Steady Habits Build Lasting Wealth

May as mental health awareness month and you know that stress you keep pushing down, it's

showing up everywhere in your relationships and in your health.

“If you need to talk to a licensed therapist, make today the day.”

Go to betterhelp.com/raims you to get 10% off. Normal is broken common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey your host. Rachel Cruz, number one best selling off the Ramsey personality, co-host of smart money

at Bialar. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones here as we talk to you about your life and your money. No numbers free, it triple 8 8 2 5 5 2 2 5 and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

“John is in level Kentucky, hey John, how are you doing good?”

How are you? Better than a deserve sir, what's up?

I guess we'll get to a little backstory, I guess first of I'm 26 and my girl, fiance, I should

say it's 31, we don't live together, I have a home in a Radicals estate line, she lives with her parents, I have not kids, she has three with three different fathers and me and her are just trying to get on board with the Dave Ramsey plan and I guess you could say you struggle with that. And what way John, what does that mean?

Well just I presented to her, I was following that route when I met her right at two years ago and we've tried to do that on baby step two for the both of us and I guess you could say just a few problems, you know, not living together, different households and overall

just a and on board with the plan completely I guess you could say.

She's not. Yes. Okay. So what you're saying is that she's okay with her money problems and you're not. Yeah, I ain't gonna say it's completely based on, you know, hot and cold I guess you could

say but yeah, that's pretty much overall that. Because what are the things specific John that you're like okay I want to, I want to do this I want to get out of debt and I want to live debt free and she's what in debt doesn't care to get out and is okay with it like is that one of the main robes you mentioned baby step two which is part of the plan of getting out of debt or is it saving

is it investing is it giving is it all of it or just a certain part of the plan that you guys are having some conflict with. Well, to be honest with you, it's more so, hey, you know, we talk, we want to go down this road, we want to, we want to be here and do this and for say a good example, we talk about this and then a couple months down the road which was a few months back, she goes

and purchases a new car, you know that and I would say we didn't need, you know.

“Yeah, this overall not following I guess you could say, okay well here's the thing if someone”

doesn't follow the Ramsey plan and you do that's, you know, we're not, we're not the Bible, you know we just teach biblical concepts but but you know you don't judge somebody based on that alone but what this does indicate something deeper that is disturbing. So here's the numbers, the number one cause of fights and divorce in marriage is money and money problems and it's not really the money, it's what the money represents because

it represents your fears, your dreams, what you believe about life, who you believe is in charge, whether you're in charge or somebody else is in charge of your own life, do control your own destiny and the way you handle money indicates all of those things and that spills over then into your, it is your value system and it spills over into your relationship and so if we say the number one cause of, if you said the number one cause

of death in your neighborhood was snake bite and you saw snakes will you're worried if you're smart, you know and so the number one cause of marriage issues is this and you've got this issue on the number one thing and she's tried this at some level three times at least before. So that's worrisome and so if I'm coaching the two of you and you're

is going to work is to the extent you guys can get on the same page and stick to the page. Whatever page it is, whether it's got Ramsay written on it or whether it's got something else written in the big subjects of life that we see eye to eye on in laws, faith, sex, money I mean it's the big stuff and when we can see eye to eye on the value system you're just going to have a, I don't want to say, easier marriage it's just it's going to probably

cause less tension because you're walking the same direction together instead of finding

against each other always in laws is one of the four things that kills marriage is one

of the top four and so her mother won't shut up, you know, that'll kill a marriage right and and she lives with them by the way. So I don't I'm not saying that's in the equation I don't have no idea if it is here but and the same thing with religion is one of you

“says I hate God and the other one says I believe in God and I do everything he says well”

that's going to be a problem, you know, you know, you argue about who's right around but the fact that you're not on the same page is going to be a problem. So these are the types of things that the data tells us mess up marriages and if I know that going in

I don't want to take all the data and remove all romance and love from the equation but

love's not going to overcome those things for 10 years. Well, and there's also John and this is not to be judgmental on her by any means. I don't know her story. We you gave us no context except that she's had three kids or three different people. You're the fourth one that, you know, you're starting this life with and so any level of pattern that you see in your life and hopefully for her to look back and just say hey, what are patterns in my life

that maybe are not the best things, not the best choices and so and what that can indicate those character qualities in general feed into other areas of our life. So the fact that she says one thing and then goes and it's not like she ordered something on Amazon, she went into a new car. You know what I mean? I mean it was a big purchase. It's very different than what was just

a billion different. Well, there's just, well, it's just say, it's a lack of a middle finger.

No, that's all wrong. It's a lack of a lack of a lack of a lack of a lack of a lack of a lack of a follow through of what you said, right? And I don't know why you got the new car. I don't know,

“there's probably probably more details, but that's what I'm saying that was the character quality”

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

What causes her to be okay? You know, with the subject, you could say dead as the subject. Like what is in that with her and actually get to the bottom of it? Because there could be a level of digging that you actually find and you know her more, that's the thing with money. You pull a string and it goes all the way down to people's heart and soul and that's in there for her. So if I loved her, right, as you do, John, like you would want to know those things about her. And then you

have to make a decision, though, for John and what's best. And when you look out 10, 15 years, does this look like a life that you want to sign up for, you know? Yeah, but if my decision patterns calls me to have a new car in the driveway. I'm 31 and three kids and I live with my parents. And these aren't patterns. Not great ones. Yeah. Yeah. Problem. Problem. . When you've worked hard to buy a car, the right way. You paid cash with

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“in the App Store or Google Play. Shane's in Philadelphia. How's Shane? How are you?”

Good. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I've changed positions in the company that I've been working for for the last couple of years and I'm making a significant amount of money over what I was making initially and it's kind of just piling up the bank. I haven't invested any of it aside from just the company 401k. I was comes out automatically and I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to these things. So, I've been back

and forth reading different things online about what I should be doing with my money. Never really

done anything with it thus far because I haven't had any professional advice just whatever I'm online. So, I'm hoping that you can maybe guide me in a direction of where I should be putting my money to work for me as opposed to earning less than 1% interest in the bank. Good for you. Good for you. Well, the good news is it's not rocket science. It's not that hard. This is not like learning a foreign language. It's much easier. Okay. And so, it is a bit of a foreign language but you just

“have to learn the vernacular and then you'll know what to do. What do you do for living?”

So, I'm in sales. Good. What do you make by myself or my wife? How old is your household income? Why is this money piling up? Probably just north of 200 K grows between my wife. Good for you. Well done, sir. How much money do you have saved? Shane, you said it's just sitting in the bank and piling up. Yeah. So, right now I have about 50,000 in the bank. I've only been in sales for the last six months and I probably had 10,000 my starts.

I probably would have saved 40,000. Yeah. It's amazing. Good for you. Well, as far as investing

goes, there's two principles that if you'll follow these two principles, you'll find your way through and do just fine. Okay. Actually there's three, but I'll give you two. I'll give you all three. Principle number one, don't ever put money into something you don't understand. Okay. You have not violated that. Congratulations. You've done very well. I met with an NFL player one time and I sat down with him and his wife and he said,

“Dave, you're going to kill me and I'm like, what did you do? Do you blow all your money?”

And he said, no, I got 10 million dollars. I'm like, what is it? Why am I going to kill you? You got 10 million dollars. He said, it's all in CDs. It's horrible. You know, that's not horrible. That's so much smarter than all the other people you play football with because they've all blown theirs or put it in their brother-in-law's pizza company that went broke. You know, say, you know, you're very smart. Don't put money and stuff until you understand it.

So I don't care how flashy the tick-tock thing is or what Dave Ramsey says or what Rachel Cruz says, you understand it before you put money. Principle number one. Principle number two, plan to go slow. The fastest way to get rich quick is don't get rich quick. The tortoise wins the race over the

hair every time I read the book. Okay. And I've read it a bunch. Over and over. He always wins and

investing. You always win if you're slow and steady wins the race. That's the East Ops Fable. Okay. And then the third thing is don't get financial people in your life of any kind, real estate, insurance, investing, tax, tax, whatever. This sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I have no idea what you're saying. You might as well speak in German to me. Okay. And if they can't speak to you in such a way that they can teach you, they don't have the heart of a teacher,

then they're just a salesman. They're not a financial person. And financial people are the world's worst because a lot of us are nerds and we like being impressive with our nerd knowledge more than we

stuff you don't understand. So if you sit down with a financial advisor in your wife and your wife

says I got a bad feeling about him or her, don't go with him. Or if you sit down with him and you leave more confused than when you went in, don't go with them. Okay. They might be okay, but they're not okay for you. Now that we've established that, we can start talking about some of the cool stuff you could do for investing. Now we teach a process for building wealth that we've taught for 30 years. Plus called the baby steps. You probably heard of that, right? I do. I actually have your total

money makeover book. Okay. So you know then that we're going to have you have an emergency fund and have all your debts paid off accept your home before we start investing. Do you have any debt

other than your home? Yes. I'm just my car or my truck in my life's car. And how much is all that?

Total probably 70,000. Okay. We're going to pay all that off before we do any investing then.

