How Far Are You Willing To Go To Win?

>> Brought to you by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] >> Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life.

From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Wands Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey personality, co-host, the smart money, happy hour. >> My daughter is my co-host today.

Open phones, a triple eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. Ashley is in Boston. Ashley, what's up in your world? >> Hi, I'm sorry, I saved not much. How are you doing?

This is crazy to be on the phone with you. >> I'm honored, glad you got through. How are you? >> I am good, how are you? >> Good, better than I deserve.

How can we help today? >> I'm just looking for some advice when it comes to finances, money, and in dating. I'm 30 years old. I work full time.

I've always saved, saving, I mean, ever since I was very young,

I've worked really hard to save and be responsible with money, but as I'm dating and hoping to get married soon, I'm realizing that not every guy shares that sentiment.

“I think financial attitude towards finances is really important.”

Like right up there with politics and religion, I think similar spending and saving habits are really important, but I'm just hitting a wall with these guys. I've been really, really blessed throughout my life. I've also worked really hard to save money.

I think I've accumulated a pretty solid net worth for my age. >> What is your net worth? >> About $1.4 million. >> And your 30? >> Yeah.

>> Wait a go, kiddo. >> Thank you. >> Great job, honestly. >> Yeah, really smart. To not find some loser to bring you down.

>> I can't take credit for all of it. Part of it was, about half was inheritance. The other half just saving some time.

I mean, my entire life, I worked a second job for quite a while.

>> So, Rachel, how is the younger version of you? Because I haven't had a date with one woman in 45 years, so I don't have any idea how to date other than my wife. So, I had $1.17 off the wall. >> I know, I know, but I mean, the younger version,

how are the young people doing it?

“>> No, no, no, I don't know, I think I would say,”

you know, when I started dating Winston, he had a credit card. He paid for most of our dates on that, right? And coming as up from a Ramsey family, like that's up there with a sentence.

>> Then what about a friend pulled him aside and said, do you know who you're dating? >> Yeah, and he said, no, I don't know. My dad's buddy Cruz, I don't know who different. He didn't know who Dave Ramsey was,

which is actually a gift, so that was great. Anyways, all that to say, there is something about not just cutting someone off immediately, because number one, people can change, okay? So just knowing general is the way they think about money,

the way they interact with money, do they have the humility to listen to you, hear what's working for you, and have the humility to maybe, in essence, change and adapt. That's on the grace side of the scale, right?

Now, if there's a guy, and he's like, so leverage, doesn't care, it's all ego, all what he presents, and that's all he cares about, you're probably not gonna change that guy. But I would not be like super, super legalistic

in today's world about it. I think it's more about the value system, right? So he may be a Spender, and you're gonna be the saver. I'm the Spender in our relationship with my husband. He's actually the saver,

and so you're gonna have different money tendencies,

“but I think the value system of the way you see money is really important.”

Like, I would say that money isn't everything, it's not an idol in my life, it's not something that we worship, right? And there's got men and women out there, and it's the only thing they focus on, and if that's the only thing they focus on in life,

24/7, it's to get more and more and more, that's a different value system. If they are okay living on the edge, and being super risky with investments and leveraging debt, and that that's where they drive energy from,

probably not a value system you would align with. Does that make sense? When you get into the nitty gritty of things, yeah, it would have different rates.

- Or there's difference in having $10 million in Bitcoin

versus having a car payment. - Well, $10 million in Bitcoin, I mean. - I mean, that's living on any edge. - $10 million on anything. - No, that's living on any edge, that's in the stupid zone,

and that checks the box, I'm done. - Yeah, so I don't know. - It's guys nuts, and so I don't know where your crypto bro.

and it's the only thing he talks about,

he's obsessed with it, and that's the crypto bro to me. But like, do you know what I'm saying, actually, there's a level of humanity in this when you're dating someone, 'cause they're gonna be different than you,

“but it's the value system that I think I would really”

harp on, of where their heart is when it comes to the subject. And you've obviously done well, and when you can find a partner that actually sees your strengths as strengths, and they're not threatened by it, that's a pro, and that's a check mark for me in the positive side,

the positive category. - I think I have a tough time seeing what's values, what's not, because if someone's just telling me, I mean, the student loan debt in their late 30s, like just some of the things they say,

the $30 on lunch every day, like I just assume that that's we have different values,

but I guess maybe it sounds like I should keep more

of an open mind. - No, the student loan debt still being there, and the $30 lunch is not of how you, that's a symptom of what they've learned at this point, and it could be the symptom of a value.

And if the value is a loss of hope, I don't believe I can win, I'm stuck, I need the president or some socialist to come save me. If that's the value, this is not a keeper, but if the value is, hey, I'm stuck,

and I don't know how to get out, and you start going, well, you could do this, and they go, oh, that'd be cool.

“Well, that's what Rachel's talking about,”

that's the humility that goes with the mess, just because someone's in a mess, I don't rule them out. But I do rule them out if why they're in the mess,

and whether they intend to stay there,

or whether they actually brag about the mess, and go, look at me how cool I am. I've got a big car payment, and it doesn't matter. Yeah, it does, yeah, it does. And so, I think so, in that sense,

the value system, the way the Ramsey family would go about it is where people of faith, that we would say, okay, what's God telling you about this? And if you can't submit yourselves to God's Word, you can't submit yourself to the directions of the Lord,

then that's a lack of humility. That's an error against that's gonna get your head taken off, and I really don't wanna be connected to you when your head gets taken off. And so, and that's what you're saying.

So, if the God doesn't have a work ethic, if he refuses to work, that's a kill, that's a kill. And there's a whole bunch of those out there, for various reasons. Yeah, and money is an interesting topic,

'cause I'm like, it can expose so much about somebody, and there's a shallowness at which, especially I would think as you're dating and talking to guys about money. Like, there's a gross shallowness to it all.

And if you're feeling that, that would be a value system of mine, of like, you just, you feel gross, like with money, like it's just like, it's all about appearances, it's all what you can get,

it's all about, this is my only thing in life that I want, like, that category, it's like, no, I don't want you as a partner in life. I don't want you to be the father of my kids, but who he is as a person is gonna override so much of that.

And if he's a person of character, he respects you, he listens to you, like all of that, a lot of these issues really do start to take hold, 'cause actually a lot of calls on this show, we get a spouse calls in, and they're having a massive issue,

they're about financial fidelity or something else. And it's rarely a money issue, it's so much a breakdown of their marriage. So finding a quality man would be my number one. Now a few budgets, and he's out of debt.

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I Tyler, how are you?

Pretty good day for getting you some good stuff.

Better than I deserve. What's up? So me and my wife, I'm 30, she's 29. We have a paid for house with 15 acres. But the caveat there is it is a double odd

treasure that was manufactured in '97. And this 15 acres is part of our grandfather's farm that I've bought back in 2017. And here in the last couple months, the house that he built in '82 has come back up for sale.

That's attached to this farm that was a part of it. It went down more than about bonded and moving into it. I just need to know if you think it's a good decision or not. And how much is it?

“He's asking 185, and I think we could fix it up”

for like 50,000 to re, to fix it up and live in it. So probably 220 ish all in. So you're thinking to 25? Yeah, and how much money do you have? I've got.

We have about 15% now. OK. And what do you guys make a year? About a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty thousand. Well, it sounds like you're a bit familiar with what we do.

I can't tell for sure, but I think you are. Yeah, we tell people when they're buying a home, don't take out more than a 15 year mortgage. We'll pay more than a fourth of your take-home pay. In your case, you're doing that from a paid for property,

which is kind of hard to do because I'm sitting here with no payments, and all of a sudden I'm getting rid of saddle myself, my self-payments. Yeah. And that's a very, very hard to do.

You've got a particular reason to do it. It's adjacent to property, you already have paid off. That's cool. It's family property, that's cool. It's a rehab.

That's not cool because those things are always cost twice as much

and take twice as long as you think they're going to. But the whole thing, I mean, it's within our guidelines, but we teach, never take out that.

“I don't tell people to borrow money, and the only thing I don't”

yell at them for is a mortgage, where it's no more than a 15 year with no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. But I don't want to do this flippantly. And if I were in your shoes, I would get that rehab done ASAP, and then I would begin to pay that mortgage off,

because I don't want to be back to no payments. It's got a feel good to have no payments. Yeah, me and my wife were sitting down and talking about it. We think we can pay it off in 7 to 10 years. If we talk it down, like we paid off the last one.

I think you can't move the bank there for you. Yeah, I think you can, too, what you're talking about. And so, yeah, if it's within our guidelines, so I can tell you, I mean, there's a lot of reasons to do it. Yeah, and I just ran the numbers real quick.

You guys bring home what, probably, 8, 400 a month? Yeah, give her take a little bit of the thing on the month. And you're mortgage'll be about $1,200, right? If you put 15% down on the plus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably around all that.

Yes, so that's what it is. And then we would take the double wide there and rent it out as well. That was the plan. Yeah.

OK. Yeah, so it does.

“It fits within that 25% of your take home pay.”

I wouldn't do the deal. I wouldn't do the deal if it was dependent upon the double wide, but the double wide cash flow that comes in just helps you do the rehab faster. Yeah.

And actually the numbers I plugged in was the 225. And with the rehab, it wasn't the 185. So yeah, so you guys from a financial perspective, yeah, the numbers play out totally fine. Yeah, I just know that you said not to take out money on real properties.

Well, this is not a real problem. You're moving into it. But I would have the double wide as a real property. And I would have to. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, if it was detached, and it was somewhere else, I would tell you to sell it and put all the money on this house. But what we're doing here is we're gathering back up old family land that's contiguous to each other. So I would do what you're doing here.

But for a reason of the land being attached, not because of the double wide rental. Yeah, and the good thing is tied to that. It's not dependent upon the renter, just your income itself. You can do it on that issue.

So if the renting becomes a hassle, and it feels like it is a second job that you hate, you know,

you can always be done with that.

