The Ramsey Show - Building Wealth Is a Journey – Don’t Rush the Process

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan 📱Watch the full episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "My terminally ill wife hid debt from me," "Is $42k a year enough income to build wealth?" "Should I buy a $1M house in cash?" "We overbought on a house; what do we do?" "Getting out of a car I'm $5K upside down on" Dave and Jade interview millionaires to find out how they built their wealth. Support Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp 🏥 Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries 🏡 Get started today with Churchill Mortgage 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe 🏦 Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! 🥗 Save 15% on your first Field of Greens order with code RAMSEY 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more 🗂️ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at The Nokbox 🏛 Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY 🔐 Visit Zander Insurance for your free instant quote today! Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🩺 Find the Right Health Coverage During Open Enrollment 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! 🎄 You could win $5,000 in the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway! Enter today. 🎁 50 days of Christmas deals are here! Get 30% off meaningful gifts. 🎟️ See Dave and John LIVE in a city near you! Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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 Washaw, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about life and money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. Daniel is in Kansas City. Hey Daniel, how are you? I've been better Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve sir. What's up in your world?

My wife is about to pass away and she hid debt from me. Oh my. That I didn't know that she had pre-tar getting married five years ago. Wow, I'm so sorry. So what is her illness? She has cirrhosis of the liver and it's not working and she doesn't qualify for a transplant and then it's starting to affect her other organs and she's kind of going into full shutdown. So you've been married five years? Yes sir. I'm so sorry. How old is she you opened this with she's hidden debt from you during the five years that you were married, so she ran up debt in her name? She ran up

debt in her name pre-targeting married back when she was in college. This is the second marriage for both of us. I had one daughter with her, technically a stepdaughter, but I consider her my daughter, totally, and was saving money for her to go to college. And we were, I thought we were, anyway, debt-free except for our house. So the debt was rung up before you guys got married. You just didn't know about it. I did not know about it. How much debt? Her parents said she ran up fifty thousand dollars, but I've only received a bill for fifteen thousand. And it's on what kind of debt?

Student loan debt. Federally insured? I don't know I just received it the other day it's actually from a bill collection agency. I don't have it in front of me I apologize. Is it only, you might not know this, is it only in her name or did her parents sign for it too? No it's only in her name. Her parents offered to pay it too? No, it's only in her name. Her parents offered to pay for her to go to school as long as she showed them the grades. And evidently she took the money, was in school for a hot minute.

And I didn't know this cause she's hidden a bunch of stuff from me and used the money to go travel. Okay. Went to Europe and blew the money. All right. Well, let's talk through a couple of possibilities from a tactical standpoint. I'm sorry, Daniel. I know your heart's broken in about three different places.

The deception, the loss, the illness, everything that's going on here that's just overwhelming. And all of that's just a tragedy, I'm so sorry. Student loan debt that is federally insured is forgiven when someone passes away. Okay. So if this is a federal student loan debt, there's no issue. When she passes away, you will, or her parents for that matter, can send them a copy of the death certificate and the student loan just evaporates. It's that simple. And don't pay it okay that that's probably what we're dealing with okay let's go another route in case that's not it let's pretend this is private student loan debt that she borrowed it from the University rather than through FAFSA and all that right and that is not it I'm sorry I believe she did because her parents income was too high for her to get faster.

Well this is student it could still there's no income limit on getting a federally insured student loan. Okay. I'm thinking this is a federally insured student loan. If it's not, Let's discuss that. So the do you own anything jointly with her? In both of your names on it? The only thing with both our names on it is one car. Okay. Her credit her credit from her previous marriage was she's had two bankruptcies that she never told me about because I I had money issues in my first marriage and got that all paid off and I got your book the total money makeover and followed that to get out of debt and to do a mountain of deception here okay all right let's pretend let's pretend that

this is not federally insured I would have you, if it's not a federally insured student loan that is forgiven upon death, then I would have you contact an attorney there in Kansas City on probate law in Kansas. when someone passes away, what they own stands good for what they owe, and nothing else does. Just because you're married to her in most states does not mean you're liable for her debts that have her name on it. And so the car is hers, a portion of it, and if the car has any value above what is owed that might be sold and paid towards this debt but other than that you don't have anything that is she doesn't own anything it doesn't sound like no sir she does not okay so let's pretend that she were single She does not okay, so let's pretend that she were single and she had a car and that was all and she owed more on the car than it was worth and You pass away with credit card debt and student loan debt. There's no assets to pay the debts those

Creditors get nothing when that person passes away with nothing your kids aren't responsible Your parents aren't responsible and your parents aren't responsible, and in most states, your husband is not responsible, unless, especially in a situation like this where the debt occurred prior to the marriage. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not an attorney in Kansas, I'm not an attorney, but I'm not an attorney in Kansas for sure,

so I'd want you to check that out. You won't have to bother and do that if you can discover that these student loans are federally insured and I'm giving you a high probability they are if they're federally insured it's no issue at all you got no issue you're not liable period no one's liable no one pays anything if someone becomes permanently disabled or passes away with a federally insured student loan, it's forgiven, it's gone. Okay. So you're okay, other than your broken heart.

Okay. And your broken heart from losing your wife and to liver cirrhosis, cirrhosis of the liver, and your broken heart from all the deception that's gone on. And both are legitimate pain, brother. I'm sorry you're facing all this he's got a he's got a get in counseling and deal with that because he's got a lot going on he's got the loss but then it's tough to lose someone that you're angry at or frustrated at or something that's gone on right and so obviously she had a pattern of this in her life yeah and and now it's coming to a tragic conclusion.

So tough. Wow. Ouch. Ouch. This is the Ramsey Show. Are you working the baby steps? One of the smartest and most impactful changes you can make is to ditch your cash value life insurance plan, if you have one, and replace it with a term life policy. Listen, the only thing a cash value policy is good for is overcharging you for the life insurance and then paying you a crappy rate of return on your overpayment. Stop wasting your money and really focus on getting out of debt and growing your savings. For over 25 years,

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Don't wait, check out our early Black Friday deals today. Get gifts for everyone on your list at ramsaysolutions.com slash store or if you're on YouTube or podcast just click the link there in the old notes. Rachel's with us. Rachel is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi Rachel, how are you? I'm doing well thanks, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? I have a question and it is can I reasonably consider home ownership in my future at my salary point? It is, I make about $42,000 a year before taxes, I work full time in ministry, I love

what I do and it's just my question, can I retire well someday and have home ownership as part of my future? How old are you? 35. Okay, all right, cool. I think that it's possible. I think that right now you make 42,000, but I can't imagine that your salary will never go up.

So I think that there's an opportunity there, but it is going to depend on the decisions you make today. So my first question would be, do you have debt? Tell me a little bit more about your snapshot here. Okay. So I do have a little bit of debt. I have about 7,000. I'm working on paying it off. According to my figures, I'll probably be debt-free by June or July. Okay. I've paid off about 12,000 to date so far this year. Good for you. According to my figures, I'll probably be debt free by June or July. I've paid off about $12,000 to date so far this year. Good for you. Very good.

