The Ramsey Show - How Far Are You Willing To Go To Win?

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❓ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a money question? Ask Ramsey is here to help.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: “My husband bought a $50,000 car without telling me—how should I handle this?” “My father offered to pay off my wife’s student loans and subtract that from my future inheritance. Should I accept?” “I’m 19 years old and in $11,000 of debt—how do I get ahead financially?” “How do I change my mindset about money so I’m not anxious about every purchase?” “How do we invest when the future seems so uncertain?” Next Steps: 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET 📩 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email Dave On-Air With Your Questions on Debt and Finance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠New to the show and want to learn more? Check out our 7 Baby Steps!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❤️‍🩹 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 Need help with your taxes? See who we trust. Connect With Our Sponsors: Go to Angel Studios to discover entertainment you can feel good about. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp Go to Boost Mobile to switch today! If you want your car to keep going and going, trust Christian Brothers Automotive. Find a local shop and get an exclusive Ramsey discount of 10% (up to $250) off New members can receive a 50% credit toward their first month of membership. Go to Christian Healthcare Ministries and use promo code RAMSEY. Get started today with Churchill Mortgage. Equal Housing Lender • NMLS ID 1591 • NMLSConsumerAccess.org. Churchill Certified Homebuyer program is available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only. Ramsey Audience offer of up to a $500 credit applied at closing toward fees incurred for appraisals for a limited time and may be discontinued without notice.  Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at Guardian Litigation Group Save up to 50% on health insurance. Talk to a Health Trust Financial advisor today. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at Mama Bear Legal Forms Visit NetSuite today to learn more. Sign up for your $1.00/month trial at Shopify. Make navigating healthcare easier with a patient advocate. Go to Solace Health to see if you qualify. Get started at World Watch OR use promo code RAMSEY for a 30-day free trial. Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today!  Try ZipRecruiter for free today. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, Ramsey Personality, co-host,

A Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at AAA-8255-225. Ashley is in Boston. Hey, Ashley, what's up in your world? Hi, Ash. Hi, I'm sorry. Hi, Dave. Not much. How are you doing? This is crazy to be on the phone with you. I'm honored. Glad you got through. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. How are you? Good. Better than I deserve. How can we help today? I'm just looking for some advice when it comes to finances, money, and dating. I'm 30 years old.

I work full time. I've always saved saving. I mean, ever since I was very young, I've worked really hard to save and be responsible with money. But as I'm dating and hoping to get married soon, I'm realizing that not every guy shares that sentiment. I think financial attitudes toward finances is really important. Like right up there with politics and religion,

I think similar spending and saving habits are really important, but I'm just hitting a wall with these guys. I've been really, really blessed throughout my life. I've also worked really hard to save money. I think I've accumulated a pretty solid net worth for my age. What is your net worth? About $1.4 million. And you're 30?

Yeah. Way to go, kiddo. Thank you. Great job, Ashley. Yeah. Really smart to not find some loser to bring you down. Good for you. I can't take credit.

for all of it. Part of it was, about half was inheritance. The other half just saving since I mean, my entire life. I worked a second job for quite a while. So Rachel, how is the younger version of you? Because I haven't had a date with but one woman in 45 years, so I don't have any idea how to date other than my wife. So I'm 17 off the market. I know, I know. But I mean, the younger version of the young, how are the youngans doing it these days? No, I don't know, actually, I think I would say, you know, when I started dating Winston,

he had a credit card. He paid for most of our dates on that, right? And coming as up from a Ramsey family, like, that's like up there with a sin basically. Then one of his friends pulled him aside and said, do you know who you're dating? Yeah, and he said, no, I don't. My dad's buddy Cruz. I don't know who Dave. He didn't know who did.

Ramsey was, which is actually a gift. So that was great. Anyways, all that to say, it, there is something about not just cutting someone off immediately, because number one, people can change. Okay? So just know in general is the way they think about money, the way they interact with money. Do they have the humility to, to listen to you, hear what's working for you, and have the humility to maybe, in essence, change and adapt? You know, like, that's on the grace side of the scale right now if there's a guy and he's like so leverage doesn't care it's all ego all what he presents and that's all he cares about you're probably not going to change that guy but i would not be like super super legalistic in today's world um about it i think it's more about

the value system right so he's so he may be a spender and you're going to be the saver i'm the spender in our relationship with my husband he's actually the saver and so you're going to have different money tendencies, but I think the value system of the way you see money is really important. Like, I would say that money isn't the, it isn't everything. It's not an idol in my life. It's not something that we worship, right? And there's got men and women out there. And it's the only thing they focus on. And if that's the only thing they focus on in life, 24-7 is to get more and more and more, that's a different value system. If they are okay, living on the edge and being super risky with investments and leveraging debt and that that's where they drive energy from,

probably not a value system you would align with. Does that make sense? Like when you get into the nitty-gritty of things, I would have more grace. And there's a difference in having $10 million in Bitcoin versus having a car payment. Mm-hmm. Well, 10 million in a big, I mean. I mean, that's living on the edge. 10 million on anything.

No, that's living on the edge. That's in the stupid zone. And that checks the box. I'm done. Yeah, so I don't know. This guy's nuts. And so I don't want to marry a crypto bro. Well, if he's got 10,000 in crypto and it's the only thing he talks about and he's obsessed with it, then that's the crypto bro to me.

But like, do you know what I'm saying, Ashley? There's a level of humanity in this when you're dating someone because they're going to be different than you. But it's the value system that I think I would really harp on of where their heart is when it comes to the subject. And you've obviously done well. And when you can find a partner that actually sees your strengths. as strengths and they're not threatened by it. Like that's a pro. And like that's a,

that's a check mark for me in the positive side, the positive category. I think I have a tough time seeing like what values, what's not because if someone's just telling me, I mean, the student loan debt in their late 30s, like I just some of the things they say, the $30 on lunch every day week,

like I just assume that that's, we have different values. But I guess maybe I, it sounds like I should, keep more of an open mind. No, the student loan debt still being there and the $30 lunch is not a value. That's a symptom of what they've learned to this point, and it could be the symptom of a value. And if the value is a loss of hope, I don't believe I can win, I'm stuck, I need the president or some socialist to come save me. If that's the value, this is not a keeper.

but if the value is, if the value is, hey, I'm stuck and I don't know how to get out, and you start going, well, you could do this. And they go, oh, that'd be cool. Well, that's what Rachel's talking about. That's the humility that goes with the mess. Just because someone's in a mess, I don't rule them out. But I do rule them out if why they're in the mess and whether they intend to stay there or whether they actually brag about the mess and go, look at me how cool I am. I've got a big car payment and it doesn't matter. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. And so, you know, I think so, in that sense, the value system, the way the Ramsey family would go about it is we're people of faith, we would say, okay, you know, what's God telling you about this? You know, and if you can't submit yourselves to God's word, you can't submit yourself to the directions of the Lord, then that's a lack of humility. That's an arrogance that's going to get your head taken off. And I really don't want to be connected to you when your head gets taken off. And so, and that's what you're saying. So if the guy doesn't have a work ethic, if he refuses to work. Yes. Yes. Yep, I would say that. That's a killer. That's a killer. And there's a whole bunch of those out there for various reasons. Yeah, and money is an interesting topic because I'm like, it can expose so much about somebody. And there's a shallowness at which, especially I would think as you're dating and talking to guys about money. I can't even imagine.

Like the, you know what I mean? There's just like it. There's a gross shallowness to it all. And if you're feeling that, like that would be a value system of mine of like you just, you, you feel gross. Like you, like with money. It's just like it's all about appearances. It's all what you can get. It's all about this is my only thing in life that I want.

Like that category, it's like, no, I don't want you as a partner in life. I don't want you to be the father of my kids. But who he is as a person is going to override so much of that. And if he's a person of character, he respects you. He listens to you. Like all of that, a lot of these issues really do start to take hold. Because actually, a lot of calls on this show. We get a spouse calls in and they're having a massive issue.

either about financial infidelity or something else. And it's rarely a money issue. It's so much a breakdown of their marriage. So finding a quality man would be my number one. Now, if he budgets and he's out of debt, that's a double-blush. I see icing on top. That's a slam dunk then.

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I've recommended Churchill for 30 years because they help you buy a home the Ramsey Way. So here's your plan. Contact Churchill. Know your numbers. And then when you find the perfect house, you're ready. Go to Churchillmorgage.com slash Ramsey offer for a special offer only for Ramsey fans. That's Churchillmortgage.com slash Ramsey offer or click the link in the description. Tyler's in Nashville. Hi, Tyler. How are you? Pretty good, Dave. You're doing good yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? So me and my wife, I'm 30, she's 29. We have a paid-for house with 15 acres, but the caveat there is it is a double-wide trailer that was manufactured in 97. And this 15 acres, as far as my grandfather's farm that I bought back in 2017. And here in the last couple months, the house that he built in 82 has come back up for sale.

that's attached to this farm that was a part of it at one time. We're thinking about buying it and moving into it. I just need know if you think it's a good decision or not. And how much is it? He's asking 185, and I think we could fix it up for like $50,000 to fix it up and live in it, moving it. So probably $220-ish all in is what you're thinking, $2.25. And how much money do you have? We have about 15% now.

Okay. And what do you guys make a year? About 130 to 140,000. Okay. Well, it sounds like you're a bit familiar with what we do. I can't tell for sure, but I think you are. Yeah. We tell people when they're buying a home, don't take out more than a 15-year mortgage,

where the payment is more than a fourth of your take-home pay. in your case you're doing that from a paid for property which you know it's kind of hard to do because I'm sitting here with no payments and all of a sudden I'm getting ready to saddle myself payments yeah and that's emotionally hard to do you've got a particular reason to do it it's adjacent to property you already have paid off that's cool it's family property that's cool it's a rehab that's not cool because those things are always cost twice as much and take twice as long as you think they're going to. But the whole thing, I mean, it's within our guidelines of what we teach, never take out that.

I don't tell people to borrow money, and the only thing I don't yell at them for is a mortgage where it's no more than a 15-year with no more than a fourth-year take-home pay. But I don't want to do this flippantly. And if I were in your shoes, I would get that rehab done ASAP, and then I would begin to pay. that mortgage off because I'd want to be back to no payments. It's got to feel good to have no payments. Yeah, me and my wife sit down and I talked about it. We think we can pay it off in seven to ten years if we hunker down like we paid off the last one. I think you can too. Yeah, I think you can too with what you're talking about. And so, yeah, it fits within our

guidelines, so I got to tell you. There's a lot of reasons to do it. Yeah. And I just ran the numbers real quick. Tyler. You guys bring home what, probably $8,400 a month? Yeah, give or take a little back, depending on the month, yeah. And your mortgage will be about $1,200, right? If you put 15% down on the... Plus taxes and insurance. Yeah. Probably around all that, yes.

So that's within the... Then we would take the double wide there and rent it out as well. That was the plan. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so it does. It fits within that 25% of your take-home pay. I wouldn't do the deal.