“Okay. That's what we call baby step two. If you remember the book. And then once that's done,”

I want you to set aside three to six months of expenses in for an emergency fund. Being out of debt and having the rainy day fund is foundational to keep your investment safe. Your investments otherwise I'll turn. You'll pull money. I stop your 401k temporarily. And knock those card debts out. Take all that 40k and throw it at the smallest card debt. Let's get it all cleaned up. So if you got no payments, but a house payment and you got, I don't know

in your case, 30,000 bucks setting there in a money market account only to be touched for emergencies. It's not, I want to go on a trip fund. Yeah. That's one change I was going to say. Open up a

high yield savings account. Fair ones credit unions amazing, but they have a great smart

bundle. So put it not in a traditional savings account, but in a high yield savings account

“because it goes from negative, not even one percent to at least you're getting three to four”

percent sitting there for your emergency fund. Your emergency fund. Right. And then with no payments, now you start really stacking money. You start putting 15% away in your 401k and Roth IRAs and Roth 401k's. And you can talk to one of the smart vester pros at RamseySolutions.com and they can help you. They, the will have the heart of a teacher. They don't get the Ramsey name put on them on our website unless they have the heart of a teacher. We won't, we won't put our name beside somebody

that, and if we find out someone, I'm doing the Charlie Browns teacher thing we fire them and get them out of the system because we are hardcore about this. So if you do all of that, you're going to have so much stink in money because I got to tell you one of the highest paid professions in the United States today is a good salesman. Yeah, it's, it was pretty night and day. It's about three times what I was making with this same current company prior to

this position. And it's just had a lot of nights where I didn't really know what we were going to do for certain things, right through your book, paid off some debts, credit cards, medical bills. Yeah. We're only now, and now we're just at a point where I have too much money. I don't know what to do with it based off of, you know, my own ignorance with finances. With investing, with investing, you started investing in good mutual funds and they're really

easy to understand. It's 90 to 200 stocks. You look at the track record of the fund that was mutually funded by you, me and a bunch of other people together. And you go, okay, that group of that pile of money has been growing at an average rate of 11% or 10% or 22% or whatever it is. And you look at, oh, it's done that for 32 years. Oh, okay, I feel pretty good about that. That's like buying a house and a good neighborhood. Yeah, and shame when you get to that 15%

“honestly, the investment advice, as you, if you dig into more of what we talk about,”

it's not going to be a lot of flashy stuff. I mean, honestly, the 15% into retirement 401ks, raw fire rays, you know, those standard, and then anything beyond that is just mutual funds. I mean, index funds, like it's nothing, there's no day trading, no crypto, like, there's nothing big and flashy, real estate Airbnb, you know, Airbnb investing, like, there's, you'll find none of that because, again, it's, it's quite on quote, not exciting, investing advice, but the amount of

baby steps and millionaires that are out of, have done this and have built wealth slowly over time, because it is the most stable way to build wealth versus all the flashiness. So again, it's not, it's not super exciting, but it is consistent and works. It works. Yep.

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“David is in Madison, Wisconsin, hi, David, how are you? Hi, David, I feel how are you guys?”

Better than we deserve, sir. What's up? Cool. Thank you for taking my call. My wife and I are, we've been working the baby's fencer about the last eight months, and we're baby steps six. We are at the point where we have to kind of navigate a bad decision we made when we bought our house two years ago. We bought our house, and our mortgage is 50% of our take home pay, and we're just trying to figure out if it's the right move to sell it, or if we kind of

stick it out and see if we can come up with a better solution. When you say take home pay, what do you mean coming out of your check? So we bring home $12,000 a month after

“your taxes and our mortgage is 6,065. But after taxes, 401k health insurance, what else is coming?”

What's coming out of the check other than taxes? Yeah, 401k health insurance and taxes. Okay, taxes is all we're talking about when we say take home pay. So how much is going in your 401k a month? I do 15% of 100,000, and then my wife's salary is 75,000, and we do 5% of her pay those, and do her 401k. Okay, that's close to $2,000 a month. All right, and how much is the health insurance? The health insurance is around $250,000 every two weeks. So 500. And then yeah, we have a

first self-employed, so our company pays 75% of the health insurance. Okay, all right. All right,

well, I mean, so when we mean take home pay, we mean $2500 more, so we mean 14,000, and some change. Okay, that would be your take home pay. So that would put you to about 40% not 50, but still, it's very tough. And so the principle is when your house payment is too big a percentage of your take home pay, you become mathematically what we call house poor. You don't have to be a wiggle room to do anything else. How much debt have you paid off, and how long did it take you, and when this recent

debt run you did? Yeah, we paid off around $120,000 in the last eight months. Wow, while fighting this big mortgage. Yes, sir. Can I just sell anything? Yeah, I wanted to sell it. I had a Shelby QT 500 that I had a well-in-hand, but I did have a decent amount of equity in that car, so that helped pay off some other debt. Okay. Yeah, just a lot. How much of the 120 was that? Uh, we sold for 94,000. Yeah, I was thinking, uh, I did all, uh, 65,000. So 94, the 120 was one stroke.

Okay. Yep. Because you threw the rest of it at another debt. Yeah, so you're equity. Well, 94, 94 is what I sold the car for. I'm sorry. I don't know. But you threw the other,

two of the 120, 94 was just simply moving the Mustang. Yeah. Wow. Good. That made you cry a little,

but it was also a brilliant move. Uh, okay. Other than that then, so that leaves you with 30,000 reduced during the same eight months while having this big mortgage. What else did you sell?

“Uh, that was the only thing we sold. Okay. We did have savings. I, like I said, we're very”

new to this. How much was in savings? Uh, we had 175,000 in savings. So you pulled that out and paid off the rest of this. Correct. So you did not cash flow any of this debt reduction then. Uh, no. Okay. So we're back to the mortgage being a problem. So what's left in savings? Uh, between emergency fund and this high yield savings around 125,000. What's your balance on your

mortgage? 700,000. What's your interest rate? 7%. You might consider dropping another 100 on that

and refinancing it. You can get a lot. You'd probably get a five and a half this week on a 15 year savings. One of our thoughts get a better interest rate and recast the mortgage because you're throwing 150 at the thing getting it down to 550. I think we got a workable deal. Do you like the house? Uh, that's another part of my wife and I are, we're talking about, we were recently, we're both so go last year and it's a nice house. But it's, we really like the simple fire life and we

“want to be able to kind of give more right now. So we're kind of, um, if you want to sell it anyway,”

that's okay. I was fighting to keep it for a minute, helping you thought thinking you wanted to

keep it. But if you want to sell it anyway, it makes the whole equation, right? But as far as

do you have to sell it because of this percentage of your real take home pay, not counting 401k and health insurance, probably not, uh, but if you want to sell it and downsize to get a simplified life, use the equity from the house, get a lower interest rate, use the 100 and some change, maybe 150 out of savings, dump it on there. I mean, you're going to have a lot more wiggle room if you do that, obviously. Yeah. So we have had the house listed for the last month and we've had

kind of 10 or 12 showings and it's looking like after talking with our realtor, we've probably sensed the house is so new, it hasn't quite built up. Luckily we before we bought this before we knew anything about you and didn't put any money down. We'll probably have to pay somewhere around 50,000 to get out of it. That's the part we're struggling with. Is that smarter? Do we stick it out and wait for equity to build or do we just pay the stupid tax? You don't have to sell it

to get ahead. You're going to prosper because you've been willing to make sacrificial moves

“you're being very intentional about everything. You know your numbers, I think you're going to be”

okay if you keep it. I would consider refinancing it and putting a hundred or 150 down on the balance and putting it at a five and a half on a 15 year. I would consider doing that. How old are you guys? You get touched with Churchill mortgage and see if they can help you with that. How old are you guys? I am 30 in my life at 28. Okay. I probably would do that and then sit there for two years. And then if I'm still feeling a pinch and I want to still feeling this push to simplify.

I just didn't sell it and you'll probably make some money. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I was going to say, I mean, if you guys hear voices deep David, I was like, I don't know, he could be 55. He could be 25. I don't know. This guy is because if you're closer to even retirement age, right? And you didn't have a lot saved or something like that, right? And there may be a big financial move you guys do to stockpile some money if you're close to that. Do you guys

but you're fine, you're 30. So yeah, that's that would be another element of why I could see someone wanting to simplify to get more cash flow to start investing. Yeah. But you as a great attorney. You're doing a good. The good news about every single thing we ask you, you knew the answer, you're you're on it. You're you're dialed in and that that that is a that's that's half the battle. Emily's in Montreal. Hi, Emily. How are you? Hi Dave. Good thing. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I just exited maybe step two on Thursday of last week and yesterday my car was stolen. That was my only debt. And I'm expecting about $45,000 to $50,000 pay out from insurance because it was stolen. And I'm out of crossroads and what to do with that. Either do I get the exact same car that was stolen, which I loved so much. Do I take this opportunity

a business or anything else? Or do I potentially just stay in my current job? What's your

“household income? I make $60,000 a year. You don't need a $45,000 not a car if you make $60,000,”

even if it's paid for. I know. I know I don't. I'm driving like a thousand kilometers a week to go to work. You don't want to destroy a thousand dollar car. I mean a $45,000 not a car driving that much. If you're that broke. No. So yes, I would move down in car. We don't tell people to buy more than half their annual income in cars. And so that means you take 30 of the $45 at a max and buy a serve by two-year-old version of what you just had stolen. Wow, what a story.

Just got out of debt and they stole my car. I stole my car. Yeah, use the rest as an emergency fund.

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“Michael is in Billings, Montana. Hi, Michael. What's up?”

Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? All right. So I'm 26. And I'm looking to get engaged to your student. But my girlfriend and I we have very different networks. And I was curious what or how you would look at setting up the pre-nup? What is very different than that worth mean? I saw it's very blessed. My grandparents did very well. I have about $550,000 paid for house, about 50,000 in a truck. I also have about 135

between my 401k and my various accounts. I also have 350k in leftover in a college fund. She is currently in PA school. And she will be coming out of school with about 120 to 150,000 in debt. What do you make? I make about her. Well, I'm in sale, so 120 to 150 a year. If I were in your shoes, I would get so comfortable with this lady in order to marry her that I don't need to pre-nup. You don't have enough net worth to fill with it.

Okay. If you can't get $600,000 worth of comfortable with somebody, you don't need to marry them.

Okay. If you have 60 million for your grandparents, we'll talk about a pre-mup.

Okay. That's 600k? No. I wouldn't. Would you Rachel?

“No. I mean, the only thing I could think of if I'm in her shoes and the script was flapped,”

and I'm marrying a guy who's coming out, and I had built a life for me, and I bought my own home, and I had done some big things. I could see like the home, for instance, maybe. If something were to ever happen. Yeah. Because the thing with the thing that's hard with pre-nups is like the laws and every state with divorce are different. Okay. And so there's going to be something that is going to happen if that happens. So are you proactive about that on the front end?

Up to you. People nowadays are getting more and more comfortable with it because people are getting married

getting married. So more and more we get this call, and I think my, I had a pretty black and white take on it for years of like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And now there's just a part of me that I'm like, maybe maybe one part of this that you're like, yeah, if something were to happen, I have built a life, right? I mean, I know people that have their businesses and that kind of thing, I don't know. If you've got a substantial network, and I'm not, your grandparents bless you. There's

no question about that. But this is about 600 grand. And, you know, it's, it's okay. It's okay if you get one. It's like a million. He has a $550,000 home, 135, 350, and a call like everything together.

