You Can’t Drift Into Financial Peace

Brought to you by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] Normal is broken common sense is weird,

“so we're here to help you transform your life”

from the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winsbred Union Studio. This is the Ramsey Show. Number one by selling author Ramsey personality and host of front row seat in Coleman is my co-host today. Open phones at Triple 8, 825, 5225,

and is with us in West Palm Beach, Florida. Hi, Han, how are you? I'm welcome, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? Okay, and so I'm calling in today because I've been in

a financially abusive marriage for the last 23 years. I am facing prison time, I'm actually supposed to be checking in to prison on the beginning of June.

We have four children, they're all amazing smart.

I stayed at home with them for the last 20 years. I am going to prison for, it's called a conspiracy to commit bank fraud. My during COVID, my husband put my name down on documents, showing that I was the owner of a couple of companies.

He gave me different people to put down on these companies. And so that's what happened. I'm sorry, you knew this was happening when it was happening though. No, no, I didn't know that it was-

“How are you being held accountable for someone fraudulently using your name?”

I'm confused. That's a good question. I mean, that's a good question. We had federal agents come to the house and asked questions like, "Is this your signature?"

And I said, "Yes." Like I said, I've been a state home mom for so long. I know we have back tax, back taxes do. I've found those.

I've never had my name on account.

Anytime I had them, it would put my name on a vacant account. It would be closed due to like a lot of drawn funds. So I've been in a position that any money was his money. I never had to say anything we did with the money. He had a bad gambling problem.

So I mean, yeah, that's- Can I push back on this because this is a big thing to drop on us here? You've already been convicted. And so that means the government went through trial and proved to a jury that you did in fact participate in this.

And so when Dave asked you the question, "No?" No, we didn't go to trial. My attorney told me that who I've not been paid. My attorney told me that I would probably not limit a trial. So you're pleaded?

Yes, I pleaded. Yes. How long are you supposed to be incarcerated? Three years.

So they let him go in first.

Oh, so he's already in prison. He was in now, he's out out of three years. He did one year during that time. I had gotten a job. I have a graduate degree, I've got before I started having children.

How old are you even now? 22, 18, 17 and 12. Okay. So I'm afraid to ask, but apparently he's taking care of them. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Are you divorced yet? No. He won't give me a divorce. He doesn't give the option of giving you a divorce.

You live in Florida. You can file for divorce and it will be granted. He takes my keys. If I try to leave, keys let the air out of my tatters, keys. I don't care.

Obviously, you can't stay married to this guy. Obviously. I don't know where to go. Well, you're going somewhere in three months. So that's not an issue.

We already know where you're going.

“But in the meantime, you need to get an attorney and get divorced.”

That's my plan. The second I set foot in that prison that I'm filing for divorce, you know? Yeah. Absolutely. I have some word to go after and I'll have a better plan.

Yeah. Go ahead. You get to start over fresh after living in an abusive, horrible situation.

Right? Right. Okay. Yeah.

So that I've worked for, you know, the past three years at a job.

I know I have like a 401k. What do I need to do anything with that before I go away? You can sit down with a smart vester pro and roll it into an IRA because you're probably not going back to that job. That's just back, right? I don't know, possibly.

I'm kind of betting on that, you know? Yeah. So what were you doing? What was your career for the last three years? I did epidemiology for a clinic.

You did everything for what for clinic? Epidemiology, tract diseases. Okay.

“See, that's what your graduate work is in.”

Yeah. Okay. All right. So you think you can land that when you come out? Probably not.

No. I'm so much resentment toward my husband.

I'm probably never going to be able to do anything.

I'm sorry. Why would you not be able to land that again? Your husband hasn't anything to do with it. You're not your husband anymore. At the end of the story and you are starting fresh the other side of a jail term.

Why could you not go back to this career? I think because I have a felony, I don't believe that I haven't very marketable. Well, let me jump in here to try to encourage you. You have three months to tie up some loose ends. Obviously, and one of the most important is to get your story out there either to your existing company.

They probably already know this.

“But this is a situation where you have to try with everything you have to get out the correct narrative and look people in the eye.”

And some people are going to say things to you because they don't like tough conversations. Some people don't even want to consider anything. But I would be trying to shore up what reentry would look like. Because if your husband got out in a year, hopefully you're going to get out sooner than him. You're not in a situation where you're handling money in any way.