After that, you're just walking the baby steps through, which anybody can do. The speed in which this happens is going to be directly reflected by your salary. I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter. There's something to that. Then the other part of this is, are we choosing an affordable place to live? You're in Cleveland, Ohio. I mean what's it cost for you to buy something for, are you single? I am single yes and I don't live quite in Cleveland. I live in a small town. I've seen quite a few houses recently for between 80 and 120 thousand. Okay. It

would be kind of what I was looking at. That's very doable on your income. And what I would do is we've got a really great home mortgage calculator. It's like how much home can I afford? And so if I were in your shoes, I'd be trying to put real numbers to these question marks. And I'd say, OK, first things first, yeah, how long is it going to take me to pay off this 7,000?

Then how long is it going to take me to save three to six months of expenses? And a lot of those equations, if I were you, Rachel, I would reverse engineer them and say, okay, for three to six months of expenses, let's say I need $10,000. If I do the math on what I'm making now, it's going to take me X amount of time. And then you get to decide, is that timeframe okay with me? Because if it's not okay with me, what do I need to do to make that go faster? And even though you're in ministry, I got to believe that you've got time on your

hands to add to your income by doing a side hustle, right? I do have a second job. I work about 12 to 14 hours a week in a second job. Okay. Okay. Hey, what is your ministry? What do you do? I work in a children's ministry. We are basically a discipleship program for kids good very good that's about as worthy of thing as I can think a human can do way to go proud of you thank you so here's the thing the probability that 15 years from today you're 50 years old and you're doing this exact same thing making this exact same income is zero.

There's no chance. Okay? You will either be making some more, you might still be there doing this, but you'll be making some more, but even the probability of that, just saying, okay, I'm gonna be making 52,015 years from now doing the exact

same thing and I'm a 50-year-old single lady doing children's ministry at that point. That's fairly low. I mean, you're pretty much Mother Teresa if you're doing that. Okay? You just got the one thing and you're stuck with it all the way through, right? And that's not a bad thing. Mother Teresa's obviously had a good gig, right? So, you know, that's fine if you go that direction.

But it's just not the normal path for a typical person in America. And so, what oftentimes happens is that you find other ways to serve children and you scale it and your income goes up and your expertise and your experience becomes more valuable in the marketplace. It might involve a move, it might involve some kind of life change in your situation. I don't know, but typically what happens is,

is that people progress through their life, right? And so, and that includes their income, and sometimes it means some stair stepping on their careers and those types of things. So I think that's really your future. I just don't know what, I don't know how to describe it exactly, but I think we can all agree the probability of you being 50 and making exactly the same money,

doing exactly the same thing is very low. So. And even if I do, there's a slight increase every year. I don't know that much. Yeah, but I'm just saying even that's a slight increase. It's not 42. So the average household income is 78,000 in America. That's household. That includes a whole lot of dinks. Double income, no kids. Okay, so that's calculated into that. So your your income is slightly below the average today. And that's not a sin. There's nothing wrong with that. And that doesn't mean you can't do the stuff we just talked about.

But you just kinda, kinda keep that, that's my deal. And then you're in ministry and the stuff that we teach is biblical principles of finance, which is stay out of debt, save money, live on a written plan. Those are all from the Bible. Live on less a written plan, those are all from the Bible. Live on less than you make, those are all from the Bible. And if you do that and start investing a portion

of your income into a good Roth IRA, you could have a serious amount of money at retirement and not have a substantial change in income. That's right. If you stayed this track exact. Yeah, you're just committing to a more modest lifestyle at the end of the day. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's your value that you get to choose. Yeah, don't call me. You can't call me and say I was forced to buy a new car. Right. You can't call me and say I was so tired and

fatigued from ministry that I took a year off and went to Europe. You can't call me and do that. That's not no, you don't have these options. You don't have the money to do that. So you're in a steady thing and you're gonna have to be a steady person that, but I like your $80,000, $100,000 house idea. It fits the numbers you're giving me. You're not being a princess in this,

a negative princess in this discussion. So I don't hear that coming from you but you don't have those options yeah you're driving a used Camry for the foreseeable future exactly exactly and that's not a bad thing it's not a bad thing I think that those are the choices that we make when we decide you know where our passions are gonna take us in life career-wise so godliness with contentment is great gain. Rodney is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi Rodney. Welcome to the Ramsey show Hello, mr. Dane. I'm actually I'm in South Carolina. Okay, that works too. How can I help? Yeah. Yes

Uh, I'm I just got a question a few couple questions. Uh, I'm in pretty good state financially I have managed to save in cash and sitting at a bank $142,000 and I don't I have zero I have managed to save in cash and sitting at a bank $142,000 and I have zero consumer debt, no loans, not anything. But my mortgage, I owe $165,000 on my mortgage and which I'm gonna be able to, if I have another good 2025, I'll be able to pay that off next year. So what my question is, do I put anything down on my house now? Because I've been thinking about just writing a check for a hundred thousand dollars and putting it straight towards the principal and only owe the sixty-five thousand on it and then just pay it off about this time next year.

Yep. What's your interest rate on the mortgage? 3. Yep. What's your interest rate on the mortgage? 3.7. Okay that's what you're making on that 100k when you do it. You're saving 3.7% on 100k. Okay about how much? Okay 3.7% on 100,000 okay. Yeah because you just paid you're not gonna be charged 3.7% on that 100,000 because you paid it off. Just paid it off. And I might pay more than that I don't know what your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses is, but that's all you need. Everything above that ought to be dumping towards that mortgage. We're on baby step six and wide open. Way to go Rodney! This is the Ramsey

Show. Hey guys, I've never done this before, but I'm partnering with a nutrition company, Field of Greens. Each fruit and vegetable in Field of Greens is selected by doctors to support heart, liver, and kidney health plus metabolism for healthy weight. And your doctor will notice your improved health or Field of Greens will give you your money back. I can get behind a promise like that. Go to fieldofgreens.com slash Ramsey and get 15% off with promo code Ramsey. Fieldofgreens.com slash Ramsey. Jade Walsh, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author as my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Why ReFi?

Why ReFi refinances defaulted private student loans which are different than federal student loans. Y-Refi refinances your defaulted private student loan and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. So kick your private student loan out of your life by going to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right, today's question comes from Alex in Florida. He says, I'm 42, married with no kids and my wife and I are retired. We clear almost $10,000 a month from our pensions.

We own brand new vehicles that should last us eight years or so. We own a $10,000 a month from our pensions. We own brand new vehicles that should last us eight years or so. We own a waterfront home, but we are tired of the heat, hurricanes, and insurance prices. I bet you are. If we buy our dream home for $1 million in cash, we will have over 400,000 in the bank.

We have no bills other than our normal expenses, so we save on average $7,000 a month. I never dreamed I would be contemplating paying a million cash for anything. I've been penny pinching and saving for so long that it feels weird to spend. Is this a stupid idea? Let's see. You're 42 married with no kids. You've got this pension. I would love to know what his current investing rate is if he's continuing to invest any of this money. He doesn't mention any of that.