I wouldn't do the deal if it was dependent upon the double-wide, but the double-wide cash flow that comes just helps you do the rehab faster. Yeah. And actually the numbers I plugged in was the 225 with the rehab. It wasn't the 185. So yeah, so you guys, from a financial perspective, yeah, the numbers play out totally fine. Yeah. I just know Dave says not to take out money on rental properties.

Well, that's not a rental property. You're moving into it. But I would have the dough lot as a rental property and I would have that. Oh, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, if it was detached and it was somewhere else, I would tell you to sell it and put all the money on this house. But what we're doing here is we're gathering back up old family land that's contiguous to each other. So I would do what you're doing here.

But for reason of the land being attached, not because of the double-wide rental. Yeah. And the good thing is, tired, too, that it's not dependent upon the renter, just your income itself. You can do it on that. Yeah. So if the renting becomes a hassle and it feels like it is a second job that you hate, you know, You can always be done with that. Well, there's a number of years from now that that double-wide is not going to be inhabitable.

Yeah. And so you're going to tow it off somewhere and mow over where you used to be and you're not going to have a rental anymore. Yep. That's just that's out there in the future somewhere and you've got to decide what that is. But, yeah. Oh, and here's the thing, all of you listening, the whole thing we want you to do is just not normalize keeping debt your whole life. mortgage doesn't mean slavery forever and it shouldn't have a plan he's got a plan seven years it'll be done again like he was last time yeah but we've just normalized you're all like

neighborhood i grew up in people say you're always going to have a car payment just the way it is you know you're always going to have a house payment might as well get inside if you normalize it and you give up and you surrender to these banks, they will own your butt for the rest of your life. And so you have to villainize them and say, this is a war for my freedom. And I'm going to fight for my freedom. And in Tyler's case, he's surrendering some of that temporarily only with a plan to get it back as soon as possible versus, well, it's okay. It's no big deal.

Ramsey just some, you know, no, there's a reason we do this because not having any payments is the shortest method to becoming very, very wealthy. It's the shortest path. And the more payments you have, the more held back you are. Especially a 30-year mortgage if you run the numbers. If you had it for 30 years, how much you pay in just interest? You know, if you go on a mortgage calculator and just look it up. I mean, that just makes you sick where you're like, oh, my gosh.

So part of it, too, is getting that money back. Yeah, in your pocket. Like what you're saying, when you have nothing, you're not paying out. All of this. Like, it's wild. Mathematically, your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. If you invest $100 a month from age 25 to age 65, you'll have $1,176,000. So if you have a $500 car payment from age 25 to age 65, because car payments are normalized,

that's a $5 million car you're driving. Hope you like the car. If you keep a mortgage, your whole stinking life, because every time you get one pay, You can't wait to go get another one. The number of people in America that are they pay off their car, get out of debt or and the way they celebrate getting a raise at the office is going and taking out a new car payment. And that's just stupid people. You're playing the car company's games.

You're playing the banks games. You're playing the FICO score game. You're playing the Samuel Jackson, what's in your wallet game. and what's in my wallet is none of Samuel's dadgum credit cards. Instead, there's some pictures of Uncle Ben, Jim and Franklin. That's him. So that's how that works. I mean, you just got to think this through, guys.

That's how that works. And so that's what we want. And so that's the way we think and what we're going to measure your question against that idea when it comes in. And, you know, and we, you know, whether you go in debt or whether you go broke, it doesn't really affect us. We're just going home. I don't turn off the microphone a few hours.

I'm going home. And Rachel's kids will never know what happened to you, and she'll be okay. You know, it's okay. So this is all for you. We're helping you because we love you and we want you to win. And we've done that for almost 40 years now. And consequently, there's tens of thousands of babysat millioners out there that have followed these ideas because they freaking work. And these ideas come from the Bible and from your grandmother who got them from the Bible.

It's live on less than you make. Get out of debt. Always be generous. Always be saving. Always have a written plan with your money. These are common sense things, and I can back every one of them up scripturally if you want me to. I mean, this is how this works. And people that, you know, on TikTok that wants you to do something else, come on guys, really.

Think about your sources. Garbage into your brain. You know what your brain turns into? Garbage. So, you know, you just... At least you didn't say Tic-Tac. I need to clean that up. I'm sorry, Tick-Tac.

You've come a long way. If you're using Tiki-Tacky. You've come a long way. It's a dad joke. No, I know. But, well, and I think the hardest thing for people is when you feel stuck, you want the fastest way out and the fastest way out, the quote-unquote, get rich quick. You get quick results.

Yeah. Just borrow your way into anything. Right. It does not end up on the other side. And so actually, the more methodical, slow-paced, consistent plan that is backed by common sense, that's the one that works. It's not as shiny and flashy and exciting, but it is what it is. Hey, George Camel here. Listen, if you're behind on debt payments and drowning in debt, I already know what you're thinking. I can't afford a lawyer to help.

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Hi, Maria. How are you? Hi, I'm all right. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I owed 27K on my car, and it was giving us a lot of trouble. I've been working the plan since the beginning of the year, and because it was in my husband's name, he went to trade it in for what was supposed to be a cheaper vehicle, and instead he came back with one that was 50K, negative equity, $90. a week in gas just to get me to work and back. So I went back to the dealership to see about trading it in for something less or giving it back.

I was disgusted. And they told me, well, you can give us $20,000 and we'll take it back. Or you can trade it in for something that is more fuel efficient. And I just want to get out of this situation that my husband put me in. What's your husband saying about this? What was his reaction when you probably flipped out? Well, when I went back to the dealership and they told me exactly how much it was, his response was, I didn't know. They had just told him what the monthly note was going to be.

So I'm not sure if we need to trade the husband or the car. Both would be nice. She's like, I'm so tired of it. How long have y'all been married? Oh, a very long time, almost 20 years. Yeah. Okay. So usually I'm the one that takes care of all of the finances.

But, you know, it's been a long time. And, you know, we've grown. We've supposedly matured. And I trusted him to go in with, okay, I have work, take it in, trade it in, get something cheaper that we can pay off. And he comes back. Well, I will say, not that this is an excuse for him by any means, he's a grown man and he should have known what he was paying for at the end. But car dealers are notorious for figuring out that monthly payment and then they add on this and this and this. And you really don't know when you walk out.

But when he signed the papers, he should have seen and known and asked for it. So it's not an excuse. I just know if you don't care. It's almost like if you're not engaged at all in the purchase, that can just happen. Right. But that's what frustrates me about it is like you weren't engaged in the process at all. Like you did completely the opposite of everything we talked about. So that's the issue that I see.

And he rolled negative equity into it. So how much have you sold this car? They said she's 20,000 upside down. The idiots that sold it to it. I know, but I wonder if you Kelly Blue booked it for a sale of an individual, a sale, what it would come up as. So let me tell you that your finances are not going to get better if you keep handling them the way you are.

Mm-hmm. Where this guy is loose out there running around doing whatever because you sent him over to the car dealer and you thought he could handle it. The two of you need to sit down, look at numbers, and when the item is over $1,000, you need to wait overnight, talk about it, and the two of you pray about it and look at the numbers. Slow your butt down and both of you be involved. and the two of you need to be looking at your monthly budget, and the two of you need to be leaning into getting this cleaned up. All of your verbiage has been, I'm the only adult in this conversation,

and I'm dragging this little boy along with me. That's your verbiage. That's what it feels like. Yeah. And that's got to stop because you're not going to win financially doing that. All of our data points of all the millionaires we've studied, all the people that are successful in their marriage, all the people that are successful with their money,

are teams. They work together. They respect each other and they make deals with each other and they keep their word and they don't cop out with incompetence or direct conflict against the goals that we have agreed to. But you guys are not on the same page. And so boy child is going to have to man up and you're going to have to get used to other people speaking into this other than just you. The two of you together They're got to look at this and go, this is a freaking mess. And together, we're going to clean this freaking mess up. And then if you take that set of principles and apply them to this mess, then it's going to sound like, well, let's look at 14 different ways we can get rid of this stupid butt car because we got screwed.

You let it happen, both of you, you by sending him over there, him by being asleep at the wheel in a coma and a car dealer's finance office, which is a good place to get screwed. and, you know, both of you together, watch this happen. And then the car dealer, just, you know, you ask an alligator if it's hungry, it's going to say, yeah. And so guess what? That's what they're going to do. So that's, you know, now you've got to figure out how to get, how am I going to get out of this. The two of you got to sit down and go, okay, we're going to go to 14 dealers.

We're going to analyze this car. We're going to get this car sold. And we're going to get a freaking hoopty, a $2,000 car. And we're going to roll up our sleeves. Everybody's taking extra jobs. We're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless we're working there. We're not going on vacation. All that money you piled over there to buy your fishing boat is going to go to clean this dadgum mess up.

Whatever it is. You've got to scrape all this money in the middle of the table, clean out the nickels out of the corner of the couch, and get the mess cleaned up as a team. But until you team up, you're not going to win. You're not. This is going to happen over and over because it sabotages the progress that you make. That's why one person, people ask us all the time, how can I do this? without with my spouse's approval or involvement. You can't.

Yeah. It's tough. Yeah. That's where it is. And so I'm sorry. I'm sorry you guys are in the middle of this mess. But that's your answer on how to fix it. Fix this relational dysfunction.

Yes. And that'll fix the overall thing. Because resentment's going to start to build if it hasn't already, Maria. So honestly, like that's for him to come to the table and have a seat at the table and actually have an opinion. and you listening to it. And responsibility. And responsibility. All of it.

His involvement and vice versa with you. I'm like, that's part of it. But I'd be pissed too. So I think I don't blame you. That part of it's true. I'll go with you on that. Dave is in Fort Lauderdale. Hey, Dave, what's up?

Hey, how you doing? I've got an issue with a bank. I went to apply for a cash-out mortgage because I had a mild surgery, and I wanted to pay that off. Did you not have insurance? I have Medicare. Okay, so how much is you're out of pocket with Medicare on the surgery? It's my out of pocket was about $7,000, $8,000.

Okay, and you don't have any money? So I thought that I don't have any money, But I didn't want to have to use my monthly expense because everything that I own, I pay for every month. I don't have a car payment. I have a car payment. How much money do you have? I have my assets of about $165,000. Okay.

Just pay off your medical debt. You don't have that in cash, though, Dave. Do you? No. Okay. What are you having cash? What's it in? What's it in?

House and car and stuff. Dave, how much money do you have in the bank cash available to you? In the bank right now, about two months. The monthly expense, all the total left over to get to the end of the month, about $1,500. $1,500. Okay, do you have any money that you can get your hands on that's in investment? Or anything you can sell?

No, that right now. Okay, what's the $165,000 in? It's my, the place that I own. The home that you own and you're paid for a car? Yeah. Okay. So you have $1,500. How old are you?

In my 70s. Okay. How old are you exactly? 77. Thank you. And how is your health now that you've had the surgery? It's great. Good.