Well, there's a number of years from now that that double wide's not going to be inhabitable. And so you're going to tow it to off somewhere and mow over where you used to be. And you're not going to have a rental anymore.

Yep. That's just it. That's out there in the future somewhere. And you've got to decide what that is. But yeah, oh, and here's the thing.

All of you listening, the whole thing we want you to do is just not normalize keeping debt your whole life.

And it shouldn't have a plan.

“He's got to plan seven years. It'll be done again.”

Like he was last time. Yeah, that's the thing. But we just normalize your, like neighborhood I grew up in.

People say, you're always going to have a car payment.

Just the way it is. You know, you're always going to have a house payment. Mows will get in, so if you normalize it and you give up and you surrender to these banks, they will own your butt for the rest of your life.

And so you have to villainize them and say, this is a war for my freedom. And I'm going to fight for my freedom. And in Tyler's case, he's surrendering some of that temporarily only with a plan to get it back as soon as possible.

Versus, well, it's okay. It's no big deal. Rims, he just said, you know, no, no, no, no, no. There's a reason we do this because not having any payments is the shortest method to becoming very, very wealthy.

It's the shortest path. And the more payments you have,

“the more held back you are especially of 30 year mortgage.”

If you run the numbers, if you just, if you had it for 30 years, how much you pay and just interest, you know, if you go go on a mortgage calculator and just look it up. I mean, that just makes you sick where you're like, oh, my gosh. So part of it, too, is getting that money back.

Yeah, in your pocket, like what you're saying, when you have nothing, you're not paying out all of this. Like it's wild. Mathematical, you're most powerful, wealth building, too, is your income.

If you invest $100 a month from age 25 to age 65, you have 1,176,000 dollars. So if you have a $500 car payment from age 25 to age 65, because car payments are normalized, that's a $5 million car you're driving.

Hope you like the car. If you keep a mortgage, your whole stinkin' life, because every time you get one paid off, you can't wait to go get another one. The number of people in America that pay off their car

get out of debt, or the way they celebrate getting a raise at the office is going to take another new car payment. And that's just stupid people. You're playing the car company's games. You're playing the bank's games.

You're playing the FICO score game. You're playing the Samuel L. Jackson. What's in your wallet game? And what's in my wallet is none of Samuel's ad gum credit cards.

And instead, there's some pictures of Uncle Ben, German, Franklin, that's him. So that's how that worked. I mean, you just got to think this through, guys. That's how that works.

And so that's what we want. And so that's the way we think and what we're gonna measure your question against that idea when it comes in. And you know, and we, you know, whether you go in debt

or whether you go broke, it doesn't really affect us. We're just going home. I don't turn off the microphone a few hours, I'm going home.

And Rachel's kids will never know what happened to you

and she'll be okay, you know? It's okay. So this is all for you. We're doing, we're helping you because we love you. And we want you to win.

And we've done that for almost 40 years now. And consequently, there's tens of thousands of baby step millioners out there that have followed these ideas because they freaking work. And these ideas come from the Bible

and from your grandmother who got them from the Bible. It's live on less than you make, get out of debt. Always be generous, always be saving, always have a written plan with your money. These are common sense things

and I can back everyone I'm up scripturally if you want me to. I mean, this is how this works. And people that, you know, on TikTok that want you to do something else,

come on, guys really, think about your sources. Garbage into your brain. You know what your brain turns into garbage. So, you know, you're just-- - At least you don't say TikTok.

- I need to, I need to clean that up. I'm sorry, TikTok. If you're using TikTok, you can use a TikToky. - You've come a long way. - It's a dad joke, I don't know, I don't know.

“But, hey, well, and I think the hardest thing for people”

is when you feel stuck, you want the fastest way out and the fastest way out, the quote unquote, get rich quick, you get quick results.

- Yeah, you can always borrow your way

into anything. - It doesn't anything. - Right, it does not end up on the other side. And so, actually, the more methodical, slow-paced, consistent plan that is backed by common sense. That's the one that works.

It's not a shiny and flashy and exciting, but it is what it is. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey, George Campbell here.

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in no specific outcomes guaranteed. [MUSIC PLAYING] Maria is in New Orleans, time Maria, how are you? Hi, how am I right? How are you?

Better than I deserve, how can we help? So I made $20,000, okay, on my car. And it was given us a lot of trouble that had been working the plans since the beginning of the year. And because it was in my husband's name,

he went to trade it in for what was supposed to be a cheaper vehicle.

And instead, he came back with one that was 50K, negative equity, $90

a weekend gas just to get me to work in back. So I went back to the dealership to see about trading it in for something to last or giving it back. I was disgusted and they told me, well, you can give us $20,000, and we'll take it back, or you can trade it in for something

that is more fuel efficient. And I just want to get out of this situation that my husband put me in. What's your husband saying about this?

“What was his reaction when you probably stepped out?”

Well, when I went back to the dealership and they told me exactly how much it was, his response was, I didn't know they had just told him what the monkey note was going to be. So I'm not sure if we can answer if we need to trade

a husband or the car. Uh, both of the nine. [LAUGHTER] It's like I'm so tired of this. Oh, Lee, how long have you all been married?

Oh, a very long time, almost 20 years. Yeah. OK. Usually I'm the one that takes care of all of the finances. But you know, it's been a long time.

And we've grown, we've supposedly matured. And I trusted him to go in with, OK, I have worked. Take it in, trade it in, get something cheaper that we can pay off. And he comes back.

Well, I will say, not that this is an excuse for him by any means. He's a grown man. And he should have known what he was paying for at the end. But car dealers are notorious for figuring out that monthly payment.

And then they add on this and this and this. And you really don't know when you walk out. But when he signed the papers, he should have seen and known and asked for it. So it's not an excuse.

I just know, if you're not, if you don't care, it's almost like if you're not engaged at all in the purchase, that can just happen, right? But that's what frustrates me about it is you weren't engaged in the process at all.

Like you did completely the opposite of everything we talked about. So that's the issue that I see in any world negative equity into it. So how much have you sold this time?

They said she said they said she's 20,000 upside down. The idiots sold it. And no, but I wonder if you Kelly Bluebooked it for a cell of an individual, a sale, what it would come up as. So let me tell you that your finances are not--

your finances are not going to get better if you keep handling them the way you are. Where this guy is loose, out there running around, doing whatever, because you sent him over to the car dealer. And you thought he could handle it.

“The two of you need to sit down, look at numbers.”

And when the item is over $1,000, you need to wait overnight, talk about it, and the two of you pray about it and look at the numbers. Slow your butt down, and both of you be involved. And the two of you need to be looking at your monthly budget,

and the two of you need to be leaning into getting us

All of your verbiage has been, I'm the only adult in this

conversation, and I'm dragging this little boy along with me. That's your verbiage. That's what it feels like. Yeah. And that's got to stop, because you're not going to win financially

doing that. All of our data points of all the millionaires we've studied, all the people that are successful in their marriage, all the people that are successful with their money, our teams, they work together.

They respect each other, and they make deals with each other, and they keep their word. And they don't cop out within competence or direct conflict against the goals that we have agreed to. But you guys are not on the same page.

And so boy child is going to have to man up, and you're going to have to get used to other people speaking into this other than just you.

The two of you together, got to look at this and go,

this is a freaking mess, and together, we're going to clean this freaking mess up. And then if you take that set of principles and apply them to this mess, then it's going to sound like, well, let's look at 14 different ways.

We can get rid of this stupid butt car, because we got screwed. You let it happen. Both of you, you by sending him over there, him by being asleep at the wheel in a coma and a car dealer's finance office, which is a good place to get screwed.

And both of you together, watch this happen. And then the car dealer just asks an alligator, if it's hungry, it's going to say, yeah.

“And so guess what, that's what they're going to do.”

So that's, you know, now you got to figure out how to get out of this. The two of you got to sit down and go, okay, we're going to go to 14 dealers. We're going to analyze this car.

We're going to get this car sold.

And we're going to get a freaking hoop D, $2,000 car. And we're going to roll up our sleeves. Everybody's taking extra jobs. We're not going to see the inside of a restaurant. Unless we're working there.

We're not going on vacation. All that money you piled over there by your fishing boat. It's going to go to clean this dead gum mess up. Whatever it is, you got to scrape all this money in the middle of the table, clean out the knickles out of the corner of the couch

and get the mess cleaned up as a team. But until you team up, you're not going to win. You're not. This is going to happen over and over. Because it sabotages the progress that you make.

That's why one person, people ask this all the time, how can I do this without, with my, my spouse's approval or involvement? You can't. Yeah.

It's tough. Yeah. That's where it is. And so I'm sorry. I'm sorry you guys are in the middle of this mess.

But that's your answer. How to fix it, fix this relational dysfunction. Yes. And that'll fix the overall thing. Because resentment's going to start to build if it hasn't already.

“Maria, so honestly, like that's for him to come to the table”

and have a seat at the table and actually have an opinion. And you listening to it. Yeah, responsibility. And responsibility, all of it. His involvement and vice versa with you.

And like that's part of it. But I'd be pissed, too, so I think. Oh, blame it, you know. That part of it's true. I'll go with you on that.

Dave is in for Lauderdale. Hey, Dave, what's up? Hey, how you doing? I've got an issue with the bench. I went to apply for a cash out mortgage

because I had a, my attorney and I wanted to pay that off. And, uh, did you not have insurance? No, I have Medicare. Okay, so how much is your out of pocket with Medicare on the surgery? It's a merit pocket that there's about $70,000.

Okay. And you don't have any money. So, I thought that I don't have any money, but I didn't want to have to use my monthly expense because if you think that I own, I'll pay for it enough. I don't have a car, but I have a car, but I have a car.

I'm much money, do you have? Uh, I'm asking my right. I have my right switch of about $160,000. Okay, just pay off your medical debt. You don't have that in cash, though, Dave, do you?

No. Okay, what are you having cash?

“What's it, what's it, what's it, what's it, what's it, what's it, what's it, what's it, I think, what's it, how's the, how's the, how much, how much money do you have in the bank? Cash available to you?”