He'd still have 400,000 in the bank. Let's just pretend that that's it. A lump sum is gonna double every seven years. So when he's 52, it'll be 800 plus. So almost a million by that. I'd probably do it, Dave. Would you do it? Absolutely, I'd pay cash for it.

Yeah. There's no reason not to. My only concern would have been- You're sitting with the money to do it. What else are you Would you do it? Absolutely I'd pay cash for it. Yeah. There's no reason not to. My only concern would have been... You're sitting with the money to do it. What else are you going to do with it? Take out a mortgage and put the money in an investment? No. Well the only other option would be... You can borrow and pay for a house to invest it. Well the only other option would be to buy something less expensive in cash. In my mind that would be the only other option. I don't see a need to. I don't either. I think you buy it. Yeah, pay cash for it. No, you're not stupid. It is an emotional thing to, you've been sitting on money to let that money go into a house, but it's not like you're

spending it. If this goes sideways, what are you going to do, sell the house for a profit later? I mean, here's the thing, he's probably, most of that money probably wasn't just sitting in an account somewhere. I mean, here's the thing, he's probably most of that money probably wasn't just sitting in an account somewhere. I mean, he's selling the waterfront house to get it. Apparently, so that's exactly what you should do. You take the equity, maybe adds a little cash to it and purchase this house outright. Yes, absolutely. And let's see here. We own a waterfront home. Doesn't say if it's paid for, but you know,

yeah, I'm with you, I'm guessing based on this, we're gonna sell that, and that's some of the million dollars. But anyway, the answer to your question is, yes, pay cash, pay cash, pay cash, pay cash, pay cash. Now, and then take your $10,000 a month, and I'm with Jade, you ought to be investing some of it, and your 400,000 doesn't need to be in the bank. That's a good point. It needs to be in some good investments so get with a SmartVestor Pro at RamseySolutions.com

find someone that we're endorsing in your area that you get comfortable with that has the heart of a teacher start learning about good investments. The bank is not on the list of good investments. John's in Boise, Idaho. Hey John, what's up? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure, how can I help? So my wife and I just pay off our house and my first instinct was to go ahead and ramp up our retirement contributions and try to max those out

as much as possible. Absolutely. But then I'm looking back at what we currently have in our retirement accounts, and we got about six hundred and twenty three thousand dollars sitting in traditional, and I'm wondering based on our ages, we're 36 and 38, if it would make more sense instead of maxing out new Roth contributions, if we should instead maybe try to focus on converting some of that, those additional or traditional contract, traditional retirement contributions to Roth. You ought to do both. You ought to max them out and then start working on converting it to Roth, but I'm not gonna choose

between the two. I'm gonna max out first and then I'm gonna get to the, above that I'm gonna get to it. What's your income? About 205 household income. Okay, and you got no payments and you live in Boise, Idaho. No house payment or anything. So you're not gonna go to that 600,000

in a one fell swoop anyway, you don't have the money. Right, well, I mean, we also have some like home upgrades and wife's vehicle needs to be upgraded. Okay. So I'm kind of looking at the extra money beyond maxing out retirement. You know, a lot of that's going to go that direction. But that's not a forever thing. And once the homemaker upgrades done,

the car upgrades done, then you can start to peck away at it. And five years from today, you're going to be making more than 205 agreed. Agreed. Yeah. So just, you know, you're 30. So take a seven year plan and let's get that 600 moved by the time you're 40 while maxing out, while upgrading the cars, while doing all of this other. You got room. Right. And then the balance of that traditional at 623 now is going to continue to grow, so it's just going to be the more taxes that time goes on.

But that doesn't change it. I'm still going to do it. because here's the thing you've got that under the umbrella if You stop putting money under the umbrella in order to flip that out. I think that's a bad move. I Want you to get I want you to get it all over into Roth all mines over into Roth I moved it all over but I paid cash for it above and beyond maxing out everything and above and beyond being completely debt free and above and beyond upgrading cars and fixing the house. And so, you know, but you're not going to do it quickly unless your income doubles, but you will be able to do it over a five to, you know, a 10 year period, seven year period, whatever.

I mean, you're not going to be 45 asking this question. I can tell you that mathematically. Okay. So, and so you'll be fine you're gonna get there and you know but yes I think that is a good strategy to move traditional to a Roth. At what point okay I'm trying to think through this I'm thinking of a good question here. So if you're listening to the show and you say oh man Dave like I've contributed to a traditional 401k most of my working life, I've got a lot over there.

At what point do you go, this is too much to move or and or what's a fair percentage to have in traditional versus Roth? Maybe that's the better question. In game, I don't want you to have any in it. Right, but if you've been doing that. That's okay, I. In game I don't want you to have any in it. Right, but if you're if you've been doing that. That's okay. I mean, but I wouldn't be continuing traditional. I've moved everything to Roth today on fresh contributions and in game I want you to move it

all out into Roth over a period of time. And here's why. Let's fast forward this 33 year old to 65. He's not going to cash all of this out suddenly at retirement anyway. And very likely this guy making quarter million dollars a year at 33 years old is going to have a bunch of other non-retirement investments like Dave. Right. Okay. I got a bunch of non-retirement investments called real estate and other things right mutual funds that aren't in a retirement plan. So the chances of me actually touching I'm 64 of ever touching my retirement accounts it's close to zero. Yeah. I will never touch them. So now what are we doing?

Well now we're looking at 72 and a half RMDs required minimum distributions. I don't have those because it's Roth. Inherited IRAs they are taxable if they're right. If they're Roth or not. So Rachel Cruz and her brother and sister will be getting someday all of our Roth products. No taxes. And guess what? Let's say I live 25 years from today. That's 64 to 90s right? Put that put what's in there right now all tax-free all dropped into their name tax-free. Talk about changing a family tree. My mind is exploding. The numbers are astrophreakonomical. Oh yeah they are. I mean it's cray cray how big those numbers are and that's where this kid's going. Yeah. Because he's going to have other investments by the time he gets there and if he gets all of this into Roth he's got the inheritance benefit, the no RMD benefit,

because you're really probably not going to use that money to live on. It's very good. This is the blueprint. Yeah, I mean, because he's this guy's not looking at a $2 million net worth here. This guy's looking at a $12 million net worth. He's going to be very wealthy. Okay, if he stays on this track because of the numbers we're giving him with compound interest is magical people. This is beautiful. Man, you are a bright guy. John, you have

you got to run these numbers out. It'll blow your freaking mind. Mortgage rates have dropped. So if you're thinking about buying a home in the next year, contact your local Churchill mortgage team right now if you wait more people will be in the market competing for the same homes and potentially driving up prices Churchill will help you do the math to be sure your budget is correct making your home a blessing and helping you build lasting wealth learn more at churchillemortgage.com churchillmortgage.com. Churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal Housing Lender.

