No Matter Your Income, You Can Still Build Wealth

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you slow down, think clearly, and move forward. Visit betterhelp.com/ramsy to get 10% off. To you, by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsy Network and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsy Show.

I'm Dave Ramsy, J. Blotshaw, number one bestselling author. Ramsy personality is my co-host today.

“Paula is in San Francisco, hey, Paula, how are you?”

Hey, I'm good, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? So my mother-in-law in husband put his name on all her assets before we got married, because my husband's father passed away. Recently, we have an issue where since my husband's name was on her car, she was due

to her car accident, which means that she was also suit. In fact, it is all those agreements, but with her, but we're getting some pushback, we can't get copies, so we need some help getting some financial freedom from my mother-in-law.

Wow, okay, so you said there were agreements, what do you mean?

So they decided to put his name on all her assets, so the cars, the houses, the insurance, he signed all the paperwork to be on the mortgage, on the title, the deeds, etc. You can't add yourself to a mortgage. So he didn't not do that. He helped her purchase a home, and so he was--

Oh, okay. Okay, if it was part of the purchase, he could be on the mortgage with her. Okay. Okay. And then they refinanced the original home, and so he's on those documents.

Oh, boy. So he was obviously trying to help her, right? Correct.

“And why did they think he needed his name on everything in order to help her?”

She did not have a trust in place, so she was fearful that if something happened to her, the family wouldn't, she did anything.

The family wouldn't get anything.

It would go into pro-bait, things like that. What's she worse? Of course it goes into pro-bait, but that doesn't mean the family doesn't get anything. All you need is a will. You don't have to have a trust.

What's her net worth? Uh, I would not quite sure. Well, give us a ballpark, is it? Is it? Is she a multi-millionaire?

No, no, she is not. Okay. She works for an insurance company. Okay. All right.

And so the net result is that they-- he was trying to do a really nice thing, and she was trying to protect, but they did not get good advice, and so they did a whole stupid thing, but it's name on everything, and that was really stupid, and now you got sued when she had a car wreck. How much is she being sued for?

I believe about $50,000. Oh, my gosh. So she didn't have insurance? She didn't have adequate insurance. She does.

It's going to go through insurance, but because my husband's name is on her vehicle, if he is named in that last week as well. Yeah, he has to be. Yeah. Okay.

And now that we're married, we eventually want to buy our own home, so our goal is to completely resolve these agreements with her. Yeah. Okay. So the $50,000 insurance is going to pay eventually.

You just don't like that his name is tied up in it. Yeah. She wants a name off of everything.

“So you want to go through and take his name off of everything?”

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be very difficult. We're very complicated, and you're going to need a legal advice. Okay.

So each item will be different. Okay. A bank accounts, very simple. He can go the bank and have his name removed. Very easy.

A mortgage is impossible. He can't get his name off of it. So she has to refinance her home to get a new mortgage to get his name off of it. And you'll have to probably pay the cost of the refinance because you're the one requesting to do this.

Very complicated. The car title, she can just sign, I mean, he can sign an affidavit and have his name taken off of the car title, but she'll have to sign all of it. Is she refusing to cooperate in this idea? Um, she's OK to remove his name off the car title, but she does not want to refinance her

homes right now, so she won't remove him from the house. Yeah. That's fair. I can understand why. Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you've offered a pay for the refinance cost and the interest rate is the same or less, it would benefit her to refinance it. Okay. And, uh, but she didn't want to refinance it because she wanted to pay for it.

Yeah, and what I didn't know was going to say, what is, what is her current interest

rate? Do you know? I think it was around three percent. Yeah. She's not going to refinance.

It's not going to work. Right. Right. Um. Yeah.

That's tough. All right. And you know, what I would just make a list of stuff that has his name on it and say, what is the solution with each of these things? There's not one simple, you can't sign one simple document and it does everything.

You're going to have to go to each situation and have his name removed where you can.

And until it's beneficial for her to remove, you know, interest rate wise and so forth, she's not going to, you're not getting off that mortgage. Right. Well, um, and your husband and his mom are both willing to do all of this. They just don't know how.

Is that what you're saying? Um, my mother and I would like to wait five years or so.

“Sometimes she goes back and forth, but that's what she truly wants to do.”

But the hope is that in five years, she will be financed so that we can go practice around home. Hmm. Well, I mean, as far as the other property, other things go, she's willing to take his name off.

Yeah. Cartile. Yes.

Well, I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff.

You mentioned Cartile. Do you mentioned insurance policies, you mentioned bank accounts, you mentioned right? Yes. So since he is, um, on both the homes, she says that she cannot remove him from the home insurance.

We did remove ourselves. We're trying to remove ourselves from her car insurance currently. Hmm. Well. That's true.

“I mean, you, you, if you're on the mortgage, you want to be on the home insurance.”

Yes. In case it burns, you don't get stuck with the mortgage. Right. So your husband doesn't want to stay on that insurance. That's accurate.

So, um. Okay. So really, what we did, what we did is that they did, they were trying to do a smart thing and they did it in a dumb way, both of them, um, in a way that no one would recommend if they had gotten any estate planning advice at all, it would not have been hard to solve

this. Um, and so, but there's no bad malice here. He's not, um, I mean, she didn't set out to do harm to her son, and he certainly didn't set out to do harm to his mom. Right.

So, there's no, um, there shouldn't be any drama here. Uh, you just got to clean it. You just got to go through and clean it up, uh, other than the fact that you got sued, but I mean, that's not her fault, actually. It's your husband's fault.

He signed up on a hard car that he shouldn't have. I mean, the two houses is going to be the pain in the neck. Yeah. That's going to be the hard thing is getting rid of that, and, you know, it's just watch interest rates and his interest rates come down or, you know, the balance on the

mortgage comes down. Yeah. Pay off the stinkin' more. I gotta believe she's close to, you know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know.

Something like that. But if you can get the interest rate towards beneficial to her, to refinance, then I would be willing to pay the refinance cost if it was me to get my name off of. Yep. And that's, that happens a lot of times where there's a divorce, and, uh, they didn't

bother to get the name off the mortgage, and then five years later, the divorced husband or wife's got a name hanging out over here, then they'll have to go as an negotiation pay to pay for the refinance, get their name off. Yeah, but, um, yeah, this is a classic thing of what we call street law, which is a bunch

“of people sitting around a campfire with an opinion about what you should do on something”

that have absolutely no freaking idea what they're doing. And this guy signed up for a mess. Running a business as hard work, you're the CEO, the accountant, and the sales team. You don't have time to moonlight as your own benefits department. That's where health trust financial helps.

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Hello, I'm doing well. I hope you guys are. We are. What's up? So my father, so first of all I'm 30 years old, I've got a 19 year old son and my father and

I haven't always had a great relationship, but we've got a better one now, and we agreed

that he would help my son buy a car. We can afford to buy the car, but he wanted to step in and help out his grandson. We didn't really have an agreement set on how much the car would be, and he ended up buying

“him a Dodge Challenger, which it was about $62 dollars.”

My father's hired his son. Really? Well, he's got a 19 year old son with a $62 dollars. Wow. Is that more expensive than your car?

It is. It is. I still drive my Prius from college.

What is your 19 year old son, Mike?

How much does he make? Does he work? He actually does have his own income. He's still living with us, but he flips furniture on him and assists their flip furniture on tastes with market place, so I'd say he makes between $5 and $6 dollars a month.

Profit? Yes. Profit. What? That's after he's gone and purchased the furniture and bought backers and bought

finishing painted and bought new handles for everything. Great. And so this bothers you. It's too much.

“You feel like it's too much car for a 19 year old, right?”

Well, let me also make this clear. When he turned 16, we bought him a civic and an October of last year, he totaled a civic. He had done. He had begun to go into the car space. He had done a lot of bolt-on and he had just finally gotten under the hood and started

to do work on his car, which is why I think he was so eager to get a more powerful car. That also has my wife and I worried because he's just totaled a car, which struggles to get up to a hundred. Did he total it being reckless or did he total it and truly an accident?

We are not sure, if you trust him, a squirrel ran across the road, but a squirrel's always

totaled civics. Squirrel. That's the ultimate, yeah. Okay. So I also want to make two things clear really quickly, so the interest on the car is grandfather

put down the down payment, which I'm still not totally sure how much it was, but the interest is at 21%. So your father does not have good judgment on financial matters. That's being nice. Your father did an idiotic stupid deal in an effort to be a blessing to his 19-year-old

grandson, but instead cursed him by putting him into a car with a ridiculously high interest rate and that is way too expensive for a guy that makes $4,000 a month living in his parents' home flipping furniture. Okay. So your dad is out of the equation, he no longer gets a vote.

Okay. Whose name is the title in? My father co-sign for the car, but it's my son's color. Yeah. Okay.

If I were to advise your 19-year-old son, it would be to sell the car as fast as he possibly can. Because he's probably going to lose some money on it depending on how much of a down payment there was, but I'm guessing there wasn't much of a down payment. This car is too expensive for anyone that makes 5,000 bucks a month.

You shouldn't be having a car that's equal to your annual income.

It's a fabulous vehicle, it's a fun muscle car, but that's irrelevant.

Okay. And he's at 21% interest, and you're worried about his safety. I'm not as worried about his safety. I'm not 100% sure to be worried about his safety. I'm 100% sure this deal sucks.

It was really dumb. And if I were loving my 19-year-old grandson well or my new friend that's 19 years old, I would say my friend, sell this car as quickly as you can and limit the damage that it's going to do to your life. Your grandfather's sweet, but he's not smart.

“That's what I would tell you in 19-year-old as fast as he can get rid of it.”