Oh, thank you, right now, about two, and monthly expense, or I have a total of over $1,000. It's a total of over $1,000, about $1,500. $1,500. If you do you have any money that you can get your hands on, that's an investment. Or anything you can sell, uh, no, no, no, no, no.

Okay, what's the $165,000 in? The home that you own and your paid for car, yep. Okay, see, you have $1500, how old are you? Um, and my 70's. Okay, what, how old are you exactly?

77.

Good, good, good, I'm glad, okay, um, and what is your monthly income? It's bad to pay $2600.

“Okay, all right, the first thing I'm going to do is go revisit that inventory, see if there's”

anything other than the house in the car that I can sell to pay, there's a debt down.

The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to call the medical people and say, I'm going to be money.

This is a Medicare deal. I don't have any cash. What kind of a deal can you offer me on this? Because if you can get a discount, if you can, I'd scrape together the money at barely out of your monthly, which your monthly is really tight.

I agree with that. Um, but I do my best not to borrow on the cash out. I don't want you to go back and debt at 77, you finally got out. Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. Then should I get term life insurance?

How much do I need? Is it affordable?

Those are the right questions to be asking.

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Call 8356-4282 or go to zander.com for a quick and easy quote, that's zander.com. Sarah is with us in Fort Collins, Colorado. I Sarah, how are you? I'm good. Dave, how are you?

I don't know. What's up? I wanted to ask, how do I get comfortable investing for the future when the future itself just feels so uncertain? What do you mean?

You know, there's a bad comparison, for example, but there's just so much negativity on social media and I see so many things that socialism is making such a push and climate change is risking our future. It sometimes feels pointless to have this big chunk of money in the future when it just feels like I'm just really anxious about it and so I'm certain.

How old are you? About 30-6. Okay, cool. Sarah has a fellow conspiracy theorist fan. I would tell you, though, I'd get off social media, I'm not kidding you for six months.

You need to go off fast. Don't engage it. And it is amazing. The news sites, too, and I get off on the other side. And that's not putting your head in the sand, right?

“If you need to know something, you need to know something, but to sit there and worry about”

something you cannot control, it does no good. It really, it really doesn't. And we were not even, I don't think, created to hold everything that we see on social media, right? Whether it's different murder trials going on to things happening across the globe.

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

It's amazing because of the inputs and it's fast and it's frequent and it's everything.

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

be. And it's going to be extreme on both sides of, even if you look political on both sides of the spectrum. It is, it's extreme.

“And when you honestly, I mean, really say, when you talk to everyday people, most people”

are in the middle on all different types of, like it is, it is more hopeful, genuinely. It is, regardless of where you stand on climate change, we can all agree that in 2006, the inconvenient truth that Al Gore put out was absolutely bogus because he claimed that Miami would be underwater by now and obviously it's not. And so, I mean, in both extremes, yeah, that's, you know, regardless of what you believe

about climate change, you just have to observe actual facts. So anyway, yeah, the reason I asked how old you are, because about the time I was your age or so, a guy came out with a book called '88 Reasons Jesus is coming back in 1988. Oh, man, people are obsessed with the rapture. I felt like the end of the world ever in the world.

Crushing conspiracy theory market, okay? And so, Bibles real clear that we're not going to know the date of the time, but this guy did, okay? And he was sitting on his house, but waiting on the exact date that Jesus was supposed to return.

I guess he's still sitting there. I don't know. Because it's still didn't happen. So, you know, and so, uh, but your point is, yeah, probably used to say 80% of what

we worry about never occurs.

And the other 20% we don't have any control over. And so, I'm going to go ahead with my life. I know there's some things out there that are actual facts. I know there's a whole bunch of it that's a drama-fied and upsold, and Miami's not going to be underwater.

I'm pretty sure, pretty sure my lifetime, we can still go down there and swim off the beach. And so, um, you know, that kind of stuff, right? So, I'm pretty sure we're going to be okay. I'm pretty sure socialist aren't going to take over. Because as soon as people figure out what that is, they don't want it.

It sucks. And there's no track record on it. I'm really not worried about it. People got good comments and- And again, you, I mean, we're- And even if it did, probably not in your lifetime.

Well, let me tell you this, Sarah. We're watching Tom Hanks has a war or two documentary. It's like, oh my god, we're in the middle of it. Once in I watch, and like a few episodes and it's so good. Good.

Could you imagine telling the greatest generation that, like, we're, like, thinking about living them? That's more like into the world. Like, yeah. You watched that.

“And you're like, are you looking at your back window for Japanese airplanes?”

That feels into the world to me. You know, and so, like, you can go into different parts of history. And you would think, what this specific generation's going through. They taught us to hide under desks in the 60s in case there was an atomic bomb. As if a desk would protect you from an atomic bomb.

I've always thought that was the dumbest, but that's just dumb as wearing a master

in COVID-19. Okay, okay. I mean, it's just as dumb. And so, you know, it's got a mighty. There's no chance.

So, anyway, the thing's fun. So, anyway, Sarah, the answer is, it's human hope versus human. Yes, anxiety. Yes. And so, what are you placing your hope in?

What do you really believe? And I really believe that God has not got that as our plan. I suspect before this thing comes to an end that I'll be on my houseboat waiting on Jesus to come back. So, yeah.

It's, well, just, yeah. This is a flipping answer, but it's also the only one I've got. I'm not going to plan my life around all the negative things bringing the world to an end. Yes.

“And the sources at which we're getting this information have a reason on why they are”

having certain headlines. And they need a certain way, they know their audience and they feed their audience what they want to hear. I mean, it's just, it's a game. The media, it is.

I mean, it's just this massive game. And so, it's called provocator. Just choose not to, yeah, choose not to engage. I mean, for real, do a six month social media pass. I don't have a supply of water.

I don't have a supply of food. I do have a supply of bullets for the zombie. Okay. Oh, my God. Other than that.

It's just the most. This zombie apocalypse. I'm ready. I think this whole cycle happens. I just don't know what the zombies are going to look like yet.

Well, I did think about stash and some, I don't know. Watch it, okay. Well, that, watch it. Okay. You got water for Y2K?

I had, we had bottled water. Yes, you did. Okay. One of my buddies. He said, "I've got more water than you."

And I said, "Do you have a gun?" And he said, "No." I said, "Good. I got your water." Why do we have to keep going back?

Why do we have to keep going back? To that. 'Cause it's how it works. I'm not worried about it. It's fun.

Enjoy the ride. Sarah, there's not a perfect answer. It's human.

There's always going to be things that are awesome.

And always going to be things that are troubling. And the good news is, if you think about it overall, here's the actual truth. In the day, if you were alive in the United States of America, you were alive at the best

You're standard of living, you're medical care, you're quality of life.

Your hours worked, the way your children are treated is better than at any point in human history and any physical location. These are the good times. We live in the middle of them. The stock market is setting records.

People are becoming millionaires faster than some of them learn to spell millionaire. These are the good times.

“If you want to start a business right now, you can just start a business.”

When I started this business almost 40 years ago, the internet wasn't even there. Much less apps, much less IAI, much less anything else I can just have an idea and deliver it to you folks by morning.

And I'm a boomer for God's sake.

What could you millennials do? This is the best time to be alive, but you know what I'll kill you? Hope deferred, stolen, put off, that's deferred, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes, it is the tree of life. So when we have this sense of hope, it drives our belief system and it causes us to do things

that cause our dreams to come true. When we've lost our hope and we're frozen, and our hope is stolen by these fear porn sites or by bad inputs from tiktok or whatever, then we act on that lack of hope, which guarantees that our nightmares come true. And we miss the wave of existing in the greatest time, in the greatest location, the United

“States of America, in the history of the world.”

Wow.

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I'm Dave ramsy your host Rachel Cruz ramsy personality is my co-host. This hour we're going to devote to one of my favorite topics and most people's one of their favorites to talk about around the water fountain over the kitchen table with one of our favorite people with one of our favorite people is real estate. Brian Buffini of America's real estate coach.

He coaches he and his team coach more real estate agents than any other company in America at Buffini and company. Brian's been a friend for many years. He speaks at our on trade leadership conferences of spoken in his conferences and he was on here a few months ago and about all we were sure of as we were going to do that again.

Welcome back Brian. Glad to be back. Love being here with you guys. It's good to have you sir. So I want to talk real estate this hour together and towards the end of the hour guys,

we're going to open up the phones and clear off the phone lines and take some questions from some of you. Browns are one of the leading experts on real estate. So this whole thing of you and I and this doing a segment on real estate kind of happened when we were having a discussion over the golf course one day and you said well there's

inventory shortage. Just and I went well yeah there's been inventory shortage just for 20 or 25 years and anytime there's a shortage of something the price goes up no doubt and you said well there's something to the president could do it and I don't tell me that I don't want to I don't want to depend on watching to do anything well we went one thing we could

do you said is we could keep the keep the large institutions from buying tens of thousands of homes and taking them off the market and turning them into rental houses and that's one problem one thing we could do is a lot of the boomers would like to sell and move

million dollars in equity and that's a 30 year old y'all that's all that number is

should have been updated and hasn't been indexed for inflation or anything else we could remove the capital gains tax on home personal residences and a bunch of people put their house up for sale because they could get that money out tax free move down and that would help add to the inventory and that was a couple of things we talked about I talked about I'm on the air right after that and loan behold the president put out a I'm not saying

it came from us but he did call us right after that now I want us to talk about it to get the bill through and that did actually happen the road to housing act and then when it did come through he didn't want to sign it because they filled it full of pork as they

“always do and so that's what happens when you're in DC but so the road to housing act”