I'm glad. Okay. And what is your monthly income? It's about the, $2600. Okay. All right. The first thing I'm going to do is go revisit that inventory,

see if there's anything other than the house in the car that I can sell to pay this debt down. The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to call the medical people and say, I'm going to be money. This is a Medicare deal? I don't have any cash. What kind of a deal can you offer me on this? And see if you can get a discount.

And if you can, I'd scrape together the money at barely out of your money. which your monthly is really tight. I agree with that. But I do my best not to borrow on the cash out. I don't want you to go back in debt at 77. You finally got out. Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. When should I get term life insurance? How much do I need? Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is, term life isn't a baby step. So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance. Now, and most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is.

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competitive rates, and coverage that actually protects your family. Call 800-356-4282 or go to Xander.com for a quick and easy quote. That's zander.com. Sarah is with us in Fort Collins, Colorado. Hi, Sarah. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Ask, how do I get comfortable investing for the future when the future itself just feels so uncertain? What do you mean? And I know this is a bad, like, comparison or example, but, you know, there's just so much negativity on social media and I see so many things that, like, socialism is making such a push and climate change is, you know, risking our future. It sometimes feels pointless to have this big chunk of money in the future when it just feels like I'm just really anxious about it and so uncertain. How old are you? About what the future, 36. Okay, cool. All right.

Sarah has a fellow conspiracy theorist fan. I would tell you, though, I'd get off social media. I'm not kidding you, for six months. you need to go on a fast. Don't engage it. And it is amazing. The news sites too. Anything.

I mean, I'm telling you. And that's not putting your head in the sand, right? If you need to know something, you need to know something. But to sit there and worry about something you cannot control, it does no good. It really, it really doesn't. And we were not even, I don't think, created to hold everything that we see on social media, right? Whether it's different murder trials going on to things happen.

across the globe. Like, I'm like, it's just, it's, it's a lot. And so. Dr. Deloney talks about John, he said, your body was not, your body was designed to learn about danger within your circumference, not someone that got murdered in Japan. But if someone got murdered in Japan, we all heard about it 20 minutes ago. You know what I mean?

It's amazing because of the inputs. And it's, and it's fast and it's frequent. And it's everything. So every possible negative thing or potential negative thing, or potential negative thing, or hyped up drama negative thing is going to be pushed out. And of course, those of us in that business and around those people all the time, we know that if it bleeds, it leads. We know that these people basically, a lot of these sites are basically fear porn.

Well, it's click bait. They have to get their clicks. And so it is going to be. And it's going to be extreme on both sides of the, even if you look politically, on both sides of the spectrum, it is, it's extreme. And when you honestly, I mean, really say, when you talk to everyday people, most people are in the middle on all different types of things. Like it is, it is more hopeful, genuinely. It is more hopeful.

Regardless of where you stand on climate change, we can all agree that in 2006, the inconvenient truth that Al Gore put out was absolutely bogus because he claimed that Miami would be underwater by now. And obviously it's not. Right. So, I mean. So in both, in both extremes. dreams too. Yeah. That's, you know, regardless of what you believe about climate change, you just have to observe actual facts. So, anyway, yeah, the reason I ask how old you were is because about the time I was your age or so, a guy came out with a book called 88 reasons Jesus is coming back in 1988.

Oh, man. People are obsessed with the rapture. I feel like the end of the world. Everyone loved it. It's the Christian conspiracy theory market, okay? It's the 90s. The Bible's real clear that we're not going to know the date of the time, but this guy did, okay? And he was sitting on his houseboat waiting on the exact date that Jesus is supposed to return. I guess he's still sitting there. I don't know because it still didn't happen. So, you know, and so, but your point is, Dale Carnegie used to say 80% of what we worry about never occurs. And the other 20% we don't have any control over. And so I'm going to go ahead with my life. I know there's some

things out there that are actual facts. I know there's a whole bunch of it that's dramatified and upsold and Miami's not going to be underwater. I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure in my lifetime, we can still go down there and swim off the beach. And so, you know, that kind of stuff, right? So I'm pretty sure we're going to be okay. I'm pretty sure socialists aren't going to take over because as soon as people figure out what that is, they don't want it. It sucks and there's no track record on it. So I'm really not worried about it. People got good common sense. And again, And you, I mean, we're... And even if it did, probably not in your lifetime.

Well, let me tell you this, Sarah. We're watching Tom Hanks that has a War II documentary. It's like, oh my God, we're in the middle of it. Once and I are watching like a few episodes tonight. It's so good. Good. Could you imagine telling the greatest generation that like we're working? Like, think about living then.

That's more like into the world. Like, you watch that. Yeah, you're looking out your back window for a Japanese airplanes. That feels into the world to me, you know? And so like you can go into different parts of history and you would think what this specific generations going through. They taught us to hide under desks in the 60s in case there was an atomic bomb as if a desk would protect you from an atomic bomb. I've always thought that was the dumbest but that's as dumb as wearing a mask during COVID. I mean, it's just as dumb. And so, you know,

it's kind of mighty. There's no chance. So anyway, the thing's fun. So anyway, Sarah, the answer is it's human hope versus human anxiety. Yes. Yes. And so what are you placing your hope in? what do you really believe and I really believe that God has not got that as our plan. I suspect before this thing comes to an end that I'll be on my houseboat waiting on Jesus to come back. Yeah, it's, well, just, yeah. This is a flippant answer, but it's also the only one I've got. But the real thing is. I'm not going to plan my life around all the negative things bringing the world to an end.

And the sources at which we're getting this information have a reason on why they are having certain headlines and leaning a certain way. They know their audience and they feed their audience what they want to hear. I mean, it's just, it's a game. The media, it is. I'm like, it's just this massive game. It's called provocateur. Just choose not to, yeah, choose not to engage. I mean, for real, do a six-month social media fast.

I don't have a supply of water. I don't have a supply of food. I do have a supply of bullets for the zombies. Okay. Oh, my goodness. But other than that. Jesus. It's just the most.

The zombie apocalypse. I'm ready. But not because. I just don't know what the zombies are going to look like yet. Well, I did think about stashing some, I don't know. Y2K? You had water for Y2K? You had water for Y2K?

I had, we had bottled water. Yes, you did. I was joking with one of my buddies. He said, I've got more water than you. And I said, do you have a gun? And he said, no. I said, good. I got your water.

Why do we have to keep going back? Why do we have to keep going back? back to that. Because it's how it works. I'm not worried about it. It's fun. Enjoy the ride. Sarah, there's not a perfect answer. It's human. There's always going to be things that are awesome and always going to be things that are troubling. And the good news is, if you think about it overall, here's the actual truth. Today, if you are alive in the United States of America, you are alive at the best possible time in the history of the world. Your standard of living, your medical care, your quality of life, your hours worked,

the way your children are treated is better than at any point in human history in any physical location. These are the good times. We live in the middle of them. The stock market is setting records. people are becoming millionaires faster than some of them learn to spell millionaire. These are the good times. If you want to start a business right now, you can just start a business. When I started this business almost 40 years ago, the internet wasn't even there.

Much less apps, much less AI, much less anything else. I can just have an idea and deliver it to you folks by morning. And I'm a boomer, for God's sakes. what could you millennials do? This is the best time to be alive, but you know what will kill you? Hope deferred, stolen, put off, that's deferred. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes, it is the tree of life.

And so when we have this sense of hope, it drives our belief system, and it causes us to do things that cause our dreams to come true. When we've lost our hope and we're frozen and our hope is stolen by these fear porn sites or by bad inputs from Tick-Tac or whatever, then we act on that lack of hope which guarantees that our nightmares come true. And we miss the wave of existing in the greatest time, in the greatest location, the United States of America, in the history of the world.

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the water fountain over the kitchen table. With one of our favorite people. With one of our favorite people is real estate. Brian Bafini, America's real estate coach. He coaches, he and his team coach more real estate agents than any other company in America at Bafini & Company. Brian's been a friend for many years. He speaks at our Entree Leadership conferences. I've spoken at his conferences. And he was on here a few months ago. And about all we were sure of was we were going to do that again. Welcome back, Brian. Glad to be back. Love being here with you guys. It's good to have you, sir. So I want to talk real estate this hour together. And towards the end of the hour, guys, we're going to open up the phones and clear off

the phone lines and take some questions from some of you. Brian's one of the leading experts on real estate. So this whole thing of you and I and this, uh, doing a segment on real estate kind of happened when we were having a, um, a discussion over the golf course one day. And you said, well, there's inventory shortages. And I went, well, yeah, there's been inventory shortages for 20 or 25 years. Anytime there's a shortage of something, the price goes up, no duh. And you said, well, there's some things the president could do.

And I went, oh, don't tell me that. I don't want to depend on Washington to do anything. Well, one thing we could do, you said, is we could keep the large institutions from buying tens of thousands of homes and taking them off the market and turning them into rental houses. That's one problem. One thing we could do is a lot of the boomers would like to sell and move down, but they've got over a half a million dollars in equity. Anything over a half million dollars in equity. And that's a 30-year-old wall. That's how old that number is.

should have been updated and hasn't been indexed for inflation or anything else. We could remove the capital gains tax on home personal residences and a bunch of people put their house up for sale because they could get that money out tax free, move down, and that would help add to the inventory. And that was a couple of things we talked about. I talked about them on the air right after that, and lo and behold, the president put out a, I'm not saying it came from us, but he did call us right after that, and I want us to talk about it to get the bill through.

And that did actually happen. The Road to Housing Act. And then when it did come through, he didn't want to sign it because they filled it full of pork, as they always do. And so that's what happens when you're in D.C. But so the Road to Housing Act, I want to start with that. I'm going to take part of the credit with Brian Buffini for having at least sparked an idea in Washington. Because what it was supposed to do, the primary thing was to keep these institutional buyers from buying the houses, getting them off the market. Yep, and it did some of that for sure. It was definitely watered down, right? It wasn't a nothing burger, but it wasn't the bill we were hoping for. They have eased some, they've eased the restraints for local communities to be able to help build more homes. That's a big deal. That is a big deal. California didn't listen. Thanks, but, you know, it's 72 degrees there today. I got bad taxes and I can't build a house, but it's 72. That's what I'm hanging on to, you know. But I'll just say, now, I will say that they didn't get the cap game.

thing done. They did get a restriction on the big companies and what's happening. These companies who bought for two years, they bought 25% of all homes in America. They are now trying to divest themselves. So what they're doing is leasing out these homes and now they've come out with incentive programs. Okay, we'll lease you the house and we'll give you a credit towards buying it if you buy it because they're trying to get out of it. So for someone trying to create a down payment, the market rate, because rents have come down. So typically when they do a lease option, there's a premium on the lease. They charge more for the lease on the home, and then you get a credit for a down payment. Well, you kind of paid extra for that. Now what's happened is because the rents have

come down across the board. They're being forced to rent these new homes, but they're giving credits to people who say, if you sign a one-year lease or an 18-monthly-year lease, we'll give you $10,000 towards a down payment, and then you buy it from us. So that's- But the economics are forcing that, not this bill. No, no, that's not the bill. Because the bill didn't cause them to divest. No. It just stopped them from buying more. The house is on your street. So now because they're these big black stones and whatever else, they're like, I can't buy more. Well, I'm going to get rid of what I have. So they're going to slowly get rid of what they have. The second thing is that's an unintended consequence. I didn't see that coming. No, it's good.

