The Ramsey Show - Steady Habits Build Lasting Wealth

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Starting point is 00:00:33 so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones here as we talk to you about your life and your money. The phone number is free at AAA 8255-225, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. John is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, John, how are you?

Starting point is 00:01:05 Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up? I guess we'll get to a little backstory, I guess, first. I'm 26, and my girlfriend, I should say, is 31. We don't live together. I have a home right across the state line. She lives with her parents. I have not kids. She has three with three different fathers. And me and her are just trying to get on board with the Dave Ramsey plan,

Starting point is 00:01:39 and I guess you could say struggling with that. In what way, John? What does that mean? Well, just I presented to her. I was following that route when I met her right at two years ago, and we've tried to do that on baby step two for the both of us. and I guess you could say just a few problems, you know, not living together, different households, and overall just ain't on board with the plan completely, I guess you could say.

Starting point is 00:02:14 She's not? Yes. Okay. So what you're saying is that she's okay with her money problems and you're not? Right, yeah. I ain't going to say it's, you know, completely based on, you know, hot and cold, I guess you could say. But yeah, that's pretty much overall that. Because what are the things specific, John, that you're like, okay, I want to, I want to do this.

Starting point is 00:02:40 I want to get out of debt and I want to live debt free. And she's what in debt doesn't care to get out and is okay with it. Like, is that one of the main rubs? You mentioned Baby Step 2, which is part of the plan of getting out of debt. Or is it saving? Is it investing? Is it giving? Is it all of it? Or just a certain part of the plan that you guys are having some concoct. conflict with. Well, to be honest, it's more so, hey, you know, we talk, we want to go down this road, we want to be here and do this. And for say a good example, we talk about this and then a couple months down the road, which was a few months back, she goes and purchases a new car, you know, that, and I would say we didn't need, you know. just overall not following, I guess you can say.

Starting point is 00:03:34 Okay. Well, here's the thing. If someone doesn't follow the Ramsey plan and you do, that's, you know, we're not the Bible. You know, we just teach biblical concepts. But, you know, you don't judge somebody based on that alone. But what this does indicate something deeper that is disturbing. So here's the numbers. the number one cause of fights and divorce in marriage is money and money problems.

Starting point is 00:04:05 And it's not really the money, it's what the money represents, because it represents your fears, your dreams, what you believe about life, who you believe is in charge, whether you're in charge or somebody else is in charge of your own life. Do you control your own destiny? and the way you handle money indicates all of those things, and that spills over then into your, it is your value system, and it spills over into your relationship. And so if we say the number one cause of, if you said the number one cause of death in your neighborhood was snake bite, and you saw snakes, well, you're worried if you're smart,

Starting point is 00:04:46 you know? And so the number one cause of marriage issues is this, and you've got this issue on the number one thing. And she's tried this at some level three times at least before. Right. So that's worrisome. And so if I'm coaching the two of you and you're sitting in front of me, I'm going to say the way you can tell if your potential marriage is going to work is to the extent you guys can get on the same page and stick to the page, whatever page it is, whether it's got Ramsey written on it or whether it's got something else written. Yeah, and the big subjects of life that we see eye to eye on, in-laws, faith, sex, money. I mean, it's the big stuff. And when we can see eye to eye on the value system,

Starting point is 00:05:31 you're just going to have a, I don't want to say, easier marriage. It's just, it's going to probably cause less tension because you're walking the same direction together instead of fighting against each other always. And in-laws is one of the four things that kills the marriage. Yeah. It's one of the top four. And so, you know, her mother won't shut up. You know, that'll kill a marriage, right? And she lives with them, by the way. So I'm not saying that's in the equation. I have no idea if it is here. And the same thing with religion. One of you says, I hate God and the other one that says, I believe in God and I do everything he says. Well, that's going to be a problem. You know, you can argue about who's right or wrong, but the fact that you're not on the same page is going

Starting point is 00:06:12 to be a problem. So these are the types of things that the data tells us mess up marriages. And if I know that going in. I don't want to take all the data and remove all romance and love from the equation. But love's not going to overcome those things for 10 years. Well, and there's also, John, and this is not to be judgmental on her by any means. I don't know her story. You gave us no context except that she's had three kids with three different people. You're the fourth one that you're starting this life with. And so any level of pattern that you see in your life, and hopefully for her to look back and just say, hey, what are patterns in my life? And I'm life that maybe are not the best things, not the best choices. And so, and what that can indicate

Starting point is 00:06:54 those character qualities in general feed into other areas of our life. So the fact that she says one thing and then goes and it's not like she ordered something on Amazon, she wouldn't pot a new car. You know what I mean? Like it was a big purchase. That's huge. It's very different than what was discussed. That's rebellious and defiant. Well, there's just, well, it's just a, well, it's just a, it's a, it's a lack of. It's a middle finger. No, no, that's very strong. It's a, it's a lack of out of debt. I'm going to go buy a new car. That's what that is. Yeah. And it's just like it's a lack of follow-through of what you said, right? And I don't know why you got the new car. I don't know. There's probably probably more details. But that's what I'm saying, though, is the character

Starting point is 00:07:30 quality, you have to be aware of things that have caused decisions in your life. And if those patterns can change, then the spouse you're going to marry is going to probably be a healthier person too, right? What do we tell John to do? It's an overall, it's an overall scope. I would continue to press in to have the conversation. And I would get pre-marriage counseling. Yeah, I would continue to push in. I sit down with a coach. And to know the why behind a lot of these decisions for her.

Starting point is 00:07:55 Yeah. What causes her to be okay, you know, with the subject? You could say debt as the subject. Like, what is in that with her and actually get to the bottom of it? Because there could be a level of digging that you actually find and you know her more. That's the thing with money. You pull a string and it goes all the way down to people's heart and soul. And that's in there for her.

Starting point is 00:08:13 So if I loved her, right, as you do it. John, like you would want to know those things about her. And then you have to make a decision, though, for John and what's best. And when you look out 10, 15 years, does this look like a life that you want to sign up for, you know? Yeah. But if my decision patterns cause me to have a new car in the driveway, I'm 31 and three kids and I live with my parents. I know. These aren't patterns. Not great ones. Yeah. Yeah. Problem. Problem. Yeah. When you've worked hard to buy a car the right way, you paid cash with no payment.

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Starting point is 00:11:10 How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've changed positions in the company that I've been working for for the last couple of years. And I'm making a significant amount of money over what I was making initially.

Starting point is 00:11:28 and it's kind of just piling up in the bank. I haven't invested any of it aside from just a company 401K, which comes out automatically. And I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to these things. So I've been back and forth reading different things online about what I should be doing with my money. Never really done anything with it thus far because I haven't had any professional advice,

Starting point is 00:11:52 just what I've read online. So I'm hoping that you can maybe guide me in a direction of where I should be putting my money, to work for me as opposed to earning less than 1% interest in a bank. Good for you. Good for you. Well, the good news is it's not rocket science. It's not that hard. This is not like learning a foreign language. It's much easier. Okay. And so it is a bit of a foreign language, but you just have to learn the vernacular and then you'll know what to do. What do you do for living? So I'm in sales. Good. What do you make?

Starting point is 00:12:26 By myself or my wife as well? Your household income. Why is this money piling? Probably just north of 200K gross between my wife and I. Good for you. Well done, sir. How much money do you have saved? Shane, you said it's just sitting in the bank and piling up. Yeah, so right now I have about 50,000 in the bank. I've only been in sales for the last six months, and I probably had 10,000 when I started. So I probably have saved 40 pay in the last six months. Good for you. Well, as far as investing goes, there's two principles that if you'll follow these two principles, you'll find your way through and do just fine. Okay. Actually, there's three, but I'll give you all three of them. Principle number one, don't ever put money in something you don't understand. Okay. You have not violated that. Congratulations. You've done very well. I met with an NFL player one time, and I sat down with him and his wife, and he said, Dave, you're going to kill me. And I'm like, like, what'd you do? Do you blow all your money? And he said, no, I got $10 million. I'm like,

Starting point is 00:13:31 well, what is it? Why am I going to kill you? You got $10 million. He said, it's all in CDs. It's horrible. That's not horrible. That's so much smarter than all the other people you play football with because they've all blown theirs or put it into their brother-in-law's pizza company that went broke. You know, so you know, you're very smart. Don't put money and stuff until you understand it. So I don't care how flashy the TikTok thing is or what Dave Ramsey says or what Rachel Cruz says, You understand it before you put money. Principle number one. Principle number two, plan to go slow.

Starting point is 00:14:04 The fastest way to get rich quick is don't. Get rich quick. The tortoise wins the race over the hair every time I read the book. Okay. And I've read it a bunch over and over. He always wins. And investing, you always win if you're slow and steady, wins the race.

Starting point is 00:14:25 That's the ESOP's fable. Okay? And then the third thing is don't get financial people in your life of any kind, real estate, insurance, investing, tax, whatever. This sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I have no idea what you're saying. You might as well speaking German to me. Okay.

Starting point is 00:14:47 And if they can't speak to you in such a way that they can teach you, they don't have the heart of a teacher, then they're just a salesman. a financial person. And financial people are the world's worst because a lot of us are nerds, and we like being impressive with our nerd knowledge more than we are concerned that you learn. Sure. And that goes back to the first one. Don't put money and stuff you don't understand. So if you sit down with a financial advisor and you're and your wife and your wife says, I got a bad feeling about him or her, don't go with them. Or if you sit down with them and you leave more confused than when you went in, don't go with them. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:31 They might be okay, but they're not okay for you. Now, now that we've established that, we can start talking about some of the cool stuff you could do for investing. Now, we teach a process for building wealth that we've taught for 30 years, plus called the baby steps. You probably heard of that, right? I do. I have. I actually have your total money makeover book. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So you know then that we're going to have. you have an emergency fund and have all your debts paid off except your home before we start investing. Do you have any debt other than your home? Yeah, so just my car or my truck and my wife's car. And how much is all that? Total probably 70,000. Okay, we're going to pay all that off before we do any investing then. Okay.

Starting point is 00:16:17 That's what we call Baby Step 2, if you remember the book. And then once that's done, I want you to set aside three to six months of expenses. in for an emergency fund. Being out of debt and having the rainy day fund is foundational to keep your investments safe. Your investments otherwise will turn, you'll pull money, I'll stop your 401K temporarily and knock those car debts out. Take all that 40K and throw it at the smallest car debt.

Starting point is 00:16:45 Let's get it all cleaned up. So if you got no payments, but a house payment and you got, I don't know, in your case $30,000 setting there in a money market account, only. to be touched for emergencies. It's not, I want to go on a trip fund. Yeah, that's one change I was going to say. Open up a high-yield savings account. Fair ones credit union's amazing. But they have a great smart bundle. So put it not in a traditional savings account, but in a high-yield savings account, because it goes from negative, I mean, basically not even 1%, to at least you're getting 3 to 4% sitting there for your emergency funds. For your emergency fund, right. And then,

Starting point is 00:17:19 with no payments, now you start really stacking money, you start putting 15% away in your 401k and Roth IRAs and Roth 401k's, and you can talk to one of the smart vestor pros at ramsysolutions.com, and they can help you. They will have the heart of a teacher. They don't get the Ramsey name put on them on our website unless they have the heart of a teacher. We won't put our name beside somebody that, and if we find out someone, doing the Charlie Brown's teacher thing, we fire them and get them out of the system

Starting point is 00:17:47 because we are hardcore about this. So if you do all of that, you're going to have so much stinking money. because I've got to tell you, one of the highest paid professions in the United States today is a good salesman. Yeah, it was pretty night and day. It's about three times what I was making with this same current company prior to this position. And it's just had a lot of nights where I didn't really know what we were going to do for certain things, right through your book, paid off some debts, credit cards, medical bills. Good.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Well, you're on the way. And now we're just at a point where I have too much money. I don't know what to do with it based off of, you know, my own ignorance with finances. With investing, with investing, you start investing in good mutual funds, and they're real easy to understand. It's 90 to 200 stocks. You look at the track record of the fund that was mutually funded by you, me, and a bunch of other people together.