1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Stacey is in Spokane. Hi Stacey, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi Dave, thank you very much for having me on. Sure, what's up in your world? Yeah, so I would like to just get an idea of how to deal with our situation. My husband is up in age. He is actually 72 going on 73. He has been

working all his life and I am only 49. I have health issues that prevent me from being able to work a full-time regular job. And so currently what happened was recently last year we were living on a friend's property taking care of the father of the son that lives there and we were doing really well. My husband was working, we were doing just fine financially. Unfortunately we didn't have a home there, we were told that the owners of the property, which is multiple family members were having a dispute. And so we were having to get out of that situation due to the circumstances.

And when we saw what was happening after COVID and everybody losing their homes in losing rentals, because people were selling the rentals like crazy. We also had pets, which was restricted us from getting into a rental. So we decided to go ahead and purchase a home, knowing that technically the, the economy wasn't great for doing that. My husband makes about, uh, with social security included, cause he gets his retirement Social Security as well as his income that is about ninety thousand a year we

purchased a home last October at the price of 423 good lord and unfortunately the the interest rate was at 6% I like like 6.2 and so right now currently I still owe a school loan debt of about 20,000. I was hospitalized this last summer and now owe $10,000 for a one night stay. And so and then also my daughter there's no schools in our area that are safe for her to attend, unfortunately. And so we had to send her to a boarding school. What does that mean when you say there's no school? What does that mean?

In Spokane, Washington, the schools are not safe to attend? I was born in Spokane. Tell me what that, what does that mean? So actually, we are actually in Northern Idaho, but like right next to Spokane. Tell me what that what does that mean? So actually we are actually in northern Idaho but like right next to Spokane and so... In rural Idaho the schools are not safe to attend. Right. I'm not buying that. They've been pushing the whole gay thing you know. Okay safe is thing. I don't agree with what they're pushing is another thing. That's very different Okay, so I don't have a problem with that. Okay now so

What's the question? Why don't you sell the house? Yeah, you bought a house you can't afford Right sell it, right And then go with it. Well move to something you can afford. Okay. You bought a house you can't afford. Yeah. And to your point you're in a rural area that's far less expensive than anything that'd be close to a city so there should be options right? There are options. Actually unfortunately the areas out here are really it's gone up just from the one Stacy there's not a situation there's not a situation where there are no options except sit there and be bankrupt. Bull. Okay you keep pulling the plug on

everything seems to be forced upon you and you don't have any choices you don't have any choices. You got choices you didn't have to send your kid to boarding school You could have up sold the house moved to a school system you agreed with in a two hundred thousand dollar house and had no issues Okay, you weren't forced into any of this but you know, but the language you use is as if you're a victim of your own choices You're not a victim. Change it. Sell a stupid house. It's a freaking house. It's a bad decision. And you bought it and then you justified it as if there was no other choices. Of course there was other choices. There's always other choices. We have pets. Well there's lots of choices with pets. And I'm not gonna bankrupt my family for pets. I love my dog, it's one of my favorite people,

but I'm not gonna bankrupt my family for my pet. Yeah. I also wanna challenge the fact, and she said she wasn't working, I know she said health issues, but I always filter at this point whenever we get calls where someone is struggling to work, whether it's because of a disability or health,

I always tell this story. I bought two recliners on Wayfair. They didn't work and I sent them back. And all of the customer service was done via text. And I realized there's somebody on the other end doing this whole thing on their computer at home via text. There are jobs out there that you don't have to have contact, that you can be on your own timeline.

So I even wanna challenge the fact that you're not working. I bet there's something that you can do. So there's a lot in this conversation that needs to be accounted for. We've gotta get on top of this and in front of it rather than behind it. Everything's not chasing you, kid. You gotta start chasing life instead of it chasing you.

So sell the house, move into a house half the price, get the kid back out of the boarding school, homeschool him. If you're not working, homeschool your kid. You can control the woke agenda that way. And you know, there's a lot of options here. There's a lot of options. But you guys just keep reaching over and doing crap you can't afford and then you're shocked that you're broke. Yeah. And in this situation, you really need to have some fore doing crap you can't afford and then you're shocked that you're broke

Yeah And in this situation you really need to have some foresight when you've got a 72 year old husband and you're 50 You've got to start thinking through what the future holds and how you're preparing for that because it's gonna hit you like a ton of bricks Now Sharon is slightly older than me and she's planned for me to die first So I'm not sure what that means exactly. I need to sleep with one eye open possibly. All of our estate plan is predicated on me predeceasing her. I'm a little worried about this. Of course she is in much better shape than me, but other than that,

you know, come on! Yeah, you're right and I'm not 20 years or whatever it is, 15 years older. So there you go. All right, open phones at triple 8, 825-5225. Connor is in Pensacola. Hi Connor, what's up? Hey Dave, this is, how are you? Better than I deserve sir, how can we help? So I made some bad financial decisions right when I turned 18. I thought credit meant I was rich. You're the only one Connor. So I decided to I was gonna start my own lawn care company it worked all out but I ended up taking out a loan for a truck while I did that. I ended up selling the landscape company not for much I mean it was just it was 1,300

bucks I ended up moving to Florida from Minnesota and I'm just trying to figure the landscape company, not for much. I mean, it was just, it was 1300 bucks. Um, I ended up moving to Florida from Minnesota. Um, and I'm just trying to figure out how to get out of this moment as I have no reason for a truck anymore. And I, I owe about 31,000 on it. Yeah, it's, I owe about 31,000. It's worth about 26. I've gone down. I make $2,400 a month. What do you do? I just got a job doing logistics sales.

For $30,000 a year? It's 40,000. So I mean it's really 2800 a month. But I mean there's potential for commission on 100 a month, but I mean there's potential for commission on 6 weeks a trip. I'm 21 years old. Okay, and you're working 40 hours doing that I Work in about 15 hour or 50 hours a week But I'm on a base salary of 40,000 a year after 26 weeks of training I'm eligible for uncapped commission, but they're like there's really no guarantee I'm eligible for uncapped commission, but there's really no guarantee that you'll make commission. Well, it's how hard you work.

Yeah. All right. So you're 21. You're in a place that you just moved to. You don't know anybody. You need six more jobs. Take it to 80 hours a week. You need $5,000 to write a check and cover the difference so you can sell the truck,

right? Correct. Yeah. I want you to go get $5,000. Ready, set, go. Then you're going to have to figure get $5,000 ready set go then you're gonna have to figure out a way to get something in cash that you can drive around and yeah get you a $5,000 car so we really need we really need $10,000 yeah that was kind of my plan is to just kind of get rid of this loan and just buy

a car cash you can do that you can do it man but you're gonna be living on beans and rice and you're gonna increase your income and there's no eating out There's no happy hour and I hope you got a weekend trips with the buds You're broke dude with a truck You can't afford and the way to get out of that is go to bare bones and attack it with a vengeance Yeah, and get you a roommate. Oh, there we go. Ding ding This is the Ramsey Show. Do you ever feel like you're finally making progress

towards your goals only to get quickly distracted by something else in your feed? Well, that's why we created the Ramsey Network app, your single source for content that keeps you motivated. The Ramsey Network app is designed to keep you laser focused on reaching your goals. Loaded with over $7,000 of Ramsey shows, this free app is the best place for uninterrupted content and no distractions. Plus, you can search specific questions to get more personalized content in seconds. So for the days you need some

extra motivation, you'll have proven advice at your fingertips. It's time to get serious about your goals and shut out the distractions for good. Simply search Ramsey Network in the App Store or Google Play. If you're listening on a podcast, just click the link in the show notes to download our free Ramsey Network app today. 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 Washaw Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is a baby steps Millionaires theme hour we're going to talk to real

millionaires and ask them how they did it we started doing this theme hour several years ago because I kept hearing all the mythology in the marketplace the lies That are out there about where wealth really comes from. People don't seem to know where wealth really comes from. So let me help you with this. A millionaire is a million dollar or greater net worth. There is only one definition of a millionaire. It is a math process. It's not up to you to, it has nothing to do with your feelings.