Now, he doesn't want to sell it. And he's got, yeah, bozo over here that can't do math, whispering in his ear that this is okay. Who's paying the payment, bozo, or your son? My son is paying the payment in my grandfather's green to help him and I, my wife and

dad, together, making up to absorb the cost of the payment. No, no.

There's no reason for it to leave you.

I think that he bought a car he can't afford. Yeah, and you're the parent and he still lives at home, so you do get to say, this is not going to work. You get to say that? Yeah.

And it's not a, it's not a, I'm mad at somebody thing. If I'm you, it's honey, I love you. This is bringing harm to you. And I really wouldn't even bring up the totalling the car and the safety thing. Yeah, it's just way too expensive a car and way ridiculous interest rate.

Yeah. It's just, it's just so, it's financially stupid. And if you're, if you've set up a standard in your household that we don't borrow money and we don't go into debt for cars, I think that fuels that argument even more, which is, I can't advise you to do, this is just not how we live our lives and this is not how

we've taught you to live yours. Yeah.

And I, I'm sorry I didn't keep my hand in the deal and keep it from happening.

I should have stepped between you before you got run over by a Dodge Challenger at 21%. But you're totalling your whole life now as a result of totalling your civic. And this is just not, there's just nothing smart here. Oh, gosh. But this is a story guy, you know, I don't know what's going on with Grandpa.

But he, he ain't got any smart. I'm so glad we can tell that. I'm assuming the bit of positive wasn't enough to bring us back. Probably not. You're probably not being under water.

Yeah. So do we, well, that's up to my father and do we, no, I don't think your father is going

“to be, no, I think you have to, I think that's a stupid text you guys are going to have”

to. Somebody's going to pay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm guessing you're going to lose a little money on it.

But I don't know how much. He's going to lose a little money. You're not really technically in the deal. So you're not technically responsible, but I am going to say you live under my roof. We're not playing stupid games and expect anything except stupid prizes.

Mm. Yeah. This is, this is ludicrous. Crazy. This is like look up crazy in the column and you'll see a picture of this guy.

Yeah. And well, the cardio, it's probably almost a thousand bucks a month. Yeah. At least. Wow.

21% on 62 grand. Oh yeah. Yeah. Hello. Or are they financed it for 18 years?

You know, it doesn't matter.

“But we'll make sure we prolong this pain as long as we possibly can.”

Yeah. So interesting thing that Proverbs 1718 says one lacking in sense, co-signs for another. The new contemporary English version, the CEV, says it's stupid to co-sign along. Yeah. That's what the Bible says.

So anytime you're thinking you're being a blessing to someone by co-signing the loan for them, you're not. No. There's been stupid. The whole reason you would need a co-signer is a bank looked at that person and said

there's no way I would lend you the money. I don't think that you can pay it. Yeah. I mean, bank looks at a 19 year old who flips furniture and lives in his mother's basement and says, I don't think this is a worthy credit.

Yeah. And then it's going to do it. And if you're dumb enough to co-sign for it, we're still going to charge you 21. Because we're going to call this a high-risk subprime loan. And we're going to gig you.

We're going to screw you. Yeah. So car dealer. We're going to screw the 19 year old and bank. We're going to screw the 19 year old.

And Grandpa says, I'll help. Wow. Thinking he's being a blessing. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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Benjamin is whether it's in bowling, green Kentucky, high Benjamin.

How are you? Hey, doing a wonderful day. Thanks for taking my call. This afternoon. Certainly sir.

How can we help? Well, me and my wife are having just a mile of financial disagreement and we're trying to put the puzzles together to see what we should invest in money or what we should do. With it. Cool.

How long have you been married? We've been married for ten years. Awesome. How old are you? 38.

37. Cool. Very cool. Tell me about the disagreement. Well, right now I own a construction company and we've been successful.

We've paid off all our debt this other mortgage and I've really hadn't tried to attack my mortgage just because I am locked in at a 2.5% interest rate. And rather than paying it off, I'm investing money in rental properties trying to make a pass to the income. I've invested in this silver and just a few other things to where, you know, when Tom comes

to retire, I've got a pass to the income coming in, he's taking care of me and not to concerned about the 2.5% interest rate being, I don't think we'll ever see it again. We're at the point now to where I could pay the house off. But you have the money. How much is it, how much is it, how much is the value of the balance is about 200,000

currently? Well, you are doing great, Benjamin, congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay.

And that's our decision. She believes that we should go ahead and pay that off and, you know, me personally, I believe we can purchase some more properties.

“Why does she believe you should pay it off?”

What's her reasoning behind that? Um, just stress more, just knowing that we don't know on anything, you know, there's nothing time to stay on and my mindset is that we can invest in more properties. I can have my guys going to fix it up, we can rent it out and the rent could pay for our mortgage and then we've got more assets, you know, in-time.

How long ago were you broke before and you didn't have 200 and you had debt still? Uh, five years? I would say within the last five years, yeah, we really turned things around. Yeah, and your construction business is blossomed during that five years, too, correct? It has.

We've been truly blessed. Yeah, because it's been the time it should have and that five years have been excellent for your business versus not excellent for construction, which has been some other times in our past, right?

Okay.

“You called us and I'm guessing you're probably already knew what we were going to say.”

Well, my wife knew what you were going to say. You've been set up, Benjamin. You've been set up. Okay, well, let me give you a little background as to why she set you up then and be nice to you, okay?

So when I was 23, my mom and dad run the real estate and construction business and I got my real estate license when I was 18 and I love real estate investing. And when I was 23, I started buying everything in sight and anything that I could make a return on and I had a degree in real estate and finance from the University of Tennessee. And so I was all in on this stuff.

I'm 65 now, by the way, but I was 23 and so by the time I was 26, I had four million dollars

for the real estate with a million dollar net worth and it was cash flowing like crazy. I mean, I made good money on it.

“But I had a lot of it on short-term notes because I was flipping before there was cable”

TV or before there was Chip and Joanna. They weren't even born. And so, you know, this is where we were, right? And so, I became a millionaire by the time I was 26 years old, doing the kind of thing you're talking about.

But I did it super poorly, a little differently than you're describing, but I'm telling you this for a story for a reason. And the bank, I got sold and they called our 90 day notes that we had outstanding. And that began a crash that took two and a half years for us to lose everything we own and we were sued and foreclosed on and bankrupt by the time I was 28 with a brand new

baby and a toddler, a 10 years younger than you are now. And in that process, I started learning what grim all, with common sense, says about money and what the Bible says about money and both of those say don't borrow money. But I, with my financial degree, was looking at it through the lens, you're looking at it at the math and saying, well, I got a two and a half percent mortgage, why would I ever get

rid of that? I'm trying to create this, this stream of rental income. But what I left out in my analysis and therefore, what you're also leaving out in your analysis

is risk, your 100 percent of the time that you have debt, there is risk, more debt equals

more risk. And so a way to emotionally feel that right now in this discussion is to say, hey, Benjamin, what if your house was paid for? And you had the opportunity to go borrow 200,000 against your paid for home at 2 and a half percent, would you go do that?

And you might, because you've kind of figured out 2 and a half, you think is a great rate, and it is a great rate. But you also, if you look at it that way, you might also go kind of gulp. You've got your stomach kind of, when I say that, I'm going to go borrow against my paid for home.

There's something in your stomach kind of moves around. You see what I'm saying? No, I see exactly what you're saying. Yes, a physical reaction to risk. And all of that I did there was what's called a sunk cost analysis, and that is to reverse

the discussion and see if it feels any different. And if you reverse the discussion, you say, paid for house, I'm going to go borrow. It's the same thing as I'm not going to pay it off so that I can go buy rentals. Instead of borrowing on my paid for home to go buy rentals. I'm keeping, I'm not going to pay it off to go buy paid for rentals.

It's the exact same mathematical equation. But thinking about it through a different lens makes your stomach go up in your throat instead of your brain going, oh, I've got 2 and 1/2 percent, I'm making money on that.

So all of that to say, you called the show where we're always going to tell you pay off

your mortgage, your wife set you up. Okay, 100 percent of the time. And I own several hundred million dollars in real estate that is paid for today. I recovered way, vastly recovered from my old bankrupt days and, you know, and I love real estate.

“So I want you to own some rental property and I think you're in a great business with”

a joining business with construction. But let me tell you what will happen to complete my sales pitch on this. When you have zero debt of any kind, your construction business will flourish even more. And here's why there's nothing knowing anywhere at the back of your skull saying, I got to take this questionable job because I got to have cash flow.

Instead, you look at a questionable job and go, that juice ain't worth the squeeze. And I'm going to, and you're going to turn down crazy customers, you're going to turn down

And instead, you're going to, and I've experienced this in my business.

“I make different decisions in the day-to-day operation of Ramsey Solutions because I don't”

have debt than if I had to do deals to make payments. And then it's increased my prosperity. Those two things don't seem to be directly connected, but they are yet connected. Oh, here's another one. Physically, people have less physical ailments when they're not carrying any debt. It changes the composure or the composite of your body because your anxiety level is

way down. So, I'm going to sell you as hard as I can to follow your wife's leading there.

