The Ramsey Show - App - You’re Broke but You’re Not Bankrupt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

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. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author multiple times over, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sarah is in Fresno, California. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. I'm so glad to speak with you. You too. I was hoping you'd help me with some situation. I have so much. There's just a mounting of stress, death. I don't know how I don't see a way how I'm going to get rid of this. I've been listening to you for a couple weeks now

and I'm getting familiar with your baby steps, but I don't know how I'm going to be able to climb out of this pit hole that I've dug myself into. I'm sorry. The last few. Tell me about what kind of debt have you got, kiddo? I have over $165,000 in unsecured debt. That includes cars, personal loans,

credit cards. I, yeah. Give me a little breakdown. How much do you owe on your car? I have three cars. One is $45,000.

I currently owe owe i have a 31 000 dollar car um and a 14 000 dollar car and a 14 or a 40 14 000 so 45 31 and 14 on cars so i take it you're married yes i am um i have a 67 000 and personal loan um i have 20 000 credit card i i i don't know what i i must have i don't know what I must have. It just occurred in like two years after I had my baby. I guess I went crazy. Why do you have three cars? The first one, it was a very old car. I had it for 20 years, so that one died. It was over 200,000 miles, so I went and got a car, a world 20 years, so that one died. It was over 200,000 miles.

So I went and got a car, a van, that kid. And then I should have, had I found you earlier, maybe I would have not made all these decisions. But I mean, you still owe money on the car. I guess the dead one's sitting in the driveway. I'm driving it. That's my personal car from work. The dead one is? Yeah.

Oh, so it's running. It didn't die. It's really dead. No, you drove it to work. Oh, no, that's my new car. No, I'm asking what happened to the dead car, the 14,000 one? Where is it? Oh, no, no no i'm so sorry uh the one i got to uh the old one that i

had over 200 000 miles that one is still sitting on in the driveway that's what i said that's you have a dead car sitting in the driveway that you owe 14k on no i i don't owe anything on that one okay what's the third car you owe 14 on,000 on? So you have four cars. Yeah, one, dad, three that I still owe loans on. One is for my daughter, and one is my husband, and then the van is mine. Okay. How old is your daughter? She is in college right now.

I see. Okay. And how much do you make, honey? I make over $100. What does your husband make? My husband makes about $35, so our combined income last year was $156, I think. And this year is probably maybe the same. I'm not working as the like you know full crazy load so it's gonna be roughly around there how do you think we can best help you hon i don't know i i

listening to your show watching your show on youtube and i've seen that you've helped out a lot of people and i don't know I'm thinking of maybe just following bankruptcy but you're not bankrupt you just got to stop some of this you just got to stop some of this I don't know if I should return the call or I don't know why slow down slow down slow down slow down okay it's just so it's overwhelming so when I breathe a second okay take a breath take a breath. Take a breath. All right. So here's what we got to do. Are you guys ready to turn your life upside down to keep from feeling this way?

I am. I feel so loved. What about him? I think he is too. I just need to get out of this. I make him about around close to $9,000 a month, and all of those money goes to the bill. It goes to car payments.

It has everything. Because you guys just buy a car every time you change clothes. You guys got to quit buying cars, and you need to sell some cars, okay? So the dead car in the driveway should be sold immediately, and you need to sell the other two and get you two $5,000 cars that you pay cash for. You got $2,500 a month going out in car payments. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

No wonder you're broke. It's sitting in your driveway. All your stress is your cars because the personal loan and the credit cards came from the fact that you didn't have any money because you gave it all to the car company. And so you went and used the credit card because you were broke. Right?

Okay. Is that right? Okay. So you're going to have to sell some cars, Sarah. Okay? You have to get out of these stupid cars. You cannot afford them. They're killing you.

They're causing you to be on national radio crying you need to be rid of these cars amputate the van it leaves you need to get rid of these cars and the one the driveway i mean you just can't keep collecting vehicles and be anything but broke and that's what you guys have been doing so and a conversation with her with your daughter that she's not she you guys can't afford a car so yeah she can't either she's going to get a job while she's in college and start paying the payments on that 14 or we're going to sell her car okay yeah yeah rich people give their kids cars not broke people okay and you're broke and stressed and telling me you think you're bankrupt you don't give a college kid a car when you think you're stressed and bankrupt so you're gonna have to undo some of these and it's going to be painful

but it's going to be less painful than the way you feel right now because you can't even breathe right now no yeah i'm sorry honey i've been where you are it's no fun but i will tell you this i i can show you what to do and your life is going to be hell for the next 18 months and then you're going to be free it's going to be very uncomfortable for the next year and a half, and then you'll be free for the rest of your life. But you're going to sell everything in sight. People are going to be mad at you.