“Yeah. It's probably more like a million. Okay. So if you want to do it, it's okay.”

I just want you to be really, really sure that the problem is everybody throws this subject against

the wall, as if it solves something. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want you to think it solves anything. Yeah. All it solves for is, if you divorce, it doesn't mean that you've actually sat down and got to know each other. It doesn't mean that you sat down and agreed. Okay. Here's how we're going to spend the parent, my grandparents' money that they gave me is going to pay off your student loans when we come home from the honeymoon. You've got to solve for that emotionally. And that's a, and I want to say,

by the way, I would do that. Yeah. 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100,000 and in a college account, you can use it for your spouse. And I'd pay off that debt in about 20 seconds. And, you know, that kind of stuff, and you've got to, you've got to emotionally is this relation, because the only chance you have in a culture that hates marriage for your marriage to last is you've got to be willing to die for them. You've got to be willing to take a bullet for me. You've got to be, it's all in,

writer die as Deloni says. This is, we're in. And so the problem with the pre-nup is it's kind of got one foot in a boat, one on the dock, you know, and it's like that. And I want you to go all in. And then, if you've emotionally, relationally with some good marriage, coaching, counseling, solve for all the, the all-in part, and you're ready to write a check, pay off for student loans when you get back for the honeymoon. And then, and if on top of that, you want to do a pre-nup,

okay, I'm not going to yell at you for that for a million dollars. But I really want you to,

“because yeah, because I think what, and again, I'm like saying this out loud is I'm like”

processing it, because I think to the, the downside of people that do pre-nups, so that's probably a generalization. But is that you're starting out emotionally saying financially, this is mine, and this is you over here. And, and that can tend to then go into the marriage where that's financial, or we say no, you're all in. So if you had a, if you did do a pre-nup, and you're like if the worst of the worst of the worst happens, and, and you know, we do the divorce, you know,

quarter, whatever, and this is how assets are divided. But inside the marriage from that point on, we are combing the linkfinances. Mine is what's mine is yours. Yes, and that worth that everything then is together. Yeah. And I don't know how that plays, I don't know. But so that's my caution with it, too. I don't like that. I don't like that emotional hurdle. But yet, again, I mean, I'm like, I can't help myself. But when we sit on the side of the desk, we have so many calls of

people who have walked through divorce, and all, you know what I mean? And someone that brings in something or had a business. I mean, I've had per, you know, people in my own life,

and that's happened to, and you're just like, man, what I always want to do is force people to

to set that aside, and act like it's not there, and get okay with that. Yes. And that level of

“commitment. Yep. And then, if you want to do a fine, but what it does is it keeps people from going deep.”

Right, right. Keep some from going in all the ground to ground floor, and you got to do that for your marriage to have a chance and a unity. In a, in a culture where marriage is, is it, where more against marriage? I mean, it's like, well, it's just crazy. It's just not a priority for some people. You know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, the other one that's interesting, Rachel, on that side of thing, of course, when I started a long time ago, I just said never

do a premium. Yeah. On the basis of what we've just been saying. Yes. But then I ran into weirdness where somebody's got two or three million dollars in the other one's broke. And it's not the person, usually it's like, I find out that there's a weird brother-in-law or cousin in the mix, you know, and it's like, it's, it just cleans up the external family. Because what the brother-in-law in the train-up, you're like, I can't touch it. It's not mine. You know, it's hard to hurt her crazy brother. Yeah. It starts

coming at the new husband. And it's like, you know, like, this handle is already handled. You can't get to it. So, you got, because it's, there's crazy in every family. And if you think there's not it's you, you know,

he's doing all this marriage research right now. And he had a guy coming in and we had this great

discussion, though the day we're traveling together. And that a guy made the point that a pre-nup is like a will, because if you don't do a will, the state has a set of laws on how your assets will be divided. Yeah. If you don't do a pre-nup, the state has a set of laws in the course of how you're going to be divided. Yeah. And they said, but we tell everybody to do a will to pre-plan. Yeah. So the state is not in charge.

“If you want to be anti-government, Dave, Dave is about his anti-government as anybody you'll ever meet,”

classic hillbilly, right? Like, you know, don't like them revenues. And so, you know, that kind of stuff. And so, if you want to be real anti-government, Dave, you would do everybody a pre-nup,

so the government's not deciding for it. Yeah, you're the one to say that's an interesting

philosophical discussion. Yes. It didn't sway me, but it's worth talking about it. But also, you're 100% going to die. So you're 100% going to use your will. That's what I mean. They're not. That was part of my answer, too. You have to use the pre-nup happening. That's a good point. But that's my thing, too. And again, honestly, the reality we live in today, people are getting married later. And they're coming in established with something.

But that's even, that adds to the danger, because you've got this independence. Yes. And in order to have a quality relationship, that has to go away. Yeah.

“Yep. You have to, you have to become interdependent to have a quality relationship.”

Yes. You're, yourself, one to another. Ephesians said, right?

There's a submission to each other, not an I'm over here, and I'm established, you know? And that's a spirit that's got to be broken. And again, I don't know the laws of this. We're going in circles here. No, I like it. But could the pre-nup be? Right? If you started a business, right? And it's killing it. And you're the owner of it, but you get married, could the pre-nup say in the middle of the divorce,

you don't get to touch the business. It's mine. But in the marriage, we, what I bring home, it's everyone. So they make sense. You could do that. You could do that. The dividing line. I don't know. How to say unified in the marriage, but also, but I would also add that from today forward, the marriage grows partially because of the marriage.

“Oh, the value of the business grows partially because of our marriage adding to the business. I think that's fair.”

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Let health trust financial handle finding the right health insurance. Go to healthtrustfinancial.com today that's healthtrustfinancial.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Brandon is in Chicago. Hi, Brandon. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. What's up? I'm doing pretty good. My fiance and our are getting married in about four weeks time now. Congratulations. Thank you. We are looking

to buy a house. We I've done your financial piece twice. She's done it once. We've done all the baby steps. We're investing, got emergency funds, got a decent stack of cash packed piled up and we just don't want to make the wrong decision on buying a house and everything seems out of reach. What's your or what your combined income is going to be? Be about 120. I don't want to base it off that because we would like to start having children soon,

sooner rather than later. So I'd like to base it off mine, which is currently 70. So yeah. And how much cash do you have saved? About 70 grand. Good for you. Good for you.

Greater Metro area. Yes. Okay. Probably not going by house on 70,000 in the Greater Metro

area of Chicago. And honestly, not always because of how it's prices, but the property tax people

that we know move from Chicago. It's not even the price at home. It's keeping the taxes itself or what's impossible. Now, if you're in Indiana and you get across the line out of Illinois. Is that where you are? Yes. I'm in North West Indiana. That helps with the tax issue then. Yeah. But still, you're in a major Metro market that's a very expensive city. It's one of the largest cities in the world. And so that's expensive real estate. You're probably also not going to buy

in San Francisco, San Diego, or Manhattan on 70 grand a year or Miami on 70 grand a year.

Are Nashville, Tennessee? No, you buy in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Outskirts. But I mean, the point is that that's what you're facing. So what you want is some things”

that aren't compatible. You want her to be able to stay at home and live in an area that you're in come on for you to buy a home. And so you're going to make a choice here somewhere. And if you want to stay at home, you're going to move further out. You're going to move out to the country. Or you guys, you know, save like crazy for two, three years. You know what I mean? Keep stacking cash and see in what? Yeah. I don't mind. I don't mind the country at all. We're

we're looking even further south and further east. What are the average prices of the homes you're

looking at then? I mean, for a basic fixer up or at least 250. Oh, definitely. Yeah, you are. You're not in the Chicago land for that. Okay. All right. Good. And you can do that. You can probably pull that off. But even at 250, I feel like that puts our mortgage above, you know, the recommended 25% of the income. Yeah, it will. It won't for now, but it would when she quits. And then that also the $250,000 house is going to require us to put money up front to fix and, you know,

whatever's both in the house. Be careful not to just be careful. They're not nice houses. Yeah, be careful. I mean, it can be done. But and as you figured out the, and with the numbers you're giving me, you're being very wise. Okay. But I thought you were talking about, I can't afford a $780,000 house. And I'm saying, yeah, you can't. No, no, no, no, but you know, that's where I was. But the, there's in, in the real estate field, urban growth, there's a thing we call the ring theory

and with exceptions, but as a general rule, if you drop a pebble and the central business district, the main downtown area, every ring that that pebble, the water goes out gets cheaper with the exception of mountains, reviews, and lakes, and golf courses. But if you stay away from those three things, it gets cheaper as you go out until you touch another area. That's another, another metro area. But, you know, to live in in the close proximity to downtown Chicago is much more expensive than it is

to live 50 miles outside over in Indiana. You know, as you have found, you already have realized

“that whether you're realized it or not. Yeah. But that's what you're seeing. So just be careful and”

be thoughtful and you're already, you're doing that. I think you're going to be okay. And no brand into, you know, your income will continue to go up to. So that 25% doesn't say stagnant at a house payment, right? Because, um, I mean, if you guys bring home, you know, five grand a month, for instance, you know, off yours, you're looking at a 2000 payment. Yeah. 50, yeah. Yeah. So but think that your 70 hopefully will be 75 soon. And then eight, you know what I mean? You

will continue to, to go up. Exactly. It's not, the thing you've got to remember about personal finances, it's a film strip. It's not a snapshot. It's a moving target, everything is moving over time, and you're not stuck there. But just continue to be thoughtful about it and don't just throw up your hands. What we want to coach people about on this affordability in air quotes discussion is to say, well, you know, I don't have math doesn't count because I want a house.

