to do that no we sold houses in connecticut and it was just this past july that we moved to florida okay you're doing real estate there

not yet but we're going to be okay all right cool right. Cool. Well, way to go, guys. Okay. What kind of debt was the $112,000? Oh, my God. What was it, the debt? Let's see. Credit cards. Cars. Cars. Solar panels.

My son's braces. Cell phones. Cell phones. iPads. You were normal. Yeah. Unfortunately. And normal in America sucks, doesn't it?

It does. Yes, it does. Absolutely. So what woke you up two years and three months ago, and how did you get connected to all this Ramsey stuff? So truth be known, this whole thing started right when we first met. I have a history with addiction, and she walked into my life at a time frame when everybody else was walking away for that reason um happy to say that october 7th i celebrated 11 years of sobriety oh

congratulations but unfortunately when the uh using stopped the spending began switched it out for a different one pretty much yeah and um yeah so for for years and years it's basically what happened i just we would spend on everything and anything she takes half the accountability for it but 95 of it was me i'll be the first one to tell you that um what are you what were you addicted to before that you've been dry 11 years alcohol and uh painkillers okay well congratulations thank you sir that's a huge victory you're a powerful guy to do that that's not everybody can do what you've done and i'm very proud of you all right thanks and now you've applied it start applying the whole concept to uh the other parts of your life yeah so um

as far as us being introduced to you uh i had a friend of mine joey swartz and his wife ruby who been telling me about you for a long time and uh right after we got our real estate license and all that stuff he comes up to me and he says hey tommy you need to get on this dave ramsey planter however he talks i hope he doesn't talk like that. So he says, he keeps telling me about it. And I thought it was just one of those get rich quick things. Yeah. Quite the opposite. Just get rich slow.

Yeah. So he was telling me about it and he stayed on me about it. He's like, between real estate and all the overtime that you're working, he's like, you're going to be a millionaire in a few years. I'm like, yeah, whatever. Shut up. So it was 2021 after our first year in real estate. We wound up getting, Dave, you're going to kill me for this. We got our generous Biden bucks, as you call it. Now you

would think $5,600, I'd be smart and pay off two of my credit cards that are maxed out at $2,500 each. No, we're going to take the kids to Vegas. And that's what we did. And this is where the big moment happened. So when we get there, the limousine picks us up at the airport. I'm getting a Camaro the next day. We got a room with a volcano view. And we get to the hotel, and I don't have money to cover the incidentals. So my daughter, my 17-year-old daughter who was with us and my son,

she had to pick it up so we can eat for the week. And our first three days that we were there, I didn't even feel like I was there. I was like beside myself. I'm like, you even realize what a freaking loser you just made yourself look like in front of your kids just now. And that was it. And it was the following Saturday. We were back home. We're getting ready to go to her sister's house.

She was in the shower and I'm scrolling through my YouTube feed. I'm like, yeah, I've seen this. Watch that. Don't care. Yada, yada. And then I come across this five things that'll make you wealthy video. And it says Dave Ramsey. I'm like, hey, this is the guy that Joey keeps telling me about.

So I'm looking down at my phone and I'm looking right at you. And I'm like, all right, hot shot. You got about 90 seconds to sell me on this. Dave, you didn't even need 30 seconds. I'm like, I'm in. So yeah, we got, oh, and then there's the part that you said uh oh yeah the um what was that oh yeah you know what the republicans and democrats have in have in common neither one of them can freaking add up i freaking texted joey i'm like i'm in

that was the statement that was it yeah So how intense did it get quickly? From this moment to the moment you guys start this journey, how intense was it for you guys? Very intense. I mean, I've always been like a workaholic, so it wasn't anything that I wasn't really used to. But, I mean, her and I, we would work like 12-hour shifts, and then we'd go out and show houses.

You got the gazelles on the shirts so you know about it yeah so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is so as i said um i mean i've been down this road twice with using and with spending um for me the two key components number one is accountability you gotta look in the mirror and like david goggins once says you know the accountability mirror every day that you make an excuse is just another day you don't have to do anything about it um so accountability is big and perseverance man just and being on the same page exactly if we weren't on the same page it it wouldn't have worked at all. Yeah. Yeah. Way to go, you two. I'm proud of you.