Starting point is 00:18:49 And you go, okay, that group of that, pile of money has been growing at an average rate of 11% or 10% or 22% or whatever it is. And you look at, oh, it's done that for 32 years. Oh, okay, I feel pretty good about that. That's like buying a house in a good neighborhood. Yeah. And Shane, when you get to that 15%, honestly, the investment advice, as you, if you dig into more of what we talk about, it's not going to be a lot of flashy stuff. I mean, honestly, the 15% into retirement, 401ks, raw fire raise, you know, the standard. And anything beyond that is just mutual funds. I mean, index funds. Like, it's nothing, there's no day trading, no crypto. Like, there's nothing big

Starting point is 00:19:28 and flashy, real estate, Airbnb, you know, Airbnb investing. Like, there's, you'll find none of that because, again, it's, it's, it's quote unquote, not exciting investing advice, but the amount of babysapsed millionaires that are out of, have done this and have built wealth slowly over time because it is the most stable way to build wealth versus all the flashiness. So again, it's not super exciting, but it is consistent. The difference is it actually works. It works, yep. Hey guys, George Camel here.

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Starting point is 00:21:47 Hi, David. How are you? Hi, David and Rachel. How are you guys? Better than we deserve, sir. What's up? Cool. Thank you for taking my call. My wife and I are, we've been working the baby steps for a business. about the last eight months, and we were on baby step six. We are at the point where we have to kind of navigate a bad decision we made when we bought our house two years ago.

Starting point is 00:22:16 We bought a house, and our mortgage is 50% of our take-home pay, and we're just trying to figure out if it's the right move to sell it, or if we kind of stick it out and see if we can come up with a better solution. When you say take-home pay, what do you mean coming out of your check? So we bring home $12,000 a month after taxes, and our mortgage is $6,065. But after taxes, 401K, health insurance, what else is coming? What's coming out of the check other than taxes? Yeah, 401K's health insurance and taxes.

Starting point is 00:22:57 Okay. Taxes is all we're talking about when we say take-home pay. So how much is going in your 401k a month? I do 15% of 100,000, and then my wife's salary is 75,000. And we do 5% of her pay goes into her 401k. Okay, that's close to $2,000 a month. All right. And how much is the health insurance? The health insurance is around $250 every two weeks. So 500. And then, yeah, we have a, we're self-employed, so our company pays 75% of the health insurance. Okay. All right.

Starting point is 00:23:51 All right. Well, I mean, so when we mean take-home pay, we mean $2,500 more, so we mean $14,000 and some change. Okay? Yes, correct. That would be your take-home pay. So that would put you at about 40%, not 50, but still it's very tough. And so the principle is when your house payment is too big a percentage of your take-home pay, you become mathematically what we call house poor.

Starting point is 00:24:16 You don't have any wiggle room to do anything else. How much debt have you paid off and how long did it take you in this recent debt run you did? Yeah, we paid off around 120,000 in the last. last eight months. While fighting this big mortgage? Yes, sir. Dang. Did you all sell anything? Yeah, I wanted Dave. Probably, I had a Shelby G2-500 that I had a loan on, but I did have a decent amount of equity in that car, so that helped pay off some other debt. Okay. Yeah, it's just a lot. How much of the 120 was that? We sold for $94,000. Yeah, I was that. Yeah, I was But I did all $65,000.

Starting point is 00:25:04 So 94, the 120 was one stroke. Okay. Yep. Because you threw the rest of it at another debt. Yeah. So your equity. Well, 94 is what I sold the car for. I'm sorry.

Starting point is 00:25:14 I know. I know. But you threw the other, you paid off the car and you took the other 34 and put it on debt, right? Yeah, correct. So of the 120, 94 was just simply moving the Mustang. Yeah. Wow.

Starting point is 00:25:26 That made you cry a little, but it was also a brilliant move. Okay. Other than that, then, so that leaves you with 30,000 you reduced during the same eight months while having this big mortgage. What else did you sell? That was the only thing we sold. We did have savings. Like I said, we were very new to this. How much was in savings? We had 175,000 in savings. So you pulled that out and paid off the rest of this? Correct. So you did not cash flow any of this debt reduction then? No.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Okay. So we're back to the mortgage being a problem now. So what's left in savings? Between the emergency fund and just a high-yield savings around $125,000. What's your balance on your mortgage? 700,000. What's your interest rate? 7%.

Starting point is 00:26:25 You might consider dropping another 100 on that and refinancing it. You can get a lot. You probably get a five and a half this week on a 15-year-fix. That was one of our thoughts. Get a better interest rate and recast the mortgage because you're throwing 100 or 150 at the thing, getting it down to 550. I think we got a workable deal. Do you like the house? That's another part. My wife and I were talking about. We were recently, we're both saved last year. And it's a nice house. But it's a nice house. we really like to simplify our life and we want to be able to kind of give more right now. So we're kind of...

Starting point is 00:27:05 I mean, if you want to sell it anyway, that's okay. I was fighting to keep it for a minute, hoping you, thinking you wanted to keep it. But if you want to sell it anyway, it makes the whole equation, right? But as far as do you have to sell it because of this percentage of your real take-home pay, not counting 401K and health insurance? Probably not. but if you want to sell it and downsize to get a simplified life, use the equity from the house, get a lower interest rate,

Starting point is 00:27:34 use the 100 and some change, maybe 150 out of savings, dump it on there. I mean, you're going to have a lot more wiggle room if you do that, obviously. Yeah, so we have had the house listed for the last month, and we've had 10 or 12 showings, and it's looking like after, talking with our realtor, we probably, since the house is so new, it hasn't quite built up. Equity, we, before we bought this, before we knew anything about you and didn't put any money

Starting point is 00:28:05 down, we'll probably have to pay somewhere around $50,000 to get out of it. That's the part we're struggling with. Is that smart, or do we stick it out and wait for equity to build, or do we just pay the stupid tax? You don't have to sell it to get ahead. You're going to prosper, because you've been willing to make sacrificial moves, you're being very intentional about everything, you know your numbers, I think you're going to be okay if you keep it. I would consider refinancing it

Starting point is 00:28:36 and putting 100 or 150 down on the balance and putting it at a five and a half on a 15 year. I would consider doing that. How old are you guys, David? Get in touch with Churchill mortgage and see if they can help you with that. How old are you guys? I am 30 and my wife is 28.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Okay. Yeah. I probably would do that and then sit there for two years. And then if I'm still feeling a pinch and I want to still feel in this push to simplify, then sell it and you'll probably make some money. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:07 And I was going to say, I mean, if you guys, your voice is deep, David, I was like, I don't know, he could be 55. He can be 25. I don't know how old this guy is. Because if you were closer to even retirement age, right, and you didn't have a lot saved or something like that, right? and there may be a big financial move you guys do to stockpiles some money if you're close to that. You got time. But you're fine.

Starting point is 00:29:26 You're 30. So, yeah, that's, that would be another element of why I could see someone wanting to simplify to get more cash flow to start investing more. But you guys are great. Yeah, you're doing the good, the good news about every single thing we asked you, you knew the answer. You're on it. You're dialed in. And that, that is a, that's half the battle. Emily's in Montreal.

Starting point is 00:29:49 All. Hi, Emily. How are you? Hi, Dave. Good, thanks. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I just exited baby step two on Thursday of last week, and yesterday my car was stolen. That was my only debt. And I'm expecting about $45,000 to $50,000 pay out from insurance because it was stolen. And I'm out of crossroads. We're going to do with that. Either do I get the exact same car that was stolen, which I loved so much. Do I take this opportunity to maybe downsize? my car and use the money for something else, like starting a business or anything else? Or do I potentially just stay in my current job and get something a bit most too efficient? I make $60,000 a year. You don't need a $45,000 car if you make $60,000, even if it's paid for it. I know. I know I don't. I'm driving like a thousand kilometers a week to go to work. You don't want to destroy a $1,000 car.

Starting point is 00:30:44 I mean, a $45,000 car driving that much if you're that broke. No. So, yes, I would move down in car. We don't tell people to buy more than half their annual income in cars. And so that means you take 30 of the 45 at a max and buy a two-year-old version of what you just had stolen. Wow, what a story. Just got out of debt and they stole my car. I stole my car. Yeah, use the rest as an emergency fundamentally.

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Starting point is 00:32:36 back control of your privacy. Go to join deleteme.com slash Ramsey and get 20% off your annual plan. That's join deleteme.com slash Ramsey. Michael is in Billings, Montana. Hey, Michael, what's up? Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Hi, so I'm 26, and I'm looking to get engaged here soon.

Starting point is 00:33:11 But my girlfriend and I, we have very different networks, and I was curious what or how you would look at setting up a pre-up. What does very different net worth mean? Okay. So I was very blessed. My grandparents did very well. I have about $550,000 paid for a house, about $50,000 in a truck. I also have about 135 between my 401k and my various accounts.

Starting point is 00:33:42 I also have $350K in leftover in a college fund. She is currently in PA school, and she will be coming out of school. with about 120 to 150,000 in debt. What do you make? I make about 100, well, I'm in sales, so 120 to 150 a year. Okay. If I were in your shoes, I would get so comfortable with this lady in order to marry her that I don't need a pre-nup.

Starting point is 00:34:17 You don't have enough net worth to fool with it. Okay. If you can't get $600,000 worth of comfortable with somebody, you don't need to marry them. Okay. If you had $60 million from your grandparents, we'll talk about a pre-mup. Okay. But $600K, no. I wouldn't.

Starting point is 00:34:38 Would you, Rachel? No, I mean, the only thing I could think of, if I'm in her shoes and the script was flipped, and I'm marrying a guy, he's coming out, and I had built a life for me, and I had bought my own. home and I had done some big things. I could see like the home for instance maybe if something were to ever happen. Yeah, because the thing that's hard with pre-ups is like the laws in every state with divorce are different. Okay. And so there's going to be something that is going to happen if that happens. So are you proactive about that on the front end? Up to you. People nowadays are getting more and more comfortable with it because people are getting married later with some established

Starting point is 00:35:20 financial life versus two 21-year-olds who have nothing and they're, you know, getting married. So more and more we get this call. And I think my, my, I had a pretty black and white take on it for years of like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And now there's just a part of me that I'm like, maybe maybe one part of this that you're like, yeah, if something were to happen, I have built a life, right? I mean, I know people that have their own businesses and that kind of thing. I don't know. Again, if you've got a substantial net worth, and I'm not, your grandparents blessed you. There's no question about that. But this is about 600 grand.

Starting point is 00:35:56 And, you know, it's, it's okay. It's okay if you get one. It's more like a million. He has a $550, $350,000 and like everything together. Yeah. It's probably more like a million. Okay. So if you want to do it, it's okay.