And the next thing that's happening is the midterms are coming. All real estate is local and all politics are too. So now they're actually talking about actually doing an executive order in the next couple of weeks on the capital gains thing that didn't get put through the first time. Really? So you do an executive order on taxes. So the way you do it is you put it in at a reconciliation bill. You don't make it a permanent change to the tax laws. You follow? Oh, that's always.

It's not a permanent thing. So what it could do, now the downside, it could create a shock of people going, I'm going to get my money. So, yeah, right quick. 250 per person, $500,000 for a couple put in term. Today. Yeah, that's today. That started in 1997. They're talking about moving it to a million.

Okay. Now, if it was indexed for inflation, it'd be $620,000 each. But if it's a million, how motivated do you think? then boomers would be to downsize. Here's the thing. So now you're going, I have a rental property, I have a vacation home. I'm in a big house that I don't need anymore.

Oh, you're going to do it. Not just personal residence, everything. Everything. And so now it's like, I'm going to, here's what I'm doing. I'm going to put it down. I was only going to get a $500,000 drop. Now I'm going to get a million dollar drop.

And here's the gift and here's the hope for the folks out there. No, if it's a rental house, it's a million dollars versus nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And so now what you're looking at is a potential of getting that discount. Again, it'll go year by year. Mm-hmm. So it's a reconciliation bill.

I think it'll soften prices because I'm like, hey, I'll take 50 grand off my price. If I can be assured of the $9.50. You know, so that's, they're looking at doing that in the next reconciliation bill. I just got to call on that today. Okay. If that actually happens, that won't. Even if it's temporary, if you put a million dollars on the houses that I own that are rentals and I've got a million dollars worth of gain, I'll sell them.

Yeah. Well, that's what they're trying to do. Because they know they got a big problem on our hands. And young people can't buy homes. They're feeling disconsolate. You know, you were on, what was it, June of this year with us? Yeah. We were on, okay, so it's been a few months.

Has anything big shifted even in the last 90 days? It's gotten worse. Has it? Well, you're a lot of sunshine. Yeah. There you go. Yep. Piped a little Irish sunshine in here.

Hey, I'm from a land whose number one export is alcohol, okay? That is the reason. Okay, what are a couple of those points? And we'll probably dig into them more in the segments, but I'm just curious. So what we're seeing is this increase in under 30s, living at home. It's gone from 39% up to 49% of people under 30, you know? 90 days? No, no, no.

So that's in the last six years. But that's gone up three points this summer. So kids are coming out of college who normally would graduate and get a job and stay at the college town. They all moved home. Yep. So this year we've seen a higher percentage of these college kids who got graduated. Came back home and didn't go. Well, and this is not speaking for all, Gen Z, by any means,

but there was a clip going around viral of this girl. She was probably 24, and she is just having a cow in her car about how she is not getting a $150,000 offer for these jobs, and on and on and on and on. People are reacting like, you're basically two years out of college. No, you're not going to be making that. So all but to say, they have this belief of still some of them of what they should be making slash what my life should look like,

and then reality hits. And it's like, no, you're making 65. 50. A buddy of mine sent his son over for an interview at the company. Now, I don't interview people. It comes along and the kid goes, I wanted my contract and offer for an executive position within two years. And that's what his professor told him. And I said, I got room in the mail room. I don't know where's that yet. Do you know what a mop looks like? Wow. It's hard. Yep. Wow. Not making the incomes they think. And then they try to get in the housing market. They can't. It's tough. Rentals are up. Yep.

It's... Brian Bafini is with us. We're talking real estate. I think it's going to be a sociology lesson when we're done. This is The Ramsey Show. As a dad of young kids, I'm starting to think a lot more about the world they're growing up in and how I'll help them make sense of it as they get older. And that's why I like World Watch, a video news service for preteens and teens.

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about what's happening in the world, and parents get a chance to keep those conversations going at home. Because when my kids are old enough, I want them informed, not overwhelmed. And right now, you can get a 30-day free trial. Just go to worldwatch.com news slash Ramsey or use promo code Ramsey to get started. That's worldwatch. That's world watch.com slash Ramsey. Like so many things in life, there's a lot of things you can't control. And the world of real estate is one of them.

So how do you function in this environment? Well, we're talking with Brian Buffini today, one of the nation's leading experts and leading coaches on real estate issues. I will tell you this, you control the controllables. Anytime you're facing something feels out of control, first thing is facts are your friends, not feelings. So this sense that you've been boxed out or it's unfair or all these little childish things that we all feel

when we feel disenfranchised, yeah, well, that's feelings. Okay, so you have to back up from that and go, okay, but what are the facts? and what are the things I can actually control? Well, the facts are that the typical entry home, if you take out California and New York, is about $199,000 right now. That's the typical starter home in America.

And this typical starter home in America is not fancy and has never been fancy. Even when my first home was purchased, when my parents purchased their first home, they weren't fancy. And so one of the controllables is you adjust your expectations for your first home because you're not going to buy a 4,000 square foot with a jacuzzi and a skylight. You're broke. Skylight.

Okay. Yes. But for real, though. So, Brian, what are you seeing? The typical, I have not seen that $200,000. That's a Zillow number, which I don't trust Zillow that much, but it's a Zillow number. What would you say for the average start feeling? Because, I mean, I look up homes.

So the average home in America is about $400,000. Yeah. I think it's good to take out the two coasts, right? I mean, yeah. Because I live in San Diego. It changes the math. It changes a big time. I agree.

I agree. So I think you're looking at the latest numbers. Zillow, again, they're not friends of Brian Maffini. So they position numbers because they have certain programs going, right? So you're probably looking at your typical starter home is about $2.90. It might be about $100 grand more. The dynamic that we're seeing is this. There's more inventory than that we've seen in the last seven years.

Okay. There's more houses for sale, which means prices are starting to soften. Prices are starting to flatten. This is the time, and you guys were talking earlier on, but the lady listened to social media. If you're a buyer and you're listening to social media, there is no hope. Give up. Everybody's giving up. That's the thing to do.

Rent is your friend. The math's not mathing. And that's not true. Now is the time to be making sure you're doing the Ramsey program. You're saving the money. You're eating spaghetti. Because if you really want a house, you've got a sacrifice. Get out of debt.

Don't buy a car. Don't buy a car payment. Just so you know, every first-time buyer, it's a car. They buy a car before they buy a hotel. Why can't I get a house? I have a $1,200 car payment. Right. And that is why.

That is the typical thing. So you got to keep grinding. The second thing, there is dynamics out there. I was talking to you guys offline. 23% of all mortgages in the United States are assumable. Now, they're specifically. They're FHA and VA. And you were on the radio a few years ago, a few months ago, talk about this.

No, I screwed that up about two weeks ago. I said they're not assumable, and I got hammered for it because I was wrong. Well, you were wrong. right and you were wrong. You were right when it comes to conventional. Conventional loans are not assumable. None of them are, they used to none of them be assumable with the rates, but you can take an FHA or a VA and they'll keep the rate. So here's the thing. If you're a military person, you go to the listing and say, find me as someone who's in the military selling their home, and you can take over the average loan on an FHA VA is 3.2%. FHA, which is the number one

first-time buyer home. So let's say someone's a first-time buyer. They bought a home, they fixed it up, it's worth more, it's going to up in value. They're going on to buy a conventional house. They're going to get a conventional loan. The FHA loan that's on their house is assumable. You've got to qualify so you have good credit. You got the down payment. You've cleaned.

You're good. You got no stupid car payment. You can go get an assumable loan on a VA or an FHA loan. And you're not paying the current 5.6% on a 15-year fixed. You're getting a 3%. Right. And 90% of them are getting a 6.8, Dave. you know, most of them are getting 30 years.

I mean, your plan is better. It's right. It's the only way to save money. But the typical buyer is out there doing that, yeah. It's 6.8. And I think for the first time home buyers, we're just running numbers in the break. You know, if you make 100 grand, which is a little bit up than what the average or what the median household income is, your starter home is going to be around that 270, 300,

which is, you know, that's around what you're saying. Even that, that's correct, right? That should be your first. But it's going to take longer. Yeah. to save. And if that 270, $300,000 house is not in the neighborhood you want, good school district, right? If you have kids, like all of it, it's going to, it's going to take you longer. And I feel like that's one of the most frustrating points about this. It might take you

longer to drive to work. Yeah. Because you might move three counties out or two counties out. Yeah. My first home was on Texas Street in San Diego. And we were three weeks married, moved into the new home. And Beverly goes, what are those fireworks I hear in the distance? It weren't fireworks. It's just, yeah, they're celebrating here in inner city San Diego. But you know what? We fixed it up. We made it worth more.

We sold that house and I got her to another neighborhood that didn't have fireworks. That's right. Yes, yes. So, you know, you got to start somewhere. You got to fight, bite, scratch, and claw. You got to fight. I'll just say this. There is the average homeowner has 46 times a net worth of the average renter.

Young people are deciding to stay renters. way to stay broke. Fight, bite, scratch, and claw. Here's the, I was showing you guys, people like, here's this little graph, for those who can see it. Look at this thing. The green is the amount of years and the last 75 years at real estate went up. Okay? And here's the red. And the red, four of them, five of them were the Great Recession. So it's gone down six years and 75. That's a pretty good investment. So it's not going anywhere. Now, the beautiful thing for people, it's only going to go gradually the next few years and the incomes are going up at a higher rate. Even more, which is great. Yes. So fight, bite, bite. And,

scratching clock until. So currently, the current inflation rate of real estate nationwide is around 1%. Yep. Yep. And the current wage growth is around three and a half. Three and a half. Okay. Give it four years.

Yeah. So if you say wages don't match real estate prices, that that's going in the right direction. Yes, which is great. That's going to help the issue. Yes, that's a very helpful thing. But it's not going to change if you have unrealistic expectations to get an executive position in the first two years in your contract. And get an executive house. Yes.

Yes. If you want a 5,000 square foot home in a premium neighborhood, and I don't think people are- You can't afford that if you make $80,000 a year. Right, right. And I think that that's the hard part is when it when it when the rubber meets the road and you're looking at your income, you're working hard, right? You're paying for daycare. I mean like we get these callers in and they are they are they are trying so hard to do well and it's and when the facts come out. Yes, your feelings are going to follow. It's going to be frustrating. We're like, man, I this is this is less than what we were expecting. Right. And so. So there's that reality that you have to live in for a bit. And then once you kind of get over that hump, right, of what you're saying, you fight hard. Yeah. Get in the market. And then you could look up in four years and be in a totally different place with your income, your job, your house, everything. I told me, I was a house painter, right?

My dad was a house painter. And my first house, I told my wife, it was five-star accommodations because you could see five-stars through the hole in the roof. Yeah. And so we fixed it up. We made it better. Right, right. And then we sold it.

and we made the next one better and we made the next one better. And the next thing, you know, you wake up one day and you've got millions of dollars in equity in real estate. And that's the American dream. But to get there, what you're saying is the plan. Like if you still have student loan payments, you still have two car payments and credit card card debt, it is going to feel almost impossible to try to be a homeowner today. You don't.