Proud of you. Well done. Very well done. How's it feel to be free? Heather, how's it feel to have him where he's saying, I'm not going to spend us into the poor house? It's a big deal. It is.

It's a big deal. I mean, that's a big thing for your marriage. Big day for big day thing for you to respect your husband when he does stuff like i mean that's that's manly that's well done both of you i'm proud of you excellent excellent job working together pulling this off and uh pushing pushing it through and uh phenomenal hey we've got the live and give box for you it's got the baby steps millionaires book in it that's your next stop uh the total money makeover book to give to somebody who's inspired by your story financial peace university

membership as well you can enjoy these things or give them away that's what they're for a lot of people buy the box just to take some of it and use it and take some of it and give it so we want it to give it to you guys to say thanks for coming out we appreciate you coming in from florida to do your debt free scream tommy and heather st petersburg florida 112 000 paid off two years and three months making 110 to 150 count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one we're dead free that's it you know the money thing is not as serious as the substance addiction thing but the parallels in changing it are still there yeah and the the parallels between what's underneath the problem. And it's so important for us to understand that when we want stuff and we put it on a credit card because we can't wait for it, there's something deeper going on. And understanding what's really going on, you said this so effectively for decades, is that I'm the problem in the mirror, the person I'm looking at, who I'm shaving,

like I'm the problem. Something is going on with me in my heart and in my head that's making me live beyond what I can live under. And that's what's going on. And he recognized it twice and beat it twice. Incredible story. Looking for love in all the wrong places. There it is. Clicking prime, prime, prime, prime, prime. Yeah. Oh, wait. I still don't feel any better. Isn't that weird?

Who knew? Yeah. That's how this works. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of From Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Allison is in San Diego. Hi, Allison. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Hello. Hi. What's up?

So I'm calling because I have about $16,000 in credit card debt, maybe a little bit over $16,000, and $17,000 in student loans, so a total of like $33,700 in total debt. and the problem is that my credit cards the balances on those I've had them for years and the interest is really high on some of them it's like 30 percent on some of them it's like 24 and the balances just don't go down so what I'm wondering is whether I should maybe ask for like a loan like a maybe a personal loan from one of my family members to tackle one and then start um slowly tackling the other ones i just got a new job and doubled my income oh that's great what do you make um i'm gonna start making about six thousand dollars per month i'm gonna going to say more. And you were making about $3,000?

I was making about $3,000, yes. Okay. And so if you keep living like you were living on $3,000 and you put $3,000 a month towards the debt, you'd be out of debt in a year. True. So, I mean, I do have my the only issue now is that i do have a commute and the gas is really expensive it's about an hour and a half commute every day um sounds like you need to move 200 i that is the plan yeah in about a year my daughter's

why would you wait a year why would you drive an hour and a half for a year? Because I share custody with my daughter's dad in the hometown, the town that I live in. And that's, you know, it's a legal thing that I have to go through or we have to figure something out. But for now, my daughter, she's... For three hours a day, or we have to figure something out. But for now, my daughter, she's... For three hours a day, I'm going to figure something out. Yeah.

I mean, I have figured something out to where one week that she's with her dad. Allison, borrowing money will not get you out of debt. You can't borrow your way out of debt. Interest rates are not your problem. Finding a way to not pay $3,000 a month on this debt for 11 months is your problem. You need to find a way to pay $3,000 a month instead of finding a way to not pay $3,000 a month. That's what you've done so far. You've now got this fabulous moment in time where your

income has shot way up. Let's find reasons and ways to take advantage of that and get this mess cleaned up. You can't borrow your way out of debt. This is not an interest rate problem. This is an Allison problem. It is an Allison problem.

It is, yeah. You're right. You're a smart lady, and you know all this. Because I tried to do this for years. I tried to borrow my way out of debt. I tried to out-earn my stupidity. I tried to do all this. But finally, one day, I just said, that's it.

There's only one way to get out of debt. It's pay it off. I've got to pay it off. That's how I get out of debt. It's pay it off. I got to pay it off. That's how I get out of debt. I need $33,000. That's $3,000 a month for 11 months. Oh, there's some interest, so it's going to take me 12. Okay, but it's still going to get, oh, whatever.