So it's a medical situation. So having a felony is not necessarily going to keep you from landing a job. Especially if you tell them when you go in for an interview. When you do the research, you're going to, when you do the background check, you're going to find a felony. I'm out.

I'm clean. I'm innocent. Here's what happened. I'll give you the short. Give me the thumbnail sketch version of that.

Not with a bunch of shame and not with a bunch of drama, but just a little bit of information for the person doing the interview. And if you don't need to call me back, if you don't, you know, you can go ahead and let me know now. Or if you want to give me a shot, I'll be the best employee you ever had. I think you'll land something when you get out and you start your life again, kiddo. This time, this time without the baggage of an abuser hanging around your neck.

There. There. Here he was away. It was the best year of my life. Yeah.

What is this? Welcome to the rest of your life, yeah. He's away forever now. Lay the groundwork now. I can't say this enough.

With your community, lay the groundwork now for when you get out that you have a job or at least possibilities or people who will champion you. Yeah. That's going to be very vital. Plug into your local church. Let your story be known.

And, you know, you've got two things to work on. When you come out, you will be divorced. Unless you're real, you're dumb. You really need to be divorced. You needed to be divorced 20 years ago.

But now, you really need to be divorced. Okay. And then you got to deal with a career restarting your life and taking care of a 12 year old. And, however, all that 12 year old is when you get out. But if he got out in a year, on three, you'll probably get out in a year or six months on three.

I think that's a reasonable set of assumptions. So you need to get this divorce done. Listen, identity theft doesn't just happen just because you're careless. You can do everything right and still become a victim. Whether your information is skimmed online, stolen through a scam, are exposed in a data breach, which happens every day.

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Zander is how you fight back, zander.com. [Music] Sarah is an Albuquerque New Mexico. Hey Sarah, what's up? Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve, how can I help?

I just wanted to know what your advice is on whether, like, taking out a loan to get a maskers and counseling, because I got a bachelor's degree in individualized studies with a general degree, and I just haven't been able to sign works that I really like. So, what would you recommend, like, if that's worth it, or just continue to try to sign work that I can like?

Well, what do we think that the master's degree is going to do? Do you have a tangible idea in your mind? Well, I see my thoughts as being a really good advisor. And so, it would give me the credentials to be a counselor. Okay, and what's that, what's the journey like?

How many years, how much money? Two to three years, and it would take 20 to 30 thousand dollars. Yeah, well, don't take out a loan for it.

The answer is we're never going to take out a loan for that.

And so, now you put that target out there, and you go, okay, 20 to 30 thousand. Is that for the champagne degree? Is that the line or the beer budget, right? Because here's what I know about master's degrees or any graduate degree. People don't care.

You're clients, the people that you serve won't care. So, I'm going to do some price analysis, and I'm going to go, okay, reputable schools, but I'm going to look at, can I beat that price? If I can beat that price, great, and then we're going to cash flow this, because the degree that master's degree will always be there.

So, it's not worth going into debt for you to have the opportunity to then get into a new field. So, the answer to that is always going to be no. You don't need to get a loan for that.

“You need to be patient or super urgent to stack up the 20 to 30 thousand”

dollars as quickly as possible. Are there, I know? How long would it take you? Okay, so let's play this out. How long would it take you at the 30 thousand dollar price

to save up that money? Well, I'll save up enough I've had to get started on it. Yeah, so that you can cash flow it. Honestly, I don't really know because... Well, let's walk through it.

I could sell insurance. Do you have a career now? Do you have a job now? Actually, I thought I could find work, and I'm basically just getting started with an insurance agent

to sell insurance. Okay, this is a trap. I'm going to warn you, this is a trap. We see this all the time. You come out of school, you can't find something and you think,

okay, since I can't find anything, I want to go to the one thing I know which is how to learn, and I'm going to go get another level to agree, and that one's actually going to give me a better chance to get hired. Does that sound like something you've thought about or felt? I know.

Yeah, it's a trap. It's a trap. Yeah, that's not the answer.