You get that stuff cleaned up. That's right. And that's what we say is to this. You shouldn't buy a home if you're in that mess. That's right. You should clean the mess up first because the home's not going to be a blessing. It's going to be a curse. So you get out of debt.

You build your full of emergency fund. you save for a good down payment, you adjust your expectations of location, and generally that means you're going to go a little bit further out. And the further out you go, the more house you can buy in most markets. One out of every 10 homes in America is sold to my clients. We tell every member we have in a real estate business to get every first-time buyer, buy them a copy of total money makeover. I was walking my son through the building today, and I go, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of copies of that book I've sold. Because, and why am I here today, apart from our friendship, is it's the best stuff out there

to get people on the path. And in the motto, oh, Dave is old school and chew your credit cards up. Let me tell you, that old school works today, tomorrow, 50 years from now. Get out of debt. Get the student loans gone. Don't drive the old car by something to park it in front of. Yep. Now, when you do that, okay, so if you're sitting there and you clear your debt and then you

get ready to buy a house and you go look at what you can afford and you don't like it. Now, you've got two choices. Remain a renter or buy that home that's not fancy that I don't like and get started. Ten years from now, which will be the best route for your wealth building and your family? Buy the house that you don't like. For sure. That's what you're saying. I used to send out a postcard to neighborhoods and says, your landlord says hi, and thanks again for paying his mortgage.

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you and who will. Go to solacehealth.com slash Ramsey or click the link in the description to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes. That's S-O-L-A-C-E-Solicehealth.com slash Ramsey. Must be 18 or older. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice. Brian Buffini is our guest. America's number one real estate coach to real estate agents, but also a real estate expert, good friend of ours. And we're talking real estate this hour. Now, we're going to take some of your questions in the next segment if you want to call in triple 8 8255-2-2-25 and ask Brian a question. So here's some of the ones that have already come in, Brian.

Should I wait for rates to come down before I buy? I heard in the previous section you were talking about the guy who knew when Jesus was coming back and he was sitting on his boat. Yeah. That's like the buyer waiting for rates to come down. Okay. So, you know, if you know when rates are coming down, you give me a call. You let me know. I don't think anything's going to change for a long time because of the amount of debt the country has.

The rates are built off the Treasury bills. The Treasury bills are who the government is borrowing money from countries, institutions. I have T-bills, and they've guaranteed to pay me a certain amount. The 10-year Treasury is what sets the market. And so you take the 10-year treasury, you add 2%, and you'll get a 30-year mortgage. So like right now it's 4.6, and so you're going to go and get a mortgage at 30-year mortgage. year mortgage would be 6.8 and a 15 is, you know, 5, 7. So if you wait, I'll say this, I have never had anybody in my real estate career say this, ever. I'm glad I waited. What the typical thing is,

man, I could have bought that house down in Cool Springs for 300 grand and a packet of peanuts, and now it's worth a million, you know, and I didn't. And that's all you ever hear. You hear stories of regret. Never have I heard anybody happy they waited. Is renting forever a viable option? and can I still build wealth without buying a home? I'll jump in on this with you. Okay. So, of course it is. You know, living in your car is an option, too.

So you can rent. It's just when the number says the number one source of wealth in the United States is a private residence and that the average homeowner has 46 times the net worth of a renter. The numbers are in your favor. Can you go do it on the market? Can you invest in stocks? For sure you can. You can do all that stuff.

It's just a lot harder and not as stable. When we did the largest study of millionaires in America ever done, 89% of them did it on their own without inheritance, nine out of ten. We found over and over and over again two things. One is they'd loaded up their 401K, and it had built up to a substantial amount. And the second one is they bought a home, paid it off. Yep. And so we're talking to a guy with a guy with a million and a half dollar net worth,

They got a $600,000 paid for house, and, you know, they got $700,000, 900,000 in their 401K. And that's the typical millionaire in America today. The place you get your first $1 to $5 million is investing in your 401k steadily and getting a home and getting it paid off. So they, and 100% of the time those houses have gone up. Yeah. And 100% of the time the next door neighbor renting, his rent went up. Yeah. Sure.

So the math works against you when you're a rent. You have no control. Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean you don't need to rent until you get yourself out of debt. That's right. And get your emergency fund and get rid of your student loan and all that. You do all of that for rent. But renting for 30 years is a dumb idea.

Really mathematically dumb. And rent less than you can afford. What should I actually prioritize when buying my first home a yard versus square footage versus older versus newer? Home Excel versus the neighborhood. Yeah. Well, again, it's boring. I wish I had something sexy. Location, location, location.

I always bought the best home, the worst home on the best street. So I buy as much location as I can afford, and then I go put in the sweat equity to make it better. To do the upgrades and everything. Fight it. You know, like I understand the home builders. They do a great job, and it's sexy,

and they got muffins in the oven, and then you come through and you drink juice, and they got this, and they got the designers and whatever else. You want to buy the ugly duckling in the best neighborhood you can afford and fight, bite, and scratch. and claw to get it improved.

Because that is, I mean, that's the common sense. I feel like, I don't know a ton about all this. But that is the, you never want to buy top of the neighborhood. You always want to buy in the low. I mean, that is the common sense rule. So do not forget that if you are looking. Yep. I used to have people say, well, I want to have, you know,

I want to buy a house on the ocean and I got a budget for the mountain. You know what I mean? And I said, well, here's my advice. No, I want, I have to have 5,000 square feet. Well, I would say, just keep driving. driving south till you can afford something because it's Mexico down there. Okay? So you just keep driving south.

You'll be able to afford something soon. From California. So good. That's great. Should I buy or sell by owner to save on commission fees? Oh. Oh, we love this one. Just toss that one up to the real estate coach.

Just, both of us could chew on this one. All right. I'll know on the leg. Yeah. Well, I'll start with this. The average number of first of home for sale by owners for 30 years was 12% and 50% of those were inter-family transfers. Last year, with all the technology and all the zello and all the demand, the average for sale by owner was 4% of all sales,

and 80% of those were inter-family transfers. It was an inter-family transfer. You call a lawyer, not a realtor. And the second dynamic is the average real estate agent gets 14% higher sales price than a for-sale-by-owner. So yeah, go ahead. And they cost six. Yeah, yeah. The average real estate commission in America is six. Yeah. And the average, and they get an average of 14% more for the house. Yep. So you didn't save the commission.

No. Here's the thing, I can change the oil on my Mercedes, too. But, you know, it would cost me more in spilling on the driveway and getting it on my clothes than it would be getting it done in the jiffy loop. So, yeah, it's better. Let's add to that question, too, because I had this call the other day I'll tell you about. But how should someone analyze when the, If they've got three different realtors or four different realtors that they're interviewing, real estate agents, how should they analyze which one to pick?

Well, I always start with a referral, right? That's my basis. It's like someone who's a trusted source, right? You have Ramsey trusted is the name of your system. You've got to find a referral, someone who's trusted. The next thing is what's their experience? Okay. How many homes just saw last year?

Here's, this will stagger you. This is mine. Okay. 64% of all real estate agents have not sold a home this. year. Now, you know, that is not who you want to be working with. And, you know, this used to be an 80-20 business. It's become a 85-15. It's heading to a 90-10 business. We had 1.6 million members of the National Association of Realtors two years ago. And by January of next year, by January of 28, it'll be one million. So 600,000 people are out. And that's because people got in. Oh,

real estate. I love houses. I love people. This looks great. It's. so easy. I'm a frustrated decorator. Okay, good look with that. Real estate is hard. It's a hell of a lot of work. If it's an up but dawn, down at dusk siege, you have to fight through everything. You work when others don't. Yeah. Evenings and weekends. And you sell 50 to 300 houses a year, and then you're qualified to list my house. What does a top agent? Like if you are interviewing, what's a number that they would say, this is how many houses I sold this year that you're like, oh, that's a, okay, that feels like a good. It depends on the average sales price. So if I'm in California, if someone's selling 20 homes a year, their average sales price, two and a half million.

Right? But I'd say, you, you. You know, for me, I think they got to be above the 25 transaction threshold across the board. You guys have an even higher threshold for Ramsey trusted, which is fantastic. Bottom lines, they got to be a pro. They got to come with references. And they got to tell you, here's who I work with and here's what I've done. And you get a real pro. Like, when you get a real pro, you get to sit in the back of the car and they drive you to the airport.

And it's done for you. And there's no legal afterbite. There's no disclosure problems. When you sell the house, the house is actually sold. You sell the house by yourself. It's not permanently sold. They can come back after you. If you don't cross the T's and dot the I's, it's a big deal.

All the title and sure, everything. Yep. That's good. I love it. I love it. How about this question? Okay. How often should I check my homeowner's insurance, the coverage amount?

How often would you recheck that? Well, I mean, Dave will go berserk on this because he's right. I mean, it's just all the time. You know, right now, California, for example, yesterday, they have what's called a California your fare plan, which is like a subsidized government freaking insurance policy, and they just went up 29% one day. Oh my gosh. Okay.

So you got to be shopping all the time. You've got to be looking. Same thing. You've got to look. I would say every 90 days now. So if you live on the coasts. The idea of the California socialized homeowners insurance program just went up 29%. Right.

Because that's what it is. Yes, sir. Those of us who grew up in Europe and have experienced socialism don't understand why y'all Americans are playing footsie. that stuff. Wow. Ron Buffini is with us. Number one real estate coach and real estate expert. We're going to take your calls and a few more of our questions in this last segment of this hour coming up. A lot of banks are happy to hold your money, but Fairwin's credit union helps you make progress. Most people spend years focusing on their financial goals and never stop to ask whether

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Before we jump to the phones, I'm going to throw in one other thing right quick. We've noticed, and we've talked about on the air here several times in the past two years, we began noticing and we didn't make the tie we didn't make the connection initially the percentage of folks that are living together not married versus married and if you didn't know more people live together in America not married than live together married and that number has been that way for about almost 10 years now that number crossed a few about a decade ago and but what we're seeing is that that's hampering the data is in now from that because it's been going on long enough that that's hampering people's ability to build wealth and we're also seeing in brian's numbers that it's

affecting or or it's i can't tell if it's cause or effect really in these numbers but it's also showing up in these housing numbers so the percentage of people buying a home that are married is down dramatically But the percentage of people that are married is down. Right. Yep. And so the people that have a double income to buy a home together is down because two singles buying a home together doesn't count like a married couple for the mortgage company. Right. Right.

And it's different issues and different underwriting issues. It's more problematic. Yeah. Because they're getting themselves into a mess. The mortgage company knows that. Their data on it is bad. So, I mean, look at it. In 1960, people under the age of 30 married couples, home ownership rate was 52%.

And now, again, less people married, all that kind of stuff. But 2025, the number is 12%. So we've gone from 52% to 12%. And so that's both. But in 1960, like 90% of the people living together were married. Yep, yep. Or more. Yeah, for sure.