I want to start with that I'm going to take part of the credit with Brian Buffini for having at least a sparked an idea in Washington because what it was supposed to do the primary thing was to keep these institutional buyers from buying the house and get them off the market yep and it did some of that for sure it was definitely watered down right it wasn't a nothing burger but it wasn't the bill we were hoping for they have these some they've eased the

restraints for local communities to be able to help build more homes that's a big deal that is a big deal carry on your demolition thanks but you know you know it's 72 degrees there today I got bad taxes and I can't build a house but a 72 that's the so I'm hanging on pretty well but I'll just say now I will say that they didn't get the cap gains thing done no they did get a restriction on the big companies and what's happening these companies who bought for two

years they bought 25% of all homes in America they are now trying to divest themselves so what they're doing is lease and out these homes and now they've come out with incentive programs okay we'll lease you the house and we'll give you credit towards buying it if you buy it because they're trying to get out of it so for someone trying to create a down payment the market rate because rents have come down so typically typically when they do a lease option there's a premium on the lease they

charge more for the lease on the home and then they you get a credit for a down payment well you kind of paid extra for that now what's happens because the rents have come down across the board they're being forced to rent these new homes but they're given credits to people who say if you sign up one year lease or an 18-month-lear lease we'll give you $10,000 towards the

“down payment and you do buy it from us so that's what the economics are forcing that not this bill”

no no that's the bill didn't cause them to die dive ash no it's just stopped them from buying buying more the houses on your street so now because they're these big black stones and whatever else they're like I can't buy more while I'm going to get rid of what I have so they're

going to slowly get rid of what they have the second thing is that's an unintended consequence I didn't

see that comment no it's good and the next thing that's happening is midterms are coming all real estate is local and all politics are too so now they're actually talking about actually doing an executive order in the next couple of weeks on the capital gains thing that didn't get put through the first time really so you're doing executive order you know so the way you do it as you put it into the reconciliation bill you don't make it a permanent change to the tax laws

you follow oh it's not a permanent thing so what it could do now the downside it could create a shock of people going I'm going to get my money so yeah we're a quick 250 per person 500,000 for a couple put in today yeah not today that started in 1997 they're talking about moving to a million okay now if it was index inflation it'd be 620,000 each but if it's a million

“what how motivated do you think them boomers would be down size here's the thing so now you're”

going I have a rental property I have a vacation home I'm in a big house that I don't really know what not just personal residents everything everything and so now it's like I'm going to

here's what I'm doing I'm going to put it down I was only going to get a $500,000 drop now I'm

going to get a million dollar drop and here's the gift and here's the hope for the folks out there no if you got if it's a rental house it's a million dollars it's nothing yeah yeah and so now what you're looking at is a potential of getting that discount again it'll go year by year so it's a reconciliation bill I think it'll soften prices because I'm like hey I'll take 50 grand off my price if I can be assured of the 90% of the taxes on that you know so that's uh they're looking at doing

that in the next reconciliation bill I just got to call on that today okay if that actually happens that'll answer if even if it's temporary if you put a million dollars on my the on the houses that I own that are rentals yeah and I've got a million dollars for the gain I'll sell them yeah well there that's what they're trying to do because they they know they got a big problem on her hands yeah and young people can't buy homes they're feeling discounts like you know I shouldn't

you were you were on but was it June of this year with us we were on okay so it's been a few months what has anything big shifted you've been in the last 90 days it's got worse has it it's for you are a lot of sunshine yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm from a land is

probably dig into them more in the segments from just curious so what we're seeing is this increase

in under 30's living at home yeah it's gone back thirty nine percent up to forty nine percent of people under thirty you know okay I mean no no no so that's in the last six years but that's gonna three points this summer so kids are coming out of college who normally would graduate and get a job at the college town they all moved home yep so this year we've seen a higher percentage these college kids who got graduated came back home and didn't go well and and this is

not speaking for all jinsy by anyways but there was a clip going around viral of this girl she's probably twenty four and she's just having a cow in her car about how she is not kidding a hundred and fifty thousand dollar offer for these job and on and on and on and on people are reacting

like you're basically two years out of college no you're not gonna be making that so all of it

to say yeah uh they have this belief of still some of them of what they should be making slash what my life should look like and then reality hits and it's like no you're making sixty five fifty a buddy of mine sent this son over for an interview at the company now I don't interview people it comes along the kid goes I wanted my contract and yeah for for an executive

“position within two years and that's what his professor told him and I said I got room in the”

mail room I was a kid I don't know where's your little mop looks like it's hard yep wow not making the income safe thing and then they try to get in the housing market they can't stuff rentals are up yep it's brand buffini is with us we're talking real estate I think it's gonna be a sociology lesson we're done this is the Ramsey show as a dad of young kids I'm starting to think a lot more about the world are growing up in

and how I'll help them make sense of it as they get older and that's why I like world watch a video new service for pre-teens and teens because one thing I know for sure if you don't teach your kids how to understand the world somebody else will and these days that could be TikTok, YouTube, Instagram influencers or whoever happens to show up in their social media feed world watches 10 minute videos help young people understand what's happening in the world

through a Christian world view without all the outrage negativity and noise that is everywhere these days the reporting is factual engaging and designed specifically for pre-teens and teens and world watch creates opportunities for something every family needs more of meaningful conversations set of just reacting to headlines kids learn how to think about what's happening in the world and parents get a chance to keep those conversations going at home because when my kids are old

enough I want them informed not overwhelmed and right now you can get a 30-day free trial just go to worldwatch.News/Ramsy or use promo code ramsy to get started that's worldwatch.News/Ramsy Like so many things in life there's a lot of things you can't control and the world of real estate is one of them so how do you function in this environment? Well we're talking about Brian Buffini today one of the nation's leading experts in leading coaches on real estate issues I will tell you

this you control the controllables anytime you're facing something feels out of control first thing is facts are your friends not feelings so this sense that you've been boxed out or it's unfair all these little childish things that we all feel when we feel disenfranchised yeah well that's

“feelings okay so you have to back up from that and go okay but what are the facts and what are”

the things I can actually control well the facts are that the typical entry home if you take out California New York is about $199,000 right now that's the typical starter home in America

and the typical starter home in America is not fancy and has never been fancy

even when my first home was purchased when my parents purchased their first home they weren't fancy and so you want to have controllables as you adjust your expectations for your first home I was because you're not going to buy a $4,000 square foot with a jacuzzi in a skylight you're closed okay yes but for real though so Brian what are you seeing the typical I I have not seen that $200,000 that's a small number which I don't crush a lot of them yeah but it's a silly

what would you say for the average starter home because I mean I mean I have look up home

“so the average home in America is about four for twenty eight yeah I think it's good to take”

out the two coasts right I mean yeah because I love in San Diego it changes the math it changes

friends of Brian Mfini so they position numbers because they have certain programs going right

“so you're probably looking at your typical starter home is about two ninety okay so it might”

be about a hundred grand more that the dynamic that we're seeing is this there's more inventory than that we've seen in the last seven years okay there's more houses for sale which means prices are starting to soften prices are starting to flatten this is the time and you you talk guys we're talking earlier on but the lady listen to social media if you're a buyer and you're listening to social media there is no hope give up everybody's given up that's the thing to do

rant is your friend the math's not math thing and that's not true now's the time to be making sure you're doing a ramsy program you're saving them on a year eat and spaghetti yeah you're doing it because if if you really want a house you got a sacrifice yeah out of debt don't buy a car

fun don't buy a car payment just saying every first time buyer bought a car they buy a car before

why can't I get a house of a twelve hundred dollar car payment right and that is why that is the typical thing so you gotta keep grinding the second thing there is dynamics out there I was talking to you guys offline twenty three percent of all mortgages in the United States are sumable now they're specifically they're FHA and VA and you were on radio a few years ago a few months ago talking about this no I screwed that up about two weeks ago I just said they're not a sumable and I got hammered for it

because I was wrong well you were right and you were wrong you were right when it comes to conventional conventional loans are not a sumable none of them are they used to none of them be a sumable

“with the rights but you can take an FHA or VA and they'll keep the right so here's the thing if”

you're a military person you go to the listing and say if find me someone who's in the military selling their home and you can take off the average loan on an FHA VA is three point two percent FHA which is the number one first time buyer home so let's say someone's the first time buyer they bought a home they fixed it up it's worth more it's gone up in value they're going on to buy a conventional house they're going to get a conventional the FHA loan that's on their house

is a sumable you got to qualify so you have good credits you got or you got the down payment you cleaned your goods you got no stupid car payment you can go get an a sumable loan on a VA

or an FHA loan and you're not paying the current you know 5.6 percent on a 15 year fixed you're

getting a 3 percent right and 90 percent of them are getting a 6.8 Dave you know they're the most and we're getting 30 years I mean your plan is better it's right it's the only way to save money but the typical buyer right is out there doing that yeah it's 6.8 and that for the first time home buyers we're just running numbers in the break you know if you make 100 grand which is a little bit up then what the average or what the median household income is your starter home

is going to be around that 270 300 which is correct you know that's around what you're saying even that that's correct right that should be your first but it's going to take longer to save and if that 270 300 thousand dollar house is not in the neighborhood you want good school district right if you have kids like all of it it's going it's going to take you longer and I feel like that's one of the most frustrating questions about this it might take you longer

to drive to work because you might move three counties out or two counties now my first home

was on Texas Street in San Diego and we were three weeks married moved into the new home and Beverly goes one of those fireworks I hear in the distance it's just yeah there's celebrating here in inner city San Diego but you know what we we fixed it up we made it worth more we saw that house and I got it to another neighborhood and you can't move it that's right yes yes so you know you got to start somewhere you got a fight by scratching claw yeah I'll just say this

there is the average homeowner has 46 times the net worth of the average renter young people are deciding to stay renters that's a way to stay broke fight by scratching claw here's the I I was showing you guys people like here's this little graph for those who can see it look at this thing the green is the amount of years and last 75 years it will stay one up okay and here's the red and the red four of them five of more the great recession so it's gone down six years and 75 that's

a pretty good investment so it's not going anywhere now the beautiful thing for people it's only going to go up gradually the next few years and the incomes are going up at a higher rate which is great yeah the fight by scratching the current the current inflation rate real state nationwide is around one percent yep yep and the current a wage growth is around three and a half three and a half okay give it four years yeah if you say wages don't match real estate

prices that that's going in the right direction yes which is great that's going to help the issue but it's not going to change if you have unrealistic expectations to get an executive position in the first two years in your contract and get an executive house yeah yes yeah if you if you want a thousand square foot home in a premium number yeah and I don't think you can't afford