So the answer is if I live my whole life and for the last 20 years,

or five years, or seven years, I've all I've dreamed about is getting to be a counselor and the way to get to be a counselor

“is to get a master's degree because you have to have one to be licensed”

in every state now as a therapist. And that's what I always I wanted to do. That's a different narrative than I hadn't been able to find a job now, I'm selling insurance, so I think I need to go back to school. And that's a trap.

I didn't know. That's a trap. I didn't know what I wanted to be. And finally, like crack down and I found my assistant to study, and found what I was going to, and I knew I was in high school

that I would be a good counselor. So I was like, you know, I've been, I've had my heart set on being some kind of counselor for the past, like, five, 10 years. Okay, so what I would do then is go to work sweeping floors for a counseling organization rather than going in insurance.

And I would, I would be the secretary at the front desk for the counseling organization and be in there and see if some of them even have scholarship money or our tuition reimbursement money.

“But you need to get in the proximity, as Ken always says,”

"But for the proximity principle of that rather than I'm going to dive off, I can't be able to find a job and so I'm going to dive back into studies."

And diving back into studies is never a good thing when you're

able to find a job. So yeah, you need to get your big girl life up and running. The best place you could do that in your situation is in proximity of a counseling organization, especially if they have some kind of tuition reimbursement program.

And I'm not kidding if you can sweep their floors, it's what I would do rather than a cell insurance. It's absolutely, you're selling insurance is absolutely has nothing to do with anything, except you just took a job.

you took a job and they're not even going to pay you.

“They're putting you on straight commission, try to get your mother to”

buy insurance and then they're going to fire you. So because you're not going to make any sales. And so that's just, yeah, this is not tracking out. So hang on, we're going to send you a copy of the book, proximity principle that can write and can talk about that

for a minute, the whole thesis behind that book because that's helpful to a lot of people. Yeah, the proximity principle says in order to do what I want to do fill in the blank there. I've got to be around people that are doing it in in places

where it's happening. So the real formula is the right people plus the right place is equals opportunities. So this is a really empowering thought when you figure out that it's actually not a deep thought.

It's just the old phrase. It's not what you know, it's who you know. We all know that's true. That really that sticks because we all get that. So I don't some kind of slimy way.

No. Just the way a door gets open and it's somebody. That's it. Well, you told me this is one of my all-time favorites is if you ever walk by a fence post and see a turtle on top of it, you know,

it didn't get there by itself. And all of us get opportunities through connections and relationships. And so the proximity principle is a step further to say, okay, if I want to be a project manager,

then the first thing I need to do is in my immediate circle,

“do I know anybody that's a project manager in real life?”

And if it's not my immediate circle, does my immediate circle know somebody? And now we're going to go to coffee or lunch. And we're going to just simply do a book report on them. Right?

How do they get where they are now? What are the good parts of their day? What are the bad parts of their day? How much money do they make? What does the ceiling look like in that industry?

You get to know everything about it. And in learning all of that, two things happen. Number one, you validate this is called clarify and verify. You clarify what's involved in the role and the journey to the role. And then there's something inside that tuning fork will go off.

That's confirmation that's verify that I want to do this. The second thing is that you now are taking the posture of a student day when you're learning and people appreciate that. And then you say, hey, I would appreciate any other connections or relationships you'd be willing to put me in touch with.

And that's where now these things begin to stack. And eventually, if you stay that course, keep showing up in that way. Opportunities present themselves to where somebody says, hey, there's a job open.

I just recommended you and you're likely to get it. That's how this plays out. Nicholas is in Seattle. Hey, Nicholas, what's up? Hey, I'm going.

Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I had kind of two questions.

The first one being me and my wife are in being step two.

And we've paid off quite a bit of debt now. And how much have you paid off? I have. We've paid off a little over 10,000 and we're down to these. How long did that take?

Uh, it took. I want to say maybe eight or nine months. Okay, good for you. I'm sorry. Sorry for interrupting.

How can I help?

“Um, so the first question I had was if and when would it be?”

Why is it mean to maybe take some of our income now that some of the debt is paid down? We go and take maybe a family trip for the day. Um, to possibly go and enjoy ourselves. Seems like we don't get to spend as much time. You know, kind of pitching all of our money towards paying off the debt.

In general, you take vacations after you get your emergency fund built and after your debt free. When you say for the day, I don't know why that takes any money. Where are you going for a day? Maybe it's like a fishing trip. Something that cost a couple hundred dollars.