And so it was the 70s that that shifted. And what's funny is women homeowners are up. Are up. So women are like, listen, I'm going to, I'm doing, I'm not buying crypto and sports betting. I'm saving for the future. I'm not marrying a crypto, bro. I'm buying a house. Yeah.

I mean, so they're getting in the market. At two and a half times the rate, a single man. Two and a half times the rate. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. And I do wonder from 1960, you know, from even women, like women couldn't probably support themselves the way they, like, they couldn't even have a checking account. So right.

No, you could have a checking account, but it wasn't. No, I thought you had to be signed, right? It was 1973 when I... That's just the ERA, but my mother had a checking account, okay, in the 60s. I remember that distinctly. But didn't it have to be assigned by a man, though? No, no, absolutely not. Chat, G.B.T.

Everything on the Internet's not true. Abraham Lincoln said that. All right. Josh is in Washington, D.C. Hey, Josh, how are you? Hey, team, how's it going? Great, man. I want your real estate question for Brian?

So I'll start off by saying my wife and I have a pretty good situation, but we want to tackle this the right way and consider all factors, make sure we are missing anything. Good for you. We are currently in a rent-to-purchase option agreement dated back in 2024. We got an appraisal in 2024 in the house. That's the set price on the house. We're set to buy it in December, 2007.

We'll have about 25 to 30 percent down, ideally, with a good amount of cash left over emergency fund, and then just left over, decent amount of cash left over. You're awesome. Way to go. Freaking unicorn. Excellent. But with this house, the thing is, is if we do buy it, we're going to want to put some money into it. Now, we don't really know if we're going to be there that long.

It is a really nice home, but with good bones, but we haven't really been able to kind of make it our own home because we don't own it yet. You don't know. Yeah, that's wise. So given that, you know, we won't be there forever, we're worried, well, quote unquote worried that if we put some money into it, we pay the mortgage, that, you know, when we go to sell it, we might either not make our money back, given the fact that, you know, most of the payments up front are going to be interest bare. So that's fine. So the question is, what renovation will carry its own weight? Yes. That's what you're looking for. You spend money that multiplies itself.

So if you could spend $100 and it raises the value 1,000, we got the right thing. If we spend $10,000 on a pool, nobody else has a pool. The pool is now a liability. You devalued the house rather than increase the value of the house because no one else on the street has one agreed. Yep. Is a pool a devaluer? Well, it could in that situation. So I would say the pool is the lowest resale upgrade you can make to a house.

Average cost for pool in the United States last year was $72,000. Average resale value is $7. So here's the deal. If you're going to put money into a house, here's how it works, right? Paint. Now, not just because I'm a painter's son, but paint is $20 in a can, $2,000 on the walls. Right? So paint is good.

Kitchens and bathrooms. Women buy houses. men are just tagging along. My father, the day I got married, said to me, son, I got to tell you some marriage advice. He goes, when your mother and I got married, we made an agreement, I would make all the important decisions, and she would make all the non-important decisions. And I want you to know, in 47 years, I haven't had an important decision to make. So women buy houses, dude. So you buy kitchen and bathrooms.

You paint. How long would you say we would have to live in the house to see some value back? given our structure. Typically, you'll get your money back in two years. Typically, you get your money back in two years. And the upgrades also add to the speed of the sale. And the speed of the sale, what people don't understand about real estate, the faster you sell a home, the higher the price you get.

So kitchens, bathrooms. Would you say we should go ahead and buy the home? Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes, buy it. Can we purchase a house that's a little bigger? No, you buy that house. You buy that house and get your foot in the door, dude.

Absolutely. But the renovations to quote unquote make it your own don't make it your own. Fix it up to sell it as if you were an investor. Now what would an investor do? They're not going to do renovations that don't add more value than the renovation costs. So you ask yourself when we're getting ready to change something, is that something we like? Or is that something that's going to add more value than the cost? And you can actually talk to a good real estate agent and they can come by and

tell you. You know, another example typically is because so much is digital now and is dependent upon pictures and looks as your curb appeal. And so... And your photographer. I know that sounds silly, but to get... A good photographer. Landscaping is a big deal. Yes. I mean, if you've got nasty butt landscaping in front of this thing, please expect that to show up in the picture, right? And that's a few dollars and a lot of sweat. Yep. And you can get that right. And that makes it your own. Paint the outside, landscaping, and the garage door. Those are the all, those all return higher than 100%. Yeah, the garage. I've heard this about the garage door. Average garage door, but it's four times the resale value that. So how funny is that. Hey, why do women wear makeup? So,

okay. You know what I'm saying? Because some barns need paint. Okay, so come on. You know? Lord have mercy on my soul. No. So, right? I mean, does it make more appealing for sure. Some men should probably. Yeah. I've worn makeup. I put it on my head so it doesn't shine on camera. I hope that helps, Josh. I don't know if we help. I think that helps. That's it, that's exactly what you do.

So think about the things like that. But, you know, you want a unique audio system through a home where no one else in the neighborhood has a unique audio system. You're doing that for you and you're going to lose money on that. You're not going to get the money back out that you spend. I mean, if you're in a. a $200,000 home and you want to put in a 60-inch $14,000 sub-zero refrigerator, you're not going to get your money back on that. Because most of the people in that neighborhood haven't seen a sub-zero.

And so, you know, that's what you're thinking about there. And so what we're trying to say is don't overbuild the neighborhood. Don't do something that's so unique that it doesn't play. Brian Bafini, thank you, brother. Thank you, Brian. I love talking to your folks. So fun. We give a lot of people.

We give a lot of hope to people. I love being part of the best dad, daughter, comedy show in America. So it's my favorite. Well, it's like eating dinner with all of us because we always pull out Google. And I will say, 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was signs. And women on their own could get a check-you-out. But guess what? But guess what?

But guess what? That wasn't necessary for them to do it. It just required for them to do it. And so my mother did have a job. checking account in her name in the 60s. Because your dad signed for it. No, he didn't. He didn't have to. I told you. It's the best game in town being here. Welcome to our dinner.

That's not factual. I am woman. Hear me roar. As your business grows, everything becomes more complex. There was a time when Ramsey Solutions had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business. We wasted too much time chasing information instead of making decisions. That's why we got NetSuite.

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And right now, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.aI slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.aI slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Andrew is with us in Tyler, Texas.

Hey, Andrew, how are you? Hello, sir. I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Hey, I'm just wondering, I have, like, a money anxiety problem. So I'm wondering how I can change my mindset with money,

so I can, like, not be so stressed and anxious about every purchase I make big or small. What are you afraid of? I don't know. I think it's just like it's every purchase I make. I'm like, it could be like going out to lunch with friends or bigger purchases of, you know, like furniture. Okay, so you're buying a $3,000 piece of furniture and you have anxiety about that.

And again, I want you to think about this because you probably do know the answer. what is it that you're afraid of when you're buying this? I think I know, but I'll wait for you to figure it out. I think it's just like the big number. I think it's the purchase, and it's like, am I going to be able to make that money back, which I know is a silly thing to think because I have a... No, it's not silly at all.

No, it's a classic scarcity mentality. It's a scarcity mentality, yeah. And that means that you're a saver. It also probably tells me that you're probably a very... analytical person, am I right? Yes, sir. You might tend, you tend to overanalyze versus underanalyze all of these things. Yes, sir.

Yeah, that's pretty typical. Okay. And so what, all that is, is you get emotional satisfaction and joy from saving and stacking cash more than you do from spending it. Yeah, but I do, I mean, I like to spend money on things. I like to spend money. No, you know, you just told me you had anxiety about it. Well, when I, I mean, I enjoy giving gifts to people that I care about.

I didn't say you weren't generous. I said you get more peace from stacking cash than from purchases. Yeah, that's true. And that's okay. All right, now that we know that, we now know that the fear is caused because we're depleting the stack of cash to buy the couch. And I wonder if I'm ever going to get my cash back. Okay? Yeah.

So when you're facing something like that, I mean, I wish Dr. John Deloney was here to coach you through anxiety, and we'll send you a copy of his book, Redefining Anxiety, which is a wonderful read, and you'll enjoy it. But he says that anxiety is not a negative thing. It's like the smoke alarm in the house. And the smoke alarm in the house goes off. well we don't ignore it and stand there in the flames and burn to the ground right but we also look around and go oh wait a minute the battery is low so when the alarm goes off we have to decide then okay we're a we're not going to ignore it so the anxiety is a good warning sign it's your body telling you that you're worried about something that's not a bad thing then you say all right

what's going on facts are our friends so what are the facts are the facts The facts are I have $3,000 to my name, and I just spent that all on a gas grill, so I am, by definition, stupid. If that's the facts, then you should have anxiety, right? If you have $85,000 in your account and you spend $3,000 on a gas grill, the facts are your life didn't change, except now you can cook a steak. Calm down. Those are the facts. And so if you stop a minute and think about what's the source of this smoke alarm going off and say, okay, then what are the facts and am I okay? And it's attached to something.

Either what was wired into your brain as a kid of how you grew up, something that happened. I don't know, maybe you had your first job and you really were broke and you're like, I never want to go back there again and your body remembers that, right? Or whatever it is, if you can kind of pinpoint that, I think is, yeah, is powerful. If you can go back and find that in the past and see where it is. And so, you know, for instance, I bought and sold and flipped real estate, nothing down real estate in my 20s and went broke and lost everything. And so if I have a new plan, a bright idea, it scares the P. Wadden out of my wife. And it should. except that for the last 35 years, all my bright ideas have exceeded my dumb ideas.

But prior to that, I had one big dumb idea that took us down and we lost everything. So her reaction should be, even today, 35 years later. Yeah, that's right. Her body remembers that terror of our lights and water being cut off, of us being broke, not having the money hardly to feed our own kids. Rachel was a baby. All of that. Her body remembers that.

And I as her spouse have to understand that and go, okay, if this is going too fast, we need to slow down and she needs to get more information. So she understands what we're dealing with or we don't need to go forward. Because, and we just slow down a little bit. So slow down a little bit. Gather your facts. Ask where the anxiety is coming from. Is it from a real thing or is it from a thing that happened earlier and it's just reactivating? Yeah. And this is always an interesting on the scale of money controlling you. And on one end of the

spectrum, money does become an idol, a god to people. And they use it to feel better about themselves, right? Whether from an income perspective or what they drive or the house or the part of the time, like it becomes this, but they're spending on one end of the spectrum and it becomes this idol. It has them. It has their identity, everything. And then Andrews, a perfect example is on the other end. It has you just as much. Like you have no freedom. You have no ability to have peace because there's a level of control. When I buy lunch, I have anxiety. Yeah.

To have a level of control, it has you as much as it does the other people, right? And that's where the extremes on the spender and saver and where you put money on the spectrum of the importance in your life is so important to have that balance in both of those spectrums. Because on either side, it's unhealthy. It becomes a thing that you literally think about 24-7. and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't have a grip on you like that. No, no, either way. Either side.