It doesn't care what your feelings are, okay? What your assets are minus your liabilities is your net worth, what you own minus what you owe. Not a salary. That is your net worth. That has nothing to do with your income. And when your net worth determines if you're a millionaire, when you have a $1 million or greater net worth,

whatever you own minus whatever you owe. And there's no qualification on that. This is an accounting term. And just because you're on TikTok doesn't mean you get to change it. This is a definition. And so someone that makes a million dollars might or might not be a millionaire. That is not the definition of a millionaire. When people say net worth millionaire, that's redundant. Because 100% of real millionaires are no millionaires based on their net worth. You don't need to put an adjective in front of an adjective. It makes you look stupid. So it's just a millionaire. That's all it is. So we're going to talk to people that really have that net worth and ask them where they

got it. And that's what we do here. The phone number is 825-5225. We're starting with Charlie and Stacey in Midland, Texas. What's you guys' net worth? Dave, we think it's about 10.8. Hey! Hey!

Way to go, guys! Okay, give me a little breakdown by mix on that. How much of that is like investments or retirement, real estate, so on? We both have an RA and they total about 2.5. Got two houses, 1.4. And then got 6.7 in investment account, high yield savings account, and land. Way to go. Good for you. How old are you two? 61. 61 or 51? 61.

61. Good. Okay. How much of this 10.8 million did you inherit? Oh, wow. About 250,000 three years ago when my mom passed. After you were already millionaires? You bet, yeah. Okay, cool. And I haven't spent a dime of that inheritance. Okay, and obviously that's not caused you to become a millionaire because you already were.

Now income, your lowest income since you've been working and your highest income since you've been working. I think when I got out of vet school in 1990, I got one of the best jobs in my class and I made $24,000 health insurance for my family and a car to drive. And that was one of the best jobs. Stacey, you married a rich man. It's a 24,000. I love it.

And what's your, what's your, what's your all's best year of income? Oh, wow. Last couple of years, half a million or so. Way to go. So now you own a vet practice, obviously. I sold it. Ah.

I did. I bought the fight for 34 years, yes. Okay. So what portion of the net worth came from that? What'd you bring from that sale? Oh, that was, a bunch of that was just realizing equity in the business, but then there was some goodwill on top of that.

But you gotta hear what Stacey, she taught when I was in vet school. She can tell you what she taught and coached these sports for when we were going to vet school. Okay. Yes, I taught elementary PE, I coached basketball and track, I also taught freshman high school physical education

and my starting pay was fifteen thousand four hundred dollars. Way to go guys. Way to go. Teaching in two sports. Way to go. Proud of y'all. So what would you, do you think people can still do this today? Oh, it's easier today than it was when we did it, Dave. Why? Way easier. There's so many more investment opportunities. We didn't have 529s for the kids, we didn't have college savings accounts, we didn't have health savings accounts, we didn't have 401ks like they do

now. When you think back to the 90s, when I found out about you, when you're the only vet in a small town, you get to go out in the middle of the night. And in the mid-90s, you had the prime time on AM radio about three in the morning. I did in Midland Odessa I remember this. That's right yes and that's where I heard about you. That's where I heard about you. Wow that's crazy. It's so much it's so much easier I think today because when you think in the 90s, I did not know what a no-load mutual fund was. If you were gonna buy stocks,

you had to buy a block a hundred at a time or something like that, and now you can buy fractions. It's gotta be so much easier now than it was for us. Yeah, the vehicles are a lot cleaner, you're right. And there was no Roth back then, either. No, there was not. No, uh-uh. I agree with you.

So, what do you guys drive? She drives a Subaru. And I drive a three-quarter ton Aggie Maroon GMC pickup truck. Aggie Maroon. That's a particular color they show in Texas. I'm sorry about your volunteers. I really am. So how important is budgeting? Were you guys budgeters? Does that play a part in building wealth? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, Jade, we followed the envelope system and I carried around envelopes, the white envelope

with I penciled on each envelope, you know, where that cash was going to go, whether it was going to the grocery store, gas, the kids needs and envelopes played a huge part because it just, it really gave a visual. I'm a visual person and it showed how much money we had and you know, to use and when it was gone, it was gone. And starting off with the program, I was a little hesitant, but once we got started, boy, we stuck with it and we just went crazy with it. We also made our kids listen to the show on our trip.

Wow. First, Charlie stuck with me in the middle of the night and then the kids are with the trip. Hey, I'm proud of you guys. That's amazing. Ten point eight million dollar net worth. It's where money comes from, boys and girls. I love it. Way to go, Charlie and Stacey.

Hero. Both of you are heroes. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude, and most of us have people in our lives who we're grateful for. One of those people for me is the great Jean-Noel Thompson. He taught me how to be a dad, a husband, a professional,

and how to balance caring for a bunch of people all at the same time. We all know of somebody else we can be grateful for, but there's one person that we often don't take time to thank, ourselves. We don't always acknowledge that we're surviving, that we're moving forward, and that we're working towards a better life and better relationships.

And in a world where everything's gone bonkers, it's not always easy. So here's my reminder to thank the people that you love, thank the people in your life, and thank you. Sometimes we need some professional help to talk to somebody trained to help us discover true gratitude for ourselves and others, especially in the holiday season. That's why I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist at any time, so it's convenient for your schedule. Just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist.

Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. Well, it's decision time again. Every year during open enrollment you have the chance to check in on your insurance and make sure it's right for you and your family. Whether you have health coverage through your job, a private company, or a government program like Medicare, you don't have to figure this out alone.

We have reliable folks we trust to help you get the right coverage for whatever stage you're in. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash health dash coverage. If you believe a lie, an untruth, and you act on your beliefs, which everyone does act on their beliefs, it leads you astray. In other words, if you thought one direction was north and that was actually south, you acted on a lie, you acted on an untruth, and you get what's known as lost. Right? You didn't, you know, that way's Florida, that way's Maine. And you can't head towards Maine and get to Florida. Well, you can't, it's just a long way around, right? So you gotta go all the way around the globe. But the, but, but,

and the same thing's true with building wealth, and that's why we started doing this, because there's so many people out there lying, some of them intentionally and some of them just because they're ignoramuses, about where wealth actually comes from. Here's one. All wealthy people get their wealth by being crooks. That's just completely asinine. Here, let me give you an example, okay? That guy was a veterinarian. Okay? If he was a crooked veterinarian, overcharged, people would take their animals somewhere else. Yeah, his business would be out of business.