Yeah. Okay. Uh, like just fishing on the local lake? I don't know. Maybe going up to the mountains or something.

For the day. Yeah. I'm asking because it almost seems as if it was wrong to spend money on something. It is. You need to get your butt out of debt.

And you're pretty laid back about this whole discussion. The way people get out of debt is they get a lot more fired up than you are. They get a lot more angry about the debt than you are. And they get a lot more intense than you are. And if they're thinking about a fishing trip, they're going to go by twenty dollars worth of rod

and reel over at the Walmart and drop a float in the lake. That's about a ten minute drive away and call that a fishing trip. Which is the same thing as going to the mountains for the kids. It's only the adults that know the difference. I got a little lake in my neighborhood and you can catch about twenty five fish and twenty five seconds over there.

Because there's nothing going in there. I took my four year old grandson down there the day. We had a fishing trip. [Music]

Listen, ninety nine times out of a hundred when people say, I don't know where my money goes.

It's not a math problem. It's a behavior problem. They're not budgeting.

“Then they're shocked when their bank account hits triple zeroes.”

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and get yourself filed, darling. Jill is with us, Jill is in Dallas. How Jill, how are you? Hi, I'm good, how are you doing? Better than I deserve, what's up?

I have a question about a trust. I've heard you say a couple different things and I was just curious what you would do in that situation. Okay. I've heard you say maybe an LLC or if you're raising smart kids, then you don't necessarily need a trust. But I have minors and I'm just curious what I should do.

I have a house and I have a house that is paid for and then I have some mutual funds in my IRAs and stuff like that. Okay, and so your net worth is a may you enter so? It's close to 4 million. Oh, good for you.

Well done. Very well done. Okay. What we did when we were at your stage and we had minor children was we set up a wheel and the wheel. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I should also add, I'm divorced. Okay. My kids are taking care of in the form and the fashion that they will go to their dad. If something happened to me, I just want to take care of my stuff for them.

Okay. Yeah, that's fine. So you can do the exact same thing then. So the actual guardian would be your ex. But then what do we do with your stuff if you die and while they're minors.

So what we had set up on ours were minors was the trust is formed upon death. And it's just a children's trust very simply jails kids and that's the trust or whatever you call it. But it's a children's trust while they're minors. And all of your assets are dumped into that trust and then you leave instructions to the trustee of how you want those assets handled. I'll give you a couple of things we did and you could choose to add those or not add those.

Okay. One was the trust the income generated by the trust while they're minors. And a good healthy child support payment goes to the guardian to take care of the kiddos while they're minors. So I don't want the him to be in this case your ex to be stressed at all with clothes and you know food and so forth for having all the kids now full time. Okay.

That's one thing.

The second thing we said was okay, you can use some of the money from the trust when you go to college and pay cash for college.

You could use it for the purchase of your first car a minor amount for that. You could use it if there was a major medical event and you needed to pull some out in addition to the monthly income to cover medical expenses for the child while they're minors. But other than that, the money was just going to be sitting there growing. Okay. And then when they turn 18, the, you know, their portion of the assets would be turned over to them.

“That's how we had it set up. Later on, we modified it because it's got to be a little larger amount of money.”

We said, okay, at 18, you get X amount and at 25, you get the rest. Because we didn't want to dump, you know, millions and millions on a freaking 18 year old. Okay. So that's how we handled it until they were grown. When they were grown, we changed everything, of course, because they're not minors anymore.

And we even put in hours. We dictated how the money in the trust was to be handled and what it was to be invested in. Like the four types of mutual funds we talk about. And there's this piece of real estate and it's paid for and it just stays in there.

And so the trustee can't get all conservative and put it all in CDs or something.

“What about, should I put my house in anything right now?”

Or not now? No. Everything just goes upon death. And then when I both turn 18, then I can restructure everything. Every upon 18, you can dictate that the trust does X or once they are 18 and you're still alive, then you'll change the whole thing. And decide what you want to do at that point. And you do that based on whether or not they're going to be competent adults and whether this money is going to be a blessing.

Because if you give money to an incompetent, it's not a blessing. Yes. It magnifies their incompetence. So that's what we did. And so as they grew, now we're way past that now.