“that if you make 80 thousand hours a year right right and I think that that's the hard part is”

when it when the rubber meets the road and you're looking at your income you're working hard

they are trying so hard to do well and it's and when the facts come out yes your feelings are going to follow it's going to be frustrating really man I this is this is less than what we

“are expecting right and so there's that reality that you have to live in for a bit and then once”

you kind of get over that hump right of what you're saying you fight hard get in the markets and then you could look up in four years and be a totally different place what your income your job

your house every time I was a house painter right my dad was a house painter and my first house

I told my wife it was five star accommodations because you could see five stars through the hole in the roof and so we fixed it up we made it better right right and then we sold it we made the next one better and we made the next one better and the next thing you know you wake up one day and you've got millions of dollars in equity and real estate and that's the that's the emergency but to get there what you're saying is the plan like if you if you still have student loan payments you still have

to car you got a credit card debt it it is gonna feel almost impossible to try to be a homeowner

“today you don't you get that stuff cleaned up that's right and that's what we said shouldn't buy a home”

if you're in that mess right you should clean the mess up first because the home's not going to

be a blessing it's gonna be a curse so you get out of debt you build your full of emergency fund you save for a good down payment you adjust your expectations of location and generally that means you're going to go a little bit further out and the further out you go the more house you can buy in most markets I want out of every ten homes in America is sold to my clients we tell every member we have in a real estate business to get every first time buyer buy them a copy of total

money makeover I was walking my sons for the building to then I go I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of copies of that book I saw because and why am I here today apart from our friendship

“is it's the best stuff out there to get people on a path and and in the motto all day is all”

school and chew your credit cards up let me tell you that old school works today tomorrow 50 years or no get out of debt get the student loans gone don't drive the old car by something to park it in front of yep now when you do that okay so if you're sitting there and you clear your debt and then you get ready to buy a house and you go look at what you can afford and you don't like it now you got two choices remain a renter or buy that home that's not fancy that I don't like

and get started 10 years from now which will be the best route for your wealth building in your family by the house that you don't like or sure I used to send out a postcard to neighborhoods and says your landlord says hi and thanks again for paying his mortgage this is the Ramsey show if you are someone you love is dealing with a complex health issue navigating the health care

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questions in the next segment if you want to call in triple eight eight two five five two two five

“and ask Brian a question so here's some of the ones that have already come in Brian should I wait”

for rage to come down before I buy I heard in the previous section you were talking about the guy who knew when Jesus was coming back and he was sitting on his boat yeah that's like the buyer waiting for rates to come down okay so you know if you know when rates are coming down you give me a call you let me know I don't think anything's going to change for a long time because of the amount of debt the country has the rates are built off the treasury bills the treasury bills are who the

government is borrowing money from countries institutions I have T bills and they've guaranteed to pay me a certain amount the 10 year treasury is what sets the market and so you take the 10 year treasury you add 2% and you'll get a 30 year market so like right now it's 4.6 and so you're gonna go and get a mortgage at 30 year mortgage be 6.8 and the 15 is you know 5.7 so if you wait I'll say this

“I have never had anybody in my real estate career say this ever I'm glad I waited what the typical”

thing is man I could have bought that house down in cool springs for 300 grand in a packet of peanuts and now it's worth a million you know and I didn't and that's all you ever hear you hear stories of

regret never have I heard anybody happy they waited is renting forever a viable option and

can I still build wealth without buying a home I'll jump in on this week okay so of course it is you know living in your cars an option too so the you can rent it's just when the number says the number one source of wealth in the United States is a private residence and that the average home owner has 46 times the net worth of a renter the numbers are in your favor can you go do it on the market can you invest in stocks for sure you can you can do all that stuff it's just a lot harder and not a

stable when we did the largest study of millionaires in America ever done 89% of them

“did it on their own without inheritance nine out of ten we found over and over and over again two”

things one is they'd loaded up their 401k and it had built up to a substantial amount and the second one is they bought a home paid it off yep and so we're talking to a guy with a guy with a gal with a million and a half dollar net worth they got a $600,000 paid for house and you know they got $7,800,900,000 in their 401k and that's that's the typical millionaire in America today

the first place you're the place you get your first for one to five million is investing in your 401k

steadily and getting a home and getting it paid off so they and 100% of the time those houses have gone up yeah and a hundred percent of the time the next door neighbor renting his rent went up yeah sure so the math works against you when you're a renter you have no control yeah now that doesn't mean you don't need to rent until you get yourself out of debt that's right and get your emergency funding get rid of your student loan and all that you do all of that for rent but renting for 30 years

is a dumb idea really mathematically dumb and rent less than you can afford what should I actually prioritize when buying my first home a yard versus square footage versus older versus newer home excel versus the neighborhood yeah well it's again it's boring I wish I had something sexy

in location location location I always bought the best home or the worst home on the best street

so I buy as much location as I can afford and then I go put in the sweat equity to make it better and so do the upgrades and everything yeah fight it you know like I understand the home builders they do a great job and they it's sexy and they got muffins in the oven and you come through and you drink juice and they got this and they got the designers and whatever else you want to buy the ugly duckling in the best neighborhood you could afford and fight by scratching claw to get it

because that is I mean that's the common sense I feel like I don't know a ton about all this but that is the you never want to buy top of the neighborhood you always want to buy in the low I mean that that is the common sense rule so do not do not forget that you are looking yep I used to have people say well I want to have you know the I want to buy a house on the ocean and I got a budget for the mountain you know what I mean and I say well here's my advice if you know I want I have to have

5,000 square feet well I would say just keep driving south till you can afford something because it's Mexico down there okay just keep driving south you'll you'll be able to afford something soon from California oh my god that's so great should I buy or sell by owner to save on commission feet oh we love this just toss that one up to the real estate coach both of both of us could chew on this one all right now on the leg yeah allow start with this the average number of first

transfers last year with all the technology and all the zealot and all the demand the average

“for sell by owner was 4 percent of all sales and 80 percent of those were inter family transfers”

was it an inter family transfer you call a lawyer not a realtor and the the second dynamic is the average real estate agent gets 14 percent higher sales price than a for sell by owner so yeah and I cost and they cost six yeah the average real estate commission in America is six yeah and the average and they get an average of 14 percent more for the house so you didn't save the commission no I everything I can change the oil on my Mercedes too but you know it would cost me more

in spilling on the driveway and getting on my closet it wouldn't be getting it done to jiffy so yeah let's add to that question too because I had this call the other day I'll tell you about but how should someone analyze when how should if they've got three different realtors or four different realtors that they're interviewing real estate agents how should they analyze which

one to pick well I always start with a referral right that's my basis like someone who's a trusted

source or you have Ramsay trusted is the name of your system you got to find a referral someone who's trusted the next thing is what's their experience okay how many homes did I last year here's yeah this will stagger yeah this is this is mine okay 64 percent of all realist agents have not sold a home this year now you know that is not who you want to be working with and you know this used to be an 80 20 business it's become a 85 15 it's head into a 90 10 business

where we had 1.6 million members of the National Association of realtors two years ago and by January of next year by January of 28 it'll be 1 million so 600,000 people are out and that's because people got in oh realist I love houses I love people this looks great it's so easy I'm a frustrated decorator and you're okay good luck with that real estate is hard it's a hell of

“a lot of work it puts an up a dawn down at dusk siege you have to fight your way with others don't yeah”

evenings and weekends I'll 50 to 300 houses a year and then you're qualified as a top agent like if you are interviewing what's a number that they would say this is how many houses I sold this year that you're like oh that's a okay that feels like a good it depends on the average sales price so and if I'm in California if someone sell on 20 homes a year their average sales price two and a half million right but I'd say you know for me I think they got to be above the 25 transaction threshold

yeah across the board you guys haven't even hired threshold yeah we do it for Ramsey trusted which is fantastic bottom lines they got to be a pro they got to come with references and they

got to tell you here's who I work with and here's what I've done and you get a real pro like

it's just when you get a real pro you get to sit in the back of the car and they drive you to the airport and it's done for you and there's no legal after bite there's no disclosure problems you when you sell the house the house is actually sold you sell the house by yourself it's not permanently sold they can come back after you if you don't cross the teas and don't guys it's a big deal all the titles for everything yep that's good I love it how about this question okay

how often should I check my homeowners insurance the coverage amount how often would you recheck that well I mean Dave Dave will go berserk on this because he's right I mean it's just all the time you know right now California for example yesterday they have like what's called a California fair plan which is like a subsidized government fricking insurance policy and they just went up 29% one day okay so you got to be shopping all the time you can have it again same thing you

got to look I would say every 90 days now so if you live on the coast the idea of the California

“socialized homeowners insurance program just went up 29% right because that's what it is yes sir”

yeah those of us who grew up in Europe and have experienced socialism don't understand why y'all Americans are playing footsy with that stuff wow brown buffini is where this number one real estate coach and real estate expert we're gonna take your calls and a few more of our questions in this last segment of this hour coming up happy to hold your money but fair ones credit union helps you make progress most people spend years

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phones and we're throwing one other thing right quick we've noticed and we've talked about on the air here several times in the past two years we began noticing and we didn't make the time we didn't make the connection initially the percentage of folks that are living together

“not married versus married and if you didn't know more people live together in America not”

married than live together married and that number has been that way for about almost 10 years now that number crossed a few about a decade ago and but what we're seeing is that that's hampering the data is in now from that because it's been going on long enough that's hampering people's ability to build wealth and we're also seeing in brands numbers that it's affecting or or it's or I can't tell if it's cause or effect really in these numbers but it's also showing up in these

housing numbers so the percentage of people buying a home that are married is down dramatically but the percentage of people that are married is down right yep and so the people that have a double income to buy a home together is down because two singles buying a home together doesn't count like a married couple for the mortgage company right and it's different issues and different underwriting issues it's it's more problematic yeah because they're getting themselves into a

mess the mortgage company knows that their data home it is bad yeah so I mean look at it in