If he stole from his customers, they take their business somewhere else. Instead, he grew a large business by not being a crook, by being an honest guy, sold the business later, and became very wealthy as a result of doing that. So crooks actually do not prosper. Well, crook, you can prosper as a crook, but it's not sustainable. It's not a long-term strategy. And so what we find is most wealth building is long-term. Now, you can become wealthy for a hot minute being a crook, but we don't find the typical millionaire to be a crook. As a matter of fact, we find the percentage

of crooks among them to be lower than the general population percentage of crooks. And so because one of the issues is integrity has it seems to be correlated with building wealth. Do you also feel that people have sort of a negative framework or an improper framework about millionaires because a they're thinking of Celebrity status they're thinking of people who have 200 million and all the they're not thinking of the everyday person that might have two or Three million or eight or ten million, right? Well, they've gotten the confused between the difference in a billionaire and a millionaire Mm-hmm a billionaire has a jet right a millionaire does not. A billionaire has seven cars. A millionaire is driving a, what do you call it,

an Aggie Maroon pickup truck. Okay? Right. And a billionaire has five houses. A millionaire has one medium-sized home. Yeah, you may not know the person that's sitting next to you has. You generally won't know it. That's right.

Okay, and the methodology to build a billion dollar net worth is different than the methodology to build a ten million dollar network. Substantially different. That's right. Okay, and neither one involves being a crook. But I think people get confused and I think they get a negative view on wealth because some of the uber rich are just weird humans they're just I won't name any names well they're just wacko they're wacko yeah I mean they're not they're not who you want to be that's right yes but that veterinarian I want to be him yeah if you're a young person you could want to be that guy's a man of character woman of character she taught phys ed at the high school while he was going through vet school right shut up he made

twenty four thousand dollars a year when he started. Shut up! You do want to be that couple. They're people of character, of substance. But you don't, these wackos that are on TV and stuff, and here's the thing, here's the interesting thing. I'm not going to be a wealthy because I'm not going to be a celebrity. Well, only 1.6 percent of Millionaires in the United States are celebrities Wow sports figures music people actors And so on and a lot of them are just weird. Yeah Not all of them some of them are normal people sir just play a get fiddle, but But but a lot of them are just weird. I mean and I know some of them that are weird. I mean, they're weird weird. I mean and I know some of them that are weird. I mean they're weird. And so you know that's not normal either. What is normal is the guy we just

talked to. And that should give you people great hope. If you're sitting there going, where's all the hope is gone in America? No it's not! It's not gone. Don't let people steal your hope with bad information. That's what this is about. Matt is with us in Kansasansas city matt what's your net worth uh... my network is uh... approximately one point five million good for you give me a little breakdown by category alright uh... we have sixty thousand dollars that we keep in uh... cash just

uh... in the bank just for uh... emergency fund got it uh... we've got about a hundred thousand,000 in 529s for our children. Good for you. We've got about half a million dollars in American funds. I've got, we've paid our home off, it's worth about 400,000. And then there's a bunch of other things

that kind of break up. We've got a 401k that's my wife, that's $155,000. She's vested in a pension. I'm vested in a pension. She has a retirement plan that's worth about $203,000 if you were to cash it out. I've got a deferred comp, um, through my work that's got about 70 or 80 thousand in it. Gotcha. Matt, how old are you? I'm 45 years old. Cool. Wow. And how much of this 1.5 million did you inherit? We inherited zero. Zero. And what was your worst year

of working income and your all's best year of working income? Well, I would say when my wife and I first got married was probably the worst and it was probably around 60,000 combined. Okay what do you all what should been your best year? Probably this last year was right around 200,000. Cool what do y'all do for a living? I'm a state trooper and my wife is a business analyst for a large global company that does pet food. Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. And what do you got? Have you got a four year degree? I do. Yes. I have a four year degree from at the time was just from a state

college and I taught high school for three years before I changed careers. What was your degree in? I have a teaching degree in secondary education. Gotcha. Okay. What was your GPA? My GPA was about a 3.75. Good for you. Well done. Okay. Cool. Very good. What do y'all drive? My wife drives a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, a four door Jeep. I drive a 2001 Jeep Wrangler, a four-door Jeep. I drive a 2001 Jeep Wrangler,

and I newly acquired a Harley Davidson motorcycle to replace one that I'd gotten rid of. And we also own a brand new 2024 Toyota C&M minivan for the kids. And I've also got a 2018 Ford F-150 that my 16 year old's going to be driving. When did you? Your 16 year old has a better car than you have?

He does. I just want him to be in the, I want him to be in the safest thing he could be in. Yeah. You see some stuff out there on the road, I'm afraid. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen a few things. Yeah. When did you get serious about building wealth? Because you're 45 years old, somebody is listening, they're maybe 40 or 43, and they're going, gosh, how did this guy do it? When did you get serious?

We were very fortunate. My uncle Doug gave my wife and I a copy of the total money makeover. This was probably, I wanna say about 15 years ago. And my wife, my wife is on the financial side of things and she just ate it up. It was really quick for her. Everything worked for her. We did envelopes, we did peanut butter and jelly. We did all of those, those things that were talked about in the book. And so 15 year horizon from the time you learn the plan till the day that you're calling in today basically absolutely when we when we started we had car payments

on two cars and a house payment so and maybe a little bit of credit card debt maybe just a few thousand dollars with a credit card debt so your baby steps millionaires I mean this is pure you did Ramsey all the way through Absolutely. Yes. Wow, very cool. I'm proud of you guys. Yeah, we're currently using one of your investors in the Kansas City area He's been really good to us You know no complaints from us at all. Wow proud of you, man. Very very well done. Congratulations, sir and thank you for being out there protecting the people of kansas on the highways and byways brother very cool 1.5 million dollar net worth in

15 years from being broke wow that's a good question you asked there it well i wanted to paint the picture because people think that this takes 40 years and 50 years to do. Our average in our millionaire study that we did is 17 years. This took 15. Yeah and he's way above a million. Yeah good. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey you guys I'm not a fan of the big banks and you probably already know which ones I mean but I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people

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online experience you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. wins. Hey guys, George Campbell here and it's that time of year again.

The store shelves are packed with Little Debbie's Christmas Trees, matching pajamas for you and your dog, you know who you are, and giant inflatable Santas for the yard. I'm not mad about that. Speaking of inflation, Americans are about to spend close to a trillion dollars this Christmas. And get this, one third of that spending spend close to a trillion dollars this Christmas. And get this, one third of that spending will be swiped on credit cards. Yikes. Now, I get it.

You want the holidays to feel magical and you want to have a good time. But trust me, there is nothing magical about staring down a mountain of credit card debt come January. So, here's the deal. If you don't want January U to hate December U, I've got a money hack for you. Download the EveryDollar app. It's free to get started and you could find an extra $400 of margin in your first month of using it.