Starting point is 00:36:12 I just want you to be really, really sure that the problem is, Everybody throws this subject against the wall as if it solves something. Yeah, yeah. And I don't want you to think it solves anything. Yeah. All it solves for is if you divorce, it doesn't mean that you've actually sat down and got to know each other. It doesn't mean that you sat down and agreed, okay, here's how we're going to spend the parent, my grandparents' money that they gave me is going to pay off your student loans when we come home from the honeymoon. You've got to solve for that.

Starting point is 00:36:45 emotionally. And that's a blessing. By the way, I would do that. Yeah, 100%. You've got $350,000 in a college account. You can use it for your spouse, and I'd pay off that debt in about 20 seconds. And, you know, that kind of stuff. And you've got to emotionally, is this relationship, because the only chance you have in a

Starting point is 00:37:07 culture that hates marriage for your marriage to last is you've got to be willing to die for them. you got to be willing to take a bullet for you. You got to be, it's all in. Ride or die, as Deloney says. This is, we're in. And so the problem with the pre-nup is it's kind of got one foot in a boat, one on the dock. You know, and it's like, you know, and I want you to go all in.

Starting point is 00:37:32 And then if you've emotionally, relationally with some good marriage coaching, counseling, solve for all the all-in part. and you're ready to write a check and pay off for student loans when you get back for the honeymoon and then and if on top of that you want to do a pre-nup, okay, I'm not going to yell at you for that

Starting point is 00:37:51 for a million dollars. But I really want you to think that's right. Yeah, because I think what, and again, I'm like saying this out loud as I'm like processing it because I think to the downside of people that do pre-nups,

Starting point is 00:38:06 so that's probably a generalization. But is that you're starting out emotionally saying financially this is mine and this is you over here. And that can tend to then go into the marriage where that's financially where we say no, you're all in. So if you had a, if you did do a pre-up and you're like if the worst of the worst of the worst happens and, you know, we do the divorce, you know, court or whatever and this is how assets are divided. But inside the marriage from that point on, we are co-mingling finances. Mine is, what's mine is yours? Yes, and net worth. but everything then is together.

Starting point is 00:38:42 Yeah. And I don't know how that plays. I don't know. But so that's my caution with it too. I don't like that emotional hurdle. But yet, again, I mean, I'm like, I can't help myself. But when we sit on this side of the desk, we have so many calls of people who have walked through divorce and all,

Starting point is 00:38:59 you know what you mean? And someone that brings in something or had a business. I mean, I've had people in my own life and that's happened to. And you're just like, man. Yeah. What I always want to do is force people to, to set that aside and act like it's not there. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:13 And get okay with that. Yes. And that level of commitment. Yep. And then, if you want to do it, fine. But what it does, it keeps people from going deep. Right. Right.

Starting point is 00:39:22 It keeps them from going in all the way to ground floor. And you've got to do that for your marriage to have a chance. The unity. In a culture where marriage is, we're at war against marriage. I mean, it's like, it's crazy. It's just not a priority for some people. You know what I mean? Exactly.

Starting point is 00:39:40 Yeah. Well, you know, the other one that's interesting, Rachel, on that side of the thing. Of course, when I started a long time ago, I just said, never do a pre-nual. Yeah. On the basis of what we've just been saying. Yes. But then I ran into weirdness where somebody's got two or three million dollars and the other one's broke. And it's not the person, usually.

Starting point is 00:39:57 It's like I find out that there's a weird brother-in-law or cousin in the mix, you know? And it's like, it just cleans up the external family. Because what the brother-in-law? The pre-n-up, you're like, I can't touch it. It's not mine. You know, so her crazy brother, you know, starts coming at the new husband. And it's like, fun's this. I want to do this.

Starting point is 00:40:15 It's handled. It's already handled. You can't get to it. So you got, because it's, there's crazy in every family. And if you think there's not, it's you know. And so that's what you're looking for. And then Deloney and I were having this discussion. He's doing all this marriage research right now.

Starting point is 00:40:32 And he had a guy come at him. And we had this great discussion the other day when we're traveling together. and that a guy made the point that a pre-up is like a will because if you don't do a will, the state has a set of laws on how your assets will be divided. If you don't do a pre-nup, the state has a set of laws and divorce of how you're going to be divided.

Starting point is 00:40:53 And they said, but we tell everybody to do a will to pre-plan, so the state is not in charge. But you are 100% going to be anti-government, Dave. Dave is about as anti-government as anybody you'll ever meet, classic hillbilly right like you know don't like them revenues and so um you know that kind of stuff and so if you want to be real anti-government dave you would do everybody a pre-nup so the government's not decided for yeah you're the one to say that's an interesting philosophical discussion it didn't sway me but it's it's worth talking about but also you're a hundred percent going to die so you're

Starting point is 00:41:25 100 percent going to use your will that's what i said too that's that's that was part of my answer too you half may use the pre-up half may not that's a good point but that's my thing too and and again the And honestly, the reality we live in today, people are getting married later, and they're coming and established with something. But that adds to the danger because you've got this independence. Yes. And in order to have a quality relationship, that has to go away. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:41:54 Yeah. You have to become interdependent to have a quality relationship. Yes, yes. Submit yourselves one to another, Ephesians says, right? there's a submission to each other, not I'm over here and I'm established. You know, and that's a spirit that's got to be broken. And again, I don't know the laws of this. We're going in circles here.

Starting point is 00:42:14 No, I like it. But could the pre-nup be, right, if you started a business, right, and it's killing it and you're the owner of it, but you get married, could the pre-nup say, in a middle of divorce, you don't get to touch the business, it's mine. But in the marriage, what I bring home, it's everyone. So that makes sense? You could do that. You could do that.

Starting point is 00:42:31 The dividing line. I don't know. How to say unified. the marriage, but also a reality. But I would also add that from today forward, the marriage grows partially because of the marriage. Oh, the value of the business. The business grows partially because of the value of marriage adding into the business. I think that's fair. Running a business is hard work. You're the CEO, the accountant, and the sales team. You don't have time to moonlight as your own benefits department. That's where health trust financial helps. In fact, health insurance is one of the biggest and most

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Starting point is 00:43:56 insurance. Go to health trustfinancial.com today. That's health trustfinancial.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Brandon is in Chicago. Hi, Brandon. How are you? Hi, Dave.

Starting point is 00:44:26 Hi, Rachel. What's up? I'm doing pretty good. My fiancé and I are getting married in about four weeks' time now. Oh, gosh. Congratulations. Thank you. We are looking to buy a house.

Starting point is 00:44:40 I've done your financial piece twice. She's done it once. We've done all the baby steps. We're investing, got emergency funds, got a decent stack of cash packed piled up, and we just don't want to make the wrong decision on buying a house, and everything seems out of reach. What's your combined income is going to be? We'll be about 120.

Starting point is 00:45:09 I don't want to base it off that because we would like to start having, children soon, sooner rather than later. So I'd like to base it off mine, which is currently 70. So yeah. And how much cash do you have saved? About 70 grand. Good for you. Good for you. Okay. My screen says you're in Chicago. Chicago proper? Northwest Indiana. Okay. But the Chicago Greater Metro area? Yes. Okay. Probably not going buy a house on 70,000 in the greater metro area of Chicago. And honestly, not always because of the house prices, but the property tax. People that, we know, move from Chicago, it's not even the price of the home.

Starting point is 00:45:50 It's keeping the taxes. The taxes itself are what's impossible. Now, if you're in Indiana and you get across the line out of Illinois, is that where you are? Yes, I'm in northwest Indiana. Well, that helps with a tax issue then. Yeah. But still, you're in a major metro market that's a very expensive city. It's one of the largest cities in the world.

Starting point is 00:46:13 And so that's expensive real estate. You're probably also not going to buy in San Francisco, San Diego, or Manhattan on 70 grand a year, or Miami on 70 grand a year. Or Nashville, Tennessee. No, you can buy in Nashville, Tennessee. Outskirts. But, I mean, the point is that that's what you're facing. So what you want is some things that aren't compatible. You want her to be able to stay at home and live in an area that your income won't afford.

Starting point is 00:46:43 to buy a home. And so you're going to make a choice here somewhere. And, you know, if you want to stay at home, you're going to move further out. You're going to move out to the country. Or you guys, you know, save like crazy for two, three years. You know what I mean? Keep stacking cash and seeing what happens there? I don't mind. I don't mind the country at all. We're looking even for south and further east. What are the average prices of the homes you're looking at then? I mean, for a basic fixer-up or you're at least $250. Oh, definitely.

Starting point is 00:47:25 Yeah. You're not in the Chicago land for that. Okay. All right, good. And you can do that. You can probably pull that off. But... Well, even at $250, I feel like that puts our mortgage above, you know, the recommended

Starting point is 00:47:40 25% of the income. Yeah, it will, it won't for now, but it would when she quits. And then that also, the $250,000 house is going to require us to put money up front to fix and, you know, fix whatever is broken in the house. Be careful. Yeah, just be careful. They're not nice houses. Yeah, be careful. I mean, it can be done.

Starting point is 00:48:05 And as you figured out the, and with the numbers you're giving me, you're being very wise, okay. But I thought you were talking about, I can't afford a $700,000, $800,000 house. And I'm saying, yeah, you can't. No, no, no. But, you know, that's where I was. But there's in the real estate field, urban growth, there's a thing we call the ring theory. And with exceptions, but as a general rule, if you drop a pebble in the central business district, the main downtown area, every ring that that pebble, the water goes out, gets cheaper with the exception of mountains for views and lakes and golf courses.

Starting point is 00:48:48 But if you stay away from those three things, it gets cheaper as you go out until you touch another area. That's another metro area. But, you know, to live in the close proximity to downtown Chicago is much more expensive than it is to live 50 miles outside over in Indiana. You know, as you have found, you already have realized that whether you realized it or not. Yeah. But that's what you're seeing. So just be careful and be thoughtful, and you're already doing that. I think you're going to be okay.

Starting point is 00:49:18 And no, Brandon, too. You know, your income will continue to go up, too. So that 25% doesn't stay stagnant at a house payment, right? Because, I mean, if you guys bring home, you know, five grand a month, for instance, you know, off yours, you're looking at a $2,000 payment. $1,250, yeah. Yeah. So, but think that you're 70, hopefully will be 75 soon. And then eight, you know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:49:45 You will continue to go up. Exactly. It's not, the thing you've got to remember about personal finance, it's a film strip. It's not a snapshot. It's a moving target. Everything is moving over time and you're not stuck there. But just continue to be thoughtful about it and don't just throw up your hands. What we want to coach people about on this affordability in air quotes,

Starting point is 00:50:06 discussion is to say, well, you know, I don't have, math doesn't count because I want a house. And that's what we want to stop you from doing and say, well, in my area and math doesn't, he's not saying any of that. He's saying he's being very wise and thoughtful about how he's approaching it. But we run into these people that when I want something and I can't afford it, I don't know about you, but I kind of have this little drama queen fit, like a little child having a hissie fit, like down inside of me. You know, I want that, I want that, I want that, and I can't afford it. I went that and I can't afford it.

Starting point is 00:50:40 And I deserve it because I work so hard. Yeah. Oh, brother. Well, so I just said quick math here. So if his payment was, yeah, $2,000, yeah, in today's, it would be a $275 to $340,000 home. But he's making, they're currently making $120. That's right. They're not even married.

Starting point is 00:50:59 So that's, and they're already having kids in their head. That's true. They're engaged. That's right. That's right. I know. So he's way, pretty. injecting out into the future on this.