“And that's what we want to stop you from doing and say, well, in my area, and math doesn't,”

and he's not saying any of that. He's saying he's being very wise and thoughtful about approaching it, but we run into these people that when I want something and I can't afford it,

having a hissy fit down inside of me. You know, I want that. I want that. I want that. I want

“that. I want that. And I can't afford it. I went in. I can't afford it. And I deserve it because I”

work so hard. Yeah. Oh, brother. Well, so what, so I just said quick math here. So if his payment was, yeah, $2,000. Yeah. In today's mark, it would be a $275 to $340,000 home. So, but he's making, they're currently making $120. That's right. That's not even married. So then they're already having kids in her head. Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. I know. So he's, he's way projecting out into the future. Yeah. That's the thing, too, is like if you guys waited two to three years

to buy a home, you're okay. Or by the house now on 120. Yeah. And it, in two or three years before she comes home with, yes. By then, you're making an 80 and you've got everything. It's not going to be okay. Yes. Yes. But don't, but just don't, you know. You, you hate the complaining. You do, Dave. I do. And I get it. But also, there it is. I hate the drama queen because it's a sad meat. I know.

“It's a sad meat. All of us have to, it's called growing up. It is. But also, I think we can all say”

out loud. It is, it is, you hate when I say this, but it is true. It is harder today. I'm home because of the income and the, like, so, so we acknowledge it. But it is hard to suck. And it's a general rule. But that's not it. That doesn't mean you get a pass on my own. You don't get a pass and you get to go destroy your life because that went something. No, you don't. I know, I know. But it just, it's like a, it's like a man. This is not what it was. And now we have to move forward. That is why

I hate when people just complain on Instagram or take talk about it. And there's no solution. And we

try to give solutions to say, hey, you're going to have to move out further. The solution is exactly

the same one in college. Where are you by? Yes. Yes. Changes everything. Yeah. You don't, you can't call me up and say I want to live in Silicon Valley. Be James and just live in a, where's James? It's not a tiny home. It's a log cabin. Log cabin. James has a log cabin. So, there you go. We love it. He's a home stetter. I didn't know. James? Mm-hmm. [Music]

Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes. Yeah. And that's

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Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. Sorry, little backed up, little hard to get in here. But if you got a money question and you want to answer for your situation, head on over to the website and use Ask Ramsay. Ask Ramsay is our free AI tool that's built and trained only on proven Ramsay principles. So like we loaded three years or four years worth of the show in there as the data set and we loaded all the books

we've written and the articles we've written and all that stuff as the data set. So there's no garbage in there from TikTok or from trash, you know, from some get rich quick thing built into it. So the data set is all stuff we have said and that's all AI is, it just regurgitates what the data

Hello, that's exactly how it works. You get an answer the same way we'd answer it right there on the show. It's completely free Ask Ramsay at RamsaySolutions.com. Go check it out. It's pretty cool. Thousands of people are using it every day. It's crazy. I mean, the blowing up. All right, Rachel is in West Virginia. Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Okay. So I'm having a hard time making the best financial

decision for my future. The right now I'm currently a waitress making around 100k a year. I've probably made a little over 40 some this year so far. Good job. You're working hard. Good for you. But I've been considering going to nursing school and that would be 25,000 dollars for just the LPN program. But it would also be making less money than I'm making now. No, not much. You're working a lot of hours and making 100k on tables. How many hours you

are working a week? So I'm only working like 38 to 40 hours. You got a good restaurant.

“Yes. That's how I take it item. All right. Nice. What's the, what's the”

nursing position you're looking at? What is, what's market value for that job? A, 80 to 100. Rachel. So the LPN program is 25,000 and it says the average salary for that is 50. But then if you would go back and get your RN, which sometimes you can get a job that would pay for that part of the schooling, then it's usually around 100k. Okay. Have you called around different places of employment that you would probably be interested in and talk to anyone

about what they're, because then you just find these stats online? So I was already accepted into the LPN program and that is the one that is 25,000. And then they told me after I would graduate the LPN program, if I would accept a job, most jobs would pay to go back to get your RN. Agreed. But most jobs pay more than 50 on LPN too. And the other thing is you can get all the work you want. Nursing is possibly one of the most stable. I mean, I've been doing this 30 years

and I've never heard of a single year when there was an overage of nurses. There's always a shortage.

So you can always land a job. There's a lot of different kinds of jobs you can do as a nurse. And you can work at a doctor's office Monday through Friday and work ER and clean up on the weekends.

“If you want to stack some cash for a short time as a part-time gig, once you've got your degree.”

So I love nursing. Yeah. And the 50 year Rachel is only, well, well, let's say it is. For it's only for a second, because you're going to be there, they're going to pay for you to go to school and then you'll jump in south. You don't even mean like it's a stepping stone if it is. It's not going to be your forever salary. Yeah. So that's how I would look at it. If that is the case in West Virginia,

where you are, versus waitressing. I mean, if I can make you 100 grams, amazing. But that's probably

caps, right? Like that's probably, you can only work, you know, so much to in that. And so I do wonder. Yeah, I don't think you've got a chance to go to 150 there, do you? Yeah, now and it's really could end anytime. Let's just about restaurant. If that would close in on me. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I would call around to Rachel, because them just throwing numbers out at the school. I probably would do my own research too,

just to be curious about what people are paying. And it also depends on whether you're, you know, how, how a rule an area of West Virginia you're in. Mm-hmm. Okay. If you're in small town, West Virginia in the mountains, yeah, 50 might be right. But if you're, if you're in a metro area, it's more like 60 or 80. Okay. And because we work when there's this all the time, I mean, it's

and I'm, I'm just a, from a wealth building perspective, a stable perspective, you always have

work perspective. You can choose the environment you want to be in perspective. It's a great career.

“Okay. And then my other question is, would you get, so with it being $25,000, would you get a learned?”

No, you had money during school or you had a class. We never tell anybody get a loan. Okay. No, we always want you to be dead for you. You got some money stacked, don't you? Yeah. I mean, I paid off my, all the mine credit cards and my collar and, okay. Good. Yeah,

Yeah. Yeah. If you just, if you just, you're real careful, that I'm so proud of you.

Way to go. I mean, but, but the difference is not the snapshot of today, the difference is, what's the best decision 10 years from today? Nursing or tables, nursing? Yep.

“Slam, duh. How old are you Rachel? I'm 26. Okay. Perfect. Good for you. I think that's great.”

Yeah. I just, I see you being a very successful wealthy 55-year-old nurse. I don't see you being a successful wealthy 55-year-old waitress. Yeah, that's kind of how I see it, too. Yeah. I think it's a great step, girl. Do it. Have that, kiddo. Yeah. Be careful and be thoughtful and milk it for everything. It's worth meeting. Get the best highest paying job possible that pays you,

all they will pay you. And get some knowledge again. I would call the round to hospitals and clinics

and stuff and just say, hey, starting out, I'm just curious what average salary you're paying for this. And just collect some data too, because I think that's going to, maybe, I think it's going to be more, you're going to see a better picture, not a worse picture than that 50-year-old. And the way more. And I would frame this differently in my head. Okay. Like, I want to go back to school and pay 25,000 to make half of what I used to make. That's not the story here. We would not tell

you to do that. But I want to go back to, I want to pay 25,000 to go to school for a career that has a much better future and a higher upside financial. And I might have to take that a little bit

“of a step back temporarily. That's a different story. And you need to frame the decision-making”

on that story, not on a, I just want to do what I love and I'm going to make half. That's not your story. You're not one of those. That's a fruit loop. You don't want to do that. Okay. I just want to follow my passion and be broke. No. You get so annoying on those people too. I know that's just dumb. Dave has not been in the studio for a while. All of his grievances are coming out.

I'm not show. Every comes back. He's always like, oh, all those people annoyed me. I'm going to talk about those people.

I have not had a single person annoyed me. No one has annoyed me. People that can complain about houses being high. You don't like them. You don't like the people like I'm going to follow my passion. That was that way when I left and it was that way when I came back. I had nothing to do with while I was gone. But anyway, the people I've been with were very sweet. Thank you very much. No. No. No. No. They weren't annoyed. I'm saying people in America that annoyed you.

No, that's it. I have not had any interaction with those people. At least it's not enjoyable about my housing situation. Yeah. Right. I didn't throw up James's house under the bus. You you took his log cabin and turned it into a tiny house. I'm sorry. I'm the wrong set of information.

“I think James. He lives in a log cabin palace as far as I'm concerned. I think he does. On acreage.”

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Good are you? Great. I am so pumped to be here. I don't know if you can tell, but man. Hey, we're honored to have you. Where do you guys live? Richmond, Virginia. All right, fine.

“Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off?”

$660,000. Good. Nice gracious. How long did this take? Four years. Whoa. Wow. All right. There's a story here. And your range of income during this 48 months. Started around 240 and did up around 300. Wow. What do you all do for a living? I'm a physician. And I have a small business. We do screen print, embroidery, contract stuff. Talents and pallets of t-shirts. And 660,000. I was going to guess mortgage, but then you said M.D.

So, student loans are mortgage or both. Both. Oh, yeah. Isn't everything? Oh, yeah. Whoa. Amazing. Oh, there's the doctor's house. All right. We repainted. Oh, I like it. I like the blue shirts. I like it. That's fine. Oh, y'all. It's great. Congratulations. How old are you two? I'm almost 35. 38.

“And you have a paid for house and a paid for M.D. degree. Wow. How much of this was student loans? How much was the house?”

The house was 370 in the rest of our student loans. Wow. Thank you. You half and half. Yeah. Wow. So you come out of med school and he's printing T-shirts like a crazy man. Like hand over fist and you're going to work like all the time and you're going to clean this mess up. And you went on just plowed right on through the house and everything. Yeah. Well, we only met like five years ago. So he kind of buried into the debt. Yeah. Oh. He says, yeah. It was scary. What caused you? Yeah. What happened?

Okay. So all that was four years ago. So what happened four years ago? Well, we got we got married. And we start looking at this. It's like, okay. You can reform. You know, you can reform. We've got all this stuff. We've got to get rid of it. Um, yeah. It was real scary. It's just the daily compounding. I looked at those interest payments. And I was like, we got to get rid of this. I still had credit cards. Yeah. No debt but credit cards. Yeah. And so and I had some savings. But I wasn't making any loan payments because they weren't

deferment. And so we just got every dollar. We started and it just had to fund us. So I have been listening to you guys probably since 2012. Yeah. So he's a disciple. Yeah. I'm a disciple. I'm a little bit of a disciple.

I've always run my business that way. You know, debt free. Yeah. And always try to keep my expenses low.