That's right. That's right. Neither one are. It's almost as if it's not two ends of a spectrum. It's two points on a triangle. And the other point is peace and health. Right. Yeah, that's fair.

There's one you could go to that other place and go to peace and health and yes, yes. Proper view of it and those kinds of things. Yeah, so I don't want money to have that grip on you, Andrew. Right? So for the good of you, it's almost a spiritual exercise too. On the shallow end, you've got a great saying I've seen you use, especially on Instagram, it works really well, is if I buy something, if I'm shallow and I'm

worried about myself trying to be something, right, with what I own or whatever, if you buy something and no one ever sees it, yes. Would you buy it anyway? And the answer is yes, then you're buying it for the right reasons. If you're buying it to show off, then you're just being shallow. Inflate. Yeah, you're just being shallow. And I've done that.

I bought stuff to do that. I don't hardly ever do it anymore. but I remember doing that distinctly in my past. And by the way, that's a symptom also that leads to being broke. It leads to get rich quick and it leads to being broke that end of the spectrum, not Andrews the other side. Yep. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here.

Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's Ramsey Solutions.com. If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is using every dollar. And that's the best and fastest way to become wealthy using the baby steps. It's more than the best.

than just a budgeting app. It's our Ramsey plan built right in. You track your progress. You get personalized recommendations and coaching for your situation that will help you free up more money and work the plan even faster. It's like having one of us walk with you every day showing you the next right step and holding you accountable. Start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or Google Play. Jamie is in Orlando. Hi, Jamie. How are you? Hi, everyone. I'm kind of nervous. It's okay. How can we help? Hello? Hello? How can we help? No, no.

Jamie, are you there? Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. All right. Can you guys hear me? Oh, there she is. Are you there? Can you hear us? Yes, I lost you guys for a second.

Perfect. I'm so nervous. That's okay. We are good. What's up? I just want to know if we're rushing into buying a new construction home by selling the condo we regret buying, even if we barely make anything from that sale. Okay, so you regret, you're in a condo now.

you regret buying it, so you want to move to something and the one you're looking at is a new construction build. And you've already signed up for it? We haven't. We're just looking at a condo. Yeah, how long have you been in this condo? Two years and a half. Two and a half years? Is that what you said?

Yes. Yes. So what's the rush? So we have a huge HOA fee. The condo needed more repairs than we. what we expected. And then we thought we would be able to make a good rental out of it, but because of the HOA and the mortgage, we wouldn't be able to get anything from it. And then my husband and I are thinking of having a kid within the next year, so we might need

more space for it. Okay. You don't buy a house for a kid you don't have. Okay. But if you want move, that's a different subject. How much, if you sold the condo, do you have any equity in it? No, she said they're going to break even. Would you even lose money after commissions and fees and everything after selling? So what we're trying to get at least is like 2K after paying commission fees and everything else. Okay, do you have any other money saved that would go to the down payment of the new home?

Yes. So we have 57K in savings. Okay. And then we are currently investing in like 401K and everything else. Sure. So what's your household income? Household income is 12,300 per month. Yes.

Is that what hits your account or is that before taxes? What hits our account monthly. Okay. Okay. So you're making about $180,000 a year. And what price range is? is this new construction? 480.

Okay, and why new construction? Because we were kind of done with all the repairs that this condo needed, so we were like, oh, maybe a new construction is going to have or require less repairs. Well, so would a two-year-old or a five-year-old home as well, require less repairs. So the problem with new construction is you're paying a premium usually. That's retail. And you probably can get more bang for your buck in used housing. In most cases, not in every case, but I want you to look into that.

So, yeah, new construction just feels shiny after you've dealt with a ratty condo. And I understand how you get there, but I'm not sure that's your best route. So, but if you want to sell a condo and break even on it and get out and you got 60 grand to go buy something with and you're making 180, sure, sure, go make the move. Don't keep the condo, though. The condo is not a rental. You have properly assessed that. And don't, yeah, and don't be under the assumption that a new build is going to have nothing wrong, depending on the builder grade and everything. I mean, it's, you never know.

So just go in, not naive to that. Well, the builder may cover the things that are wrong, but there's always something wrong. Yeah. I mean, if you build a home, there's always a punch list. And then there's a punch list 30 days later. And then there's another one 30 days later. And that's just part of, you know, building a new home. Expect that.

Do not expect this to every single thing on there, every button to work exactly right. It doesn't. You just go ahead and have your expectations proper. And then you'll be easier to work with. Alex is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Alex. How are you? Hey, how's it going, sir?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So looking to make a career change, and I'm not sure if it is the right move at this point, or if I should stick it out in my current job, and I'm kind of basing it off of my current income and current savings. Okay. What is your – how long have you been in your current job? I just hit two years a few months ago. What's wrong with it? Kind of getting sick of it. It's sales. I am trying to get out of sales.

start a different career and kind of spread my wings. I still live at home, so I'm looking to branch out elsewhere. This past year to date, I'm at about $100,000. I should end at a hundred. Why do you live at home? Save money. It's expensive. Okay.

How old are you, Alex? I'm 24 years old. You need to go get your own place and be a man. I got you. I got you. Yesterday. Yesterday. You make $100,000 a year.

Your mommy doesn't need to fold your underwear. It's time. I do all my own laundry, clean, and clean. It's just being in Columbus, I don't see the point in rent. I do. I do. It's called personal development. And by the way, you're not eligible for dating when you live in your mother's basement either.

So, yeah, go get you a place. Now, why do you hate sales? I'm just, I did what I needed to do. I made my way. What do you want to do? Andrew, or Alex, what do you want to do? I'm looking at analyst roles. I'm looking to go into something that has a little bit more of a career development and growth. And that's kind of really the more the main point of it. Sales, I kind of figure it out. What are you? What are you selling? I'm in logistic sales.

Okay. All right. Have you found some opportunities as an. analyst anywhere that would hire you? Like, have you looked? Yeah, yeah, I'm currently looking. I haven't really found or landed on anything. What's your degree in? International business and Spanish. All right. You've probably been trained to do some analysts then. Good. Okay, if you can get a job making what you're making now and move in a different direction that looks like it fits your personality style better, that's okay with me. I don't mind that a bit. but making more, not less.

Gotcha. Okay. We don't take a pay cut and call that happiness. Okay. Don't take a pay cut is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. It's not happiness. No, it's not.

It's not the definition of happiness. It could be if your job is fulfilling. No, it's not. It's not. You need to look for something that you can go apply yourself to and make a living, serving others. So here's the thing. I do want you to pause on the sales thing just a second, though.

Okay. because the narrative that you're using there, I want you to go get the analyst job because I think that's going to be good for you and I think you've come to that conclusion. However, I will tell you that more CEOs come out of sales than any other position. Yep. You are correct. Very few of them come out of analyst. Yep. And so just, you know, so as far as as as as as as career development, I feel like I've capped out.

No, you haven't. Yeah, it's a good skill. know how to sell, you can work through any organization and be the best there is in there because you learn people skills and you learn up. You learn to level up and sales is a great career field. But if it's not for you, that's okay. I'm not mad about that. But I don't want to use the, I don't want you to use the narrative that I was topped out at sales because you weren't. You weren't. Or you're not good at sales. Unless there's some weird pay structure in the company. Or you might be topped out in that pay structure. But if you can sell the door, the door,

will open in organizations all the way through for you. Yes. And so, but I think you're going to probably listening to you, talking to you, I think you're going to get, you know, good stuff from being an analyst. And I think you ought to go do that. I agree with your analysis by the analyst. Hey, guys, Rachel Cruz here. And I love summer.

There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people, and way more chances to make memories. But you know what else there's more of? spending. Oh, between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast. And before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the every dollar budget app, because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress. Download the

every dollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today. Ramsey Show Question of the Day is sponsored by Y-R-R-R-R-FI. If you've fallen behind on your private student loan payments, every month can feel like you're standing still because you are. Why-R-R-R-R-E-F-Y-F-E-R-N options that can help you start making progress again. Go to Y-R-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Brent in Utah. He said, I have $300,000 in savings and no debt.

I want to invest the money in mutual funds, but I'm not sure if I should dump it in all at once or little by little each month. What's the best play in this scenario? It's a good question. Well, I would say if there's nothing, the reason I wouldn't is if there's something you're needing to buy and use part of that $300,000 for if you need some of that money, maybe hold some of that for that purchase. If there's, you know, if it makes you more comfortable because you're scared or something,

you know, we talk to some people and it's like, okay, maybe you do 60, 40. But for me, no, if you really do have $300,000 just sitting in savings and you want to invest it, I would, I'd do it tomorrow. So there's no big advantage of little by little, if anything, get in the market as it's doing well. but also don't look at the market either because I bet when you put it in, something's going to happen and it's going to go down. So you've got to just forget about it because it's long-term investing at that point. If you can feel comfortable that this is a long-term investment, and if it goes down tomorrow,

you're not going to cry because it's a long-term investment. We're riding the roller coaster down. We're going to write it back up. Mathematically, the answer is put it all in today. There's no mathematical advantage. Okay. The S&P 500, the stock market, is up 16% as of this moment since the beginning of the year. However, somewhere back in March, the president decided to bomb Iran.

And the stock, if you'd put the stock market in the day before, you'd put $300,000 in the day before you decided to do that, you might have woke up the next morning and your 300 is worth, your 300 is worth 270. And you'd have a minor cow. okay however if you didn't pull it out and now you're sitting there and you had put it in at the first of the year it would be up 16% of 300,000 dollars which would be about 50 grand you would have made since the first of the year but if you'd have freaked out because the president bombed Iran and the market dropped you know after you put the money in in January and he did that in March took it out you would have then you would have freaked out and you would have lost money on the

market, I'll never invest again because you have the worst possible timing on the planet because you bought while it was high and when you freaked out when it was low and got out. And of course you lost money then. So the answer is, but if you leave it in, keep your stinking hands off of it. You're much better off to put it in there and forget it. Set it and forget it. And you make serious money. All right.

Stephen is in Anchorage, Alaska. Hey, Stephen. you. Good. Are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, so I had a question about long-term investments. What do you think about buying vacant land versus buying stocks or rentals? I'm not sure if I want to be a landlord. Vacant land can fall in a whole bunch of different categories. Okay. You could buy farmland. You could buy a hunting preserve. You could buy the corner of a busy intersection where they're looking to put a McDonald's someday, a commercial piece of property, right? You could buy land where warehouses could be developed. You could buy land where apartments could be developed.

So, you know, all of the, there's a million kinds of different vacant land. So the answer is, I don't know, because I don't know what kind of vacant land you're thinking about. So there's certainly a lot of vacant land in Arkansas or in Alaska. in Arkansas too, but much more in Alaska. And so as a matter of fact, I was up there fishing last week, and I learned that the federal government reserved land in Alaska, you could put six Texases in it. There's that much of it.