I mean, my youngest is 35. So, you know, we're way past all that and we're way past the competency question and all those kinds of things. So all of our structure today is all just built around risk management and around keeping the stinking governments hands off of it upon death.

Because the stupid government takes 55% of everything above, I think this year it's $28 million or something.

So the death tax, you know, they tax you once while you're alive, they tax you again when you die. So you spend a lot of money and a lot of time keeping their hands off of it then also. But that's a different discussion than you're worried about today. Right now you just want to make sure your kids are okay and the stuff is managed well. And good on you mom, you know, great job with your financial situation.

Yes. Wanted to let you know you're a real hero and they're going to appreciate that someday to be a single mom and in your situation. Great. Yeah, I'm being intelligent and intentional and all of that. There's so much wisdom there.

Well done. Stella's in Los Angeles. Hi, Stella. How are you? Hi, I'm well.

How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Big fan, big fan, but don't tell anyone I said that.

Okay. Um, we have an 82 year old neighbor that wants us to consider using the contract for deed. No, for home now. Absolutely not. Oh.

Under no circumstances do you do that. And I'll explain to you why. Okay. Okay. A contract for deed means the property is in her name.

And when you fulfill the contract. Or a way to do it. There's a, when you fulfill the contract. Where it's in our name.

“That's the only thing you can do that I would do.”

We'll talk through that in a second. Let me finish on the contract for deed. Okay. So it's in her name and you pay payments. And when the amount is paid off.

Then she transfers title to you. Okay. Problem is if that person falls asleep at the wheel and hits somebody head on and gets sued for half million dollars. There's a lean on property that you thought you owned.

But it's not in your name. It's in her name.

So they put a lean on her property for 500 million dollars.

And now you don't ever get this property. No matter what happens, or she forgets to pay the IRS. She's 82 and she didn't follow tax returns. And they put a lean on the property that she owns because it's in her name. So everything that she could possibly do to screw up life lands on you after you pay payments

on this for 10 years. So not a chance you ever do to contract for deed. Very dangerous way to take title. Now, I assume does she have a debt on the property? No.

Good. Well, then it's very easy. She wants to sell it to you and move away or stay in the property. No. She wants to live there until she passes and then we'll take the property over.

Okay. That's very easy.

“You need to just see a real estate attorney.”

And all you've got to do is just transfer the title. And she carries back a mortgage against it. You pay the mortgage. And if she dies, you have to finish paying the mortgage to her ears. Correct.

Correct. Okay. Or if she dies the mortgage is forgiven and returned for having her. And then what she's getting is a life estate. A life estate.

So while she's alive, she can live in the property. And I would qualify that life estate even further. While she's alive and medically able to live in the property. So let's say that she ends up in memory care because of it early on. So it wouldn't be early on set, but dementia.

Okay. And it can't live in the property anymore. But then she lives six more years. Meanwhile, the property is sitting there rotting down. Because you can't take it because she's still alive.

So if the case she's. So a life estate qualified. Extra qualification that if she's unable medically to live in the property anymore. It goes ahead and transfers as if she had passed. And then whatever happens to the mortgage, you guys can negotiate that at that point.

But you pay the payments until either she dies or until you pay it off to her kids. And the property is in your name the whole time just like you took out a mortgage.

So it's like seller finance.

It's exactly what it is. We do it. Okay. As a seller finance modified by a life estate with a medical qualification. Fantastic.

Thank you so much. And that protects you and protects her. And everybody's going to get a good deal here. Hey, let's play a quick game of wood, your rather.

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See website for full details. [Music] Hover here is in San Antonio. Hey, Hover here. What's up? Hey, you've got the noon.

So, thanks, technical. Hi. In particular, of course, I took a church a year ago, financial piece university. That was great. One of my had to do a lot of stuff. I'm still stuck on big stuff for one and two.

And there's some stuff wrong.

Can't save the $1000 emergency fund.

Mainly because my income is so low. My debt for $2, I have one credit and two ticket cards. So, what do you make? Well, it took you 95 an hour. It runs roughly five, 45 a net a week.

How old are you? 41 years old. What do you do? I'm a technician. So, low-voltage cable installed.

Okay. Well, I agree with you. Your job sucks. What are you looking for? What are you looking for to get a better job?

Making twice. Because the bad news is you don't make anything. The good news is double and it wouldn't be hard. Yeah.