And you know, because you knew the antidote and you know, we bit excited. I was so ready. I bet you were over the top though. Yeah. Was he over the top? He was him. He was him. I'm just like 10% over the top. Not over crazy. It's a good over the top. It's a good over the top. I mean, you came in her were like a fire hose though, right? I mean, like, yeah, she was she was drinking from it though. Oh, I don't know if she was going for it. Yeah. Okay. So you'd had enough too. You wanted

out. Yeah. Okay. So it wasn't a big argument or anything. It was just a it was just a big mountain. No, that's one of our big strengths I think is, um, you know, we've always kind of been on the same page on money and we, you know, it's awesome. Oh, hey, did you guys work extra? What was the, what was one of the big things you did that you were like, this helped so much was the end. I mean, you guys, you did great on the end. Yeah, I drove a drill and he was a maniac. I mean, the first, you know,

a couple years were together, 100 hours a week. I mean, always at the shop, leaving the house at 3 a.m.

Getting home at 9 p.m. Oh, my god. I was doing telehealth. I was taking like 25 nights a month of hospice call. Whoa. I'm also in the reserve. So I drill one week in a month. So we just were working nonstop. Oh my god. Four jobs. Yeah. Oh my god. Did the reserves pick up any of this? A little bit. Okay. Yeah. Like a 10 grand hit or something. Yeah. A couple of loan repayments. Yeah. I thought they had

“a hit on that. Yeah. That's what. So what happens now now that everything, you're, you've paid everything”

off. What does life look like? Because I mean, that's intent. It's what you guys just explained. I know. By furniture. Yeah. Yeah. We took one unfair agreement our house. We took us two years by furniture after we bought it. Yeah. But yeah, we have two boys who we absolutely love. Maybe

one a third. Yes. And just get them set up for success. Mm-hmm. That's amazing. And not working

90 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've, we've won our time back. It's amazing. You've your life back. But now you, you earned it back and you're done. I mean, four years of hell and you're 100% free for the rest of your life. So what's this, uh, what's the home worth probably? And it's in the five's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how much you got built up in the nest eggs? One fit. What's what's in your 401? Oh, yeah. Like 180. You're 180 plus. Yeah. So yeah. Look, low over two.

Okay. All right. So you're, you're right at millionaire status. Yeah, plus. Yeah. I'd be baby steps, millionaire. Am I going to couple a hundred? You can do whatever you want to the rest of

Yeah. I'm never, I'm not eating anymore mac and cheese. What's it worth? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

“It's a, best thing we've ever done, you know, financially, but also for a marriage. It's helped us a lot”

together. Communication. Um, and just sticking to a planning, doing something together every month, you know, where we're doing the budget. We're reconciling, reconciling, you know, going through all the steps, walking through them together. How would are the boys? They're both under two. So 22 months and eight months. Okay. So they were all through this whole process to get into the journey. They, you were having babies too, which is a whole other feat, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've

doing all of that. So cost you guys. You've had a lot of money in four years. Congratulations. Congratulations. And tap for you. Thank you. What do you tell people, if they say, can you do this? You tell them they can do it? Yeah. Absolutely. It's temporary. You know, just work your butt off and it's worth it.

“Yeah. Absolutely. You can do it dedication. You have to believe in yourself and go for it and”

don't stop and keep working through the baby steps. Yep. And that's all about messaging. So we just called ourselves broke. Yeah. No, we can't have that. We're broke. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've told him to use that before when they call in. It's good for him to hear that sometimes. You are a broke

doctor. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not. And here's what's interesting, too. We're talking about this

affordability thing a while ago. They're home was, you know, when they bought it, it wasn't a half million. It's probably 300. And it's a half million dollar house today. And she's a doctor. Hello. Okay. I mean, this is not. Yeah. Yeah. You chose where you were living and what neighborhood you bought in? You didn't go by a house five times that size. What your contemporaries probably did. People came out of med school with you. They're still sitting with 300. And then they put a million

dollar mortgage to go with it to prove I'm a stupid doctor. And that's because doctors are notoriously bad with money. And so, that the people that graduate with you instead, you went the other way and that they're acting like somehow you're, you know, like, but you're now you're free. That's right. And we're a million dollars and going to be worth two million in a heart beat the way you're going. So congratulations. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. It's worth pointing out that you're

all my great choices along the way here. And that's also what got you there. Yeah. You could make this. We have people calling them. I make 300. And they, they have nothing. You know what I mean? They're stressed out. And they're going to paycheck to paycheck. So you guys, you killed it. Absolutely. You do a lot of people cheering you on during this? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Family. Yeah. We have a lot of people in a corner. Yep. That's great. Oh. You have a few people rolling their eyes. Yeah. There's, there's those.

And a few people who have followed by example, just hearing our story and now they're paying off their debts. Hey, I like it. That's good. That's good. Well, if we can infect the medical community with this, it would be awesome. What a weird word to say about the milk. It was a, I chose it carefully. It might get, it wanted to be contagious. No pun intended. No pun intended. It was to be contagious in the milk and community. Well, way to go, you guys. Very, very proud of it. Thanks for coming on

“sharing this. How does it feel right now standing here? Serial. Absolutely. Serial. What you said?”

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's wild. I never thought that I would be up here. It's cool. It's kind of like

you were driving 160 miles an hour and then you stopped. Yeah. And you went, whoa, those white lines aren't a solid line. Who knew? Yeah. That's, that's amazing. Well, way to go, you guys. Congratulations. Very proud of you. Aaron and Megan Richmond, Virginia. 660,000 paid off. House and everything, including medical school debt all done in 48 months, making 240 to 300. The secret sauce is working together and all they did was work all the time until they cleaned it up. But they're 35

years old and they're free and there are baby steps millionaires. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free screen. 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free. Yeah. Whoa. I love it. Way to go. . 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.

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designed around their ability to pay. Visit YRIFI.com/Ramsie. That's the letter YRIFI.com/Ramsie. Might not be in all states. Today's question is from Shana and Arizona. My husband and I are in the process of selling a home that we purchased 10 years ago, we'll be moving to another state in a few years and we'll rent until we're ready to make the move. As we consider setting aside a proceeds from this sale for a few years, what is the best type of account to park it in?

Should we put it in high yield savings, cities, and digital stocks, or is there some other option that we should consider? Honestly, the two places when you think about putting money aside is either savings is one category, and an investment is another category. So anytime you put

money into the market, it would be considered an investment. So whether we never would recommend

individual stocks, but anything, whether it's mutual funds, index funds, and kind of our rule of thumb is if you're not going to use the money for four to five years, then yeah, you could probably invest it and ride the market out because they'll be blows and highs, and so you want to make sure that just like a home, right? You wouldn't buy a home, and when there's no equity turnaround sell it. So if you're going to, if you are going to use the money in around four years or less,

then a high yield savings account is where I would park it, and our friends at Fairwins have a great smart bundle, or you can get a no fee checking account. I think it's up to 10 high yield savings accounts you can have within your name, and then the ramps to be worth debit card with that too, but a high yield savings, as where I would park it, if you're going to use that money, you said a few years, so I'm assuming that's two to three. So I would just throw in a high yield savings account.

Yeah, that's the safe thing. If you're willing to take the risk, the longer you leave it alone, they more I would lean towards something like just an S&P 500, okay? 97% of the five-year periods in the stock market history have made money. So you wouldn't lose money, 97 times out of a

“hundred, if you let it loan five years or more, that's why Rachel said that's investing.”

Now, if you do it four years, what's the number? I don't remember the probability on that one, or three years, what's the number? I don't know, but I mean the last three years have been you know, 25, 24, and 18. Crazy. But that's not normal. But if you'd left the loan for three years and you'd been in the market, you'd have had that versus high yield savings, obviously looking back would have been smart, but you don't know that. It could be down for three years too. So,

but the number of down periods in a long period of time is very, very low. So, if to the extent you can afford to lose a little bit of it and be comfortable, then you can go with the, you know, you can go with an S&P 500 index fund. So, you just kind of got to work that through and figure it out. But if you're just even the tiny little bit scared, how do you know that? Yeah, you're not with that kind of stuff. If you had three years, would you throw it in an S&P? I might go 50, 50.

Okay. You know, if you got, let's say they got 500,000 out of this house or something like that, yeah. I might put 250 in the S&P and 250 in the high yield, yeah. Kind of hedge my best a little bit. But if you're going to be turning around and buying a house in the next couple of months,

“obviously it would just be high yield, but over a little bit more period. So, yeah, I think you're,”

that's true. Yes, which are really three years or more. I start to think about some portion of it being in there. Five years or more, I'm putting all of it in there. What is, do you have the sets off the top of your head on the election years? Is it usually down election years? No, I'm just easily up. It is up. Okay. I was just wondering, not that you can time the market, but I wouldn't. And now midterms, I don't know. I haven't looked at that. I just wonder if you're midterms. We

measure. No. But I said, no, if you were like heading into a year, if you're like, "Hey, let me

“hold off for a few months and see the landscape of the world if it." Yeah. Every time I try to do that,”

every time I try to do that a little bit. So, I guess wrong, you know, whichever way. So, I just quit doing that. I just quit just saying, "Okay, if I put 250,000 in and it goes down to percent, I'll ask 25 grand out of my 500." Yeah. I'm okay. Didn't kill me. Right. Okay. Hurts. Hurts. But that would be highly unusual. Yes. Okay. Very unusual three-year period of time. Yes. Like,

almost never happens. No, it's funny. So, but if you thought about that way, but you, so that's kind

of how I gauge it is, if I lost something that was an unusually bad loss. Yeah. It's still not that much. That's right. You know, that literally just happened to be in Winston. We opened up a, like an S&P 500 thing to throw some money in, because we were looking at diversification a couple of things. And we usually, we had never really done that. We had had other investments, like 401k's, we're off, and then another account that we just would put. So, like, well, it's maybe we'll have another one

brokerage account, because Winston may buy, you know, something out of it, with his real estate stuff. And I'm not lying. You guys, we've been, we've been so money and we moved it from a high-old savings into this. Yeah, went down. I ran. I ran and happened, like, five days later. And Winston was like, oh, just don't, just don't look at anything. I know why. But it didn't drop that much. No, and then it came back. It's fine. Yeah, it's fine. But I literally had to tell myself,

Rachel, you do this for a living. It's okay. You just, you just don't look. You ride the market, don't jump off the roller coaster. But I thought out of all times in the last three years, you picked the worst one. I picked the, like, four days before or who knew? And it's that tank on it. Trump bombs our ran. Oh, just as you just had to be an investor. Yeah. But again, you can go back and look at those charts. That's an interesting thing to do for the, since the

first of the year. But it hurts. You'll back in look and you go, okay, we put a hundred thousand bucks in and I lost $6,000. Mm-hmm. You're okay. Yeah, and now it's back to where it was. Yes. You know, and it hurts your ceiling, but it's not, the actual math is not devastating. No, it's just, it's your harder and money and you're like, see, you're going the other way. Yeah. And I don't want it to go that way. And it hasn't now. It's back up. That's right. That's right. No, everything's fine.