Agreed. Agreed. Happy wife. Happy life. . George Campbell here, let me give you three signs. It's time to stop hoping your debt problem goes away and actually take action to fix it. If you've defaulted on a debt, if collectors

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for it to get worse. Go to guardianlit.com/Ramsie right away. That's guardianlyt.com/Ramsie. It's earning advertising. Results may vary in no specific outcome is guaranteed. Jade, I feel like I'm supposed to recap one of the things and that is that real estate, if you come on this show, or if I'm having an interaction with you anywhere, and you tell me you want to invest in real estate as past great passive income, what I'm going to

realize immediately is that you don't know what the flip you're doing. Because you said passive. Because you act like real estate creates passive income. So, if you've ever been a landlord, you know that there's nothing passive about it. If you've ever owned rental property, there's zero passivity involved. So, when people say real estate creates passive income, what that tells

“me is they've been getting financial advice from some moron on TikTok. That's what that tells”

me. Not that they've actually been in the real estate business. I've owned rental real estate longer than most of you calling have been alive. And that means I'm old, but it also means I'm experienced. And you know what you get from experience? Wisdom scars. Oh, okay, I'll throw scars. Oh, it's scars. From doing stupid stuff. And so, I've seen it all. I'm done at all. I think with landlording, whether it's commercial

properties that are retail, where the pizza place or a crossfit gym, or whether it's a condominium and the guy decides he's going to use his wife as a punching bag and he gets put in jail. And she has two little kids and now they can't pay their rent. And I'm the landlord. Now one of my supposed to do with her. Yeah. So this, you want to call that passive that makes you dumb or at a minimum in experience. Okay. So you don't know what passive means. It passive means you don't have to do any.

You want passive put your money in a mutual fund and they will just send you an email. Great. Could tell you what happened. You don't have to do anything. You're that that's passive. And so read there's nothing passive about real estate. Period. I even own a piece of ground that has nothing on it. And it still work. And the tree fell across the neighbor's fence the other day and he called me and said, "Your tree's blocking my driveway." It's not even passive. A freaking blank piece

So we sent a guy over the train. So I've got the guy's driveway back, right? But oh my god,

this idea that there's, you know, but so don't listen to someone who says real estate is passive. This is someone that's selling you crap or don't know what they're doing. Yeah. Okay. It's another way to have an income stream. It is an income stream. It is an alternative income stream. And I love it. I've actually more a higher percentage of my net worth is in real estate, paid for, no mortgages. Then is in mutual funds. Yeah. Okay. But I'm adept at and careful with and understand and have

a management company that manages our real estate. You know, but it's not passive. What's your opinion on Airbnb and things like that? That's not even, that's not even rental property. You open to

who you got in the hotel business. Hotel business. If you don't believe me, figure out how many

“maids you have to hire, change them sheets. Every day when those people leave. Yeah. And all those,”

all the stuff that you don't even want to talk about, or you have to clean up those left behind at the bachelor at the LOW and your condo. Yeah. And they thought that, you know, what happens in Nashville stays in Nashville? No, you left some of it in Nashville. But it didn't stay in Nashville. So we still had to clean it up after you left. And apparently you don't drink that much girl, because you left some of that. Yeah. No. This is, yeah. This is bad. So this is what Airbnb is.

That's great. That's great. It's great. As difficult as it's going to get. If you might as well buy you a little hotel six and go, I'm in the hotel business, at least then you're admitting. Yeah. Instead of like, I'm maximizing a piece of rental real estate by making it Airbnb. No, you're not. You're running a hotel. That's all you're doing. It's a short stay hotel. A hostel at best, right? I mean, that's that. So yeah. And be ready for disruption. Like 16 states have already passed laws,

limiting and a lot of cities, New York City's coming down on the hard. Yeah. As shutting down the ability to operate a privately operated uncertified hotel called an Airbnb. They're shutting them down. And so VRBOs and Airbnb's think they're short lived. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't, I think they're going to be there. It's, but you know, it's not going to be the answer to everything. And, you know, for you to count on that stream of income and then your municipality go, oh, we changed our mind.

Yeah. You're out of business. Yeah, because you paid too much for the house because you Airbnb did in your performer. Yeah. And you got screwed because you thought, oh, this is going to work.

“Famous last words, right? So, you know, again, if you want to run a hotel, you can make a lot of money”

in Airbnb, but don't act, don't get it twisted. This is the other end of the spectrum from passive. This is like lots of work. Yeah. And gross stuff. Yeah. It's just, yeah. I don't even know. That is that. Yeah. All right. And then Caitlin is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Caitlin. How are you? I'm David J. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

So, a little background story. And I have been an I are both 24. And we just welcomed our first

baby a couple months ago. So, we were kind of in stock mode. But now we're in that mode. Thank you. We're on a baby set number two. My husband's an electrician. But we're trying to decide if he stays at his current job, which is a private-owned company. It's a little bit more stable. It offers a better work like balance, or he can move to the electrical union, which would mean significantly higher pay in stronger retirement benefits, but potentially less stability during

slow periods and layoffs and then more time away from home and overtime so we're trying to decide the more stable path, or getting ahead financially. Well, I think the net net on the union with him not having steady might not be as much of a race as it sounds like it is. Yeah. Exactly. And that's what we're trying to kind of trying to deny. Yeah. I don't think the net net is going to be much. Right. So, and you talk there's a bunch of data centers coming in right now. And

so they're offering a lot of incentive pay like 10 to $15 in incentive pay while working on those jobs. But the data centers aren't going to be forever. So, we're just kind of trying to decide. Is it possible to work some of that data center stuff as a side hustle? He could. He has to only be working at the union, but he could potentially go back to this private company once these data centers are there. Oh, so you can't you can't be working

“private and union. And you have to be a union. Interesting. Uh-huh. I mean, that's what we think.”

Um, we kind of just been looking into it. He's currently making 38. I was current job. And then he would be making 43 with not with including incentive pay. I would say what you are.

you're not going to make a net $5. I agree. Okay. Even with a pension like we shouldn't jump

with for a pension. I don't, I don't jump for pensions. Okay. No. We trust you. So, we'll do that. I'm a state where you are. But I am going to explore. There's a lot of work that needs to be done in the area is what you're telling me. And he has the skill to do the work. And I'm going to explore what I'm allowed to do is side hustles legally. Right. Um, and I'm not going to lie to somebody if the union requires you to be union. Then I just can't do it at the union sites. But there's all

kinds of side hustles. So, let me give you an example. Okay. If the, the side hustle market is being sucked up by the unions, if the electricians that used to do side hustles, other ways are now doing data center work with the unions, that means all the jobs they used to do are available. Mm-hmm. You see what I'm saying? That's a good way to look at it or just straight up get on with the data center thing as a side gig working weekends. Just for a short, you know, for six

“months and pile on and let's get the debt cleaned up right quick. How much debt you got left?”

We have 86,000 in my student loans and I currently work full-time too. So, we're in sort mode and now we're just kind of going to throw all of our savings. Yeah, you're out of stork mode because you're home from having the baby, right? Oh, yeah, we are, we are refurting. So that's all that's all in the review mirror. That's awesome. Congratulations on the baby. So, what do you make? I make 90,000 a year. And he does too, right? Yeah, about 80. Yeah, you're going to be out of debt

no time. I would not make this adjustment. You're going to lose quite a too much quality of life the juicing worth of this squeeze. I mean, isn't that a lot today? I like it. That'd be worth it. [Music] Listen, identity theft doesn't just happen just because you're careless. You can do everything right and still become a victim, whether your information is skimmed online, stolen through a

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. J. Washall Ramsey Personality is my co-host. The phone number here is Triple 8-825-5225.

“Jeremiah is in Knoxville, Tennessee. Hi, Jeremiah. How are you?”

Hey, Dave. Didn't good. How are you all doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Yes, sir. Well, I just have a couple of questions here. A little background story first was

the owner and operator of a family business of 12. The business was over 12 years, but I ran it for 12 years and after a code, it just got really hard for me to get any work. So I had to take a different avenue for employment, which at the time I didn't have very wise counsel or any counsel. I did a lot of probably not so popular avenues to help with deals and different situations like that. So my overall question would be, I'm working on the baby steps and obviously I would be

at number two, maybe step number two on getting rid of all the debt. What is the best scenario or I guess to kind of expedite that? So to say, I've got some unsecured debt and I have a heloc, that's kind of a gray cloud over my head right now that I really like to get.

The heloc is 94,000. Did you roll all the debt into that or is there more? I did. I have, I do have some unsecured debt outside of that about 13,000.

What's your first mortgage amount?

My first mortgage is $1,500. No, no, no, the balance. All the balance were $260,000. What's the house worth? The house is worth around $850.

“Okay, that's good. And what's your household income?”

Well, the household income annually is 75k and I'm the breadwinner. My wife is dead. How long homeschool mom? We just had our third child last year. So we got a lot of money. I used to make in the family business. I used to make average take home gross pay was

anywhere from 120 to 160. Doing what? What kind of business was that?

I owned a caulking and waterproofing business, so pretty much anything that you can't see on a normal building. I was in one behind the scenes doing it. But it paid good money when the work was there. That just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Because we were we were thinking thinking fast and needed to take something with a more secure pay. But obviously, you know what I took the job that it was going to be lower income. So I'll try to be patient

where I'm at and you can't afford the house you're in with the income you have as your problem. Yeah. What's your mortgage every month? My mortgage every month is $1500 a month which is pretty good considering what the house in market is now with a 3.35% interest rate

“and well near 10 of that. Yeah, and the 90s. What's the terms on the heat lock?”