Starting point is 00:51:07 That's the thing, too, is like if you guys waited two to three years to buy a home, you're okay. Or buy the house now on 120. Yeah. And two or three years before she comes home, by then you're making 80 and you've got everything stabilized. You're going to be okay. Yes, yes. But don't, but just don't, you know. You hate the complaining.

Starting point is 00:51:27 You do, Dave. I do. And I get it. No, I hate the drama queen because it's inside of me too. I know, I know. It's inside of me. All of us have to. It's called growing up.

Starting point is 00:51:35 It is. But also, I think we can all say out loud, it is, it is, you hate when I say this, but it is true. It is harder today. I know. Because of the income and the, like, so, so we acknowledge it. It is hard and it sucks. As a general rule, but that's not, that doesn't mean you get a pass on math. You don't get a pass. And you get to go destroy your life because they went something. No, you don't. I know. I know. But it just, it's like a, it's like a man, this is not what it was. And now we have to move forward. That is why I hate when people just complain on Instagram or TikTok about it. And there's no solution.

Starting point is 00:52:06 And we try to give solutions to say, hey, you are. You're going to have to move out further. The solution is exactly the same one in college. Where you buy. Yes, yes. Changes everything. Yeah. You can't call me up and say, I want to live in Silicon Valley.

Starting point is 00:52:21 Be James and just live in a... Where's James live? It's not a tiny home. It's a log cabin. Log cabin. James has a log cabin. So there you go. We love it.

Starting point is 00:52:30 He's a homesteader. I didn't know. James? Mm-hmm. Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes. Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life

Starting point is 00:53:16 insurance from Zander is essential, because it protects your family if the worst happens. Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage, no gimmicks, no whole life, junk, just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance. Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them. Life insurance steps in when you die. Disability insurance steps in while you're alive, but can't work. So it replaces a large part of your income, so the bills still get paid while you get back on your feet. Now, if your employer gives you free disability insurance, great. Take it. If it's discounted there at a better price, take it. But if not, Zander can help you find the right plan.

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Starting point is 00:54:23 It's easy, and it could make all the difference. go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. Sorry, a little backed up, a little hard to get in here. But if you got a money question and you want an answer for your situation, head on over to the website and use Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained only on proven Ramp.

Starting point is 00:55:10 MZ principles. So like we loaded three years or four years worth of this show in there as the data set and we loaded all the books we've written and the articles we've written and all that stuff as the data set. So there's no garbage in there from TikTok or from trash, you know, from some get rich quick thing built into it. So the data set is all stuff we have said. And that's all AI is. It just regurgitates what the data set is. So it's going to answer the question exactly like one of us would. Hello. That's exactly how it works. You get an answer the same way we'd answer it right there on the show. It's completely free.

Starting point is 00:55:44 Ask Ramsey at Ramsey Solutions.com. Go check it out. It's pretty cool. Thousands of people are using it every day. It's crazy, y'all. I mean, the blowing up. All right. Rachel is in West Virginia.

Starting point is 00:55:57 Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Okay, so I'm having a hard time making the best financial decision for my future. So right now, I'm currently a waitress making around 100K a year.

Starting point is 00:56:19 I've probably made a little over 40-some this year so far. Good for you. You're working hard. Good for you. But I've been considering going to nursing school. And that would be $25,000 for just the LPN program. but it would also be making less money than I make now. No, not much.

Starting point is 00:56:44 You're working a lot of hours to make $100K on tables. How many hours you work in a week? So I'm only working like 38 to 40 hours. You got a good restaurant? Yeah. That's a high ticket item. All right. Nice place.

Starting point is 00:57:03 What's the, what's the, nursing position you're looking at what is what's market value for that job per year 80 to 100 Rachel so that so the LPN program is 25,000 and it says the average salary for that is 50 but then if you would go back and get your R in which sometimes you can get a job that would pay for that part of the schooling then it is usually around 100k. Okay. Have you called? Have you called around different places of employment that you would probably be interested in and talk to anyone about what they're, you're just finding these stats online? So I was already accepted into the LPN program, and that is the one that is $25,000.

Starting point is 00:57:53 And then they told me after I would graduate the LPN program, if I would accept a job, most jobs would pay to go back to get your R in. Agreed. But most jobs pay more than 50 on LPN. to. Yeah. And the other thing is you can get all the work you want. Nursing is possibly one of the most stable. I mean, I've been doing this 30 years, and I've never heard of a single year when there was an overage of nurses. There's always a shortage. So you can always learn the job. There's a lot of different kinds of jobs you can do as a nurse. And you can work at a doctor's office Monday through

Starting point is 00:58:31 Friday and work ER and clean up on the weekends if you want to stack some cash for a short time as a part-time gig once you've got your degree. So I love nursing. Yeah, and the 50 a year, Rachel, is only, well, let's say it is. It's only for a second because you're going to be there. They're going to pay for you to go to school and then you'll jump in salary. You don't mean like it's a stepping stone if it is. It's not going to be your forever salary. Yeah. So that's how I would look at it, if that is the case in West Virginia where you are, versus. waitressing, I mean, the fact you made you 100 grand is amazing, but that's probably capped, right? Like, that's probably, you can only work, you know, so much doing that. And so I do wonder.

Starting point is 00:59:11 I don't think you've got a chance to go to 150 there, do you? Yeah, no. And it really could end any time. That's just that restaurant. If that would close, then I'd be true. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So, but I would call around too, Rachel, because them just throwing numbers out at the school, I probably would do my own research, too, just to be curious about what people are paying. And it also depends on whether you're, you know, how rural an area of West Virginia you're in. Mm-hmm.

Starting point is 00:59:40 Okay, if you're in small town, West Virginia in the mountains, yeah, 50 might be right. But if you're in a metro area, it's more like 60 or 80. Okay. All right. And because we work with nurses all the time. I mean, it's, and I'm just a, from a wealth building perspective, a stable perspective, you always have.

Starting point is 01:00:01 have work perspective. You can choose the environment you want to be in perspective. It's a great career. Okay. And then my other question is, would you get, so with it being $25,000, would you get a loan to have you had money during school or pay out of cash? We never tell anybody to get a loan. Okay.

Starting point is 01:00:28 No, we always want you to be dead for you. You got some money stacked, don't you? Yeah, I mean, I paid off all the mine credit cards and my car. Okay, good. But you're making 100. You can stack up 25 by the time you need it. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:46 If you just, you're real careful. I'm so proud of you. Way to go. I mean, but the difference is not the snapshot of today. The difference is what's the best decision 10 years from today? Nursing or tables. nursing. Yep.

Starting point is 01:01:04 Slam dunk. How old are you, Rachel? I'm 26. Okay. Perfect. Good for you. I think that's great. Yeah, I just, I see you being a very successful, wealthy 55-year-old nurse.

Starting point is 01:01:15 I don't see you being a successful, wealthy 55-year-old waitress. Yeah, that's kind of how I see it, too. Yeah. I think it's a great step, girl. Do it. Have that it, kiddo. Yeah. Be careful and be thoughtful and milk it for everything it's worth, meaning get the best highest-paying job.

Starting point is 01:01:32 possible that pays you all they will pay you. And get some knowledge again. I would call around to hospitals and clinics and stuff and just say, hey, starting out, I'm just curious, what average salary are you paying for this? And just collect some data too, because I think that's going to maybe, I think it's going to be more, you're going to see a better picture, not a worse picture than that 50. I think it'll be more. And I would frame this differently in my head. Okay, like, I want to go back to school and pay $25,000 to make half of what I used to make. That's not the story here. We would not tell you to do that.

Starting point is 01:02:07 But I want to go back to, I want to pay $25,000 and go to school for a career that has a much better future and a higher upside financial. And I might have to take a little bit of a step back temporarily. That's a different story. And you need to frame the decision making on that story, not on a, I just want to do what I love and I'm going to make half. That's not your story. You're not one of those. That's a fruit loop. You don't want to do that.

Starting point is 01:02:32 I just want to follow my passion and be broke. No. You get so annoyed with those people too. I know. That's just dumb. Dave has not been in the studio for a while. All of his grievances are coming out on this show. Whenever he comes back, he's always like, oh, those people annoyed me.

Starting point is 01:02:47 I'm going to talk about those people. I have not had a single person annoy me. No one has annoyed me. People that complain about houses being high. You don't like them. You don't like the people like, I'm going to follow my passion in my class. It was that way when I left and it was that way when I came back. I had nothing to do with while I was gone.

Starting point is 01:03:03 But anyway, the people I've been with were very sweet. Thank you very much. No, no. No, they weren't annoying. I'm saying people in America that annoy you. I know. I have not had any interaction with those people. At least he's not spreading libel about my housing situation.

Starting point is 01:03:19 Yeah, Rachel, I didn't throw James's house under the bus. You took his log cabin and turned it into a tiny house. James, I'm sorry. That's a wrong set of information. I think James, he lives in a log Kevin Palace as far as I'm concerned. I think he does. On acreage. On acreage.

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Starting point is 01:05:36 This is a paid advertisement. NMLSID 1591. In the MLS Consumer Access.org, Eagle Housing Lender. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage, Aaron and Megan are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you? Great. I am so pumped. to be here. I don't know if you can tell, but man. Hey, we're honored to have you. Where do you guys

Starting point is 01:06:06 live? Richmond, Virginia. All right, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $660,000. Goodness. How long did this take? Four years. Whoa. Wow. All right. There's a story here. And your range of income during this 48 months. Started around 240, ended up around 300. Wow. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a physician. And I have a small business. We do screen print, embroidery, contract stuff. Palettes and pallets of T-shirts. And $660,000.

Starting point is 01:06:40 I was going to guess mortgage, but then you said MD, so student loans or mortgage or both? Both. Oh, good. That three house and everything. Hell yeah. Amazing. Weirdos. Oh, look.

Starting point is 01:06:51 Oh, there's the doctor's house. Okay, I'll see it now. All right. We repainted. I like it. I like it. I like the blue shutters. I liked it.

Starting point is 01:06:59 That's fun. Oh, y'all, that's great. Congratulations. How old are you two? I'm almost 35. 38. And you have a paid for house and a paid for MD degree. Wow. How much of this was student loans? How much was the house? The house was 317. The rest were student loans. Whoa.

Starting point is 01:07:15 Half and half. About half, yeah. Wow. So you come out of med school and he's printing t-shirts like a crazy man, like hand over fist, and you're going to work like all the time, and you're going to clean this mess up. And you went on and just plowed right on through the house and everything. Yeah. Well, we only met like, five years ago. So he kind of buried into the debt. Yeah. Ah, okay. He says, yeah. It was scary. What caused, yeah, what happened? Okay, so all that was four years ago. So what happened four years ago? Well, we got, we got married. Um, and we start looking at this. It's like, okay, you can reform.

Starting point is 01:07:51 You know, you can reform. We've got all this stuff. We've got to get rid of it. Um, yeah, it was real scary. It's just the daily compounding. I looked at those interest payments and it's like, we got to get rid of this. I still had credit cards. Yeah. No debt, but credit cards. And so, and I had some savings, but I wasn't making any loan payments because they were in deferment. And so we just got every dollar. We started and it just, yeah, it's no boss. So I have been listening to you guys probably since 2012. Yeah, so. He's a disciple. Yeah, I'm a little bit of a disciple. I'm a little bit of a disciple. I've always run my business that way, you know, debt-free. And always tried to keep my expenses low. And, you know, because- You knew the antidote and you were a wee bit excited to attack this.