People aren't going to like you saying no so much. And I don't care. And you can't care anymore. You've been trying to fix everything for everybody, and you just run around and buy stuff. You've got to stop it. Yeah, and hold on the line, Sarah. Christian will pick up and we're going to get you FPU, the nine lessons, and you and your husband need to sit down this weekend and binge them. Watch all of them. Yes. And do a budget and we'll give you every dollar,

every dollar premium for that and sit down and control these expenses as well. And that's going to be cutting your lifestyle. Drastically. You live in Fresno, one of the most expensive places to live. Drastically cut your lifestyle. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 so um apparently when i am out on vacation you guys take calls and the people commenting and on youtube don't think i would have given the same advice you give or something like that it will happen every now and then which is usually wrong by the way.

I mean, you guys are very consistent, just like I am. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Some of it's a very black and white issue, right? What do you do? You sell the car, you know, all of it. And then sometimes you get a call that you're like, oh, man. I mean, here's what I would do in your situation. I don't know if Dave would do this, but this is what we would do.

You and George had one, you know about uh an elderly lady a few a few days ago they all went back to his call so i told dave today i was like i want to go back to a call ken and i had because it's gotten close like two million views on instagram we clipped some of it good lord and in the comments people were very opinionated that we gave the wrong advice and so i was like well and everyone's like, I wonder what Dave would say because he sells, he says, you know, rice and beans sell everything

and the kids think they're next. You know, he's on this, you know, rampage against debt and he would not have probably given this advice. So I asked James, did you clip it, James? Okay, we're going to play the clip

and I'm just so curious if you agree with me or not. My daughter is 22 and she just graduated from college with some student loan debt. And about a year ago, she was able to get on the pre-sale and buy three tickets for her,

my older daughter, and myself to go to a Taylor Swift concert in Indianapolis. We got them for like $209 a piece. So now I'm seeing these resale prices. Oh, it's crazy. Oh, it's crazy. It's insane. Yeah. And so I told her

like, why don't we sell those tickets and you can knock down so much of your student loan, but you'd be so far ahead. She says, absolutely. It's non-negotiable. It's a bucket list item. She's like, probably you, Rachel, a Swifty, And this is, you know, and it's her money, right? No, it was my money. Oh, okay. It was my money. So I paid

for them. But you know, I mean, this is, and for me too, I'm looking at like, you know, she's iconic. I would love to go to her concert. My daughter of all the people that she could take, she wants to take her sister and me, you know, I mean, that's great. It's going to be a fun thing. What would your, what would your what would your take be what rachel now walk us through what do you think you could make on these tickets i'm thinking they would average out between three three four grand a ticket easy yeah per ticket so her student loan debt is 24 000 and she could and that's what you would want to put the money towards absolutely 100 of it would go to there. Would you be putting $9,000 plus towards her student loan if you hadn't bought these tickets?

I would not. I wouldn't resell these tickets. Here's the deal, Jill. You weren't planning to cut a check for $9,500 to put on your daughter's student loan ever. I was not. So my whole point is, this is like a windfall, right? If I, if I, if $9,500 fell into my lap, I might do that. I get it. But this is your daughter's and it's a once in a lifetime concert. Oh yeah. I agree. You go, Jill, go to the concert.

You weren't going to do this anyway. and I think your daughter said absolutely no way, and I think it creates an unnecessary tension. She's 22. She needs to pay the thing off herself anyway. There's a lot of reasons. I want our audience to know I'm not just – I just think when I look at something like this, this is about the emotional, not the – Rachel, I fully expected you to be a Swifty.