And I got some, my gas bill's higher, and I'm commuting. Oh, well, maybe I'm not, or maybe I am a couple days a week, or maybe, I don't know, is there another way to do this? I got to find a way. I got to find a way to put $3,000 a month on this. I got $3,000 a month. I didn't have before I got this new job. I got to, you see what I'm doing? Yeah. Well, there's an old phrase where there's a will, there's a way. And it's really true. It's not just a nice little saying on a quilted, you know, thing in a country store. I mean, it's, it's really that we begin to see opportunities when we do what you just said, Dave, when we actually say, I have to find a way. So I keep looking, looking, looking, looking, looking in things that solutions, opportunities that weren't

seen before are all of a sudden seen. And it is just that simple. Seek and you will find. I mean, that is the goal right here for her. way i changed my mindset was i always you know take it pretend like there's some kind of whacked out tragedy which is not really happening but go with me for a minute those of you that have children that you like okay let's pretend one of them was ill and you needed 33 000 to save their life yeah watch out and you had to do it in two years and you you would not find reasons to not do it you would find reasons to do it hell hath no fury like someone trying to save the life of their child that's really good what that means is is that you can do this it just has to become a priority in that case in that bizarre tragic situation

which doesn't really exist but if it did exist you would find a way there you'd find a will where there's a will there's a way yeah and you know we're gonna figure this out we're not losing this kit we're gonna go you know you can't if you've ever seen somebody that didn't like the diagnosis they got they go to about 16 doctors till they get a diagnosis they like or a treatment plan that's going to work instead of everybody going, oh, you're going to die. Nope. You're going to die. Nope.

You're going to die. And they find some kind of alternative, something or other weird thing. And I don't know, some witch doctor claps their hands twice and spins around or whatever, but they find a way, right? And, you know, cause I'm not going to, I don't accept this. And when you reach that point that you go, I've had it. Yeah. That's where it changes, Allison.

Yeah. And that's what I need you to do here. Instead of using this new job as just some extra margin in life, it needs to clean up your mess. Yeah. And you need to cut up those stupid credit cards. Get you some scissors out tonight. Light a candle.

Have a plastic surgery party. Maria is in New York. Hi, Maria. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yes.

What's up? Okay. So I started listening to you guys about a month ago, and I'm on Baby Step 4. So I currently contribute 10% to my employer's Roth 401k, which is the maximum to get the match. So I want to increase that, and my question is, should I contribute more to that Roth 401k? Should I contribute to a separate IRA account? Are the options inside your 401k good options? They're pretty good, yeah.

Well, that's not exciting. I mean, if they've got good long-term track records, yes, just increase above your match and get to 15 percent if not then you can go open an individual roth ira with a ramsey smart vestor pro click smart vestor at ramsey solutions.com find the people we recommend for investing and they can help you set up a personal roth ira and pick help you pick out some good mutual funds that you feel good about you'll learn about stuff in the process of doing that, which is kind of cool. I'd probably do that just for that reason.

But you're on to something here. What we tell people is it's kind of rock, paper, scissors, except there's only one way to win. It's match beats Roth beats traditional. In your case, you've got a match up to 10, and you're going to take that, and you've got it in a Roth, which is a double dip. That's awesome.

And you can do Roth beyond that to get to 15%, either in an individual or at your company. If you're not excited about the options at your company, then go get an individual Roth for the balance of that other 5% of your income going in. But if your options are decent and you want to just stay with one simple plan, you just increase what you're doing at work, and then you don't have to think about it again. Yeah, and I think the key here is what's my long-term goal in understanding what we teach?

She's new to the show, and so I just want to point out that you've taught all the Ramsey personalities. We've learned some – tried to learn what you know. If we look at the long-term effects of the stock market and the investment, that plan there, that little rock paper scissors, I love that. It works, and it works all the time. It works every time. But you have to stay with it. And so she's brand new, and I'm just getting back to you to tell her,

once you get on this plan, stay in it. That is the key. Don't get off when we hear these, you know, your analogy that's so powerful as the roller coaster. Yeah. Well, if you were not invested in the last 12 months, you would have missed out on a 15 plus percent rate of return. Yeah. Wow. In good mutual funds.

That's the last 12 months. Nobody's talking about that. Everybody's talking about what mortgage interest rates are. Right. The dadgum stock market's skyrocketing. Everybody's talking about what mortgage interest rates are. The dadgum stock market's skyrocketing. And you're not even on the ride. Come on!

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, it's Ken. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Go to ramsaysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramsaysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.