Starting point is 01:08:33 I was so ready. I bet you were over the top, though. Was he over the top? He was him. He was him. I just say 10% over-the-top. Not over-crazy. It's a good over-the-top. That's the way I like him. It's a good over-the-top. I mean, you came at her with like a fire hose, though, right? I mean, like, yeah, she was drinking from it, though. I had her drinking. She was going for it. Yeah. Okay. So you'd had enough too.

Starting point is 01:08:58 You wanted out. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it wasn't a big argument or anything. It was just a big mountain. No, that's one of our big strengths, I think, is, you know, we've always kind of been on the same page on money and we, you know. It's awesome.

Starting point is 01:09:11 Okay. So did you guys, what was one of the big things you did that you were like, this helped so much? Was the income, I mean, you guys, you did great on the income side. He drove, drove that income. He was a maniac. I mean, the first, you know, a couple years we were together, 100 hours a week. I mean, always at the shop, leaving.

Starting point is 01:09:25 The house at 3 a.m. getting home at 9 p.m. Sunday to Saturday. I was doing telehealth. I was taking like 25 nights a month of hospice call. Whoa. I'm also in the reserve. So I drill one weekend a month. So we just were working nonstop. Oh my gosh. Four jobs. Yeah. Wow. Did the reserves pick up any of this? A little bit. Okay. Yeah. Like a 10 grand hit or something? Yeah. A couple loan repayments. Yeah. Yeah. I thought they had a hit on that. Yeah. So what happens now? Now that everything, you've paid everything off. What is life look like because I mean that's intense what you guys just explained by furniture yeah yeah we still have one unfurnished room in our house we took us two years to buy furniture

Starting point is 01:10:04 after we bought it yeah but I mean we have two boys who we absolutely love um maybe one a third yes and just get them set up for success that's amazing and not working 90 hours no yeah yeah we we want our time back it's amazing it's your life back but now you you earned it back and you're done I mean four years of hell and you're 100% free yeah the rest of your life. So what's the home worth probably? It's in the fives. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:10:30 Okay. And how much you got built up in the nest eggs? What's in your 401? Oh, yeah, like 180. 180 plus... Yeah, it's all through work. A little over two. Okay.

Starting point is 01:10:46 All right. So you're right at millionaire status then? Yeah, close. Yeah. Baby steps millionaires. Making a couple of hundred. You can do whatever you want to do the rest of your life. But you roll, you hit it hard there for a period of time.

Starting point is 01:10:57 Yeah. A lot of money. mac and cheese. Was it worth it? I'm never, I'm not eating any more mac and cheese. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:11:02 Was it worth it? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a best thing we've ever done, you know, financially, but also for our marriage. It's helped us a lot. Communication.

Starting point is 01:11:12 And just sticking to a plan and doing something together every month, you know, we're doing the budget. We're reconciling, you know, going through all the steps. Walking through it all together. How old are the boys? They're both under two.

Starting point is 01:11:24 So 22 months and eight months. Okay. So they were all through this whole process. Toward the end of the journey. you were having babies too, which is a whole other feat, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've done all of that. So gosh, you guys, you lived a lot of life in four years.

Starting point is 01:11:36 Congratulations. Marriage and babies and debt-free. Thank you. What do you tell people if they say, can you do this? You tell them they can do it? Yeah, absolutely. It's temporary, you know, just work your butt off and it's worth it. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 01:11:49 You can do it. Dedication. You have to believe in yourself and go for it and don't stop and keep working through the baby steps. And that's all about messaging. So we just called ourselves broke. Like, no, we can't have that. We're broke. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:02 Yeah. Well. I've told MDs that before when they call in. It's good for them to hear that sometimes. You are a broke doctor. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not.

Starting point is 01:12:12 And here's what's interesting, too. We were talking about this affordability thing a while ago. Mm-hmm. Their home was, you know, when they bought it, wasn't a half million. It's probably 300. And it's a half million dollar house today. And she's a doctor. Mm-hmm.

Starting point is 01:12:27 Hello. Okay. I mean, this is not... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You chose where you were living and what neighborhood you bought in. Wisdom, yeah. You didn't go buy a house five times that size, which your contemporaries probably did. People came out of med school with you.

Starting point is 01:12:44 They're still sitting with $300, and then they put a million-dollar mortgage to go with it to prove I'm a stupid doctor. And that's because doctors are notoriously bad with money. And so the people that graduate with you. Instead, you went the other way and they're acting like somehow. Now you're, you know, like, but now you're free. That's right. And worth a million dollars and going to be worth $2 million in a heartbeat the way you're going. So congratulations.

Starting point is 01:13:06 I'm very proud of y'all. Thank you. It's worth pointing out that y'all make great choices. Yes. Along the way here. And that's also what got you there. Yeah, you could make this. We have people calling them to make $300 and they have nothing.

Starting point is 01:13:17 You know what I mean? They're stressed out and they're living paycheck to paycheck. So you guys, you killed it. Absolutely. Did you all have people cheering you on during this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:13:24 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people in our corner. That's great. Oh, you guys are amazing. A few people rolling their eyes. Yeah, there's those.

Starting point is 01:13:32 And a few people who have followed by example, just hearing our story and now they're paying off their debt. Hey, I like it. That's good. That's good. Well, if we can infect the medical community with this, it would be awesome. What a weird word to say about the medical community. I chose it carefully.

Starting point is 01:13:51 No pun intended. Want it to be contagious. No pun intended. We want this to be contagious in the medical community. Way to go, you guys. Very, very proud of you. Now, thanks for coming on and sharing your story. How does it feel right now standing here?

Starting point is 01:14:05 Surreal. Absolutely surreal, what you said. Yeah, it's wild. I never thought that I would, yeah, be up here. It's cool. It's kind of like you were driving 160 miles an hour and then you stopped. Yeah. And you went, whoa, those white lines aren't a solid line.

Starting point is 01:14:21 Who knew? Yeah, that's amazing. Well, way to go, you guys. Congratulations. Very proud of you. Aaron and Megan Richmond, Virginia. 660,000 paid off. House and everything, including medical school debt,

Starting point is 01:14:37 all done in 48 months, making 240 to 300. The secret sauce is working together, and all they did was work all the time until they cleaned it up. But they're 35 years old and they're free, and their baby steps millionaires. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

Starting point is 01:14:56 We're doing. If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP and more than 43,000 businesses run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in, and it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data all in one place. Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues,

Starting point is 01:16:36 close your books faster and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.com slash Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Our question of the day is sponsored by YREFI. When you fall behind on paying back your private student loans, it can feel like your life is being held hostage. But YREFI helps borrowers explore a fresh start

Starting point is 01:17:12 with low fixed rate refinancing and a payment plan designed around their ability to pay. Visit Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question is from Shawna in Arizona. My husband and I are in the process of selling a home that we purchased 10 years ago. We'll be moving to another state in a few years and we'll rent until we're ready to make the move. As we consider setting aside of proceeds from this sale for a few years,

Starting point is 01:17:43 what is the best type of account to park it in? Should we put it in high-yield savings, CDs, individual stocks, or is there some other option that we should consider? So honestly, the two places when you think about putting money aside is either savings is one category, and then investment is another category. So anytime you put money into the market would be considered an investment. So whether we never would recommend individual stocks,

Starting point is 01:18:07 but anything, whether it's mutual funds, index funds. And it's kind of our rule of thumb is if you're not going to use the money for four to five years, then, yeah, you could probably invest it and ride the market out because there'll be lows and highs. And so you want to make sure that just like a home, right? You wouldn't buy a home and when there's no equity, turn around and sell it. So if you're going to, if you are going to use the money in around four years or less, then a high yield savings account is where I would park it. And our friends at Fair Winds have a great smart bundle where you can get a no-feet checking account.

Starting point is 01:18:39 I think it's up to 10 high-yield savings accounts you can have within your name. And then the Ramsey B-B debit card with that too. But a high-yield savings is where I would park it. If you're going to use that money, you said a few years, so I'm assuming that's two to three. So I would just throw in a high-old savings account. Yeah, that's the safe thing. If you're willing to take the risk, the longer you leave it alone, the more I would lean towards something like just an S&P 500. Okay, 97% of the five-year periods in the stock market's history have made money.

Starting point is 01:19:14 So you wouldn't lose money 97 times out of 100 if you left it alone five years or more. That's why Rachel said that's investing. Now, if you do it four years, what's the number? I don't remember the probability on that one. Or three years, what's the number? I don't know. But, I mean, the last three years have been, you know, 25, 24, and 18. Crazy.

Starting point is 01:19:36 But that's not normal. But if you'd left the loan for three years and you've been in the market, you'd have had that versus high yield savings. Obviously, looking back would have been smart. But you don't know that. It could be down for three years, too. But the number of down periods in a long period of time is very, very low. So to the extent you can afford to lose a little bit of it and be comfortable, then you can go with the, you know, you can go with an S&P 500 index. fund. So you just kind of got to work that through and figure it out. But if you're just

Starting point is 01:20:11 even the tiny little bit scared, high yield savings. Yeah, you're not with that kind of stuff. If you had three years, would you throw it in the S&P? I might go 50-50. Okay. You know, if you got, let's say they got 500,000 out of this house or something like that. Yeah. I might put 250 in the S&P and 250 in the high yield. Kind of hedge my bets a little bit. But if you're going to be turning around and buying a house in the next couple of months, obviously it would just be high yield, but over a little bit more period. So yeah, I think you're, that's true. What you're willing to risk? Three years or more, I start to think about some portion of it being in there. Five years or more, I'm putting all of it in there. What is, do you have the sets off the top of your head on election years? Is it usually

Starting point is 01:20:47 down election years? No, it's usually up. It is up, okay. I was just wondering, not that you can time the market, but. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. And now midterms, I don't know. I haven't looked at that. Uh-huh. I just wonder if we're, we got midterms in the fall. In the political cycle. I, you know, I don't usually use that as a measure in a way. But I just didn't know if you were like heading into a year, if you're like, let me hold off for a few months and see the landscape of the world. Yeah. Every time I try to do that, it doesn't work.

Starting point is 01:21:12 Every time I try to do that, it doesn't work. So I guess wrong, you know, whichever way it is. So I just quit doing that. I just quit saying, I started saying, okay, if I put $250,000 in and it goes down 10%, I lost $25,000 out of my $500. Yeah. I'm okay. Didn't kill me.

Starting point is 01:21:31 Right. Okay. Hurts. Harts. And that would be highly unusual. Yes. Okay. Very unusual three-year period of time.

Starting point is 01:21:39 Yes. Like almost never happens. No, it's funny. So, but if you thought about it that way. So that's kind of how I gauge it is if I lost something that was an unusually bad loss. Yeah. It's still not that much. That's right.

Starting point is 01:21:51 You know what? That literally just happened to be in Winston. We opened up a like an S&P 500 thing to throw some money in because we were looking at diversification, a couple of things. And we usually, we had never really done that. we had had other investments, like 401Ks were off and then another account that we just would put. So we're like, well, let's maybe, we'll have another one brokerage account because Winston may buy, you know, something out of it with his real estate stuff. And I'm not lying, you guys. We went some money and we moved it from a high yield savings into this.

Starting point is 01:22:18 It went down. I ran. I ran. It happened like five days later. And Winston was like, oh, just don't, just don't look at anything right now. But it didn't drop that much. No. And then it came back and it's fine.