The heat lock is a 10-year draw period and we're on like year four. I believe the interest on it

is around 6% probably a little bit. Who's your bank? My local bank that I deal with is first people's bank

and they just put that on a 10-year fixed. Take it off a heat lock, make it a 10-year fixed. The fixed second mortgage. Because you got a 3 and a half year. Normally, we'll tell you to refinance and you know, wrap the heat lock and the first together. But if you do that, you won't be able to afford the payment. What? And what I've been getting anyway. Yeah. And I'll reify that thing. Yeah. And that's going to force the sale of the house which might be the

net result of this whole thing of you closing down the business. You may be in a house you can't afford. I don't know. You're going to afford the $1500. But you can't afford $350,000 in debt. That's what's weird. So I don't know how you got a $1500 payment even at $3.5 on $260,000. Yeah, it's somebody put down a bunch of money. No $260,000 debt. $1,500 doesn't support that. Sighting $1,000 a year. Yeah. We live on family property and the property was given to, so we put the property on

collateral on the house is actually a, we built the house in 2016. So at the time, I was making really good money. And we went that route for our future. And here we are now, let's say we built the house in 2016. So we're 10 years into it. Four years with another employer. Are you in the, are you in the same business that you used to be in, but now you're an employee? I am not. I'm not. Could you start up the old business as a side hustle? I do a bunch of sidewalk. And

that's another thing I was going to point out is I do just about everything I can imagine to to help pay off some of those special that answered beard debt. Was that part of the 75 you said, or is that on top of? That 75 is my salary through my employer now. Okay, so tell us what you, I would restart your old business as a side hustle. Okay. And get, because I think you can make the most money there. You know that business, and you know how to make $160,000 a year doing it.

And there's plenty of work out there right now. So, but you don't, I just do it as a side hustle.

“You don't have to quit completely. You don't go all the way back. And if you want to shut it back”

down after you get your, he locked cleaned off. That's fine. But, and then I would start talking

balloons and no calls bearing down on you in the future. I don't want this thing to pop on you later.

But that gets, that gets the problem off of you. And then basically you're doing clean up

from the debt that was left over when you didn't transition out of the business fast enough. Correct. Yeah. And it's going to take you a little while to clean that up. But let's just say you made an extra 50 as side hustle. In two years, you paid off your he lock.

“Sure. That's what I want to do. Yeah, that's 100% possible because that just puts you back”

at your old income if you do that. Yeah. And then I then you got to decide long term, you know, have I, what happened was you got, you know, you got sliced and diced by the COVID situation. And you came in out of the cold. You wanted a place that felt safe in a rough and tumble war zone. I wanted a place where I could come a bombshell to come into. But it cost you because you're only making 75 and you used to make 100 and a quarter to 106. Yeah. So it's cost you $50,000 a year to

have a safe place to heal. But so I want to also challenge you and you challenge you that that doesn't mean you need to be there 38 years. Yes, time to get back out of it. You may need to step back out and maybe decide hustles away for you to test your footing again and see if you've got emotionally you're ready to go back out in the cold. Because you're taking a beaten on what you could be making.

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“code Ramsey. Kaley is with us in Austin, Texas. Hi, Kaley. How are you? Good. How are you doing today?”

Better than we deserve. What's up? I'm just calling because I am on step two of the baby steps of pain down my debt. But I have a decision to make. I am 24 and I haven't gone to college yet. And I was wanting to go to college to get my business administration degree. Even though I'm in baby steps number two, I was calling to see your opinion on if I should wait and just keep going with the baby steps. And then go to college or bite the bullet, get the take on the student

loans and go to college now. Well, I definitely don't like the idea of you taking on student loans. How much will it cost for you to get the degree? $12,000. Total or per semester? Total. So,

“the community college and it will be fully online. Okay. How, what made you to decide on that?”

How did you come about saying I want to do this? What's your path here?

I've always been kind of a admin girl. I've always been the person behind the scenes doing like

dated administration and making coordinating and stuff like that. And after doing a lot of research,

go from either hospitality to hospital services to maybe go in white collar. And so, I figured

“getting this degree would be the best way for me to move forward. Okay. Are you talking about”

a business administration degree? Are you talking about two-year program in associate's degree? Yes, sir. I am talking about an associate's degree. Oh, okay. All right. I'm making sure I understand what you're doing. Okay. And what do you make today? I make gross $20, $2,400 a month. $2,400 a month doing what? The same work and administrative work? Sapping now. I'm actually a cook. I work in a daycare. Okay. Cook at a daycare. How much debt do you

currently have? 8771. Okay. Listen, I'm not mad at a $12,000 degree. If you have research that it's going to be the path to get you in the spaces you want to get to, I do like the idea

of you buckling down for a few months and paying off the $8,000 first and then cash flowing this,

because I don't see why you can't cash flow this. How much, let's see, how long will it take you to pay off the $8,000 making $2400? I'm actually about to hit a really good point in my snowball method. I'm about to pay one of my debt down and basically I'll have it done within the next 18 months. Okay. Okay. So if you can do, if you can do $8,000 in 18 months, then can you do the $12,000 over the course of two years? I think you can. And I think you could probably do that in less time.

You might be able to do the $12,000 in 18 months because the debt will be totally gone.

Hey, Kaylee, are you saying $2400 to take home?

So my take home is roughly $2200. So about $1100 a check. And you're living at home? I live in an apartment. What do you pay for rent? So rent in total is $1200. I split it with my partner, with my boyfriend. Have you show, are you making $15 an hour? $1550? Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. So it just feels to me like you can probably make more doing almost anything else.

“Like Target is paying $20 an hour. Oh, goodness. Yeah, so I think you need to be looking to”

up your income and pick up some side hustles both. I think your job sucks. You're the current job. It doesn't pay much. And I'm very impressed that you've put together a sustainable life with $2200 take home pay in Austin, Texas. You are an impressive young woman. That is very responsible. You've been very careful. You've been extremely frugal. You are very, you know, yeah, and you're thinking into the future at the same time. You're an impressive young woman.

So I want you, I think you're worth a lot more doing some other things. In the meantime, while you're getting this degree, then they're paying you to cook at the daycare. Okay. So let's go, let's go job hunting in your off time and pick up two things. One is a better day job and two is in even better side hustle that pays $25 or $30 doing something.

“I don't care what. I think you could babysit for neighborhood kids and make $30 an hour.”

$25 an hour. If you could sign a nanny job, you know, and you know, anything that these days and freaking Austin, Texas. So it's not exactly a poor market of some kind. So yeah, I want you to place more economic value on your hours than you have so far. Because I can tell you're worth it. And so what I'm saying is I think between those two things you probably are going to double your income. Yeah. And then you're out of this. And that clears that debt really fast and puts $12,000

in your pocket to get your BA degree real fast. And then you're doing all of this in 12, 14 months, you know, and you're rolling right along. And that's the plant path I would want to be on if I'm you. I got a feeling you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to find your way through this. You're, you know, but the question is just what's the most efficient method for you to get through this? Because you're a survivor and you're a planner and a thinker.

So wow, very impressive. Cool. Thanks for calling. Andrews and Norfolk Virginia, Hi, Andrew. How are you? Hi, Mr. Ramsay. I am doing fine. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question for you today is, how do I say for retirement when I have a low income?

And my income that I get to take home every month is low because they give me a lot of benefits when

“it comes to housing, phone, gas, and supply daily. What is your take home? Are you making?”

I'm taking home about 2,000 a month. And what is your position with the church? I would be their assistant or youth pastor. Okay. We work with about 50,000 churches in the last 10 years and the numbers that we have say that somewhere around 80% of the pastures in America are bivocational. Got, have to be. That means they have another job. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. How old are you?

I just graduated from 24 years old. I mean, this is very similar to the last call in that way.

You've got to be able to be able to sustain a life. And I don't think you can on $2,000 a month. Even if you live at home, even if you have a great benefit of whatever it is that they're offering you. Are they furnishing housing? Yes, sir. I get about a $1,500 a month, housing allowance.

“Yeah, okay. I sure will have a yes or a yes or an addition. All right. Well, so here's the thing.”

So you have a $3,500 a month income. It's really worth it. But I'm not able to touch that

housing for personal funds. I know, I know, I know that works. And so the

yeah, you'll get into all kinds of tax issues if you do. And so will the church. So we don't want to do that. But bottom line is, it's as if you have a $1,500 house payment and you make $3,500. How can I get ahead? You can. You can. And until your income comes up. But the way you ask the question, it says, if you're going to have this exact income when you're 54. Right. And therefore we can't save for retirement. I mean, in the meantime, you may have to work aside hustle that would buy vocational

pastor would not be that unusual. And so the pastor that led me to the Lord when he was starting his church had a bread route. And you know, later on he's a pastor of a huge church. And obviously was full time

“at that point. But that's what I want for your future is God's call on your life. In the meantime,”

you may have a bread route. And but you've got to have a long-term game plan that says, I'm not going to have a low income the rest of my life. And then that allows you to invest and to be generous and to do other things. If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best

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on it and I recently discovered it needs a replacement suspension system and an oil leak repair.

The lowest quote I've gotten is 8500 to fix all of the issues. The cars paid off, but I already have put $10,000 into it over the past five years. I make 50,000 per year and don't have any debt. I have the money to fix the car, but it would deplete my emergency fund. Should I get this old car fixed, or should I put that money towards a newer car? I feel like this is a really simple one. I got to believe that Toyota is probably not worth any more than $2,000. So for that

reason, I would invest in a new car for you. If you're able to drive it a little while long ride, I don't know if you can. I may be trying to save up as much as I can to put with the 8500,

so that you're not fully depleting that emergency fund, but it is time for a new vehicle.

And your paying tax? This is not your down payment. Yes. So you're going to buy a six or seven thousand dollar car, which is going to upgrade you about five X. Yeah. So yeah, you're in good shape to pay cash for a sizable upgrade. And then replenish your emergency fund as fast as you can instead of doing the repairs. But so the phone boy, what should have been happening just to kind of go back in time, Scott, you know you drive it 2003 Toyota with almost 250,000 miles on it.