1960 people under the age of thirty married couples home ownership rate was 52 percent

and now again less people married all that kind of stuff but 2025 the numbers 12 percent so we got from 52 percent to 12 percent and so that's both but in 1960 like 90 percent of the people living together were married yep yep our more yeah for sure and so it was a 70 just that that shift and what's funny is women homeowners yep our our our our our our so women are like listen I'm gonna I'm I'm doing I'm not buying crypto and sports betting I'm no yeah even for the future

I'm not married in a crypto bro I'm buying a house yeah I mean so they're they're getting in the market at two and a half times the rate a single man two and a half times the rate yeah yeah and and I wonder from 1960 you know from even women like women couldn't probably support themselves the way they like they couldn't even have a checking account so right so you could have checking account but it wasn't not that you had to be signed right it was 1973 when I that that's just

“the y-r-a but the my mother had a checking account okay in the 60s I remember that just I didn't”

have to be signed by a man no no absolutely catch U-B-t it really everything on the internet's not true hey for Hamletton said that yeah all right Josh is in Washington DC hey Josh how are you hey team how's it going great man what's your real estate question for Brian so I'll start off by saying my wife and I have a pretty good situation but we want to tackle this the right way and consider all factors make sure we are missing anything good soon we are currently

in a rent to purchase option agreement dated back in 2024 we got in a prison in 2024 in the house that's the set price on the house we're set to buy it in December 2021 we'll have about

25 to 30 percent down ideally with a good amount of cash left over emergency fund and then

just left over decent amount of cash left over here awesome yeah freaking new for excellent but with this house the thing is is if we do buy it we're going to want to put some money into it now we don't really know if we're going to be there that long um it is it's a really nice home but uh with good bones but we haven't really been able to kind of make it our own home because

well quote unquote worried that if we put some money into it we pay the mortgage um that you know

when we go to sell it we might either not make our money back given the fact that you know most of the payments upfront are going to be interesting yeah that's fine that's so the the

“question is what renovation will carry its own weight yes that's what you're looking for you spend”

money that multiplies itself so if you could spend a hundred dollars and it raises the value of thousand we got the right thing if we spend uh ten thousand dollars on a pool nobody else has a pool uh the pool's now a liability yeah you devalued the house rather than increase the value of the house because no one else on the street has one agreed yep yeah look the pool of devaluer

well it's a good and that's what you're saying here's so I would say the pool is the the lowest

resale upgrade you can make to a house average cost of pool in the United States last year 72 thousand average resale value seven so so here's the day if you're going to put money into a house here's how it works right uh paint now not just because I'm a painter son but paint is 20 bucks in the can to grand on the walls right so paint is good kitchens and bathrooms women buy houses men are just tagging along my father the day I got married said to me son I gotta tell you some

marriage advice he goes when your mother and I got married I made I we made an agreement I would make all the important decisions and she would make all the non-important decisions and I want

you know in 47 years I haven't had an important decision so women buy houses do so you buy kitchen

“and bathroom bathrooms yep you paint how long would you say you have to we would have to live in”

the house to see some value back given given our structure it typically you'll get your money back in two years typically you get your money back in two years and the upgrades also add to the speed of the sale and the speed of the sale what people don't understand but real estate the fast you sell a home the higher the price you get so kitchens would you that room should go ahead and buy the home or yes oh my gosh yes buy it purchase the house that's a little bigger now you buy

that house you buy that house and get your foot in the door do absolutely yeah but the renovations to quote unquote make it your own don't make it your own fix it up to sell it yeah as if you were an investor now what would an investor do they're not going to do renovations that don't add more value than the renovation costs so you ask yourself when we're getting ready to change something is that something we like or is that something that's going to add more value than the cost and you

can actually talk to a good real estate agent they can come by and tell you you know another example typically is because so much is digital now and it is dependent upon pictures and looks as your curb appeal and so in your photographer I know it's on silly but like a good for our landscaping is a big deal yes I mean if you've got nasty butt landscaping in front of this thing please expect that to show up in the picture right and that's a few dollars and a lot of sweat yep

and you can get that right it just makes your own paint the outside landscaping and the garage door those that are all those all return higher than a hundred percent I've heard that's about the garage door average garage door but this four times the receiv of it so how fun he is hey why do women wear makeup okay you know what I'm saying I like some barns need paint okay so come on you know board have mercy on my soul no so right I mean does it make a more appealing for sure so

men's the problem yeah I've more makeup I put it on my head so that helps Josh I don't know if we help I mean that's exactly what you do so think about the things like that but you know you want a unique audio system through a home that we're no one else in the neighborhood has a unique audio system you're doing that for you and you're gonna lose money on that you're not gonna get the money back out that you spend yeah I mean if you're in a a $200,000 home and you

want to put in a 60 inch 14,000 dollar sub zero refrigerator you're not gonna get your money back on that and take it with us most of the people in that neighborhood to have a scene of sub zero

“and so you know that's what you're thinking about there and so what we're trying to say is don't”

overbuild the neighborhood don't the do something that's so unique that that it doesn't play brown bifini thank you brother so yeah I love talking to your folks we give a lot of hope I love being part of the the best dad daughter comedy show in America so it's like eating dinner

Yes my signs and women on their own yeah but guess what but guess what that wasn't necessary

for them to do it it just required for them to do it and for them and so my mother did have a checking account because you're you're 60 because you're dad no he didn't have to I told you the best game is out where we're gonna do it I'm not factual I am woman here me roar as your business grows everything becomes more complex there was a time when Ramsey Solutions had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business we wasted too much

“time chasing information instead of making decisions that's why we got net sweet net sweet brings”

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if your revenue is at least seven figures go to net sweet dot AI slash Ramsey that's net sweet dot

AI slash Ramsey welcome back to the Ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio

“right you'll cruise Ramsey personality is my co-host today Andrew is whether it's in Tyler Texas hey Andrew how are you?”

how can I help hey I'm just wondering I have like a money anxiety problem someone or how I can change my mindset with money so I can like not be so stressed and anxious about every purchase I make big or small what are you afraid of? I don't I don't know it I think it's just like it's every purchase I mean it can like yeah it could be like going on to lunch with friends or bigger purchases you know like furniture okay share buying a $3,000 piece of furniture

and you have anxiety about that and again I want you to think about this because you probably do know the answer what is it that's you're afraid of when you're buying this I think I know

“but I'll wait for you to figure it out and I think it's just like the big number I think”

it's the purchase and it's like am I gonna be able to make that money back which I know is a silly thing you know it's not silly at all now it's a classic scarcity mentality it's a scarcity mentality yeah and that means that you're a saver it also probably tells me that you're probably a very analytical person am I right you might tend you tend to over-analyze versus under-analyze all of these things yeah that's pretty typical okay and so what all that is is you get emotional

satisfaction and joy from saving and stacking cash more than you do from spending it yeah but I do I mean I like to spend money on things I don't know you know you just told me you were having anxiety about it well and I I mean I I'm doing like giving gifts to people that I don't say you weren't generous I said you get more peace from stacking cash than from purchases yeah that's okay all right now that we know that we now know that the fear is caused because we're

depleting the stack of cash to buy the couch and and I wonder if I'm ever gonna get my cash back okay yeah so when you're facing something like that I mean I wish Dr. John Deloni was here to coach you through anxiety and we'll send you a copy of his book redefining anxiety which is a wonderful read and you'll enjoy it but he says that anxiety is not a negative thing it's like the smoke alarm in the house and the smoke alarm in the house goes off well we don't ignore it and

to minute the battery is low so when the alarm goes off we have to decide then okay we're A we're not gonna ignore it so the anxiety is a good warning sign it's your body telling you that you're worried about something that's not a bad thing then you say all right what's going off facts are our friends so what are the facts the facts are I have $3,000 to my name and I just

“spent that all on a gas grill so I am by definition stupid if that's the facts then you should”

have anxiety right if you have $85,000 in your account and you spend $3,000 on a gas grill the facts are your life didn't change except now you can cook a steak calm down those are the facts and so if you stop a minute and think about what's the source of the smoke alarm going off and say okay then what are the facts and am I okay and it's attached to something you're either what was wired into your brain as a kid of how you grew up something that happens I don't know

maybe you had your first job and you really were broke and you're like I never want to go back

there again and your body remembers that right or whatever it is if you can kind of pinpoint that I think is yeah as powerful if you can go back and find that in the in the past and see where it is and so you know for instance I bought and sold and flipped real estate nothing down real estate in my 20s and went broke and lost everything and so if I have a new plan a bright idea it scares the p-wad and out of my wife and it should accept that for the last 35 years all my

bright ideas have exceeded my dumb ideas but prior to that I had one big dumb idea that took us down and we lost everything so her reaction should be even today 35 years later yeah that's right her body remembers that terror of our lights and water being cut off of us being broke not having the money hardly to feed our own kids Rachel was a baby all of that her body remembers that and I as her spouse have to understand that and go okay if this is going too fast we need to slow down

and she needs to get more information so she understands what we're dealing with or we don't need to go forward because and we just slow down a little bit so slow down a little bit gather your facts ask where the anxiety is coming from is it from a real thing or is it from a thing that happened

earlier and it's just reactivating yeah and this is always an interesting on the scale of money

controlling you and once at on one into the spectrum money does become an idol of god to people and they use it to feel better about themselves right whether from an income perspective or what they drive or the house or the part of it becomes this but they're spending on one into the spectrum and it becomes this this idol it it has them it has their identity everything and then Andrews a perfect example is on the other end it has you just as much like you have no freedom

you have no ability to have peace because there's a level of control yeah to have a level of control it has you as much as it does the other people right and that's where the extremes on the spender and saver and and where you put money on the spectrum of the importance