But I had that mode about a few days of thinking. You know, I did that kind of think of it. I dropped a chunk in about the time Trump decided to do tariffs. And there was about a month period where it's like choke. And then it came back up and threw the roof. But for just a moment there, the market is decided to go, and that, and that's really why I'm like, I don't, people asked you check, do you check the market? No. And I'm like, I really don't. I look at our accounts once a year.

And this was like literally the only time in our 16 years of marriage of doing this together. You're checking the account every day, you're a day trader. Yes. They can't do it. Yes. Yes. And you can't do that. So you park it for long-term, long-term. It's going to go up and down. That's the plan.

“Charles was in Boston. Hey, Charles, what's up? How are you? Better than not deserve. How can we help?”

Um, so I guess essentially my question is, I grew up very privileged. I have about $9 million

in investments all through trusts from my parents, my grandparents, um, a few years out of college. And how old are you? I do well. I'm a, I'm 28. Cool. Good for you. Yeah. And I, I make around 80 to 90 K a year. Um, but I'm at this, I'm at this stoproads, where I'm studying for my GMATs. And I'm hearing people talk less and less about effectiveness of going to graduate school, um, at least for business, um, in whether or not

I should just start my own company, um, start a business. Where, where do your thoughts lie? Given I have such ample resources at my disposal and a safety net that can cushion any fall. I wouldn't use that to make my decision. I would pretend like that money's not there. And then go be a wise, heart-filled 28 year old. It kicks butt and takes names. I let that and let your life be, let your, let that money be gravy that's in the background.

Um, you know if you stumble and fall, you're going to be, you have a huge safety net, but that

“doesn't make you, that doesn't say, oh, you need to go in business and people who don't have”

$9 million don't need to go in business. No, you need to go in business if you're supposed to go

into business. Business is hard. Business is thrilling. Business is fun. I've been an entrepreneur in my whole life. I thoroughly encourage you to do it. It's tiring. But, you know, you're going to have the, your, your, your bosses a butt. He'll drive me crazy when you own your own business.

want to open? I'm sure about that at the moment, but I know my knowledge and passion lies within the automotive industry. Okay. Whether it's a maybe selling class of cars like my brother, starting up boutique. That'd be fine. Go, you know, you can do that. You can do that. You can do what? That easy. And that's something you can test and get back out of. You don't have to say,

I'll never go to graduate school instead. I'm going to so class of cars. You can say, I'm going to

try this. I'm going to experiment. If I don't like it, I can't make money at it. I'm not good at it.

“I'll try something else. And I'll experiment. That's what entrepreneurs do. Very seldom is what”

you set out to do end up being the thing you're doing 20 years later. Because business and the environment changes too much. I think you ought to try it, but not based on the fact you got nine million. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Wins Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. Samantha is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Samantha. How are you? I'm better than I deserve, but beautifully broken as well. I understand. How can we help today?

So my husband, I thought I'd been a stay-at-home mom for 27 years. The last 20 have been raising our disabled daughter who passed away in September. I'm sorry. Okay. Dang it. She passed away in September. I've been on the really long history of financial infidelity. Well, well, stop just second. Stop just second breathe. Okay. I'm sorry. It's okay. Get your breath back so we can hear you. So your daughter passed in September? Yes. Well, what was her name? Her name was Abby.

And what was her disability, honey? She was a classic quadrupleging with sort of policy. And she lived 20 years? She did. Wow. She did mentally. She was fine. She but she couldn't walk. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. She couldn't even turn over and bed. I did everything for her. So not only did I lose her, I lost my identity because I just don't know how to be normal anymore. Like, that's all I did was take care for her. And five for her,

“and do for her. And she's been gone for seven, eight months now, right?”

But it's also, I guess, today. It's horrible. Anyway. And so your husband, you said your husband was financial infidelity. He means he's been doing all kinds of stuff financially that you didn't know about.

Yes, but he's done it our entire marriage. Like, our entire marriage, he's always

he'll get on eBay and he'll like hundreds of, like, lots of money, like thousands of dollars. Currently, right now, he has one book and is shopping cart with $6,000. In December of 24, he had $30,000 in all these loan places, like up loans and finance places. And so we sold our oil leases so that we could get out of that debt. We sold our kids' future to clean up his mess. And I told him, if you ever do this again, I'm going to divorce you. Well, of course, he did it again

in March. And right after our daughter died, he did it again in March. And I just happened to catch it because he went into his perdi of account. He works out of talent. We have two separate accounts.

His check has always gone into our joint account. I immediately transferred to my account,

which I pay the bills with. And I've done that after about the 10th time of all of this stuff he

“does, that's just how we did it. Not even care. That's how it's going to be. You're not going to”

have access to our bill money. But so anyway, this last loan in March, I got online to check his perdi in the account to make sure that his perdi I'm head went in. And there was $12,000 in there. And so I called him and I said, what is going on? Oh, I got a loan. I need to buy some books. Me, I got it. I went straight to the bank. I pulled out every penny except $100. And I told him, I said, this is what's going to happen here. We're going to pay this loan back. And you're going

to sign a petition in exchange agreement and a separate, a special warranty deed putting our house in land, which is paid for in my name. It's my soul and separate property. Or I'm going to take this 12,000 dollars. And I'm going to buy a higher the best attorney in town. And I'm going to get it anyway. And so he agreed. I paid the loan back. And he did sign the petition in exchange agreement our house to just pay for is in my name. Our land that we owe $23,000 for is in my name. And I thought

I was well. And so then on the 24th of April, we went to a retreat for bereaved parents. In the whole time, he was in my ear about buying a truck, on a bad truck. And I'm like, listen, we're here for Matt and Abby. I lost two kids. I lost two children. Anyway, after the retreat, I got a lot out of the retreat for me. After the retreat on the way to the airport, I told him I said, listen,

all of these years for Abby. And after her passing, when you did this crop in March, I stayed to

“protect her home. Because we built this house for her, everything about it is handicapped. And I said,”

I don't have to do either anymore. I don't have to. I need you to fought for our marriage. I love you. The following Monday, last Monday, he went and got another home, 30% interest. And he bought a truck in another town, another stake for $3,500. All of these parts are coming in. Also randoms. I'm confused. Okay. So he has a very clear message from you as to what's going to happen. And he does this anyway. So Dr. John Deloni says behavior is a language. So he's just saying goodbye,

Adney. I know yes, he is. And so I spoke with an attorney. And it's going to cost me $3,500.

Yeah, so what? I'm trying to figure out, I have just a little bit of this.

I don't know. Yeah, where's the $12,000 you're just talking about? He's been, he opened a separate account where he, because he, he works out of town. And so he went to the town in South Carolina. No, no, no, honey, I'm not talking about that. I don't talk about the other money. You said you had $12,000 cash from the other. No, I paid the loan back. I didn't know. Oh, you paid the loan back. Yes. Because I didn't, I was scared at that point that if. Well, I mean,

you are Samantha, this is a horrible situation. You've gone through so much tragedy. And, and the midst of that, he's not able to function apparently. And for whatever reason.

“And, um, and so you're calling it into it. And so, yeah, that's what you're doing.”

I mean, yes. There's not, you just, you're going to go get an attorney and they're going to ask you on how to do this. If you didn't sign the loan, you are not liable. No, we are both on the loan, the, the, so our house is paid for are we bought, we bought a separate lot that with, our house is on three acres, we bought them to show three acres. Oh, some of those, I didn't matter. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.

If we can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I only owe $23,000. That's it. I know. That's it. You don't have to live there. Oh, that's not it. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't do that. The deal with, the deal is this. The deal is this. As long as you have that property in his name, in any way, shape, or form in Texas, in your married, you're going to have a problem.

“So you've got to decide. Um, but I think Abby would want you happy Samantha.”

Yeah. And a house doesn't define Abby's memory, doesn't live in a house. Abby's memory, it relieves in your mind and in your heart. And, um, you, you're in an untenable situation. And you can't use Abby as a reason to stay in a situation where you're being abused. And, um, not physically abused, but, but a financially abused. And you're going to draw along the sand and there's going to be some costs that go with that to get you this protection.

And you may or may not keep the house. I don't know if you can keep it or not. I'm not sure. But, um, but I want you to deal with this and quit trying to make him do stuff. You know, he has told you loud and clear what he's going to do. If you expect him to change under any circumstances, I mean, if he put all by, if he gave you the deal to everything of the house, and you told him if he ever does it again, you're going to take it all. And then he goes and does it

three more times after that. This guy's made a real clear statement. This is who I'm going to be. And if you don't like it, tough. And so now you've got to decide what the rest of your, what's the next chapter of your life looks like, what healing looks like. Overall, of this, the marriage

and the children. The purpose of your life, you had an incredible purpose to mount the,

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

next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with ask Ramsey. Ask your money question

or just want something explained, ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use.

“Go to RamseySolutions.com and try ask Ramsey today, that's RamseySolutions.com.”

One of my best friends in the world, because I read one of his books, 25 years ago, reached out to him and we've ended up speaking on stages all over America for the last 25 years together. Been a part of the Ramsey family indirectly for a long, long time. Dr. Henry Klawd, a claim to author in the leadership expert, clinical psychologist, New York Times' best-selling author, many times over 45 books, including the iconic boundaries that have sold nearly 20 million copies.

I sold at least two million of those. He has an extensive executive coaching background, and a brand new book out that is one of my favorites that Henry's ever done. It's called Your Desired Future. Welcome, my friend. Good to be here. Hi, Henry. Hey, there. Good to see you. Two of my favorite people. Oh, you said that to all of them.