You should have been putting money aside to upgrade this car over time, not just an emergency fund, because that's the part I feel like people forget about the Ramsay plan is I love that he has a

“paid for a vehicle. I love that he's living that life, but you've got to remember that you've”

got to have money to decide that you're planning on upgrading that vehicle, because you can only

drive a 2003 for so long. Yeah. That's assuming he hadn't spent the last 24 months getting out of that and just now got to this point. That's also true. That's all true. We just got to this point then that's different. But if he's been going along at this point and not saving for a car, then you're exactly right. Yeah. So here's a good formula for you guys. Okay. What is the car worth salvage today? And so you can sell this car in with a little leak because it's going to

cause 2003 with 206,000 miles, it's going to have a little leak. That's what you sell this car with. It's an all leak. Okay. And it's not going to have a wonderful suspension because it's got 200,000 miles on that. Exactly. So that, you know, that makes this of whatever 1,500, 2,000 motor car. Okay. And so you sell it for that. If you did the repair, does it add the value back. Okay. Equal to the repair. So how the formula works on that is, let's say that this is a $7,000 car

if it's fixed. But you can sell it for 2. Well, 2 plus 8 is 10. So you would still not fix this car. It's over price. Because you're going to have more in the car, what you can sell it for plus the repair is going to be more than the car is worth after the repair. And if that's the case,

“that tells you, this is a throwaway car and you go buy you another throwaway car if you have to.”

In this case, he's got the money to move up quite a bit and move into a $7 or $8,000 car. If he sells this for 2, put 6 in. He's still got some kind of branding and emergency fund start rebuilding, right? And that's the kind of thing you're going to do there. And then have a plan, like Jade was saying, to move up again in 2 years. They're at right, because the $8,000 car is only going to last you start paying yourself $500 a month for 2 years. That's another $12,000.

And you put that with the car that you bought for $7,000. The good news about $7,000 car is not going to go down a lot. No. I'm 2 years from now, you sell it for 6 if you bought it, right? And now we've got an $18,000 car that we pay cash for. That starts to make a lot of sense by getting 50 grand. Well, at any rate, really, because I think that of all the things we teach, the cash car is the most elusive of the principles. I think people who are driving cars with

car notes, they're driving at a 2026, 2025 vehicle. They hear you and die say things like, you know, the car payments keep in the middle class broke and they think, well, what am I supposed to do just hand over $30,000? And how do you put the hand over $4,000? And then pay yourself $1200 a month instead

“of paying Bank of America, screw me $1200 a month. Exactly. That's what it looks like,”

though, to steer step up in. Yeah, you pay, if you pay yourself a car payment for 10 months, that's a lot, and what a lot of people have a $1,000 per payment. Yes. That's $10,000, freaking dollars and 10 months. You know, how much patients do you have? I mean, you can do a lot

hoopty of hoopties for 10 months, a thousand dollar car, you know, that's predominant color's bondo. Yeah. You know, a two-car family can be a one-car family for 10 months. Well, you know, we had a guy working here at one point that, you know, their their second car was a car he bought, at salvage. That was perfect condition, engine and dry and transmission. Interior was perfect condition, but it had been in a hailstorm. Oh. So it looked like it had happened. Yeah. It was really,

it was really powerful all over. It was the ugliest, funniest looking car because it had the

not beat out of it. What does he care? And it looked like somebody walked and hit it with a hammer all over, right? But it worked perfect. And the interior was perfect. The technology was current. But it was a salvage car completely. Yeah. And he said for right now, instead of having a car payment, I paid $2,000 for what would have been a $15,000 car, but it's got look like somebody hit it with a hammer all over. It was, we really made fun of the guy. But it was, but he was classic ramsy guy, right? And

he did that for a year and paid himself a car payment. And then we bought a regular car. That's right. And he has a story to tell. A great, that's a great story. Exactly. I love that. I come from a generation where we drove cars that were bad. And we kept them so long that we named it. I was going to say it's got to have a name. It's got to have a name. The blue goose, right? Yeah, the brown shoe. That's so funny. The brown shoe. Like the old woman in the shoe. Yeah,

we had a way to station wagon named the brown shoe. Wow. It was seriously ugly. It's got to have special, what I call special features. Yeah, which are the windows that don't go down properly. Yeah, the door that won't lock all that stuff. Yeah. The tape deck that eats the tape or eats the

“CD, I hope it even uses tapes and CDs anymore. Yeah, see now, now you're getting old. That's what's”

happening. Oh, your car is so old. Yeah, I see he's in it. That's right. Yeah, it's a whole different kind of car. Yes, yes. Hey, all, all kidding aside, if you will drive like no one else later, you can drive like no one else. So, Jaden, I don't drive hoopdees. I drive whatever I want to drive these days.

And I can ride a check and do it because I drove crap for a while so that I would never have

dead again. And so it's it's not like we're saying drive a piece of crap car that you're whole life. Right. Right. But for a short period of time, a year, two years while you get out of debt, while you save up to avoid debt on the next purchase, you know, you drive something that looks like a ball ping hammer hit it all over. You drive something that's named the gray goo. She drives something the brown shoe. I don't care what you name it, but you know, it's the pitiful old and take pictures of it.

So when you're old, you can tell your grandkids that are trust fun babies because you're a

“multi gazillion-year. Back in the day, grandma and I drove that car and that's why you”

little brats have money. So you got to have story to tell, right? You got, you really got to have

the way to do this. So I had a 1980, my first car was a pet hand me down from my sister. It was

a 1984 Nissan Polcar and it only went forward. It couldn't go in reverse. So you have to choose your parking spot carefully, which means you park way out in the parking lot sometimes, but you have to pull forward, right? Oh my god, that's so terrible. It had to be warmed up like the transmission had to be warmed up for quite a while before what even think about going in reverse. We need to do a show where we ask everybody their worst car they were at home. Yeah. So my wife's first car

when we got married was a Pinto. The ones that were blowing up. Yeah. Yeah. The Pinto and the Vega

“and the Grimland have been named the worst cars of the 70s. That's why I've had one of them.”

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“Riverside. Hey, Connor, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?”

So I graduated from college last year and I got a job making 88,000 per year. I still live in life parents and on my current budget, I can say 100,000 by the end of next year. And I want to know, especially if you move out at this point, especially a way to I can save more to put a bigger down payment on a house. Well, I was going to ask what the goal,

the specific goal is and it's to put a down payment on a house. How much do you need? Like,

what's the monetary goal? Well, in California, a decent house is around 700,000. There's some that are less worse neighbourhoods. So I've tried to borrow a budget to buy a house around 700,000. And I'm on track. I keep doing what I'm doing. I can save 100,000 by the end of next year.

“And you have to go with the buy a house and to do it without having to take on a huge mortgage”

and to keep the payment underneath like 30% of my take on pay. What are you doing for a living? I do supply chain analytics. You got a logistics degree? Yeah, the guy's cause degree in business, I'm majoring in supply chain. And you're only making a EA for end? Yeah, well, let me one year, one year in. And I'm trying to make more money, I'm going to go for math degree. You don't have to have a math job as a

degree to make more money with a logistics degree. You're going to be just, yeah, I'm trying to go for it. Yeah, you're sitting on a 125,000 salary any minute. Wow. What good degree choice? Let me start there. Yeah. Yeah. What do you see yourself earning a year from now, which is the time that you want to live at your mom's house? Do you see yourself going to earn 25? I want to make more. Yeah. Okay. So here's the trade off.

The way you have analyzed this, and it comes from the way your brain works, which is awesome, by the way. I'm thrilled with the way you're looking at things, is that there is no downside to living there. And the upside is I'm stacking cash. Because you get along with your parents, obviously, or you wouldn't even be asking this. You don't have a strained situation there. It's comfortable. Yeah. And so it appears to be a no brainer to stay here and live here for free

and stack cash. The unintended consequences that you haven't started your adulthood completely, as long as your mommy is in the house. Yeah. And when one of my children came home from college and their apartment was their new place to set up house wasn't ready yet. They stayed with us for about three months, which was just fine because we love them and they were we get along and there was no issue. And but I will tell you that as soon as that child moved out and paid their own bills and bought

their own milk and had their own electric bill, it changed their posture. It changed the way they were confident. The swagger, the everything. And yeah, it and not to mention for some ladies, it would change your eligibility as a date. Come on, Dave. Whether you live at your mommy's or not. Yeah. I gotta say, I think there's two, also there's nonmonitorious things here that might be more important than the money. That's true. But even even the money, I don't think that your math is

quite right because a $700,000 house that you've put $100,000 on is not going to get you where you need it to be even making 125. True. You're going to be well above. I mean, I'm just plugging the

“numbers on our mortgage calculator. And I just, I think you need to rethink your math on that.”

That being said, I don't think there's a rush. Your 22, which means you'll be 23 years

old. You don't need a $700,000 house at 23 years old. Yeah. And you're first year of working, right?

Like, let's. Or second year. Yeah. Let's create some stability. Let's make sure that this is really the field we want to be in. Let's make sure this is the area we want to be in. Give yourself some some freedom by just renting it in apartment. I love that for you. It's not horrible. Yeah. If I woke up in your shoes knowing what I know about money and life, I would move out.

Then I would also value your, I think your worth more than you're being paid probably in the market

plays right now. Market job markets will slow right now, sluggish. But and then the other thing that comes to mind that that you may or may not want to consider is that you might be able to make $125,000 in Kansas City. That's a good point. Yeah. Which will cost you half as much to live as Riverside California. That's true. And the only reason you're there today, or at least one of the reasons you're there today is because you grew up there. Yeah. And I'm not suggesting

“you have to move to be successful. But there's something about when you move out that that option”

starts to be there that's not emotionally setting itself in your brain when you're staying at home.