I'm very disappointed in ken anything having to do with disney or taylor swift rachel's completely on board so um i was shocked that ken was like he just jumped in there as a swifty i was so happy about it and listen i gotta tell you i'm a huge admirer of what Taylor Swift has built I do not I'm not a consumer of her music but that's just because I'm an old guy um and you know uh but uh she's amazing uh performer business person yeah what she has built is iconic yes I mean she's it's a you have to stand back and go wow regardless i mean just we're in the entertainment the broadcast world much smaller degree obviously um and um nobody's selling my tickets for 14k

um but the uh um but but yeah but that's uh uh okay so now now but and you know what i try to think about things like where is it hard for me because what would i because it would be hard for me personally like if a guy calls up and and he's got a bad he's got a ski boat okay which i love my mastercraft ski boats okay that mastercraft is the best ski boat i love them and telling a guy to sell his mastercraft to get out of debt is very hard for me yes yes so for you telling me somebody to sell a taylor swift concert or avoid a disney vacation is very hard okay disney i could put this is like a once in a lifetime thing oh whoopty doopty wait here's my thing it's a concert if you had it

here's this if you had it no by the way it's a ski boat i'm putting it in perspective for you though if you had a trip booked with daniel and his son eli you got because this is what it was for her her daughter right um a trip booked and you had you had planned it out daniel had student loans we can go here for a second daniel had student loans no listen and you could sell the trip for three times from what you bought it for would you do that and have and put it put it towards daniel's loans the the nuance in the call that that does change the answer for me okay is she gave her daughter a gift of some money 600 bucks of tickets no she gave her daughter 600 and the daughter bought the tickets with it

yeah for the tickets though yeah yeah she gave her so she gave her gift so she's no longer in control of this oh i hear what you're saying yes so the mom is not in control the daughter is in control of it correct and she bought tickets now if the daughter called me and said my mom gave me these tickets gave me 600 by these tickets and I can sell them for $12,000, I would ask her, if you had $12,000 sitting in the middle of the table and you didn't have Taylor Swift tickets, would you put it on your student loans or would you put it on the things? And I would tell the daughter to sell the tickets. But I'm not going to tell the mom to renege on a gift.

Yes, yes. Okay, that makes sense. Yep, that's kind of what our train of thought was. Because the mom, that's a control issue. When you give someone a gift and then you try to take it back, that's not a gift. And there's some politically incorrect things we used to call that, okay, that you can't say anymore and shouldn't. But anyway, taking something back after it's a gift. You shouldn't do that, right?

And so the, and I would never recommend to someone to do that. Yeah, so for the mom. So the mom is who called you. You tell the mom. I would advise the daughter to sell the tickets, though. Yes, so if it was the different person in the situation calling. So if Daniel called and said. I'm in in debt and i can buy this for three times no and i can sell these tickets from a trip that i have planned with my dad and my son should i yes yes because

that that let me just tell you i mean what is more important in the scope of your entire of the next 50 years of your life? Getting a student loan paid off or going to a Taylor Swift concert? I don't know. The memories are forever. No, they're not. Yeah, they are. I don't remember a lot of the concerts I went to.

I went to, for other reasons. For other reasons, Dave. No, just because it was a long time ago. I can't even tell you all the concerts I didn't go to. I remember my first concert with mom and Denise. Okay, that's wonderful. Celine Dion. And you still think about it to this day.

Oh, yes. Celine, what a woman. And that's worth how much? Not much. Probably not even what we paid for Celine at that time, because that was a Vegas thing, if I remember. No, no, she came to Nashville. Oh, she was in Nashville. Yeah, this was way back in yeah my heart will go

on days okay uh okay i know but okay but but but there that's what's hard about life that's what's hard about life is a trade-off there's always a trade-off and you just have to make a value decision and one way you make decisions is if i had that amount of money in the middle of the table if i have twenty four thousand dollars in student loan debt and I wake up and there's twelve thousand dollars laying in the middle of my kitchen table do I go buy Taylor Swift concerts or put it on my student loan you put it on your student loan that's not it's a no-brainer for me now that's talking to the daughter but I'm never going to tell the mom to go back so I'm not really going to say your all's advice was wrong yeah but it's a great it's a great discussion particularly because we get to discover that to my great disappointment ken coleman is a swifty this

is the full letdown of the call right here i'm just saying so good i mean he just jumped right on it he didn't even let you do it i know you should go just go i couldn't believe it's taylor freaking swift you should go it was so great it was so great and by the way by the way we all are fans of taylor in one way or another rachel is a worshiper of this is the ramsey show buying a home selling a home in this market uh if you do it wrong, it could be a curse and not a blessing. And real estate's not always a blessing. It's only a blessing if you do it right and you do it in the right way within your own finances. We'll help you do that.