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What you own minus what you owe is your net worth, assets minus liabilities. When that reaches $1 million or greater, by definition, you are a millionaire. Well millionaire well Dave a million dollars is just not enough anymore well that we're not discussing that today Dave no one should have that kind of money that's not a moral construct for you socialist to discuss it's a math thing it's a facts. So if you have a million dollars, it's that simple. We want to talk to you. I don't care where you got it. If you stole it, that's fine.

Call us and tell us. Okay? If you want the lottery, call us and tell us. If you, whatever. I'd love that story to come through if somebody stole it. Yeah. We'll put you right here on the radio and see if we can't get you convicted of your crime. But yeah, but I mean, really, I mean, we've, I've talked to a lot of winners. I talked to people that did the GameStop thing and that got a million dollars out of it. You know, I mean, I'll talk to people that did it ways. Get Bitcoin guys. I've talked to them. They got a million dollars.

I'll talk to people that did it ways I don't recommend and that the data tells us are not normative. Yeah, they don't normally work, but I'll talk to you. I don't care. I want to hear. I want everyone in America to hear where wealth really comes from. So you call 888-825-5225. Diane is in Sacramento. Diane, what's your net worth? 1.2 million. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category please. Well pretty simple about 300,000 in home equity and 900,000 in Irish and an

actor 401k. Good good for you. How old are you? 69. 69 very good. How much of this 1.2 did you inherit? Not a penny. Zero. What's your best year of working income and your worst year of working income? Working income probably about 95 and my worst year was when I was just 18 and started working about 4,000. Okay. A long time ago. I hear you. What was your career? My career has always been in the insurance ago. I hear you. What was your, what was your career? My career has always been in the insurance industry. Good for you. Okay. Good. And do you have a four year degree? No, I do not know. Okay. Good.

Very cool. All right. Do you think people can still do this today? Absolutely. Why? Um, I think it's,'s, I think they need someone to give them guidance and encouragement. And I don't know, one of the things I'm proudest of are my girls, because they're both doing it. And they started hearing this from me at a very young age. And when they were in positions as jobs with 401ks, they both started contributing.

And I'm excited to see, one of my girls just showed me her 401k balance the other day, and she's just in her mid-30s, and I was so proud of her. Yeah, very good. Yeah, thank you. She's gonna beat mom. They are, they both will. They absolutely will.

I did not start investing until I was 40 at the strong encouragement of a coworker. And this was in about the mid 90s before we knew an awful lot about 401ks and certainly before the Roth Iris. But I started investing a very tiny amount because my friend Bruce would not let up on me until I did. You never made over a hundred K? Never in my life. Wow I'm proud

of you. What do you drive? I have a 2015 little Subaru that's my commuter car and a 2018 Ram half-ton pickup because I'm a mountain girl Live in the city of Sacramento Good for you we had to head to the mountains on the weekends. I like it. Oh, no, I live in the mountain You sound intentional you've been intentional about putting money aside intentional about teaching your kids the same, you know way of life How much has a budget played into this because we know that that's a big part of this, right? Being intentional with your money. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. I started when I first learned the Excel product back in the mid-90s. That was when I created a budget for myself. And that developed into a document that I now project out a year ahead of my monthly expenses and my allocations and when things are coming up. So, you know, it, it contemplates savings.

It contemplates money going into my 401k, um, you know, vehicle registration is all the little details of life. And I make sure that I pay myself first. I started maxing out my 401k in my very early 50s with some home equity rather than putting all of the equity into my next home purchase. I reserved a hundred thousand. So in the last 20 years what do you do for fun? Enjoy my home. I've always enjoyed living in the mountains.

It's always felt like a vacation destination for me. It is. So for me, my fun is coming to my home, it's working in my yard, and that's my fun. I do like to camp, but I don't do much of it anymore. But my fun is pretty simple. I don't require elaborate vacations. I like coming home and sitting on my house and looking at my living room window to all the beautiful trees that surround me.

It's lovely. Life is good. Good for you. I'm proud of you. It's very simple. Very, very well done, Diane. Excellent. I love it. I is good. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Very, very well done Diane. Excellent. I love it. I love it. I love it. Megan in Raleigh, North Carolina, what is your net worth? Hi Dave. It is 1.9 million. Yeah. Very good. Give me a little breakdown by category please. In Roth IRAs, 351,000. 401Ks, 2766,000 our non-retirement investment and savings 260,000 and then

our real estate portfolio 1.062 million. Good for you way to go how old are you? 35. Wow get it. Wow. Love it love it love it. How much of this did you inherit? My husband inherited $50,000 when he was a junior in college when his dad passed. Okay, did that money cause you to become a millionaire? Absolutely not. Okay. All right.

And what's your all's best year working income and worst year working income? Our worst year we made about seventy seven thousand and our best year two twenty. Good for you. What do y'all do? What's your careers? My husband is a major in the army and I work in healthcare IT. Got it. Okay you got a four-year degree? We actually between the two of us have four graduate degrees. Wow. You collect them, okay. We do. Three were employer sponsored and one was fully cash flowed.

Wow, I was gonna ask about that. Wow. Okay, so what's the fanciest of the four degrees? Do we have a PhD in the bunch? No, no, they're all masters degrees. We have a PhD in the bunch? No, no they're all master's degrees. Okay, all right. But my fanciest one, I would say it sounds cool is cyber security management and policy. Ah yeah, that's big. Good for you. You're right in the hot seat right now. And your GPA when you were doing that particular degree? 4.0. Nice. I got a feeling, yeah. Yeah, all right, good for you. Well done, well done.

Can people do this today? Yes. Well crap, you're only 35. Of course they can do it today, all right. Well I wanna know, how long have you made 220,000? One year. I just wanna clarify, I always hear the voice of the naysayers in my

mind and so I like to debunk it and when did you get started on this journey because 35 is really young and I mean you're one point I mean two million dollars really is where you're at so when did you start this? Well I first got plugged into the Ramsay show back in 2019 we had bought a house we didn't have any other debt. So we were fortunate in that even before I met my husband, we were both very financially savvy and knew not to spend more than you made. But I got pregnant with my daughter and instead of getting in that nesting phase of setting up the

baby's room and everything, I got into the financial security mode Love that and there was just a particular lifestyle I envisioned for our family and I wanted to be able to have the financial means to do it So we did it in six years of being intentional about what comes after paying off and avoiding debt Yeah, way to go kiddo. Proud of you. Well done. Wow. Two million dollar net worth at 35 years old. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. She wins. Yeah. This is the Ramsey Show. Folks, the Ramsey Christmas cash giveaway is here and you could win big.

We're giving away $500 prizes each week and one grand prize of $5,000 enter daily for your chance to win at ramsysolutions.com give away. It's that easy. Plus our 50 days of Christmas deals is on right now. Get up to 30% off best sellers and life changing gifts that won't break the holiday budget. ramsysolutions.com slash store. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is a baby steps millionaires theme hour. Folks we just launched a brand new tour. Dave Ramsey, that's me and Dr. John Deloney are hitting the road and coming to a city near you on the money and relationships tour.