Yeah. I agree. And so I want you to go out and have a life.

And let's just see what, how, let's live the grand adventure. And then you're also not comparing your current life to your parents' life who had spent 30 years in there. Yeah. They've been trying to get, yeah, you can't, you don't need to $700,000. I mean, $700,000 is not a fancy house in Riverside Hills. No, it's not, but I'm just saying he's still a lot of money no matter how you slice it. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of math in where the regardless of what it buys. Yeah. So yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Now, if he told me he had $100,000 of debt and he could live at home and pay it off in one year. I will probably change my mind on that. I would probably go, hey, if you can do it and you

can knock it out and there's a clear timeline and there's a clear amount, I'd probably be fine with

that. He is going to sacrifice some of the things that you said. Yeah. I'm not sure that I can have adequately thought through and quantified what living on your own is worth. Well, it's at,

“it costs more. But I think it's worth more than it costs and I can't, I can't put actual”

dollars to that alpha top of my head like again, something to justify my position. So I'm not a position might be weak. There's the, there's got to be, you got to consider your age range because I think the older you are, the more it hits, you know, you can't be 33 living at Mom's house. Well, the, yeah, 19 is a little bit, I can give you a little break here. I'm like 21. Hey, he graduated from college in 19. Yeah. I fucked two years early for this early. Yeah, he's a

Jan a little bit of a super genius. Yeah, we got some savants stuff on here. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm treating him like he's 22. That's a good point too. Interesting. Interesting. This is a good discussion. Connor, you're, you're sharp dude. You're going to be okay. You don't have to buy a house in one year. And there are benefits to moving out that you haven't considered. Yeah. And that's a summary of what we have acted about and around the barn for the last few minutes. But it's good. It's

appreciate you letting us use you to have the discussion for America because there is a, they all move. It failed your launch. There is a problem in America, particularly disturbing among males that that are not leaving home. Now you're not, the 33 year old living at home is a problem. I, you know what Dave, I actually do think it's both. I think it's men and women. But I do think that it is more frowned upon. And I'm not saying right or wrong. But I feel like, it's called from a sexist

boomer. We get more of the Iq when we see a guy living at home. And you're a sexist, whatever, if you're not a boss. If you just said that, yeah, I get it with a guy being at home. Yeah. But it is, it is. But still, I mean, I, you know, go, be like the grown up. It's okay to be broke and be on your own and be single and make your way. And yeah, that's part of life. But you're not,

“you're not 33 year 19. So if you want to hang out one more year, we're not going to be mad at you,”

you know. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio. Renee is in Los Angeles. Hi, Renee. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was hoping you could help with a disagreement me and my husband are having. So we'd like, I'd like to pay off debt. We have about 16,000 in consumer debt. And we make about 11,000 a month. My husband would like to pull out from our, what is it, stock? To pull all,

all of our stocks to pay off the debt. Whereas I'm on the side of, I think we can make a lifestyle change and pay it off in three months. Right now, we have one income. He is able to work and he can bring

Oh, we just kind of have been living a cushy life. Very, very luxury. There's really no

particular reason. How cushy a life are you living in California on 11,000? It just happens to work for us. The rent pretty low and a lot of our expenses. We really don't have any car payments or anything else. Okay. That, that aside. I just want to add, does that bother you at all? I know that that's not pertinent to the question, but does, does that bother you? Uh, it's all only up until recently, but for the most part, I was pretty content with it. Everything was getting done at the house.

I kind of complained. Okay. So how much stocks, single stocks do you have that you could sell? What are they worth? Not it's only 28,000. Okay, but that's enough to clear the debt and still. That would be enough to clear the debt. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the answer. Interesting to me.

“I think you're both right. I think you need to adjust your freaking lifestyle. Yeah.”

And I think you need to catch out these stocks. I know if you're dead. He needs to work regardless.

The credit cards are the 16,000, right? Correct. Yeah. So that's financial laziness. You make enough money to not have run this debt up. You just weren't paying attention. I didn't wreck the car. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So have you cut up the credit cards? Yes. Yes. This is actually a little debt. So we've paid down about 30,000. Oh, good. That's good. That's good. So yeah. Number one, we're not going to tell you to have single stocks. We're going to have that liquidated.

Put that in emergency fund or put it towards your house or whatever wherever you are on the baby steps. Or put it towards your death. Put it on this debt if you want. But then number two, we need to be on an every dollar budget where you've adjusted lifestyle and the two of you are not, you know, you're not living beyond. You've been doing that, though, because you've reduced that. So you're already doing that. So, you feel like you just want to stay on the plan. I'm not catching up. And I'm going to

reset going here. It just sounds, I think what's going on is good. I think you've, it sounds like you've tightened up in order to pay the debt down to what it is now. Is that right? Correct. Yes. Yes. So that's only thing is I'm holding on to the stocks. It's a private

“stock that I have in a previous company. Here's the thing. I give believe it's going to be like a”

high potential. Even if you didn't have the debt, I would give you the same advice. I'd say, I'd rather you sell that stock. And I'd rather you, let's pretend you were on baby step four, and you could invest in mutual funds. I'd still take that money and diversify it in that way. So the debt really has nothing to do specifically with that advice. It's just, at this point, this is money that you have access to that you can pull out and there really wouldn't be a

penalty on it. It's not retirement money or anything like that. So for that case, I would take it out. I would put 16,000 towards the debt, other 12,000 to Dave's point. You can throw that in a high yield savings account, have an emergency fund. Now we're setting ourselves up to really be able to invest the proper way if we do that. Yeah. The stock, Renee, out of guy, I offer me a position in a private company the other day that I could have bought controlling interest in

in a private situation like that. And when you're, I didn't take it. And the reason is that typically a situation like that is all or nothing, meaning the stock's got tank and it's going to be worth a very, very little and it's going to be a problem. Or it's going to go the moon

and it's going to be the smartest thing you ever did. It's, it's never in between. It's not a predictable

environment. It's a high risk investment. But if you can get out of that, if you can get it out, I didn't do it. I'm saying, but if anybody could be in a position to just take a fun course, you could get that no problem. I'm not blinked. But the point is, she doesn't need to be doing that. So you're only looking at the upside and you're emotionally involved because it was last company worked in and you think those guys are smart and they may be smart and it might go to the

moon. If it doesn't, it's going to go to zero. And if you had 28,000 dollars in the middle of your kitchen table right now, would you go buy that stock or would you pay down the debt? I paid on the debt. 100%. And I'd cash out the rest of the stock and I'd put it in a stable investment. It was

“much more predictable. So I don't know if you're going to do any of that. But that's what we”

would tell you to do. I'd cash out the 28. I would continue the adjustment on the lifestyle. Your both right. Yeah. And it has been needs to do something. Now don't get me wrong. I love when people have worked to create flexibility in their lives. I think that's great. But I think he's going to need a sense of direction and purpose. And that's what he needs. If he doesn't need it for the paycheck, he needs it for the sense of direction and purpose. Jenna is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Jenna, how are you?

I'm getting how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. Okay. So my husband and I have about $80,000

business. And so our tax account and has told us to save 15% of his gross revenue and throw it in

“some sort of savings account that we don't touch just for tax purposes at the end of the year”

to cover any unexpected tax burden we might not be prepared for. But I have about $9,000 in that account right now. And I'm just wondering if I should be using that to clear any of our debt instead of just holding on to it for taxes. You hold on to for taxes. That money's already spent. It's got the IRS's name on it. And I probably would have done 20% to be honest. Well, we recommend 25% of your

net profits, not 15% of your gross. You may be saving too much for taxes. We don't know that yet.

But don't screw around with the IRS. Got it. Yeah, keep your tax money sacred. It's not even there emotionally. Now, you may want to adjust the formula after you've done a year or two of

“this. But you do need to be setting aside and being paying quarterly estimates and they're usually”

going to approach about a 10% tax rate on your net profits plus 15% of self employment tax. Because if you're an employee, you pay 7.65. But if you're self-employed, you pay both sides.

The employee and the employer pay 15/17. So you've got a 25% hit there of your net profits,

probably is going to be pretty accurate for your quarterly estimates and then your total tax bill. Don't mess around with that money. Now, if you're over saving and you can prove that mathematically, if you saved $4,000 more than you need and you can prove that mathematically, then sure take that money and throw it at the debt. But that money, that please, you don't mess around with that. You're accountant really gave you great advice to make you start with holding on yourself.

Because one of the small business people get hit in the head like this, the most of anything I see, they don't, they don't do their quarterlys and then the IRS comes up and smacks them. -Hey George Camel here, we often talk about how being normal sucks when it comes to your money. But guess what, normal isn't so great when it comes to your job either. Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays and working for people you don't even like.

Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can break free from normal because Ramsey Solutions is hiring and we refuse to settle for the ordinary. In fact, we are anything but normal and we are proud of it. And right now we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing and creative roles. So head over to RamseySolutions.com/careers and apply today. [Music]

Time is running out to enter the Ramsey Cash giveaway. You can enter any time between now in May 31 to increase your chances of winning the $500 weekly prize and the $10,000 grand prize. Obviously, no purchase necessary, no salesmen will call. Be sure to check out our sale, though, while you're on the site. Right now, you can kick off your summer with books and assessments for only $12 for hard-back book. Wow. Yeah, I just jumped online and bought a friend of mine

“has a new fiction book coming out and I just jumped online and bought it. Uh-huh. Oh, your navy seal?”