No, all your podcasts. Only when you know, when it improves in the next generation. So, the guy, keep it going. We love your Henry.

Five essential steps that take you where you want to go.

I distinctly remember you coming into Ramsey into a leadership meeting about 20 years ago. That we were having. And we were arguing about this particular business unit that had the flu. It wasn't doing good. And then you embarrassed me because you said, "Well, what do you want it to be in five years?" And I said, "I want it to be making money and

“profitable." And you went, "Well, no kidding." But no, really, what is your desired future for this thing?”

And that's the first time I think I heard the phrase out of your mouth. This is our future. And then what must be true? This is not true today for you to get to that desired future. And that not only applies to a business unit that's got the flu. It applies to your health, your marriage, your finances, hello, getting out of debt, all that kind of stuff. So, your desired future. This is a framework that you've used to coach people, right?

Yeah, companies and individuals. What I did was, you know, there's so much stuff out there. It's good stuff. And people are going to do this. But I thought, "We need to be able to have a little model, this is GPS. You wake up every day. You know, if I'm trying to get there, are these five things present?" And asked the question, "Are there,

is there a universal path for that?" And it started the human body, the most incredible organism

to getting from here to there, and Dave was amazing. You know, the brain, the prefrontal cortex, starts out with a vision. Where the only ones that can see a future that doesn't exist, dog doesn't do that. And then it gathers the team. The talent is going to need him to get there, you know, your arms and legs. And then it says, "Well, how am I going to get there?" And we'll call it an Uber. We'll not go across the room. You're going to get the right strategy

with a plan. And then you've got to, your brain, it's some, it creates a measurement and accountability system. And you start walking that plan, you get off and it fixes you. And that path has components

“to it. They're really, really crucial. Yeah, that are so helpful. And this can be applied”

to every part of your life, right? Yeah. The five steps. It's a mom getting the kids in the band, it's good, in school, on time. Yeah. Or, it's seriously, I have global companies, billions and billions that uses as their operating system. And I mean, you guys, this is, when I looked at financial peace, you know, years ago, I said, "Hey, this works because it's designed in the way that people get from here to there." And all the components are there. And the five components are starts with

vision, which is, I guess, the desired future, right? It is. And here's what's interesting about

your brain, the way it's wired, the brain hates ambiguity. It can't stand it, because it didn't know what to do. It loves clarity. Even if it's bad news, it likes bad news, it's clear. It's better than no news. That's right. Because once it has clarity about where, where I am now, and I don't want to be there, and I got to get somewhere else, it starts to activate these systems, it bring everybody to the party to actually get there. But if you don't have, if you don't have

clarity, I mean, I've heard you quote stats from the stage, what's the, people that write down their goals? Was it 80% more likely? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because you're given your brain clarity. That's one of the baby steps. I feel like in our world are so effective, because it's like step one, get $1,000. Step two, get out of debt. Step three, it's an obvious pathway of a vision of

defined the specific activities that are going to move the needle, then you've got to ask yourself

“on a regular cadence. Am I doing what I said I was going to do? And if I'm not, I got to correct”

that problem, which we all have problems with this a day. But if you don't correct it quickly, it becomes a pattern. Patterns are mutations in the strategy that become your DNA and DNA becomes identity. So I'm not a person that missed a payment. I'm a person that misses payments. You've got to fix it quickly. Yeah. So what must be true? It's not true now. And one of the things, one of the five things is do you have the talent around you or within yourself and a business

setting, you know, do we have the right people on the team to be able to pull the thing off that we just said we wanted to pull off. That's right. And if you look at them and you go, that bunch isn't going to get us there. That's right. Then you've got to get different people on the team. Well, what about one? It's an individual when you're looking at yourself in the mirror and going, I don't have that talent. Well, we don't usually. I mean, whatever, even if you wanted to,

let's say you want to lose 50 pounds. Well, you've been trying. And so I work as well. Obviously, all the talent isn't present. So what do you do? You go bring the talent around you. Who's not going to be? Well, it could, it could be one you pay for. It could be way watchers. It could be a coach. It could be a trainer. It could be Uncle Sam, who not that Sam. Uncle Joey. Uncle Sam's probably not going to help you do Sam help you lead our way for sure. I'm a water

wallet. But but you're going to, you're going to, we were not designed to get anywhere by ourselves. If you, if you're somewhere you can get by yourself, somebody else helps you to get that ability to begin with. So you got to find out where the deficits and who do I need to bring to the party

“that can help me. And that's what, that's what people in debt do with you. They find the talent.”

This is going to help them get there. Yeah. So good. Okay. So when people are, when they look

up there and they have a goal. And they think here's what I want to do. And that could be again,

bettering your marriage. That could be a health goal. That could be a money goal. Whatever that looks like or even within business. What's a mistake people make all the time that you're like, oh, this, if they knew one of these five things or if they were doing this differently, they, they probably wouldn't make it as much or it all. The biggest mistake besides the vision, you got to know where you're going to be. The biggest mistake is they're like my dog,

thinly. She's got a job. She's got to go, is to protect the house. Stranger comes to the door, she runs the house and barks. But she never stops and says, I wonder if that was helpful. Oh, is that going to get me closer to where I want to be on Thursday? So the biggest

“mistake is they don't get above what they're doing. And ask the question, is this going to work?”

Are the ingredients present that are going to get me there? What we do is we just continue to go in our own patterns. The color earlier that I heard was in the greenery, he wants to start business. If he started business, which you caution, you got to start, he would just go do the way he's already wired. And a lot of times until we learn something and we do things the way we're already wired in good luck with that. Yeah, what must be true that's not true today? And, you know, is it,

I need more talent around me, do I need to put some education that I need in those control? Impulse control, yeah, I mean, what must be true that's not been true that so far? What pattern, what set of movements have to change to get to the desired future? Because if they're something didn't need to change, you'd already be there. You'd already be there. We wouldn't be, I mean, you know how to find lines, right? But here's a good example. When, you know, Tom Brady's

got at this time, five or six Super Bowl rings, and Tampa Bay hadn't been to the playoffs in 14 years. Call him and say, "Come down here and we're in Super Bowl." Well, he knows how to do that. I didn't have a vision for that, but the first thing he did was he looked at that team. What's not true today? He looked at that team. You know, I want to Super Bowl with talent. There's four positions that are missing. He picked up the phone recruited the talent in next. And they won the

Super Bowl the next year. And got the people around them. So it wasn't just Brady. No, it went just Brady. It's not your own talent. That's right. That's good. Something missing. The new book is your desired future. We'll be back with Dr. Henry Cloud talk a little bit more about it.

The five essential steps that take you where you want to go.

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“Dr. Henry Cloud, the new book is called your desired future. The five essential steps to take”

you where you want to go. So step one, you've got to know what the desired future is. Let's call

vision. Step two, what? Step two is you've got to engage the talent, bring the talent around you. That's going to help you get there. Step three. Step three is you've got to know how you're going to get there and that's a strategy with a plan. Okay. So in our world, that would be the baby steps. That'd be the baby steps. And but the plan tells you when you're going to implement those who you're going to meet with, you know, you've got to get every detail. Every activity that's going to

move the needle. Everything else is going to go to the gym three days a week. There you go. Strategy is I'm going to increase my water intake, decrease my sugar intake, so on. Right. Yeah. And in the death side,

you're going to pay down this amount, this amount every month. And you got to, then you got to step

“four is a measurement and accountability of that. Are you doing what you said you were going to do?”

And if you're not, then you better ask the question, why not? And solve that problem and then fix it quickly. So I've heard it said, I think it was an old, early night and girl quote that only comes to goal setting. And all this is as a detailed approach to actually implementing and causing the goal to happen, not just setting. It's not simple setting it. But he used to say that doing what it takes to hit the goal is not usually people's problem. It's what they have to give up. A lot of times, yeah.

They don't, they don't understand what they're going to give up to get there. That's right. The trade office, what the negative trade-off, is the real price to be paid to get to your desired future. That's right. Because usually the things we have to give up, there's an emotional attachment, or there's some sort of immediate gratification in it. It feels good to go make that impulse. It feels good to eat that eye for a sunny. It feels good to avoid that difficult conversation.

It feels good to now have to make 100 sales calls. And that kind of immediate comfort or gratification, or there's an avoidance of something difficult. A lot of times, difference in people that reach goals in the ones that don't, it's not brains and talents and abilities, it's some are willing to do the things the other people don't want to do. And the number one factor that loads on the accomplishment of a goal is not motivation because that will win. Now it's important,

but your motivation is going to go up and down. Number one factor is the belief that it's possible, the belief that it's possible. And the little incremental steps that bring that about. One of things that you guys keep talking about, you guys, because you've been doing this well for so long. There are so many people that are drowning in debt. Heming, it's impossible, it's possible. And then they tell us, and they see somebody who is in more debt than them, come and do the

screen. And what do they do? The prefrontal cortex kicks in as his weight. It's possible. Now you check that one off. Now I just got to get the plan. But if your brain doesn't believe that,

“that's why testimonies are so powerful. And being just kidding, getting out of your circle,”

some people grow up in poverty or belief systems. And you can't make money. If you don't have money, all this junk in their head. Yeah. You got to get out of that circle even to begin to have a vision for what's possible. That's why I got to surround yourself with people that have done it and are doing it. Then it becomes possible. Now I got to get curious about how they do it. Yeah, and creating creating the new habits around it and what you said about the comfort you're having to give up,

is book and how when you do anything difficult, you're going to feel that stress. You're going to feel that tension. But most of the time, that result ends up being a better situation for your life than where you were. But yet in our world today in 2026, I'm like, the comfort's everywhere, though, right? We get to set the degrees that we want in the room. We get to listen to the music we want when we want it. Watch what we want. I mean, we can Amazon. I mean, the amount of comfort we have

today on demand on demand personalized to us of what we want our algorithms everything. Like, it is why to get out of that. Do you feel like it's harder today than ever before? It's, you know, one of the ones that scares me the most is the parental comfort. It is a lot more comfortable to hand your kid and I pad to shut him up than to step in there and have some limits and some boundaries and go through that temper tantrum or whatever you gotta do. And we have a generation of

kids that have grown up that have not heard the word no and had to deal with the discomfort of hearing the word no and the structure and that one scares me. Interesting. From a generational standpoint,

right? Yeah. This is the first two generations that we've ever had a parent call when we're interviewing

someone for a job. We're doing a job interview in the parent gets involved. Oh, in your company? Yeah. The parent, you know, the mother of the 24-year-old will call and say what? Like, shut, they apply. They want to, they want to influence the process. Oh, they want to help.