“in your life is so important to have that balance in both of those spectrums because on”

either side it's unhealthy it becomes a thing that you literally think about 24/7 and it shouldn't be it shouldn't have a grip on you like that either way either side that's right that's right neither one or it's almost as if it's not two ends of a spectrum it's two points on a triangle and the other point is peace and hell right yeah that's fair there's one you can go to that other place and go to peace and health and yes proper view of it and those kinds of things

yes I don't want money to have that grip on you Andrew right so for the good of you it's emphasis on that on that on the shallow end you've got a great saying I've seen you use especially on Instagram it works really well is if I buy something and if I'm shallow and I'm worried about myself trying to be something right with what I own or whatever if you buy something and

no one ever sees it yes would you buy it anyway and the answer is yes then you're buying it for

the right reasons if you're buying it to show off then you're just being shallow and yeah you're just being shallow and I've done that I've all stuff to do that I don't hardly ever do it anymore

“but I remember doing that distinctly in my past and by the way that's a symptom also that”

leads to being broke it leads to get rich quick and it leads to being broke that end of the spectrum not end or it's the other side yep

problems and figure out what to do next now you can get that same kind of help anytime with ask

Ramsey ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained ask Ramsey is here to help it's fast simple and free to use go to ramseysolutions.com and try ask Ramsey today that's RamseySolutions.com if you're working the baby steps the best and fastest way to do it is using every dollar

and that's the best and fastest way to become wealthy using the baby steps it's more than just a budgeting app it's our Ramsey plan built right in you track your progress you get

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“by downloading it in the app store or google play. Jamie is in Orlando. Hi Jamie how are you?”

Hi everyone. I'm kind of nervous. It's okay how can we help? Hello? Hello? How can we help? Oh no Jamie are you there? Jamie? Jamie Jamie Jamie Jamie are you going to go to you guys here? Oh there she is. Are you there? Can you hear us?

Yes I lost you guys for a second perfect. So nervous. That's okay. We are good. What's up?

I just want to know if we're rushing into buying a new construction home by selling the condo we regret buying even if we barely make anything from that sale. Okay so you regret you're in a condo now you regret buying it so you want to move to something and that when you're looking at as a new construction build and you've already signed up for it. We have it we're just you're in a condo you yeah how long have you been in this condo?

Three years and a half. Two and a half years though you said? Yes. Okay. What's the rush? So it we have a huge HOA fee. The condo needed more repairs than what we expected and then we thought we would be able to make a good rental out of it but because of the HOA in the mortgage we wouldn't be able to get anything from it and then my husband and I are thinking of having a kid within the next year so we might need more space for it. Okay you don't buy a house

“for a kid you don't have okay but if you want to move that's a different subject. How much how much”

if you sold the condo you have any equity in it or would you just should they're gonna break even? Would you even lose money after commissions and fees and everything after selling? So we're trying to get at least it's like 2K after paying commission fees and everything else. Okay do you have any other money saved that would go to the Dom Payment of the new home? Yes so we have 57K in savings. Okay.

And then we are currently investing in like 4-1K and everything else. Sure. So what what's your household income? household income is 12,300? per month.

“Yes. Is that what hits your account or is that before taxes?”

What hits our account monthly? Okay. Okay so you might get about 180,000 a year and what price range is this new construction? 480. Okay and why new construction? Because we were kind of done with all the repairs that this condo needed so we were like oh maybe a new construction is gonna have or require less repairs.

Well, so what a two-year-old or a five-year-old home as well require less repairs. So the problem with new construction is you're paying a premium usually. That's retail and you probably can get more bang for your buck and use housing. In most cases it's not in every case but I want you to look into that. So yeah new construction just feels shiny after you've dealt with a ratty condo

So but if you want to sell a condo and break even on it and get out and you got 60 grand

“to go buy something with and you're making 180 sure sure go make the move.”

Don't keep the condo though the condo is not a rental you have properly assessed that. And don't yeah and don't be into the assumption that a new build is going to have nothing wrong

depending on the builder grade and everything and it's you never know. So just go in not naive to that.

Well the builder may cover the things that are wrong but there's all the way and something wrong. Yeah I mean you know if you build a home there's always a punch list and then there's a punch list 30 days later and then there's another one 30 days later and that's just part of you know building a new home expect that do not expect this to every single thing on there every button to work exactly right it doesn't just go ahead and have your expectations proper and then you'll be easier to work with.

Alex is in Columbus Ohio. Hi Alex how are you? Hey how's it going sir? Better than I deserve what's up?

Also looking to make a career change and I'm not sure if it is the right move at this point or

if I should stick it out in my current job and I'm kind of basing it off of my current income and current savings. Okay what is your how long have you been in your current job? I just hit two years a few months ago. What's wrong with it? Kind of getting sick of it it's sales I am trying to get out of sales start a different career and kind of spread my wings I still live at home so I'm looking to what do you make for

inch out elsewhere? This past year or to year to day I'm at about a hundred thousand I should and

“why do you live at and home? Okay how old are you Alex? I'm 24 years old. You need to go get your own”

place and be a man. Yes today. You make a hundred thousand dollars a year your mommy doesn't need to

fall your underwear. That's time. It's just being you know being in Columbus I don't see the point in I do it's called personal development and by the way you're not eligible for dating when you live in your mother's basement either so yeah go get you a place now why do you hate sales? I'm just I did what I need to do I made my way. What do you want to do? I'm looking at analyst roles looking to go into something that has a little bit more of a career development growth

and that's kind of really the more the main point of it sales I kind of figured out. What are you selling? I'm in majestic sales. Okay have you found some opportunities as an analyst anywhere that would hire you like have you looked? I'm currently looking I haven't really found or landed on anything. I want you to agree with that international business and the incident. You've probably been trained to do some analyst and good. Okay if you can get a job making what you're making now

and move in a different direction that looks like it fits your personality style better that's okay with me I don't mind that a bit but making more not less. Got you okay. We don't take a take a look at that happiness. Okay don't take a picture what you saying. Yeah exactly it's not happiness. Well no it's not it's not the definition of happiness happiness it's not it's not it's not you need to look for something that you can go apply yourself to and make a living serving others

“and that is worth so here's the thing I do want you to pause on the sales thing just a second though”

okay because the narrative that you're using there I want you to go get the analyst job because I think that's going to be good for you and I think you've come to that conclusion. However I will tell you that more CEOs come out of sales than any other position. Yep you're correct. Very few of them come out of analyst. Yep and so just you know so it's far as far as. As far as well I mean as far as career development. It's a good deal like I've tapped out and know you haven't. Yeah it's a good

if you know how to sell you can work through any organization and be the best there is in there because you learn people skills and you learn up you learn to level up and sales is a great career field but if it's not for you that's okay I'm not mad about that but I don't want to use the narrative that I was topped out at sales because you weren't you weren't or you're not good at sales. Unless it's a weird pay structure in the company or you might be topped out in that pay structure

but if you can sell the doors will open in organizations all the way through for you. Yes and so

get you know good stuff from being an analyst and I think you ought to go do that I agree with

your analysis by the analyst.

“Hey guys Rachel Cruz here and I love summer there is more fun on the calendar more time with your”

people and way more chances to make memories but you know what else there's more of spending all between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips it all starts to add up so fast and before you know it money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything and that is why I love the every dollar budget app because it helps you plan your money track your spending and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most.

Enjoy your summer without the money stress download the every dollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today. Ramsey Show Question of the Day is sponsored by Wi-Fi if you fall in behind on your private

“student loan payments every month can feel like you're standing still cause you are Wi-Fi helps”

borrowers explore refinancing options they can help you start making progress again go to Wi-Fi.com slash ramsey that's the letter y r e f y dot com slash ramsey may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Brent and Utah he said I have a $300,000 in savings in no debt I want to invest the money in mutual funds but I'm not sure if I should dump it in all at once or little by little each month what's the best play in this scenario. It's a good question.

Well I would say if there's nothing the reason I wouldn't is if there's something you're needing to buy and use part of that $300,000 for if you need some of that money maybe hold some of that for that purchase if there's you know if it makes you more comfortable cause you're scared or something

“you know we got some people and it's like okay maybe you do 60 40 but for me no if you really do”

have $300,000 just sitting in savings and you want to invest it I would I do it tomorrow so there's no big advantage of little by little if anything get in the market as it's doing well but also don't look at the market either because I bet when you put it in some's gonna happen and it's gonna go down that's so you gotta just forget about it because it's long term investing at that point. Yeah if you can feel comfortable that this is a long term investment and if it goes down

tomorrow you're not gonna cry because it's a long term investment we're riding the roller coaster

down we're gonna ride it back up mathematically the answer is put it all in today there's no

mathematical advantage okay the S&P 500 the stock market is up 16% as of this moment since the beginning of the year. However somewhere back in March the president decided to bomb my ran and the stock if you'd put the stock market in the day before you'd put $300,000 in the day before you decide to do that you might have woke up the next morning and your $300 worth your $300 worth $270 and you'd have had a minor cow okay however if you didn't pull it out

and now you're sitting there and you had put it in at the first of the year it would be up 16% of $300,000 which would be about 50 grand you would have made since the first of the year but if you'd have freaked out because the president bombed I ran in the market dropped you know after you put the money in in January and he did that in March. Took it out you would have locked it. Then you would have freaked out and you would have lost

money on the stock market I'll never invest again because you're having the worst possible timing

on the planet because you bought while it was high and when you freaked out when it was low and got out and of course you lost money then so the answer is but if you leave it in keep your stinking hands off of it you're much better off to put it in there and forget it set it and forget it and you make serious money. All right Steven is an anchorage Alaska hey Steven how are you?