Yeah, it was not $12. I'm sure it was not. It was a lot more than $12. RamseySolutions.com/giveaway hit that right now and you can enter and you can also check out the $12 books. That's a good deal. All right. Gene is with us in Chattanooga. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you so much for your ministry. Thank you. How can we help? Someone used my stolen ID electronically to open a chicken account in another bank and stole funds from one of the accounts that I have with a

wealth management company where I have retirement and investments. Wait, wait. I'm sorry. They

management company? They used the checking account electronically to go into the wealth management

company and so they had all your information to do this. They have a daily deal and I never have

to manage any of those accounts by phone or direct electronically. I've always done by phone or direct mail. So why is your wealth management company not liable? That's my question. Are they not liable? Because this loss I sustain was not associated with market value value. Most of it was they got had. Yeah, their site got hacked by an identity thief. I think that's on them. Okay.

“I'm not sure. I'm not an attorney, but that's what it sounds like from a common sense perspective.”

Yeah, I much money did you lose. 45,500. How old are you? I'm 84. How much money was in the account? I'm total. Oh goodness. I would have to look there. I don't know. A lot. I think it was about 100. Let me see. Why did they only get 45,000? I don't know. I have 169,790 in there. Who have you? So why did they not get it all? I don't have a clue. Maybe they thought, you know, so are you a cop, but you called your wealth management company? What did they say?

They were, I would never know about it if they hadn't sent me a letter asking if I had changed my

email and my bank account. And of course, right away then they tried to reverse the transaction and by then of course, the money was gone. So, but they did you leave the rest of your money there? Well right now I haven't changed anything but I intend to. I just don't know whether, whether I should

“change my my management company before they refund my money or whether I need this. Well, you need to”

you need to make sure, I'm going to have a discussion with them on the phone as soon as you're hanging up with us that make sure that the remaining money is safe. Uh-huh. Yeah. That's the first thing.

We got to make sure that's safe. And then the second thing is when are you guys going to refund

me the money that you lost because you're a count that I have with you was hacked? Correct. I'm going to ask them to refund this. I don't know that that's going to work. I- I- because I'm not an attorney, okay? But I think that they're going to be liable for that because they're a count got hacked. I mean, so let's pretend you had a savings account at a bank and a thief got into the savings account on the bank and stole the money.

Mm-hmm. It's the same thing. Yeah. The bank would be liable. So I'm pretty sure this wealth management company is liable for this. Well, it's on both and it's on- there's issues on both and it's because if they were able to set up another bank account with your information, then if they were able to use that to connect the two banks, they're going to want to get this. Gene, do you know the person that did this? No, I don't know who it was. Okay.

Then you've got a lot of information on you. They do. I know. Okay. And let me tell you what I've

“done. I have subscribed as Andrew. Sure. Good. Good. Are they helping you? Are they theft people?”

No, Andrew. It was after the fact. I know, but did they offer to help anyway? They just, I don't know. They would or not. I didn't ask them. Yeah. I'm going to ask them to help you. Okay. All right. As a favor to me. They're friends of mine. And my 84-year-old friend, Gene, and Shadow Nugging, needs some help. And I'm going to ask them to help you, even though you bought the insurance afterwards. Okay. So I'm going to put you on hold in the gang.

And the book booth is going to pick up and connect you with Jeff Sander, who's a friend of mine. And they're going to help you walk through this and make sure you're identity is secured first and foremost. And then secondly, if you need some help, we'll hook you up with one of our Ramsey Coaches, Ramsey Financial Coaches as a gift also, no charge. And see if they can now be navigate with this wealth management company. Because they need to be offering me my money back

really fast. If they want to keep me as a customer, if I'm in your shoes. Well, definitely. Okay. So I tried to, you know, I tried to get legal advice here. And I went to

So I guess I'm just peanuts to them. Well, the $45,000 is peanuts, but you're not peanuts.

That's right. Okay. You're, you're okay. You're going to be all right. But what we have to stop this from happening anymore. And we have to apply for and get the refund. And I think between our Ramsey Coaches and Zander, which is going to cost you nothing, we're going to take care of all

“of it. We're going to make sure you're okay. But you need to get on the phone today and make sure”

the rest of your accounts are secure with those people in the meantime while you decide what's going to happen. So you hang on and our gang will pick up and we'll put our arms around you and see if

we can help you kiddo. That's terrible. That's kind of scary. Yeah, that is, they got all of her stuff.

I mean, they not only knew enough to open an account, but they knew she had the other account. Tiddling in how to access it. That's very scary. And these goobs release this money to a fresh email and fresh address that they did not already have on file. Because that means they went in and share the security at a minimum is horrible at this company. Yeah. Wow. She should have named. She should have named it. She should have named it. She should have named it.

“She's got the story straight. That's what's going on. Yeah. Well, I dropped the name of that brokerage.”

So we can all know. And we'll wait and see, make sure what they do. But yeah, it's, that's a scary. Yeah. So when you have a brokerage company like that, like our smart investor pros, as an example, you build clients over time. And in that world, you call it your book of business. And how much do you have AUM assets under management? And so a big,

you know, somebody's been working for 25 or whatever years will have half a billion to a billion,

five hundred million to a billion dollars in assets under management. And if one of those clients had two hundred thousand dollars out of your half a billion you're managing, and it was 84 years old, this would be her. That's the situation she would normally be in. But the way you get a book of business that size is you take care of people. Yeah. 84 year old widows would be at the top of your list. I would, you would think so. Hello. And so that's the, um, the proper way to run that book of business.

The big of business grows when you love the people in the book well. What's curious is they only took 45,000 hundred and sixty nine. That makes, that sounds nefarious to me. That's, I'm still afraid a relative of hers is doing this. I agree with that, Dave. Ouch. . Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Worsha. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events. And all the extra gas and grocery runs,

money can get tight before you know it to really get your money under control and keep it that way.

“You're going to need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the every dollar budget app.”

It helps you track your spending free up cash to put toward debt and savings. And it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money before the month begins. So no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download every dollar in the app store or Google play and start for free today. Renee is with us in Charlotte, Hi Renee, how are you?

I'm great. Thank you for taking the call. I love the work you do. Thank you. How can we help? My question is regarding how much I should pressure my teenage daughter to apply for scholarship. College scholarships. Why wouldn't you? Well, I should reframe the question. I have been and it's not working and I don't know if I should start punishing her. Oh, I'm taking away privileges if she doesn't put forth some effort.

She just finished her junior year of early college. Though she has done very well and she will

graduate high school with an associate's degree and she only needs two years to get for undergrad. And she's under the impression that she can start applying during the school year of her senior year and get scholarships. I've done some research and have found that she should really start applying now and she is not putting forth the effort. Are you married? Yes. Where's her father in this discussion? He agrees with me but he's also not quite as assertive as I am.

“Okay. So I think what I would do is gather some information and lay it out the three of you”

and here's the way I would look at it. There was a lady that worked on her team for a while named

Christina Ellis. Look her up. She had a book out called Confessions of a Scholarship Winner. She applied for as a single mom's daughter and received $500,000 worth. And so she's like the best I've ever met in the world. She worked on this team for a while here and a sweet girl too. Very smart. Very smart. And she end up getting a graduate degree from Vanderbilt all paid for. So the information she's got in that book and here's the types of examples that she brought out and I've heard her

teach this from stage with me. Okay. You know, if you spent 200 hours applying for scholarships,

that's a lot. That's five hours a day for a lot for 50 days. Yeah, part time job. Like that's your

part time job. And if you got $50,000 worth of scholarships, that means that your daughter doing that would have earned $250 an hour. I'm going to present that type of information to your daughter and to your husband and then say based on that, I don't care if you like it. You're not leaving

“the house again until you agree to do this for her. It's more important for her to do that,”

financially than have the part time job. The other part time job. Or go to part time community college and be ahead of school. You know, so I mean, you cannot earn $250 an hour as a 17-year-old anywhere else. And that's the rate. I made that number up by the way. Okay. I mean, I don't know if that would work exactly that way. But that's the type of thing that Christina's the way her mind worked about this was you look at it and you're being paid what on the turny makes to apply for scholarships.

Only you're not getting them today. And so if you go to, if you get $50,000 in scholarships and your mom and dad have $50,000 in savings and you're going to get that savings in your pocket

“when you graduate as a result of having not spent it because you got scholarships,”

that's making $250 an hour. Wonderful point. Yeah. And so, and that changes it like, I'm on your side. I want you to come out of college with $50,000 in cash and your pocket from your dad's and I account that we're going to hand to you because we didn't have to pay for college because you do this smart thing. And she's obviously a talented student. And I, he is. I got to believe in AI. It's easier than ever to synthesize your ideas

and help, you know, prepare your thoughts for the different essays and prepare, you know, you can write the essays. You can write hundreds of essays in 20 minutes. Yeah. With Chad GPD. Yeah. I've been doing all the research and presenting it to her and telling her to get a bio essay and to chart out the schedule. Yeah. You're telling her what to do without her really grasping the why and what I'm doing is walking around the other side and putting a big

whole carrot out there before I pull the stick out. Okay. I want to, she hadn't been seen the carrot because she's not dumb. This is a bright child. Yes. And by the way, she's not even lazy. You're not lazy. Okay. So this is her, she's not God. We're so shocked. Yeah. She's not God, care of the floor. She just hasn't become a believer that this is worth the effort. And we've just got to help you present that to her and her dad and go, okay, now are you ready to, okay, let's

250 hours because it's going to pay you an average of whatever. Okay. The amount, you, the amount that you get divided by 200 hours. And when you finish 200 hours, I will shut up. If you've applied, if you've applied 200 hours worth of effort writing essays to get scholarships, you're going to get so stink in many scholarships. And by the way, get good at it. Don't just mail it in. Right. Little more. Little more. Literally. Yeah. But I mean, work the thing because Christina said I'm a