And one of the things we've learned to do is to identify high-octane, high-protein, get-or-done real estate agents. Now, this is not your uncle charlie who got his license three weeks ago and hadn't sold a house yet and wants to sell your largest asset no you don't use uncle charlie not if you're smart you just say uncle charlie i love you but you're not my real estate agent no or your little friend down at church who's never done anything you got no no no you get someone that knows what they're doing and has done a lot of transactions to help you with your deal and then you'll get your deal done and you'll do it right then we call them ramsey trusted because we have vetted them and they are trusted by us so if you want to find the ramsey trusted real estate agent for free that'll help you buy or sell the way Ramsey

teaches and that are professionals and that are high producing agents, just go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent. Catherine's in Salt Lake City. Hi, Catherine. How are you? Hi, Dave and Rachel. Thanks for taking my call. I'm excited to talk to you. You too. What's up? Okay. My question is, should we, well, I hope this isn't my inner child coming out and maybe you'll have to talk to me, but my husband and I would like to buy a vacation home. And I'm wondering in order to do that without debt, we would need to sacrifice part of our retirement for this. Okay.

So I wanted to get a take. Okay. It would depend on the ratio. Okay. Because whatever we put into the toy is going to stop producing income, and what we have left has to produce enough income to make us all smile. So what's the size of your nest egg? Total, our net worth is $3.6 million.

Good. Okay. And how expensive a toy are we buying? Probably $400,000 to $500,000. I would buy it. So you would sell an income-producing piece of real estate and buy it? Or an income-producing mutual fund and buy it. And by the way, I have.

Okay. I have a nice lake house. Really nice lake house. And it's one of my favorite places on the planet. And not only that, I'll go back further. We bought that house for $104 2000 the lake house um the kids grew up skiing off of the dock we put on at that time and later on we bought the little house next door which was the same size uh gave picked them up and moved them and gave them to the local sheriff's department

for rehab houses and built a big house across where those two used to sit and that's where we are now we've been in that house since 2012 so we upgraded so i've done it twice 105 000 felt like it was a lot more than the big house did but it was a big bigger percentage ratio wise your ratios are fine what's the i'm curious katherine the 3.6 i'm just curious what are they in is it because you you mentioned selling and income producing yeah all real estate or is it 2.2 is investment real estate and then our home is about 530 and then 401ks iras is 770 and about 160 in the bank. How old are you?

We're 54. Okay. All right. So the only way to get out the money is to sell one of the pieces of real estate, because otherwise you'd be penalized on the 401k money. Yeah, that makes sense. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

I would do it. Where's the property? Just curious. It's in St. George, Utah. Okay. So it's a mountain property? No, it's the Red Rock kind of desert. Oh, yeah. Oh, got it. Oh, okay. Okay, so it's a mountain property? No, it's the red rock kind of desert.

Oh, got it. Oh, okay. That's fun. That's cool. Because, I mean, yeah. But I'm looking at ratios, alright? So if you call me up and you told me you had a net worth of 1.5 million and your house was 500 and you wanted to put 400

into a toy, i would say no because it would leave you with only one third of your whole net worth working for you the rest of it's sitting your house and your toys are sitting that makes sense yeah that's what that's why i answered it by ratios and so it's a small enough percentage of your world that it won't keep your it won't burn your world down okay and um yeah you guys have done a very very good job did you inherit a bunch of money how'd you end up with 3.6 at 54 we we bought the total money makeover probably 15 years ago uh highly in debt and we worked our way through it. And, yeah, so we came actually a year and a half ago and did our debt-free stream,

and we never will go back. So you're Baby Steps Millionaires. Way to go. What do you guys do for a living, Catherine? I'm just curious. We both work at a university. Okay. That's great.

Good for you. Well done. Yeah, excellent. You're heroes. So, again, work at a university. Okay. That's great. Good for you. Well done. Yeah, excellent. You're heroes. So again, it's the ratios. That's what we're looking at. And another way of looking at that, folks, for Catherine is if you're going to buy a toy, if you're going to consume the money, okay, which is what you're doing when you

buy a vacation property because it does not create income. Unless you rent it. And if you have to rent it it out you probably shouldn't do it because it's going to drive you nuts if you want to own rental property on rental property if you want to own a beach house or mountain house buy it okay but this idea i have to rent it to justify it means you're probably too broke to buy it so um anyway the the rule i use on stuff like that if i'm going to buy a car or i'm going to buy a toy of a property or something like that that's not going to create money is uh if i put that my amount of money in the middle of the fire pit and burned it does it destroy my life in other words if we took 400k of your 3.6 and burned it your life doesn't even change other than the tears