Starting point is 01:22:30 But I literally had to tell myself, Rachel, you do this for a living. It's okay. You just don't look. You ride the market. Don't jump off the roller coaster. But I thought out of all times in the last three years. You picked the worst one. I picked the, like four days before. Who knew? And I just let Tedgum it. Trump bombs Iran. Just as you decide to be an investor. But again, you can go back and look at those charts. That's an interesting thing to do since the first of the year. But it hurts. Go back and look and you go, okay, we put $100,000 bucks in and I lost $6,000. Mm-hmm. You're okay.

Starting point is 01:23:01 Yeah, and now it's back over what it was. Yes. You know, and it hurts your feelings. But it's not, the actual math is not devastating. No, it's just, it's your hard-earned money. Yeah. It should be going the other way. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:23:14 And I don't want it to go that way. And it hasn't now. It's back up. That's right. That's right. No, everything's fine. But I had that moment about a few days of thinking, Dad, comment.

Starting point is 01:23:22 You know, I did that. I kind of think of it. I dropped a chunk in about the time Trump decided to do tariffs. Oh, yeah. And there was about a month period where it. like choked, you know, and then it came right back up and through the roof. But it like, for just a moment there, the market just decided to go, and that, and that's really why I'm like, I don't, people ask, do you check, do you check the market? Do you look? And I'm like, I really don't.

Starting point is 01:23:46 I look at our accounts once a year. Yep. And this was like literally the only time in our 16 years of marriage of doing this together. If you're checking the account every day, you're a day trader. Yes, and they all lose money. Yes, yes. And you can't do that. So you park it for long term. Long term. It's going to go up and down. That's the plan. Charles is in Boston. Hey, Charles, what's up? How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I guess essentially my question is I grew up very privileged.

Starting point is 01:24:15 I have about $9 million in investments all through trust from my parents, my grandparents, a few years out of college. How old are you? I do well. I'm 28. Cool. Good for you. Yeah, and I make around 80k a year. But I'm at this stop roads where I'm studying for my GMATs, and I'm hearing people talk less and less about the effectiveness of going to graduate school, at least for business, and whether or not I should just start my own company, start a business.

Starting point is 01:24:57 Where do your thoughts lie, given I have such, ample resources at my disposal and a safety net that can cushion any fall. I wouldn't use that to make my decision. I would pretend like that money's not there. And then go be a wise, heart-filled, 28-year-old, it kicks butt and takes names. I hear that. And let that money be gravy that's in the background. You know if you stumble and fall, you're going to be, you have a huge safety net,

Starting point is 01:25:33 But that doesn't make you, that doesn't say, oh, you need to go in business and people who don't have $9 million don't need to go in business. No, you need to go in business if you're supposed to go into business. Business is hard. Business is thrilling. Business is fun. I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I thoroughly encourage you to do it. It's tiring.

Starting point is 01:25:50 But you're going to have the, your boss is a butt. He'll drive you crazy when you own your own business. He'll work you to do. And I think that's for my father as well. What kind of business do you want to open? I'm sure about that at the moment, but I know my knowledge and passion lies within the automotive industry. Okay. Whether it's maybe selling classic cars like my brother, starting a boutique.

Starting point is 01:26:17 That'd be fine. You can do that. You can do that easy. And that's something you can test and get back out of. You don't have to say, I'll never go to graduate school instead. I'm going to sell classic cars. You can say, I'm going to try this. I'm going to experiment.

Starting point is 01:26:32 If I don't like it, I can't make money at it. I'm not good at it. I'll try something else and I'll experiment. That's what entrepreneurs do. Very seldom does what you set out to do end up being the thing you're doing 20 years later because business and the environment changes too much. I think you ought to try it, but not based on the fact you've got $9 million. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio.

Starting point is 01:27:04 Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. Samantha is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Samantha. How are you? I'm better than I deserve, but beautifully broken as well. I understand. How can we help today? So I've been a stay-at-home mom for 27 years.

Starting point is 01:27:24 The last 20, I've been raising our disabled daughter who passed away in September. I'm sorry. Okay. Dang. She passed away in September. My husband has a really long history of financial infidelity. Well, whoa. Stop just a second.

Starting point is 01:27:41 Stop just a second. Breathe. Okay. I'm sorry. Get your breath back so we can hear you. So your daughter passed in September? Yes. What was her name?

Starting point is 01:27:52 Her name was Abby. And what was her disability, honey? Underplegia, it went through palsy. And she lived 20 years? She did. She did. Mentally, she couldn't walk. She was in a wheelchair her whole life.

Starting point is 01:28:09 She couldn't even turn over in bed. I did everything for her. So not only did I lose her, I lost my identity because I just don't know how to be normal anymore. Like, that's all I did was take care for her of her and fight for her and do for her. And she's been gone for seven, eight months now, right? But it feels like yesterday. It's just horrible. Anyway.

Starting point is 01:28:31 And so you said your husband was financial infidelity. You mean he's been doing all kinds of stuff financially that you didn't know about? Yes, but he's done it our entire marriage. Like our entire marriage, he's always, he'll get on eBay and he'll, like, hundreds of, like, lots of money, like thousands of dollars. Currently right now he has one book in his shopping cart with $6,000. In December of 24, he had $30,000 in all these loan places like op loans and finance places. And so we sold our oil leases so that we could get out of that debt. We sold our kids' future to clean up his mess.

Starting point is 01:29:09 And I told him, if you ever do this again, I'm going to divorce you. Well, of course, he did it again in March. and right after our daughter died, he did it again in March, and I just happened to catch it it because it went into his per diem account. He works out of town and we have two separate accounts. His check has always gone into our joint account. I immediately transfer it to my account, which I pay the bills with. And I've done that after about the 10th time of all of this stuff he does. That's just how we did it. I didn't care. That's how it's going to be. You're not going to have access to our bill money. So anyway, this last loan in March, I got online to check his per diem account to make sure that his per diem had went in.

Starting point is 01:29:52 And there was $12,000 in there. And so I called him and I said, what is going on? Oh, I got a loan. I need to buy some books and yada, yada, yada. So I went straight to the bank. I pulled out every penny except $100. And I told him, I said, this is what's going to happen here. We're going to pay this loan back.

Starting point is 01:30:07 And you're going to sign a partition and exchange agreement and a special warranty deed putting our house in land. which is paid for in my name as my sole and separate property, or I'm going to take this $12,000 and I'm going to buy a hire the best attorney in town and I'm going to get it anyways. And so he agreed. I paid the loan back and he did sign the partition and exchange agreement. Our house that is paid for is in my name. Our land that we owe $23,000 for is in my name. And I thought all was well.

Starting point is 01:30:34 And so then on the 24th of April, we went to a retreat for bereaved parents. and the whole time he was in my ear about buying a truck. I want to buy a truck. And I'm like, listen, we're here for Matt and Abby. I've lost two kids. I've lost two children. And anyway, after the retreat,

Starting point is 01:30:55 I got a lot out of the retreat for me. After the retreat on the way to the airport, I told him, I said, listen, I want us to fight for our marriage. I said, I need you to know that I have stayed all of these years for Abby. after her passing, when you did this crap in March, I stayed to protect her home because we built this house for her. Everything about it is handicapped accessible.

Starting point is 01:31:23 And I said, I stayed for her. And I said, I don't have to do either anymore. I don't have to. Like, I need you to fight for our marriage. I love you. The following Monday, last Monday, he went and got another loan, 30% interest. And he bought a truck in another town, another state for $3,500. All of these parts are coming in.

Starting point is 01:31:42 All this random stuff is coming in. I'm confused, okay? So he has a very clear message from you as to what's going to happen. Absolutely. He does this anyway. So Dr. John Deloney says, behavior is a language. So he's just saying goodbye, isn't he? I know.

Starting point is 01:32:00 Yes, he is. And so I've spoke with an attorney. Okay. And it's going to cost me $3,500. Yeah, so what? I have it, Dave. I'm trying to figure out. I have just a little bit of debt.

Starting point is 01:32:12 I have. Where's the $12,000 you're just talking about? He opened a separate account where he, because he works out of town. And so he went to the town in South Carolina. No, no, no, no, honey. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the other money. You said you had $12,000 cash from the other money.

Starting point is 01:32:27 No, I paid the loan back. I did. Oh, you paid the loan off. And repaid the loan back. Yes. Because I didn't, I was scared at that point that is. Well, I mean, you know, Samantha, this is a horrible situation. Yes.

Starting point is 01:32:40 You all have gone through so much tragedy. and in the midst of that, he's not able to function apparently. No. Well, he's always been like this. For whatever reason. And so you're calling it into it. And so, yeah, that's what you're doing. I mean, there's not, you're just going to go get an attorney and they're going to advise you on how to do this. If you didn't sign the loan, you are not liable. No, we are both on the loan. So our house is paid for. We bought a separate lot

Starting point is 01:33:15 Our house is on three acres We bought an additional three acres I'll sell them both It doesn't matter I can't I can't Dave Yes you can't Abby Abby's not there anymore honey

Starting point is 01:33:24 Abby's in heaven I only owe $23,000 That's it I know But you don't have to live there I can't Yes you can't No I'm not

Starting point is 01:33:35 It's not an option Okay I just can't do that The deal is this The deal is this As long as you have that property in his name in any way, shape or form in Texas, and you're married, you're going to have a problem. So you've got to decide. I think Abby would want you happy, Samantha. Yeah. And a house

Starting point is 01:33:54 doesn't define, Abby's memory doesn't live in a house. Abby's memory lives in your mind and in your heart. And you're in untenable situation and you can't use Abby as a reason to stay in a situation where you're being abused and not physically abused, but financially abused. And you're going to draw a line in the sand, and there's going to be some costs that go with that to get you this protection. You may or may not keep the house. I don't know if you can keep it or not. I'm not sure.

Starting point is 01:34:27 But I want you to deal with this and quit trying to make him do stuff. You know, he has told you loud and clear what he's going to do. If you expect him to change under any circumstances, I mean, if he put all that, if he gave you, the deed of everything of the house, and you told him if he ever does it again, you're going to take it all. And then he goes and does it three more times after that. This guy's made a real clear statement. This is who I'm going to be. If you don't like it, tough. And so now you've got to decide what the rest of your, what the next chapter of your life looks like, what healing looks like over all of this, the marriage and the children and everything. Purpose for your life. You had an

Starting point is 01:35:08 incredible purpose, Samantha, of being a caretaker. And, you know, of being a caretaker. and the mom you were to your daughter. And now there's another purpose for you in the world. And to be the healthiest use, Samantha, it is. To get out and define that, yeah. Next chapter. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems

Starting point is 01:35:54 and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey, 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. One of my best friends in the world, because I read one of his books 25 years ago, reached out to him, and we've ended up speaking on stages all over America for the last 25 years together. Been a part of the Ramsey family.

Starting point is 01:36:50 indirectly for a long, long time. Dr. Henry Cloud, acclaimed author and leadership expert, clinical psychologist, New York Times bestselling author many times over 45 books, including the iconic boundaries that have sold nearly 20 million copies. I sold at least two million of those. He has an extensive executive coaching background and a brand new book out that is one of my favorites that Henry's ever done. It's called Your Desired Future.

Starting point is 01:37:17 Welcome, my friend. Good to be here. Hi, Henry. Hey there. Good to see you. Two of my favorite people. Oh, stuff. You say that to all of them.