It's like 166 million acres in Alaska that is owned by the federal government. It's crazy. So, you know, I don't know about vacant land in Alaska, but I guess if you're in downtown Anchorage or- Have you done some research, Stephen? What type of land are we talking about? Yeah, so I'm actually on the Keny Peninsula, not quite Anchorage, but, you know, just like little plots to develop for, you know, like, you know, housing, like one or two acres or like

maybe like a five-acre lot, you know, that has electricity on it or I could put electricity. For residential homes? Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Then that would depend on how active the new home. market is in that immediate area. Okay. Okay. So in other words, if there, if half a mile away,

there's a big subdivision going in and you've got some lot price baseline that you can look at, that's fine. If there's no home building going on in the area, but you think you're just going to walk out there in the middle of a field and somebody's going to build a house because you want them to. No, you can't build it and they'll come. That's called a field of dreams. So, no, we don't do that. But I mean, you need to have some trend lines that in the growth pattern of that area that tells you that people are actually going to want to buy this, and it's not just your gut feeling. Yeah, you know, in the last, I've been in about three years now, and like this year has been, as soon as the plot goes for sale, it's sold. That's good. I like that. Super hot market.

There's going to be a big pipeline potentially coming in. That's good. I like that. And this will be with cash, Stephen? Yeah, yeah, correct. And you're out of debt? Yeah, own my own house. I think I have my retirement all done. Yeah. Great job.

Yeah, excellent, excellent. So when I buy a piece of commercial dirt like that, I'm looking at the growth heading that direction or is already on that direction, and that's what I'm asking you to look at. In that case, land, you're speculating on land. you're buying it not for a 15-year investment. You're buying it for a two-to-five-year investment. And it could be a great one in that case if it's happening. You might make a lot of money on it.

You might double your money on something like that. But it's going to be based, that's the beauty of real estate. But it is going to be based on the higher the success rate of this is going to be based on your analysis, your correct analysis of what's going on in the neighborhood. And what's really happening, what direction we're really going there. So Rachel's husband and I have done many, many real estate deals together. He owns it our real estate company. He runs all of my real estate.

And we looked at a piece of ground that could be developed into about seven lots or eight lots. And that was about 10 or 15 years ago. And it had a bunch of trash dumped on it. And we determined by the time we cleaned it up to get it ready to run a road into and paid for the land, that we would not be able to recoup at current lot prices anytime soon. Since then, you know, all these years later, the value of that property went up dramatically and someone else bought it, cleaned it up, and sold it and made money on it. But we didn't have the, we had a two to a five-year mindset.

That person had more of a 10-year or 15-year mindset, and now there's homes built in there. Some of our best friends live in one of those. You know the house. You know the property I'm talking about. 100%. And there's some nice, big, beautiful homes. I mean, it's great. It turned out to be a good piece of property. That's right. But at the time. Well, and you're speculating. Yeah. Totally. At the time, it didn't make sense in the short term. The only way it made sense was with a 10-year or 15-year horizon. And we didn't want to tie the money up that long on a project like that. So we backed away. Someone else picked it up, had a longer time horizon and made money with it. So that's what you're looking at. You're trying to analyze just exactly like we did there. And it's okay to walk away from a deal. that doesn't fit your objectives and let someone else make the money and look back 15 years later and go, well, that worked out, you know, because it did work out. The property was fine. It wasn't,

it wasn't tainted. It was just a mess. And so, anyway, that's what you're doing. You're trying to analyze. And the beautiful thing about real estate is such an imperfect world that that's where the money's made. Your judgment's better than somebody else and you jump on it. If you pay taxes to the IRS every quarter or run a small business and you're not using a CPA, what are you doing? The more complicated your tax situation gets, the more you need expert help. With a Ramsey trusted tax pro, you can get top-notch service year-round for payroll, bookkeeping, quarterly tax payments, and, of course, tax filing. Let an expert take the stress off your shoulders.

go to ramsysolutions.com slash tax to find a ramsay trusted tax pro today that's ramsysolutions.com slash tax our scripture the day hebrews 137 remember your leaders who spoke the word of god to you consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith Ronald Reagan said money can't buy you happiness but it will certainly get you a better class of memories there you go rachel there you go John is with us in Des Moines. Hi, John. How are you? Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

So my question today is, I'm 19 years old. I'm a business owner first year. I have about $11,000 in debt right now. My question is just, how do I get ahead? What is your income in your business? Right now I'm projected to make about. 45,000 this year. Doing what?

Long care and landscaping. Okay. Your first year? Yeah. I just started in April. Okay. Oh, so not even a full year. So I assume it's growing rapidly? Not as well as I want to, but yeah, it's growing pretty good. Pretty decent.

What's the 11,000 in K? I have about 10,000 on a car and a little less than thousand on credit cards. Okay. Well, the simple answer to your question is what you already knew before you called, and that is there's two ends of the equation, the income side and the outgo side. And the difference is margin, the money you've got to play with to get out of debt. And so as your income goes up and your spending goes down, you have more and more money

to become debt-free. Agreed? Yes, sir. So anything you can do to cut your spending, I don't think you're probably over spending. I don't hear that in anything you're telling me. But I think you've got a new business is not making much money yet. And so I'm going to make sure if I'm you that I'm spending a certain percentage of my week every single week getting new customers, not just mowing grass. Okay. If you don't budget a certain percentage of your time every week to do the essential

parts of the business, the business will dry up. Okay. And that means you've got to say, okay, every Friday morning, every Thursday morning, every Wednesday morning for four hours, I'm going to work on getting new customers or whatever it is instead of mowing that day. And I don't care, I don't know what it is, but, you know, you've got a budget timeout to figure out where are your customers coming from, talking to your existing customers about referrals, picking up the two houses on either side of the last house you mowed the grass for or the business on either side of the last business you did, the landscaping. Yeah, if there's a good neighborhood, most neighborhoods these days have

some kind of Facebook group or group me or something, right? And if you can ask a homeowner, if you've been satisfied, do you mind just leaving a recommendation? Because people are always looking for things. So that's a good way to get your name out if there's a neighborhood. Yeah, it turns out the guy that does our landscaping in our home, ended up doing the homes on each side of us because he had hours and they asked us who did it. Right.

I understand that. But the one thing is, so my, My girl and my son moved down to Atlanta, and I'm trying to relocate down there. And I don't know if I should just continue growing or should I try to save my... That's a completely different thing than you asked about. Yeah, we didn't know that. Right, yeah. Yeah.

So, no. I mean, if you're going to move, you need to go build your business down there. Right. I just don't know how to get ahead to be able to... Save up to move. I only have about $3,500 in cash and about $1,500. that is the businesses right now. Yeah, but I mean, when the season's over, you should have some cash piled up.

You can load up the lawnmowers and go. Right. Yeah, I would stack cash right now, John, in order to make that move to be closer to your son. And then you need to have some aggressive goals to get this debt paid off, the $1,000 credit card. And, you know, be working all winter to have accounts to start the spring with. Yep. If you're going to open up down there. But it's actually possible to do that.

but that's a very aggressive thing. But no, I wouldn't go build a business someplace I'm going to leave in two years. Okay. That's a lot of work for nothing. Mm-hmm. Because your customer list is not worth anything in this business. Nobody will buy it because they can just go get your customers. They don't need to ask you.

And so, no, that's not, you're not building anything that's marketable there. So, no, I was stashed. You may be working two jobs for a bit, too. I'd stack cash till the end of the season, whatever that is in Desmond. and then I'd be on my way and get married and let's start a life, me and the wife and the baby, and I'm going to work all winter at every job I can possibly stack up while I'm trying to get customers to restart my business. You may start your landscaping business in Atlanta as a side hustle after you get a good job there and then grow it again there. But that's an okay thing.

But no, I would not grow a business where you already are before you leave. Hey, one of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they can skip having a will because they're too young, too healthy, or don't own anything. If you're 18, your will helps protect, or older, your will helps protect your family. It gives clear instructions and can keep your loved ones from having to guess what you wanted, and it'll keep up fighting with each other, too. If you're ready to create one, go to mama bearlegal.com. If you're not sure where to start, whether you use an attorney or mama bear, either one's fine. Next quiz to 33789, and we'll help you figure out which option fits your situation. Don is in Atlanta.

Hey, Don, what's up? Hello, you got me? Yes, sir. How can we help? Hi, so I just talked with my dad recently, and he is a listener of you as well. And I was talking to him about a student loan debt that my wife has a $30,000. And he thought about it for a second and said, hey, what if I did? just gave you $30,000, and whenever it comes around to the will and my sisters, you'll just

have $30,000 less on there, and he's going to put that note in the will. Do you recommend that? Because I just getting money from family member, I figured I'd run it by. Is he going to bother you after this, or is this one and done? Or is this a control mechanism? No, this is one and done. He's always been very helpful. Okay. All right. Um, yes, I would accept that gift. I think that's a wonderful offer and a great idea of his. I think it's a great plan.

The, the downside is, is that you, you said your fiancee? Wife. Your wife. I'm sorry. I didn't, I didn't know. You did say wife. I goofed. Okay.

All right. So you and your wife have to get on a budget and never going dead again or this will grow back in the form of a car payment or credit card debt or something else. Because it sounds like your dad is the way. one dreamed this up, and this is the first time you've ever heard of Ramsey today. No, he said his dad's a listener. His dad is, not Don. Well, he introduced me when I was younger, and actually at the beginning

this year, our employer gave us the app, the every dollar app. So I signed up on that, and we started running the range to sign. We're six months into it now. Good, good. Yeah, Don. So I would say, yeah, from, I mean, when you think about it from a math perspective, if just like your inheritance, if it's invested on his end,

is going to be growing. And so I would take it now from that, right? If all the emotional check boxes are, or boxes are checked that it's okay. And it feels like, oh, yeah, this isn't going to be hanging over our head or he's not going to use this against us or feel like he can have a say in our life

because he did this, then yeah. I mean, I think that's a very... I think it's very smart. The trick is for you and your wife then to follow through with the newfound free. freedom and cause it to build, cause yourself to build wealth. Yes, sir. Yeah, you know, working the baby steps, working your every dollar app.

And so you were ahead of me. I, I misjudged that. I apologize, Don, because you're already been on every dollar, your employer furnished. And I, sounds like the smart dollar people are in there helping. Yeah, and make it a goal to be like, hey, let's invest. What it would take us to pay this off. Let's have a goal to have that, that $30,000 invested of your own money, right? So you're using your paycheck to build your future.

Exactly. which would as a result, rather than going, oh, we can go buy something now. That's right. That's right. You know, it's kind of a nod to him. Yeah. Okay, we'll put $30,000 in the market now. And he's going to be glad he did this. Yes, yes.

And you're going to be glad you did it. And everybody's happy. And we got Sally Mae out of the spare bedroom. And again, that line can be tricky because when we talk about giving money to family, we never say to loan it, but the giving, if it messes up a relationship, if it gets odd, right, like you have to have some hard boundaries. but this is one instance where it's like the whole change your family tree. If you can get your kids out of debt and they're not entitled, you know, they're hardworking,

they have dignity, and then they can start building with themselves faster. That's part of that generational knowledge, which is so big that they can fiscally do. That puts us out of The Ramsey Show in 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.