And we're putting a new twist on these live events. You are going to shape the conversation each night. In the pre-show we're going to give you a list of topics and you're going to pick the ones you want me and John to talk about that night. And we're going to walk out and do it. Louisville, Kentucky, April 21, Durham, that would be April 23, Atlanta, April 25, Phoenix, May 5, Fort Worth, May 7, and Kansas City, May 9. These tickets are selling briskly. If you want to come, you should get one before they're gone. Go to Dave Ramsey, Dr. John

Deloney. Or join Dave Ramsey, that's me, and Dr. John Deloney live in person that night. You're gonna laugh, you're gonna cry, you're gonna learn, your ribs will be sore, where your spouse is elbowing you, all of that will happen. Ramseysolutions.com slash tour, the money and relationships tour. You can always look at the live events we're doing all over the place on our home page and check in. There's all of us doing stuff all over the place all the time. Now, Diane, two callers ago, 69, never made over 100,000.

That is one of the myths, one of the lies that are out there that you have to make $500,000 a year, $600,000 a year to be a millionaire, you don't. As a matter of fact, we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied 10,167 of them. The conclusions of that research and the methodology of that research are the white paper in the

back of my bestselling book, Baby Steps Millionaires, and Baby Steps Millionaires goes through the discussion of where millionaires come from in detail. So if you want to learn about the millionaire subject, the study is in there and also the best-selling book is in front of the study. One of the things we found in the study was 33% of millionaires never made over a hundred grand. One-third. Wow. That one surprised me. Yeah. I was, you know, if you told me not over 200 grand Okay, sure I would I could go with Alan but 33% never made over 100 grand they fall in the category that Diane fell in pretty cool Richards in Kansas City

Hey Richard your net worth 3.1 million good for you. Give me a little breakdown by category basically joint account 117 emergency fund 110 401, which is now a rollover because I am recently retired, 1.167 million and then we have my wife and I have Roths at 750,000, a donor account at 56, our home is about 425, farmland is 450, and miscellaneous items about 40,000. Cool, how old are you? I'm 57 years old.

Good for you, well done. How much of this did you inherit? Well, I did inherit a little bit and that's part of my story a little bit. I got 200,000 when I was 35 and 200,000 when I was 45. Wow. Cool, good. Very good.

So that did really legitimately boost this. It did. It did. But the way I look at this is the 401k, my goal is always to get a million over that and did that. But it helps. But the big thing I find is one thing that I don't always hear you talk about, but you do, is people inherit things. And sometimes it's a woohoo moment. Now we're going to go out and spend money. We're going to go, we're going to go buy that big car or that big boat. But my wife and I kept away from that. And so I like to feel that I did it without those things.

Yeah. Well, what you did was you got the best use of that, but you've got 1.1 in your 401k. So you would have been a millionaire anyway. Yes, absolutely. But you, but this did legitimately, I mean, like the 450,000 dollar farm probably had something to do with that Some of these other cash positions probably had something to do with that, but your 401k has to be payroll deduct It's not sure none of that inheritance can go in there legally so that I know that didn't where that came from Well that and you know my wife Worked outside the house part part time and raised our kids so

we were a one income household and then with her what she brought in is one of those things where you basically had to learn how to do without and we did in those early years. We were two young successful kids and I think they've learned from watching us and I gotta tell ya when they used to hear your music come on when we'd be driving down the highway their heads would hit the ground. I love it. What was your career Richard? I was in packaging. Packaging. All right. Yep. All right. Very cool. Good for you man. Hey thanks for the call. You're a hero man. I'm so proud of you. Excellent, excellent work. Okay. Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. Alright Jade, we found one that actually inherited some money. Yeah. And here's the statistics on that because that's one

of the last lies that we want to defeat. Okay. When we studied the largest, when we did the largest study, airtight research, an outside research firm looking over our shoulder So that we weren't doing confirmation bias. We wanted to get the surprises of the study We wanted to learn where it really really is What are the facts and this study is so airtight that this is these are this data is what's known as the truth? So if you disagree with the conclusions of the study, you're what's known as the truth so if you disagree with the conclusions of the study you're what's known as wrong that's what I'm saying okay that's right so 79 percent of America's millionaires and have inherited precisely zero

that's eight out of ten so when the wealthy quality socialist communist people are whining and crying and say we need to restructure society because all wealth is inherited, they are either ignorant or evil or both. Got it? Five percent of millionaires inherited a small amount like $5,000 from their grandmother, which is not enough mathematically to cause you to become a millionaire and another five percent inherited money after substantial money like a couple hundred grand after they were already millionaires.

So it did not cause them to become millionaires. So what I'm going to help you with this 79 plus 5 percent plus 5 percent is 89. 90 percent, 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires are not millionaires because of inherited money. So don't let some left-wing communist professor tell you that in college. Don't do it. I mean, I'm just sitting over here thinking even if it was inherited, even if somebody did inherit money, who cares?

It's not bad, but don't tell people that's the only way because if you don't have a rich uncle that tells you you don't have a chance. That's true. I mean, but there's people like me, people like you, we don't have a rich uncle that tells you you don't have a chance That's true. I mean, but there's like be people like you we don't have a chance. Yeah I never even knew the idea of inheriting money and I never thought of it No, I never occurred to me that was going to happen now. It's not to say if you inherited money You did something wrong. I'm in our last caller got 400,000 It was part of his equation and it didn't cause him to be a bad guy. He wasn't a bad guy It's nothing wrong with inheriting money But there is something wrong with telling people that's where wealth comes from as the primary

Yeah, methodology and it's not it is a Methodology it's like telling people people get wealthy playing the lottery. No, they don't Well, then there's a part of it that if you if you paint that as a negativity in your brain Then it's never something for you to aspire to, to say, I'd like to leave an inheritance, right? Because now you've told yourself this is an evil, horrible thing, and so therefore you'll never do it either.

Yeah, I'm 100% sure it's the opposite, that it is a godly thing. 100%. Because the Bible says a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Yeah. So those eight Ramsey grandbabies, it's gonna turn out well for them.

Thank goodness, that's great. Assuming they have the character to manage it. Now if you're doing heroin, you don't get any money in the Ramsey State Plan, that's not how it works. But you gotta be an upstanding citizen and all that. But the deal is, because we're not raising trust fund babies snorting cocaine on the back of a yacht doing a reality show.

I don't have any need to produce those. Other people can produce those. I don't want to do that. But that's not the norm. The norm is good people work their butts off and they don't ruin their children. That Richard guy, his dad left him 400 grand and two blocks and it didn't ruin him. As a matter of fact, it didn't even hardly change anything. He was already had learned to live on nothing, two broke kids being successful. He was talking about that and you know, he did a great job and

the money just accentuated his life is all it did. Made him more of who he already was. Yeah. So don't let people tell you that wealth is evil, or that wealthy people are evil, or that it's the wrong thing to aspire to be successful. This war on success in our culture has got to stop. We need to teach people to go win and how to go win. That's what the show's about. The book is Baby Stips Millionaires. Check it out. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, you're still here? What are you doing? You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right?

All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store, or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free. Yep, you heard me right, for free. Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the rest of today's show. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. All right, I'm getting out of here. Enjoy. We'll see you on the app.