Starting point is 01:37:25 All your podcast hosts. Only when it improves in the next generation. Keep it going. Keep it going. We love you, Henry. Five essential steps that take you where you want to go. I distinctly remember you coming into Ramsey into a leadership meeting about 20 years ago that we were having. And we were arguing about this particular business unit that had the flu.

Starting point is 01:37:49 it wasn't doing good. And then you embarrassed me because you said, well, what do you want it to be in five years? And I said, I want it to be making money and profitable. And you went, well, no kidding. But no, really, what is your desired future for this thing? And that's the first time I think I heard the phrase out of your mouth, desired future. And then what must be true that's not true today for you to get to that desired future. And that not only applies to a business unit that's got the flu, it applies to your health, your marriage, your fire.

Starting point is 01:38:19 Your finances, hello, getting out of debt, all that kind of stuff. So your desired future, this is a framework that you've used to coach people, right? Yeah, companies and individuals. What I did was, you know, there's so much stuff out there is good stuff, and people are going to do this. But I thought, wouldn't it be helpful if I have a little model that's a GPS? You wake up every day and know, if I'm trying to get there, are these five things present? And ask the question, are there, is there a universal path for that? and studied the human body, the most incredible organism beginning from here to there.

Starting point is 01:38:57 And Dave was amazing. You know, the brain, the prefrontal cortex starts out with a vision. We're the only ones that can see a future that doesn't exist. A dog doesn't do that. And then it gathers a team. The talent is going to need to get there, you know, your arms and legs. And then it says, well, how am I going to get there? I won't call an Uber.

Starting point is 01:39:15 Well, not to go across the room. You're going to get the right strategy. the plan and then you got a, your brain, it creates a measurement and accountability system and you start walking that plan and you get off and it fixes you. And that path has components to it that are really, really crucial. Yeah, that are so helpful. And this can be applied to every part of your life, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a mom getting the kids in the band in school on time. Yeah. Seriously, I have global companies, billions and billions, that use this as their operating system. And I mean, you guys,

Starting point is 01:39:55 this is, when I looked at financial peace, you know, years ago, I said, Dave, this works because it's designed in the way that people get from here to there. And all the components are there. And the five components. It starts with vision, which is, I guess, the desired future, right? It is. And here's what's interesting about your brain, the way it's wired. The brain hates. The brain hates ambiguity. It can't stand it because it doesn't know what to do. It loves clarity. Even if it's bad news, it likes bad news. It's clear. It's better than no news. That's right. Because once it has clarity about where I am now and I don't want to be there and I got to get somewhere else, it starts to activate these systems that bring everybody to the party to actually get there.

Starting point is 01:40:42 But if you don't have clarity, I mean, I've heard you quote stats from the stage. What's the people that write down their goals? Was it 80% more likely? Oh, yeah. Because you're giving your brain clarity. That's why the baby steps, I feel like in our world, are so effective because it's like step one, get $1,000. Step two, get out of debt. Step three, it's an obvious pathway of a vision of where you want to go.

Starting point is 01:41:09 With measurement and accountability that asks the question, once you've defined the specific activities that are going to move the needle, then you've got to ask yourself, on a regular cadence, am I doing what I said I was going to do? And if I'm not, I got to correct that problem, which we all have problems, we miss a day. But if you don't correct it quickly, it becomes a pattern. Patterns or mutations in the strategy that become your DNA, and DNA becomes identity. So I'm not a person that missed a payment. I'm a person that misses payments. You've got to fix it quickly.

Starting point is 01:41:46 Yeah. So what must be true that's not true now? And one of the five things is do you have the talent around you or within yourself to, you know, in a business setting, you know, do we have the right people on the team to be able to pull the thing off that we just said we wanted to pull off? That's right. And if you look at them and you go, that bunch isn't going to get us there. That's right. Then you've got to get different people on the team. Well, what about when it's an individual and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and going, I don't have that talent?

Starting point is 01:42:15 Well, we don't usually. I mean, whatever, even if you wanted to, let's say you want to lose 50 pounds. Well, you've been trying and it's not working. So obviously all the talent isn't present. And so what do you do? You go bring the talent around you. Who's that going to be? Well, it could be one you pay for.

Starting point is 01:42:35 It could be weight watchers. It could be a coach. It could be a trainer. It could be Uncle Sam, who, not that Sam, Uncle Joey. Uncle Sam's probably not going to help you do. Uncle Sam help you lose weight for sure. I'm a wallet. But you're going to, you're going to, we were not designed to get anywhere by herself.

Starting point is 01:42:55 If you, if there's somewhere you can get by yourself, somebody else helps you to get that ability to begin with. So you got to find out where are the deficits and who do I need to bring to the party that can help me? And that's what, that's what people in debt do with you guys. They find the talent that's going to help them get there. Yeah. So good. Okay. So when people are, when they look up there and they have a goal and they think, here's what I want to do.

Starting point is 01:43:18 And that could be, again, bettering your marriage. That could be a health goal. That could be a money goal, whatever that looks like or even within business. What's a mistake people make all the time that you're like, oh, this, if they knew one of these five things or if they were doing this differently, they probably wouldn't make it as much or at all. The biggest mistake, besides the vision, I mean, you've got to know where you're going. But the biggest mistake is they're like my dog Finley. She's got a job. She's got a goal.

Starting point is 01:43:45 It's to protect the house. Stranger comes the door. She runs the house and barks. But she never stops and says, I wonder if that was helpful. Is that going to get me closer to where I want to be on Thursday? So the biggest mistake is they don't get above what they're doing and ask the question, is this going to work? Are the ingredients present that are going to get me there? What we do is we just continue to go in our own patterns.

Starting point is 01:44:11 The caller earlier. that I heard when I was in the green room, he wants to start a business. If he started a business, which you, gosh, you got to start. He would just go do the way he's already wired. And a lot of times, until we learn something and we do things the way we're already wired, good luck with that. Yeah. What must be true that's not true today. And, you know, do I need more talent around me?

Starting point is 01:44:37 Do I need some education that I didn't have? You need impulse control. Impulse control. Yeah, I mean, what must be true that's not? been true so far, what pattern, what set of movements have to change to get to the desired future? Because if something didn't need to change, you'd already be there. You'd already be there. We wouldn't be, I mean, you know how to find lunch, right? But here's a good example. Tom Brady's got, at this time, five or six Super Bowl rings, and Tampa Bay hadn't been to the

Starting point is 01:45:06 playoffs in 14 years, called him and said, come down here and win a Super Bowl. Well, he knows how to do I didn't have a vision for that. But the first thing he did was he looked at that team. What's not true today? He looked at that team. You're not going to win a Super Bowl without talent. There's four positions that are missing. He picked up the phone, recruited the talent in next.

Starting point is 01:45:26 And they won the Super Bowl the next year. And got the people around them. And it wasn't just Brady. No, it wasn't just right. It's not your own talent. That's right. That's good. There's something missing.

Starting point is 01:45:37 The new book is Your Desired Future. We'll be back with Dr. Henry Cloud. Talk a little bit more about it. the five essential steps that take you where you want to go. Hey guys, George Camel here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it? You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles.

Starting point is 01:46:40 Just me? Okay. Well, that's the problem. Most people don't pay attention to how they spend their money. So it does whatever it wants. And that's why we created every dollar. It's a budgeting app that helps you create a simple plan for your money. Every dollar's simple.

Starting point is 01:46:52 It's clear and it helps track where your money's actually. going. Plus, you get daily lessons, to do's and reminders along the way. It's like having a money coach in your pocket. Your money's been freelancing long enough. It's time to give every dollar a full-time job. Go download every dollar for free on the app store or Google Play. Dr. Henry Cloud, the new book is called Your Desired Future,

Starting point is 01:47:26 the five essential steps to take you where you want to go. So step one, as you've got to know what the desired future is that's called Vision. Step two is what? Step two is you got to engage the talent, bring the talent, around you that's going to help you get there. Step three. Step three is you've got to know how you're going to get there, and that's a strategy with a plan. Okay.

Starting point is 01:47:46 So in our world, that would be the baby steps. That would be the baby steps. But the plan tells you when you're going to implement those, who you're going to meet with. You know, you've got to get to the- Every detail. Every activity that's going to move the needle. Everything else is. I'm going to go to gym three days a week.

Starting point is 01:48:01 There you go. Strategy is I'm going to increase my water intake, decrease my sugar intake, so on, right? Yeah, and the debt side you're going to pay down this amount, this amount every month. And then you've got to step forward. Measurement and accountability of that, are you doing what you said you were going to do? And if you're not, then you better ask the question, why not and solve that problem? And then fix it quickly. So I've heard it said, I think it was an old Earl Nightingale quote, when it comes to goal setting,

Starting point is 01:48:32 and all this is as a detailed approach to actually implementing and causing the goal to happen, not just setting it. It's not a simple setting it. But he used to say that doing what it takes to hit the goal is not usually people's problem. It's what they have to give up. A lot of times, yeah. They don't understand what they're going to have to give up to get there. That's right.

Starting point is 01:48:54 The trade-off is what the negative trade-off is the real price to be paid to get to your desired future. That's right. Because usually the things we have to give up, there's an emotional attachment or there's some sort of immediate gratification in it. It feels good to go make that impulse buy. It feels good to eat that high flush Sunday. It feels good to avoid that difficult conversation. It feels good to not have to make 100 sales calls. And there's that kind of immediate comfort or gratification.

Starting point is 01:49:27 Or there's an avoidance of something difficult. You know, a lot of times, difference in people that reach goals and the ones that don't, it's not brains and talents and abilities. Some are willing to do the things the other people don't want to do. And the number one factor that loads on the accomplishment of a goal is not motivation because that will wane. Now, it's important, but your motivation is going to go up down. Number one factor is the belief that it's possible. the belief that it's possible

Starting point is 01:50:03 and the little incremental steps that bring that about one of the things that you guys I keep talking about you guys because you've been doing this well for so long there are so many people that are drowning in debt

Starting point is 01:50:17 how am I going to it's impossible it's possible and then they turn it on and they see somebody who was in more death than them come and do the scream and what do they do the prefrontal cortex kicks in and says wait it's possible now you check that one off. Now I just got to get the plan. But if your brain doesn't believe that, that's why

Starting point is 01:50:35 testimonies are so powerful. And being, just getting out of your circle, some people grow up in poverty or belief systems and you can't make money if you don't have money and all this junk in their head. Yeah. You got to get out of that circle even to begin to have a vision for what's possible. That's why you've got to surround yourself with people that have done it and are are doing it. Then it becomes possible. Now I've got to get curious about how they do it. Yeah. And creating the new habits around it and what you said about the comfort. You're having to give up what's comfortable. Michael Easter was on the show last week talking about the comfort crisis, his book and how when you do anything difficult, you're going to feel that stress.

Starting point is 01:51:24 You're going to feel that tension. But most of the time, that result ends up being a better situation for your life than where you were. But yet in our world today, in 2026, I'm like, the comfort's everywhere, though, right? We get to set the degrees that we want in the room. We get to listen to the music we want when we want it, watch what we want. I mean, it's just, we can Amazon, I mean,

Starting point is 01:51:44 like the amount of comfort we have today. On demand. On demand. Personalized to us of what we want. Our algorithms, everything. Like, it is wild to get out of that. Do you feel like it's harder today than ever before? You know, one of the ones that scares me the most is the parental comfort.