right yeah and that's that's the way i'm looking at it i mean it doesn't your life does not change i mean it does not substantially change you're 54 you have 3.6 which means when you're 74 you're going to probably have 20 to 25 million dollar net worth and that's not going to change dramatically by this one purchase and this purchase will go up in value it just won't create income while it's going up in value it you know the lake house has gone up dramatically it's crazy how much money i've made on that and um yeah and you just add dave ramsey rumors to it it even gets better or worse i don't know well i mean it's just people just make up stuff i mean my neighbor told me the day he heard i sold it for 22 million i said i would because it's not worth anywhere near that sold sold so but it's the

rumors going around you know so anyway yeah catherine do it you're in good shape great job buy the Taylor Swift tickets do it Dave's in a giving mood I'm just I'm just it's just unbelievable just being so kind today oh my gosh everybody do whatever you want um but is there is there an element though that you run numbers I mean because you didn't here in this scenario but to say okay by the time you're 62 you're going to be in retirement age. You want to be able to have X amount coming in, like that 4% to 5%. You know what I mean? Do you get granular with it, though? You could.

This was a little flippant. You could, but the ratios will take care of that for you. So in this case, she said they had $780,000 or whatever, $800,000 in their 401 case. If that's in good mutual funds, it's going to double every seven years. She's 54, so at 61,. That'll be 1.5. At 68, that alone will be $3 million, just her 401k money. And the bulk of theirs is not in their 401k. The bulk of theirs is in real estate.

And the real estate is going to continue to go up, too, and create income. So you just run those numbers out, and that's how I can get to $25 million pretty quick with them, or $20 million. And they're also savers. they're going to continue to save and they obviously i'm guessing also that they have a pretty substantial income to create that in in 13 years right right yeah they they turned that around very quickly pretty dramatically so they're they're rock stars man they're just they they touch down you win the super bowl that's it's for. And so you live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. You don't drive a hoopty because it's fun. You drive a hoopty so you never have to drive one again.

It's not a badge of honor. You drive a hoopty so you get a good car later. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 10.10. If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success. Tom Brady said, to be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't, consistent, determined, and willing to work for it i i would say that i'm probably 80 to 90 percent uh in agreement with that

but it's hard for me to say out loud that tom brady wasn't special one of the best quarterbacks to ever live in the nfl i mean there's no question he was special so but his work ethic and you know i don't know tom personally i know peyton, and I've spent time with him. And what was special about Peyton, not only is he a physical specimen, but, I mean, he's huge. But he's got hands like a ham. And so he has a different grip on a football than I do. I can just tell you that, okay?

But he also had one of the – he and Tom are both renowned for their film work, their commitment to proper exercise and proper care of their bodies, their commitment to the mental aspects of the game. They both had a work ethic that shamed everyone else on the team in both cases. And they were both iconic, some of the best quarterbacks to ever live. And, again, I don't know that as much about tom as i do about him payton but um but uh but just looking in from the outside i suspect that's true malcolm gladwell said it in the book outliers he said if you spent you need to spend 10 000 hours of excellent practice meaning getting better each time you

do the repetition not just doing it over and over wrong, but 10,000 hours at something and have a little bit of a gift at it to get to be Tiger Woods, to get to be Brad Paisley at a guitar, to get to be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady with a football. You have to spend 10,000 hours to get to world class. Yeah, because I think the argument would be you could spend spend 10 000 hours to get to world class yeah because i think the argument would be you could spend 10 000 hours and never be that because you're not i could spend 10 000 hours and never be never be that right right and but then i would also say that there's like you know athletes athletic people in the world in the history but because of the work ethic and mental

game they never got there right that they had the because they didn't have the exactly exactly yeah yeah like so it's it's a both and it's aggravating as crud for coaches you know somebody who's got the talent and won't apply themselves drives you nuts so but um yeah you have to spend and you know our situation is not different i've got more way more than 10 000 hours on this microphone you're probably approaching 10000 hours on this microphone. You're probably approaching 10,000 hours on the microphone and on stages and so forth at this stage. And, you know, again, major nationally known brands. You look at our social footprint, the number of people that brand recognize one of us. If you were to do a survey on branding and so forth, we know what our numbers are.