Yeah I've had a question about long-term investment you know what do you think about buying

“vacant land versus buying stocks or you know rentals unless you're going to be a landlord.”

vacant land can fall in a whole bunch of different categories okay um you could buy farm land you could buy a hunting preserve you could buy the corner of a busy intersection where they're looking to put a McDonald's someday a commercial piece of property right you could buy land where warehouses could be developed you could buy land where apartments could be developed so you know

all of that there's a million kinds of different vacant land so the answer is I don't know

because I don't know what kind of vacant land you're thinking about so there's certainly a lot of vacant land in Arkansas our in Alaska in Arkansas too but much more in Alaska and so um as a matter of fact I learned I was up there fishing last week and I learned that the federal government reserved

“land in Alaska you could put six Texas's in it there's that much of it it's like a 166”

million acres in Alaska that is owned by the federal government it's crazy so you know I don't know about vacant land in Alaska but I guess if you're in downtown Anchorage or what type of land are we talking

about yeah so I'm actually in on the Keynotten ins law not quite Anchorage but you know just like

little plots to develop or you know like you know housing like one or two acres or like maybe like a five acre lot you know that had electricity on it or I could put electricity for residential homes is that what you're thinking yeah okay then that would depend on how active the new home market is and that immediate area okay okay so in other words if they're if half a mile away there's a big subdivision going in and you've got some lot price baseline that you can look at that's fine

if there's no home building going on in the area but you think you're just gonna walk out there

in the middle of a field and uh somebody's gonna build a house because you want them to no you can't

“build it no come that's called a field of dreams so I'm no we don't do that but I mean you need to have”

some trend lines that in the growth pattern of that area that tells you that people are actually gonna want to buy this and it's not just your gut feeling yeah you know in the last I've been about three years now and the like this year has been it's as soon as the plot goes for sale it's sold that's good I like that uh yeah great job yeah excellent excellent so when I buy a piece of commercial dirt like that I'm looking at the growth heading that direction or is already on that direction and that's what

I'm asking you to look at in that case land you're speculating on land you're buying it not for a 15 year investment you're buying it for a two to five year investment and it could be a great one in that case it's if you might make a lot of money on them you might double your money on something like that um but it's gonna be that's the beauty of real estate but it is gonna be based on the higher the success rate of this is gonna be based on your analysis your correct analysis of what's going on in

the neighborhood and what's really happening what direction we're really going there so Rachel's husband and I have done many many real estate deals together he owns it on real estate company runs all of my real estate and we looked at a piece of ground that could be developed into about seven lots or eight lots and that was about 10 or 15 years ago and it had a bunch of trash dumped on it and we determined by the time we cleaned it up to get it ready to run a road into and paid for the land that we would not

be able to recoup at current lot prices anytime soon since then you know all the these years later that the the value that property went up dramatically and someone else bought it cleaned it up and sold it and made money on it but we didn't have the we had a two to a five-year months at that person had more of a 10-year or 15-year months at and now there's homes built in there some of our best friends live in one of those you know the house you know the property I'm talking

100% and there's some nice big beautiful houses and it's great yeah it turned out to be a good piece of property but at the time well and you're speculating not yeah at the time it didn't make

want to tie the money up that long on a project like that so we back away someone else picked it up

“had a longer time horizon and made money with it so that's what you're looking at you're trying to”

analyze just exactly like we did there and it's okay to walk away from a deal that doesn't fit your objectives and let someone else make the money and look back 15 years later and go well that worked out you know because it did work out the property was fine there wasn't it wasn't it wasn't tainted it was just a mess and so anyway that's what you're doing you're trying to analyze and the beautiful thing about real estate is such an imperfect world that that's where the money's made

your judgments better than somebody else and you jump on it you're doing it. If you pay taxes to the IRS every quarter or run a small business and you're not using a CPA what are you doing the more complicated your tax situation gets the more you need expert help with a Ramsey trusted tax pro you can get top-notch service year-round for payroll bookkeeping

quarterly tax payments and of course tax filing let an expert take the stress off your shoulders go to RamseySolutions.com/tax to find a Ramsey trusted tax pro today that's RamseySolutions.com/tax our scripture today he roots 13 seven remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Ronald Reagan said money can't buy you happiness but it will certainly get you a better class of memories.

“There you go Rachel. Thank you. John is with us in Des Moines. Hi John how are you?”

Doing good how are you better than I deserve how can I help?

So my question today is on 19 years old business on the first year I have about $11,000 in debt right

now my question is how do I get what is your income in your business? Right now I'm projected to make about 45,000 this year. Doing what? Long Carolyn's keeping. Yeah your first year? Yeah I can start an April. Okay. Oh so not even a full year. So I assume it's growing rapidly. Not as low as I want to but I was going pretty good pretty decent.

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

you can do to cut your spending I don't think you're probably over spending I don't hear that

“and anything you're telling me but I think you've got a new business is not making much money yet”

and so I'm going to make sure if I'm you that I'm spending a certain percentage of my week every single week getting new customers not just moving grass. Okay. If you don't budget a certain percentage

of your time every week to do the essential parts of the business the business will dry up.

Okay. And that means you got to say okay every Friday morning every Thursday morning every Wednesday morning for four hours I'm going to work on getting new customers or whatever it is instead of mowing that day and I don't care I don't know what it is but you know you've got a budget time out to figure out where are your customers coming from talking to your existing customers about referrals picking up the two houses on either side of the last house you moved the

grass for or the business on either side of the last business you did the landscape. Yeah, if there's a good neighborhood most neighborhoods these days have some kind of

satisfied with you mind just leaving your recommendations because who are always looking for things.

So that's a good way just to name out if there's a neighborhood. Yeah it turns out the guy that does our landscaping in our home ended up doing the homes on each side of us because he had hours and they asked us who did it. I understand that but the one thing is so my my girl and my son moved down to Atlanta and I'm trying to re-glowkate down there and I don't know if I should just continue growing or should that's a completely different thing than you asked about now who we didn't know

“that yeah so no I mean if you're gonna move if you need to go build your business down there”

right I just don't know how to get ahead to be able to save up to that. I only have about 35

hundred in cash and about 1500 that is the business is right you know. Yeah but I mean when the

season's over you should have some cash piled up you can load up the lawn mowers and go right. Yeah I would stack cash right now John in order to make that move to be closer to your son and then you need to have some aggressive goals to get this debt paid off the $1,000 credit card and it would be working and be working all winter to have a count to start to spring with. Yep. If you're gonna open up down there but it's actually possible to do that but that's a very

aggressive thing but no I wouldn't go build a business someplace I'm gonna leave it in three years.

“Okay. That's a lot of work for nothing. Because your customer is not worth anything in this business”

nobody will buy it because they can just go get your customers they don't need to ask you. And so um now that's not you know I built anything that's marketable there so no I was working two jobs for a for a bit too. I just cash till the end you know the end of the season whatever that is into going and then I'd be on my way uh and get married and let's start life me and the wife and the baby and we're gonna I'm gonna work all winter at every job I can possibly

stack up while I'm trying to get customers to restart my business you may start your landscaping business in Atlanta as a side hustle after you get a good job there and then grow it again there and but that's an okay thing but no I would not grow a business where you already are before you leave. Hey one of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they can skip having a will because they're too young to healthier don't own anything. If you're 18 your will helps protect our older your

will helps protect your family. It gives clear instructions and can keep your loved ones from having to guess what you wanted and it'll keep them fighting with each other too. If you are if you're ready to create one go to mommabearleagle.com if you're not sure where to start whether you're using the turnier momma bear either one's fine text quiz to 33789 and we'll help you figure out which option fits your situation. Donners in Atlanta hey don what's up.

Hello you got me. Yes sir how can we help. Hi so I just talked with my dad recently and he is a listener of you as well and he was talking to him about a student that the my wife has a $30,000 and he thought about her for a second and said hey what if I just gave you $30,000 and whenever it comes around to the will and my sister's you'll just have $30,000 left on that lesson there and he's gonna put that in the will. Do you recommend that because I just

get money from family member I figured I'd run it by. Is he gonna is he gonna bother you after

this or is this one and done or is this a control mechanism? No this is one and done he's always been

“very helpful. Okay all right um yes I would accept that gift I think that's a wonderful offer”

and a great idea of his I think it's a great plan that the downside is is that you you said your fiance wife your wife okay I'm sorry I didn't I didn't you did say wife I goofed okay all right so you and your wife have to get on a budget and never going dad again or this will grow back in the form of a car kind of credit card dad or something else because it sounds like your dad is the one dreamed this up and this is the first time you've ever heard of Ramsey today.

No we said his dad is not done. Yeah I well he introduced me when I was younger and I said to get him this year our employer gave us the the every dollar out. Okay I find up on that and we started running the actual six or six months and so yeah good good and so I would say yeah from I mean when you think about it from a math perspective just like your inheritance if it's invested on his

check boxes or or boxes are checked that you're that's okay and it feels like oh yeah this isn't

going to be hanging over our head or he's not going to use this against us or feel like he can have

“a stay in our life because he did this then yeah I mean I think that's a very it's very smart”

the trick is for you and you and your wife into follow through with a newfound freedom and calls it to build cause yourself to build well. Yes sir. Yeah you know working the baby steps working your every dollar app and so you were ahead of me I I misjudged that I apologize don because you're

“already been on every dollar your employer furnished it sounds like a smart dollar people are in”

their help and make it a goal to be like hey let's invest there what it would take us to pay this off let's have a goal to have that that 30,000 invested of your own money right so you're re so you're using your paycheck to build your future exactly um which would be better than going oh we can go buy something now that's right that's right you know it's kind of a nod to him yeah okay we'll put 30,000 in the market now and he's going to be glad he did this yes yeah you're going to be glad

you did it and everybody's happy you know and we got Sally May and you know and that's our and again

we're that line can be tricky because when we talk about giving money to family we never say to

loan it but the giving if it messes up a relationship if it gets odd right like you got a you have to have some hard boundaries but this is when in since where it's like the whole change your family tree if you can get your kids out of debt and they're not entitled you know they're hard working they have dignity and then they can start building what themselves faster that's part of that generational knowledge which is so big that they can fiscally do that puts us out of the

“ramps you show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember”

there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace

Christ Jesus