“single mom's daughter and I'm a citizen student and I'm this. You know, you have to use whatever”

your advantages are. You know, I'm one 16th Cherokee. I don't care what you are. Yep. Whatever it is, you lean into that and you, because you're going to find somebody that's got everything. I mean, there's, there's all these little new scholarships for everything. Yeah, scholarships. And, you know, it doesn't all depend on athletic ability or grades. There's lots of them that come from all kinds of weird nuanced things. And so yeah. And, you know, get creative with the essay. Be the

most positive thing that they see coming in front of them and they want to give it to them. And pretend like you're on the scholarship committee. What would you want to see? Yeah. Yep. If you wrote the essay coming in, what kind of essays are going to make the difference and that you're going to keep at the top of the stack and all that kind of stuff and treat this like

it's like it's a straight commission job. Because it basically is. Yeah. And, but I think we need to

get a big carrot out here. A big, this is, this is the prize. And so the effort is worth it to get the prize. And then then applying for scholarships makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I think you're the only one jazzed up about it in your whole house. So we need to get the rest of the house on jazzed. And the way we get jazzed is we talk about the why, not the how. That's the thing. Mike is on the line in Milwaukee. Hey, Mike, what's up? Hi, baby. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

So a question to me, my fiancee are looking into trying to be able to put it ourselves in a position to retire around a 55 mark. How old are you? Is one of where 35? Okay. When are you getting married? Uh, September. Oh, good. Cool. Okay. So you got 20 years to get ready to retire at 55 instead of 59 and a half. So you can't access your Roths or your 401k, right?

“Yep. And that's what I'm looking forward to what it should be. And thus then to carry some 55 to 59 and a half.”

Okay. If we were going to gas, let's just put a wet finger in the air. What will you need to live per year when you're 55 if you don't work? If I had a guess, maybe 60, 70,000 dollars, it's because they're already comfortable. All right. Let's just call it 60 and you need to do that times five. So you need 300k. Yeah. If you don't work, why would you not work at all at 55? Why wouldn't you find something to do? Just to have the option to do it. Work optional.

Work optional. It's probably a better way to say it. Work optional. Yeah. Well, work optional is fine, but it's not, it doesn't happen very often. So what I would do is just go ahead and get out of debt, get your house paid off, and build wealth, and worry about that when you get a little

“closer. If you want to invest, when you get a little closer, you just do that in a low turnover”

mutual fund like an S&P 500, like a Vanguard S&P 500 or something like that. And that's a good

way to do it, but I wouldn't fool with that today. First, you need to work with baby steps,

and get to baby steps seven before you start talking about this. You spend hours researching before making a major purchase like a home or car, but it's also a good idea to put in the work searching for the right insurance coverage. To protect your biggest assets, I recommend using Ramsey Trusted Pros, whether you're looking for car home or any other type of insurance, Ramsey Trusted Providers have been coached and vetted

to serve you like we would. Find what you need at RamseySolutions.com/insurance. Our scripture today, Proverbs 1224, diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor.

Oh, Warren Buffett, rule number one, never lose money, rule number two, never forget,

Got it. Works for me. John is in Minneapolis. Hey, John, how are you? I'm good. Hey, guys, thank you for taking my call. Sure. I'm trying to figure out if I'm losing my mind from wanting to walk away from a high pain job and start all over and something new that pays quite a bit less, at least to start. So I'm in a financial sales position right now. It's almost all commission. So I averaged around 250,000 a year. And I know I'm blessed to be in a

financial position. I'm in, but for the last couple of years, I've found zero fulfillment in this

job and I've been pretty unhappy. The culture is very much like work first, family second,

and there's not a whole lot of job security. We're really pushed to work past the schedule hours, work every single weekend, and it's really starting to affect my relationships outside of work. How do you tell me about it? A financial product, a mortgage. Okay. So you're a mortgage underwriter? Officer. Okay, a loan officer. Yeah, okay. So is it the work or is it the conditions and what you're

doing? Why can't you do that somewhere else that has reasonable culture and reasonable hours and makes a little less? And it's actually not the actual day-to-day work. It's the environment

“and the hours and the bad priorities is driving you crazy, right?”

Yes. And I've had quite a few workers that are co-workers that have left and went to other companies

in the industry and ultimately pretty much every one of them comes back to the company we're at.

Because they said this is really the best company in terms of, you know, technology and stuff. But the culture has been like this and has really gotten worse over the last, I would say, 12 months. And what I'm worried about mainly is, over the next couple of years, I want to be in a position where I'm starting a family and I look at my co-workers and I see them really struggling to keep up in the job and, you know, be there, be present for their families.

And I just don't want to end up being the parent. Yeah, but I can. Again, I am not buying the fact that you can make $250,000 at one company and you can't work normal hours and work for good people and have a better balance to what you're doing at a different company. And make 150 to 200

“at a different company. I don't believe that. I think your co-workers have given you a message”

that's not true. As if there's one place on the planet that this whole thing can happen and it works and everywhere else, it doesn't work. Boa crap. Correct. Yeah, and that's really the feeling that we get from leadership. I don't care what leadership told you. You already don't have faith in leadership. Why are you listening to anything? So what opportunities have you been looking at? Yeah, so we have a family friend who's an electrician in our area and he's been trying to

get me to be an apprentice for quite a while now. Why? That's so a completely different path. Why? Because this one company that you work for sucks and so now you're going to go be an electrician? He doesn't know anything about my job. Yeah, so why were you going to ask? Yeah, we're talking about you. Why would you do? I mean, okay, I'm an electrician and I know a guy that is a mortgage guy who's obviously making a lot of money. I maybe I don't know it's a quarter

million dollars a year. Why would I even talk to that guy about being an electrician? That's just strange.

Yeah, he knows I've always been interested in working with my hands and I ended up just kind of

falling into this job through an internship in college and it was always supposed to be, you know,

“I'll do this for a couple of years and then move on to something else. How old are you?”

How old are you? I'm 29. And how long have you been doing the mortgage broker deal? About eight years. Eight years. Okay, so you're looking at this going, man, I fell into this job. This is not what I intended to do. This is not what I set out to do. I need to stop this train and I need to get on the path that I really want to be on. Correct. Understood. Okay. How are you doing financially? Good. So I have in my check in account I have

about 15,000. I do have an emergency fund with about 25,000 in it and I use savings. I know that at all. I'm very, very fortunate there. And then I have a high yield savings. It's about 115 that was supposed to be for hopefully a wedding here in the next year, too. And then a down payment on a house and then that sort of stuff. Okay. So you're getting married in the next year, any kids? No. Okay. Listen, I do think that you should do work that matters to you, work that you feel

the same value? Because the hard part for me is to know that you were worth $250,000 in the market place.

And then to go down without the horizon of being able to meet that peak again. That would bother me personally, but it doesn't bother you. That's okay. So tell us about the electrician. What's the route? What does it look like? And what do you want to know from us? No problem. So it would be a five-year apprenticeship. It would be a unique electrician. So I'd start at about $21 an hour in five years when I make it through, I'd be a journeyman right now to pay about $42 an hour.

But that would just be my base paid doesn't include like an fringe benefits or anything on top of that like health insurance money going into a retirement account. And when I do the math, working the same amount of hours, I'm working right now, which is 55 to 60 a week. You don't want to work that many hours. So we can't compare it to that. Correct. You're right. So it would be a pay cut at the five-year mark. If I, you know, make it through the apprenticeship,

I'd be sitting around about 130 a year. As a journeyman, and that's kind of the peak. Correct. Yeah. Unless I would move up to be a four-minute and so on. I knew really hate this company. I think so too. This is like, they have wanted you so badly that you're willing to jump into a pit of acid to get away from them. Yeah, how do you know that you'll love being an electrician to the tune of $100,000 pay cut?

“That I don't know for sure. And that's what scares me the most. So why I'm”

why I call them to get your guys as advice on something. I'm not buying. I think you're running so hard away from something that you're not looking carefully at what you're running to. So if I were going to advise a 29-year-old who made $250,000 a year who's in a toxic culture, and he knows how to sell, I'm not against the trades. I'm a fan of the trade, but you have painted the best possible scenario for a union-journament electrician, and it's going to take you five

freaking years to get back to half of your income. Yeah, could you not? That's just not logical.

Could you not go to another mortgage firm first and test that out and go, okay, like this is good.

Because Dave's right, you're clearly good at what you do. And generally, I think you could make $160,000, $180,000 day one somewhere else working normal hours and not being spit on every day or whatever's happening over there. You've got to get away from the place. I'm not disagreeing with that. But I think you've convoluted the career field as being horrible

“with the company that being horrible, and you need to separate those two things first before you make”

this decision. It's hard to me when, and you'll probably be able to put better words to this, but when you're clearly really good at something and you're clearly very gifted at it, it's hard to then say, but you're not going to do that. You're going to go to this. Do you know anything? You've got that talent in that gifting for some reason? I don't know. It's hard to walk. Again, it's this smells like an escape rather than a journey. Yes. And I just don't smell right.

And so, you ask our opinions and we've given a whole three minutes of thought to your whole life. Okay, so it's not really fair to you. Well, he doesn't have to choose between this and that. There are some other routes he can go through before he comes.

“I think it's a false dichotomy that the only way to be happy is to completely leave everything that you're doing.”

Yeah. I would start by leaving the company that you're in and then see where that takes first.

And then I would decide from there. And then is there another way that I can do electrician and own a company that is electricians and so forth? That puts us out of the Ramsay 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.