But I've done this for 30 years. So in this space which is a fairly little tiny space but you know that's where we that's where i've applied myself and that's that's where this comes out so it's interesting it's an interesting discussion there's a combination between talent and sweat and um i think there are people that you could put them in front of a microphone uh for 15 years and they still would suck you know i mean i think that's true i think that's true about me in football right i'd still suck and i'm not i don't have that natural physical ability never did uh had a little bit but nowhere near that stuff paul

is in uh california hi paul what's up hey dave it's a pleasure talking to you how are you guys doing today better than we deserve. How can we help? So, first of all, I just want to say I took care of my mom for about seven years, and I used to listen to your show every day when we were going through chemo and all this stuff. And we had a ton of debt at the time, and your show seriously got me through it just because I could see a light at the end of the tunnel of what to do in the future. And so I just want to say thank you genuinely. Where I stand today, and I want to hear your thoughts, so I'll keep it brief, is I'm 30 years old. I'm getting married in August. I currently live with family, so not paying any

rent. I'm purchasing a home in August and putting $150,000 down. My gross income is $180,000 a year. I have a $45,000 emergency fund fully funded for six months or even longer. I have, in terms of investments, I have only one real investment, which is Apple stock. I have about $50,000 that I just never touch. It was something that I just wanted to purchase and I keep. So my question is, now that I'm buying a home and putting a significant down payment and I've followed all the rules, I don't know where to start with investing and doing it with mental peace because a few years ago I made some money on Tesla and that was, although

it worked out great, I look at it now and it was just a super stressful time and it almost kind of affected my own relationship, which is, she's amazing. Now we're getting married. But my question is, where do I start with investing? And how do I know how much to put towards paying down my mortgage versus investing versus retirement? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question.

And I think the bulk of the stress came, Paul, because all your eggs were in one basket. I'm like, you're not diversified when you were investing and still aren't with the Apple came, Paul, because all your eggs were in one basket. I'm like, you're not diversified when you were investing and still aren't with the Apple stock, right? The single stock way, it is going to be more volatile and it will be more stressful. And so when we look at investing in general, but specifically with retirement, it will be in more of a mutual fund aspect, which is 90 to 200 of those stock. So your diversification through it is going to give you more peace and your outlook on it has to be different. You're not worried about what it's

doing today or next year or in 10 years. You're really saying, hey, I'm putting this money in and I'm not going to see it until I'm 59 and a half when I can take it out without penalty. And so it's a long game you're playing when it comes to investing where it kind of just sounds a little bit like you've played the short game. And so that mentality, I think, would shift and I think would lower your stress too. So, Paul, you're getting married in August. Yeah.

Congratulations. And you're closing on a house in August. Yeah, 10 days before the wedding. Did she pick out the house? It was a mutual decision. We both wanted the house. Okay. All right.

So you didn't buy a house and then tell your new bride, ta-da. No, no, no. Good. It's been a journey we've been on to find the right home. It's a new construction, so it just ends up closing 10 days before the wedding. Gotcha. Okay, good. That solves number one problem.

Dave thought Paul was just taking over. Well, he's a man on a mission. I can tell that. Now, you've been listening to us for years. Yeah. So you know the baby steps, right? Yes, I do. Okay, so you know that you don't have any debt,

and you have your emergency fund in place, and so that baby step four, we would tell you to do what? 15% for retirement. Ta-da. There there you go that's your answer you and your spouse are going to sit down start putting 15 of your new combined household income yeah how much will she make or is she making she's a florist and she's starting her business it's going to be about 25 000 initially okay okay so whatever your household income is, 15% of that at Baby Step 4 goes into retirement. You don't have children yet, I assume. No.

Then Baby Step 5 is moot. And anything above 15% going into retirement, you either consume it, you give it, or you put it on the house. And you probably ought to do some of all three with the money above 15% of your income. You should not put 20% in and you should not be doing any investing other than retirement until your house is paid off. Okay. So I appreciate that. I know you talk about smart investor pros. Is there a specific book? Because I follow all you guys and I watch, there's just a lot of

content to consume, just busy with life. But is there a place to go to understand what to invest in and kind of where to start doing it the right way, I guess? Yeah, it's pretty basic. I mean, again, if you've listened to us this much, you've heard me talk about the four types of mutual funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And I pick mutual funds that hopefully have a 10-year or longer track record inside your 401k. We're looking for Roth. We're looking for match first, Roth second, traditional third, and good mutual funds. Long track record.

And that's how I do it. It's really not much more than that to it. I'll send you a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaire's book, which has a lot about investing in it, because it shows you what the millionaires have done. And it'll help you because you're going to be one pretty quick at the rate you're going. And well done, Paul.

Yeah. I mean, even with your mom's sickness. Taking care of your mom. Yes. You've been a stand-up guy across the board. Yeah, well done. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 🎵