“Yeah, so the life for that, Mom, you should influence that process years. Yeah. No, I mean,”

they want to, they want to help Junior get a job and you know, but instead they just, you know, they did just the opposite by calling because I don't, that makes me think, I don't think I want this guy. No, because you got a hard mom too to get to work. That's right. That's right. That's right. But stepping out of the comfort, I think is the big one for people today to achieve the goal that you're talking about and you're talking about in this book. What gets better? It has value.

You name one thing of value that gets better without pain first. Some kind of price. Yep.

We can, there's two paths. There's easy and there's going to come harder or there's hard now and it'll be a lot easier. Those are the only two rows you can go down. Pick your pain. Yep. You're going to have a little now and a lot more later or you can have, you know, yes. The other side where you take a little pain now. It hurts to pay down that dead a little bit each week. But look what you're going to have later. That's right.

Pay a price to win. Live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time but it yields a harvest of righteousness. I have watched this board right here in the last five years. I played golf with him. You talk about pain. Have boy and everybody with him was going, I mean we're looking for balls

“and swamps and places. Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? What is he?”

And his family and he would just hit it and then he was off and then he'd go do it and but he put his strategy to go. And he got, and I'm playing with him now. It's unbelievable. But he had to go through the pain first. That's right. That's right. But we love him. Okay, Henry. I think one of my dad, Dave said it in the last segment. One of the, my, your favorite, one of my hair books for you is brown trees. And you talk about

necessary endings. There's been a couple of these. What caused you to write this book? Because you have been in the relational, you were in the relational, right, counseling world for so long too. And moving kind of more to the business side as well with people. But why specifically, what need did you see that you're like, I need to write this book? The name for people wanting to get somewhere, whether in business or personally, but not having just a simple path of how it works.

And it applies to everything, you know, if you look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they both had a vision similar. You're like, it helped the styles were very different. But these five elements were present in both. And if you can just have a simple path, then it's easy to get on the more and say, okay, are these things in place?

“Mm-hmm. That's what it is. Just to clear the clear message, I love it.”

So good. Very good stuff. The new book is your desired future.

The five essential steps that will take you where you want to go. And my big take away,

Henry and I work together on this. And we work a little bit with Pat Lenshione too, on a modified model that he and I used as well as we put all this together, as Henry put all this together. But we stole pieces of this. And the whole thing I get to is just, okay, this is where I desire to be. What must be true? That's not true today. Positively, what must I gain?

lay out the clear steps, put the talent in place, and then hold and measure an accountability,

“and then don't let the patterns shift off of the goal. Dr. Henry Cloud, my friend, thank you for”

hanging out with us. Thank you, I was good to be with you, Henry. Check it out. The book is your

desired future. It's absolutely amazing.

. Hey George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about. And all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsay's real estate home base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even

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Our scripture today, Psalms 3721, The Wicked Borrow's, but does not pay back. But the righteous is generous and gifts. Bob Hope said, a bank is a place that will lend you a money if you can prove you don't need it. Somewhat true. Hey, buying or selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to find the best deal for the right price. The ramsy

“trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust who make your home a blessing”

and not a burden. It's easy, just compare agent profiles, interview them, and choose the right one to work with. We don't put anybody on ramsy trusted. That's not ramsy trusted. Yeah, you can find a real estate pro for free at ramsysolutions.com/agent and click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. John is in Boston. Hey, John, how are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? That is good to hear. Yeah, so I am in a kind of a precipice with

my job right now. So I am working in finance. I'm making a good living, but I'm considering quitting it to do my YouTube full time, which has been pretty successful lately. So the instability of it worries me and I'm not sure if I should make the jump on it. Gotcha. What do you make? It's a

“finance job. So right now I'm pulling about 90 k after bonuses. What's the YouTube income looking like?”

So recently it's been about 250,000, but it hasn't been like this. I've only been doing this for a few years. It hasn't been like this consistently enough. But you made twice as much. Yeah. I know. I worry that, you know, with the instability of how my income goes up and down each month, I've even had a scare where I almost lost the channel and YouTube could just go poof overnight. Okay, that's true. Yeah, I think they might not go poof, but they might poof you.

Yeah, my channel. Yeah. That's going to stay. That's happened to better people than you. Yeah. And so good job, though. Yes, you ought to work on the YouTube. What? I mean, you're able to pull

off a quarter of a million dollars. What advantage would you have if you were working full time at

it? What could you do? I've considered trying to expand it. I've also kind of plateaued in terms of what I can do on the channel. I've tried everything I could. So what advantage is there to quitting your finance. I'd be a lot happier. Okay. I wouldn't be working all the time. Okay. But it doesn't really add revenue. It doesn't add revenue. No, it's mainly because I know what the finance job. I'm in a great career path. Long term, I'm going to be set for life. Like I will be financially

sound. And, you know, I'm at a point in my life where soon enough, I'm probably going to want to settle down by a house. I want to have a consistent income and know that, you know, when I'm 40, 50, whatever. I'm still here. YouTube income is as consistent as you are for the next five years. Okay. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. And unless you do something to poison pill yourself. Okay.

as long as you stay, you know, keeping those clean. So to speak, you know, you're going to be fine.

The biggest danger there is twofold of, you know, you're a finance guy. So you're not, when you're, you have one platform that you're doing everything on, you're not well diversified. So you are completely subject to the whims of the YouTube algorithm. And they do change every day. I mean, yeah, we've had, we've had, we've had literally billions of downloads on YouTube. So our guys really know what they're doing here at Ramsey with this stuff. And so we make a lot more

into our own 50 on it. But the, but it's also, we're not, we made the decision to be platform agnostic and not be exclusively stuck to this one particular thing. So we didn't buy one single

stock. We want to be diversified and have a mutual fund. You follow the metaphor?

Yeah. So you need other places to be doing whatever this wonderful thing is. It's getting all these

“eyeballs, like a podcast platform, Spotify also now has video. You need to have other places”

carrying you and that stabilizes you. And you need to be very aware of everything that's changing. TikTok now is video. Everything is changing every day and all of the platforms and be following the trends. But don't, but don't, don't, don't move all the house chips on one platform. Don't bet the farm on one platform. That's your danger right now. Right. If you had a more diversified platform strategy and it worked that out, you'd be a lot safer. And as YouTube becomes a thing

of the past, it becomes the my space of the day. Right. And someday it will. Every, every one of

these technologies, Twitter was a big deal and then it wasn't. And now it's trying to be again. But I mean, these things come and go. As long as you're not dependent on one of them and you know the next one to jump onto, then you're not going to get eaten by the oligators. So if you can do that,

“whatever it is, whatever piece of content you're doing, this producing that kind of income,”

is going to be valuable on other platforms. So I would diversify my platforms and then I would quit. Yeah, and I assume John, the content you're putting out, you, you love. Would you say like you're good at it? It's a passion. It's fun. Oh, yeah. I definitely, um, I have a lot of fun doing it, which I don't hate my day job. But if you're making it through your four times your day job, you can't call your day job stable compared. Because you've got a screen that's up for four

freaking years to break even as you're breaking even analysis. If you're making 400 because you've got more platforms going and you're making 100 on the other, you've got four years of margin to screw up. That's not unstable. That's like saying I could make 150 as a CPA in the open market, but I want to make 40 working for the state government because it's stable. Well, that's not stable.

“That's just mathematically stupid. You follow me? Mm. Yeah, they could fire me at any time.”

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And then you're only as secure as your ability to leave the cave kill something and drag it home at any time. All of us are. All right. And so can you go get another position and do something else with another platform? And if you've got multiple platforms and you're not handcuffed, golden handcuffed to one of the platforms. Are you married, John? No, you said he wanted to do that. Yeah, right. Oh, not yet. Okay. Yeah,

I've been my mid 20s. So hopefully. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious. Now the other thing is this, we haven't discussed the content and I'm not going to because I don't want to get get into that with you, but is the content a fad? Not necessarily. It has ups and downs. Okay, like we had a guy, we got a friend named Jimmy. What's Jimmy's last name? The generosity guy? What? Dart, Jimmy darts. Jimmy's making a bazillion dollars. And he's got a generosity play on a church thing on

YouTube. It's massive. He's killing it. It's massive. Generosity is not a fad. He does this wonderful thing. Giving creates giving situations helps people all this stuff. And it's fabulous content. But like making slime, that was a fad two years ago. All the kids were doing it and now not as much. Yeah. So yeah, it's a good point. Whatever you're doing, it can't be something that's going to, that the actual content isn't. What we do is going to, people are going

to be in debt as long as there are people. So we're not going to run out of material. You know, we're not going to run out of content. And so our stuff is what we call evergreen in the business and content business. Okay. So you want, as long as you're evergreen and you've got multiple platforms, you don't, don't confuse that with stability. You have stability because you have talent at that point. Mm-hmm. It's good. Yeah. Good job, man. Very cool. That's exciting. Need discussion. Well, and

and four years, his knowledge of finance and what he, if he had to go back into the workforce and

“do it, he could. Yeah. You know, I mean, you're in your mid 20s. Yeah, finance doesn't. You can do it. Yeah.”

Yeah, yeah. So even what you've been doing in your day job, John, gives you a little bit of that

kind of back pocket, get out of free jail course. Yeah. In a way that you're like, okay, if it all

“does five years from now, I'm plus two still going equal for. I can plug back in. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah,”

dead gum. Yeah. For sure. I mean, it's like if you had a CPA, accounting is not going to change. That's right.

Yeah. You know, it's the same kind of business. Yeah, you might, you might not be viewed as having a fresh resume or whatever, but you can get moving again on it. And so you've got a good fall back and that knowledge of that world should give you some business insights and business acumen into managing your new, uh, digital career. Very cool. How fun. Good luck with it all. Hey, man. I hope you get, I hope you do wonderful things with it. That puts us out of the ramsy showing the books. We'll be

“back with you before you know it. And the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to”

financial peace. And that's to walk daily to the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.