Starting point is 01:52:02 It is a lot more comfortable to hand your kid an iPad to shut him up than to step in there and have some limits and some boundaries and go through that temper tantrum or whatever you've got to do. And we have a generation of kids that have grown up that have not heard the word no

Starting point is 01:52:25 and have to deal with the discomfort of hearing the word no and the structure. And that one scares me. Interesting. From a generational standpoint. From a generation. Yeah. This is the first two generations that we've ever had a parent call when we're interviewing

Starting point is 01:52:40 someone for a job. We're doing a job interview and the parent gets involved. Oh, in your company. Yeah. The parent. You know, the mother of the 24-year-old will call. And say what? Like, they apply.

Starting point is 01:52:53 They want to influence the process. Oh. They want to help. Yeah, so it looked like for that, Mom, you should influence that process years ago. Yeah. No, I mean, they want to help Junior get a job. And, you know, but instead they just, you know, they did just the opposite by calling. Because that makes me think, I don't think I want this guy.

Starting point is 01:53:14 No, because you've got to hire a mom too to get to work now. That's right. That's right. That's right. But stepping out of the comfort, I think it's a big one for people today to achieve the goal that you're talking about and what you're talking about in this book. What gets better? that has value. Name one thing of value that gets better without pain first. Some kind of price, yep.

Starting point is 01:53:35 There's two paths. There's easy and then it's going to become harder, or there's hard now and it'll be a lot easier. Those are the only two rows you can go down, pick your pain. You can have a little now and a lot more later, or you can have, you know, the other side, where you take a little pain now. It hurts to pay down that debt a little bit each, week. But look what you're going to have later. That's right. Pay a price to win. Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. I said, I have watched this boy right here in the last five years. I played golf with him. You talk about pain. That boy, and everybody with him was going,

Starting point is 01:54:22 I mean, we're looking for balls and swamps and places. They don't let people. But it was painful. And it was painful. And he would just hit it and then he was awful and then he'd go do it. And but he put a strategy together. He got let. And I'm playing with him now. It's unbelievable. But he had to go through the pain first. That's right. We shared it, but we love it. Okay. Henry, I think one of my, dad, Dave said it in the last segment. One of the, my, your favorite, one of my hair books for you is boundaries. And you talk about necessary endings. There's been a couple of these. What caused you to write this book? Because you have been in the relationship. You were in the relational, right, counseling world for so long, too. And moving kind of more to the business side as well with people. But why specifically, what need did you see that you're like, I need to write this book? The need for people wanting to get somewhere, whether in business or personally, but not having just a simple path of how it works. And it applies to everything. You know, if you look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they both had a vision similar.

Starting point is 01:55:26 And how the styles were very different. But these five elements were present in both. And if you can just have a simple path, then it's easy to get in the morning and say, okay, are these things in place? Mm-hmm. That's what it is. Just the clear message. I love it.

Starting point is 01:55:44 So good. Very good stuff. The new book is Your Desired Future, the five essential steps that will take you where you want to go. And my big takeaway, Henry and I've worked together on this. And we worked a little bit with Pat Linchioni, too, on a modified model that he and I used as well as we put all this together, as Henry put all this together, but we stole pieces of this. And the whole thing I get to is just, okay, this is where I desire to be. What must be true that's not true today.

Starting point is 01:56:13 Positively, what must I gain, but also what must I give up to get to where I need to be, to get to that vision, and then lay out the clear steps, put the talent in place, and then hold in. measure and accountability, and then don't let the patterns shift off of the goal. Dr. Henry Cloud, my friend, thank you for hanging out with us. Thank you. It's good to be with you always. Check it out. The book is Your Desired Future. It's absolutely amazing. Hey, George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about. And all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone.

Starting point is 01:57:25 Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramsysolutions.com slash real estate. That's ramesysolutions.com slash real estate. Our scripture of the day, Psalms 3721, the wicked borrows, but does not pay back. But the righteous is generous and gives. Bob Hope said, A bank is a place that will lend you money.

Starting point is 01:58:10 If you can prove, you don't need it. Somewhat true. Hey, buying or selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to find the best deal for the right price. The Ramsey Trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust who will make your home a blessing and not a burden. It's easy.

Starting point is 01:58:32 Just compare agent profiles, interview them, and choose the right one to work with. We don't put anybody on Ramsey Trusted that's not Ramsey trusted. Yeah, you can find a real estate pro for free at Ramsey Solutions.com, slice agent, and click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. John is in Boston. Hey, John, how are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Starting point is 01:58:57 That's good to hear. Yeah, so I am in a kind of a precipice with my job right now. So I am working in finance. I'm making a good living, but I'm considering. and quitting it to do my YouTube full-time, which has been pretty successful lately. So the instability of it worries me, and I'm not sure if I should make the jump on it. Gotcha. What do you make at the finance job? So right now I'm pulling about 90K after bonuses. And what's the YouTube income looking like? So recently it's been about 250,000, but this hasn't been like this.

Starting point is 01:59:33 I've only been doing this for a few years. It hasn't been like this consistently enough. But you made twice as much. Yeah. I know. I worry that, you know, with the instability of how my income goes up and down each month, I've even had a scare where I almost lost the channel, and YouTube could just go poof overnight. Okay, that's true.

Starting point is 01:59:58 They might not go poof, but they might poof you. Yeah, my channel specifically. Yeah, that could happen. That's going to stay around. That's happened to better people than you. Yeah. And so good job, though. Yes, you ought to work on the YouTube.

Starting point is 02:00:14 I mean, you're able to pull off a quarter of a million dollars. What advantage would you have if you were working full time at it? What could you do? I've considered trying to expand. I've also kind of plateaued in terms of what I can do on the channel. I've tried everything I could. So what advantage is there to quitting your finance job? lot happier.

Starting point is 02:00:39 Okay. I wouldn't be working all the time. Okay. But it doesn't really add revenue. It doesn't add revenue. No, it's mainly because I know with the finance job, I'm in a great career path. Long term, I'm going to be set for life. Like, I will be financially sound.

Starting point is 02:00:58 And, you know, I'm at a point in my life where soon enough I'm probably going to want to settle down by a house. I want to have a consistent income and know that, you know, when I'm 40, 50, whatever, I'm still Okay, your YouTube income is as consistent as you are for the next five years. Okay? Yeah, that's true, yeah. And unless you do something to poison pill yourself, okay, you say something or do something that gets you banned for life, right? That kind of a thing.

Starting point is 02:01:25 But as long as you stay, you know, keep your nose clean, so to speak, you know, you're going to be fine. The thing that the biggest danger there is twofold of, you know, you're a financial. So you're not when you're you have one platform that you're doing everything on. You're not well diversified. So you are completely subject to the whims of the YouTube algorithm. And they do change every day. I mean, yeah, we've had we've had we've had we had literally billions of downloads on YouTube.

Starting point is 02:01:54 So our guys really know what they're doing here at Ramsey with this stuff. And so we make a lot more than 250 on it. But the, uh, but it's also we're not, we made the decision to be platform agnostic and not be exclusively stuck to this one particular thing. So we didn't buy one single stock. We want to be diversified and have a mutual fund. You follow the metaphor? Yeah. So you need other places to be doing whatever this wonderful thing is. It's getting all these eyeballs like a podcast platform. Spotify also now has video. You need to have other places carrying you. And that stabilizes you. and you need to be very aware of everything that's changing.

Starting point is 02:02:38 TikTok now is video. Everything is changing every day in all of the platforms and be following the trends. But don't put, don't make, don't move all the house chips on one platform. Don't bet the farm on one platform. That's your danger right now. Right. If you had a more diversified platform strategy and had worked that out, you'd be a lot safe and as YouTube becomes a thing of the past,

Starting point is 02:03:07 becomes the MySpace of the day, right? And someday it will. Every one of these technologies, Twitter was a big deal, and then it wasn't, and now it's trying to be again. But, I mean, these things come and go. As long as you're not dependent on one of them, and you know the next one to jump onto,

Starting point is 02:03:24 then you're not going to get eaten by the alligators. So if you can do that, whatever piece of content you're doing this, producing that kind of income, is going to be valuable on other platforms. So I would diversify my platforms and then I would quit. Yeah, and I assume, John, the content you're putting out, you love. Would you say, like, you're good at it?

Starting point is 02:03:45 It's a passion. It's fun. Oh, yeah. I definitely, I have a lot of fun doing it, which I don't hate my day job. But if you're making three or four times your day job, you can't call your day job stable compared. Because you've got to screw those up for four free. freaking years to break even is your break even analysis. If you're making 400 because you've got more platforms going and you're making 100 on the other, you got four years of margin to screw up.

Starting point is 02:04:15 That's not unstable. That's like saying I can make 150 as a CPA in the open market, but I want to make 40 working for the state government because it's stable. Well, that's not stable. That's just mathematically stupid. You follow me? Yeah, they could fire me at any time. Exactly. Exactly. And you're only as secure as your ability to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it at home at any time. All of us are.

Starting point is 02:04:45 All right. And so can you go get another position and do something else with another platform? And if you've got multiple platforms, then you're not handcuffed, golden handcuffed, to one of the platforms. Are you married, John? No, he said he wanted to sell that later, right? Oh, not yet. Okay. Yeah, I'm in my mid-20s, so hopefully within the next few years.

Starting point is 02:05:03 Yeah, I was just curious. Now, the other thing is this, we haven't discussed the content, and I'm not going to because I don't want to get into that with you, but is the content a fad? Not necessarily. It has ups and downs. Okay, like we had a guy, we got a friend named Jimmy. What's Jimmy's last name, the generosity guy? What? Darts.

Starting point is 02:05:26 Darts. Jimmy's making a bazillion dollars, and he's got a generosity play on the thing on YouTube that's massive. he's killing it it's massive generosity is not a fad he does this wonderful thing giving creates giving situations helps people all this stuff and it's fabulous content but like making slime that was a fad two years ago all the kids were doing it and now not as much yeah so yeah that's a good point whatever you're doing it can't be something that's going to that the actual content is not what we do is going to people are going to be in debt as long as there are people so we're not going to run out of material.

Starting point is 02:06:03 You know, we're not going to run out of content. And so our stuff is what we call evergreen in the business and content business. Okay. So you want, as long as you're evergreen and you've got multiple platforms, you don't, don't confuse that with stability. You have stability because you have talent at that point. Mm-hmm. It's good.

Starting point is 02:06:20 Yeah. Good job, man. Very cool. Yeah, that's exciting. Neat discussion. Well, and I would always think, too, in the back of my mind, if all this, you know, whatever, went poof. and four years, his knowledge of finance and if he had to go back into the workforce and do it,

Starting point is 02:06:37 he could. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're in your mid-20s. Finance doesn't change. You can do it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:42 So even what you've been doing in your day job, John, gives you a little bit of that kind of back pocket, get out of free jail cars in a way that you're like, okay, if it all does. Five years from now, two plus two still going equal four. I can plug back in. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, dead gum, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like if you had a CPA, accounting is not going to change.

Starting point is 02:07:00 That's right. Yeah. same kind of thing. Your book of business might be, you might not be viewed as having a fresh resume or whatever, but you can get moving again on it. And so you've got a good fallback. And that knowledge of that world should give you some business insight, some business acumen into managing your new digital career. Very cool. John, how fun. Good luck with it all. Amen. I hope you get, I hope you do wonderful things with it. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

Starting point is 02:07:29 In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. and that's to walk daily to the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.

The Ramsey Show - Steady Habits Build Lasting Wealth

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