“I'm wondering, like, what's the trade that comes to mind?”

Don't worry about giving me a writing answer. This is quick exercise. What trade comes to mind when you think about what you do now from a technical standpoint, putting in that low, the cable, low-voltage cable. What comes to mind is a nice little stroll into a much better pain,

trade. What comes to mind? Electrician. Thank you, Dave. That's the answer.

There's a huge need right now. I'll have you across the country. And I suspect that San Antonio is the same way. And trade school is a lot less time and a lot less money. And you might given your current job be able to get in at a low level and earn

your way or somebody pay for you to go to the next level of trade school. So, when we throw that at you, how do you respond to that? I have tried that and it failed multiple times. Sorry, applied to the local apprenticeship. And I told you on the test, but the interview, they were jacking me.

They took out this instead, sort of. They what? Check it. So, Antonio, there's a local trade school. No, no, I get it.

But why did you fail the interview process? I didn't want to get any feedback. Maybe I'm too old. I'm not sure. How old are you?

41. 41. You're not too old. I can't give you a whole lot of feedback on that. Although, you know, there might be some confidence issues going on.

“You know, where you have to go in there and kind of say, hey, I can.”

I can learn anything. I'm teachable. I'm coachable. I'm super hungry. Do you think you're coming across that way?

Yes or no? So, I was fired from another job a few years ago. I was still carrying that baggage. Okay. So, you're not confident.

Is that what I'm hearing? That's true. Can you do the job or not?

Could you do it? I could. Yeah. All right.

“So, this kind of response here tells me that you just have to get back up on the horse and”

keep showing up. And you're going to have to deal with those demons. And we all have to deal with those demons. You feel wounded. You feel less than all of that.

But my friend, you can take control of this entire situation by getting a better pain job. Yeah.

So, it's about smiling and raising your energy level about 200 percent.

And going, I can do this. I want this. Give me, put me in coach. Give me a shot. I'm going to be the best.

I'm going to be early. For work every day. I'm going to leave. Well, late. For work every day.

I'm going to be the guy that doesn't write about anything. I'm going to be the guy that you can get to do anything. You need to do it. You want me to sweep the floor. I'll get the floor to sweep.

What do you need me to do? Give me in coach. Give me a shot. And come at this thing with some energy rather than going. Well, you know, don't sound like eel or in the interview, man.

Yeah. Here's David. Thanks, folks. Yeah.

And here's the bottom line.

The bottom line is you are correct. It is very difficult to walk the baby steps when your income is at the poverty level. And so I want you to think about what I'm going to do with my life. I'm 61. I don't want to be having this exact same problem when I'm, I mean, I'm 41.

I don't have the same problem 20 years when I'm 61. And so I want different problems. I want to tax problem because I make so stinking much money. That's a new problem. That's a good one.

It's a great problem. And so yeah, you know, let's, I hate the government because they take all my money because I make do much money. And you've been reading my emails today? Yeah.

Apparently, yeah. Or you've been reading my email. But that, you know, that's the thing. You just got to figure out, okay, I'm going to choose my problems. And I don't like the one I got on a different problem.

And so I'm going to go stir up some stuff. And I'm going to work like a crazy man. And I'm going to work weekends and nights. And I'm going to raise my energy level. And the way my voice sounds even is going to change the way you hold your shoulders,

changes. And all of that is a reflection of galoswagger back again. Instead of slouching in to the interview. And because people are reading all of that. So have here one of the things they tell us.

And Ken's got all this research and data on interviewing. And I just think it's amazingly interesting that a lot of job interviews are decided before the person opens their mouth. How you walk into the room, how you're dressed, the way you carry yourself, the way you smile or don't, and you just sit down and, you know,

because the interviewer subconsciously so many times goes, "I wouldn't want to work with this person." Before they even open their mouth.

“And so in 30 or 45 seconds, that's the data, right?”

That's absolutely correct. And understand this too. But that's about swagger. It is because they are making a decision. Not on your ability to just do the electrical work or the plumbing work or the carpentry work.

They're making the decision on how are you going to interact with their customers. Okay. And with your team. That's right. And so if they feel like you are EOR as Dave is so prophetically said here,

there's about so many people we get calls from and we're not judging anybody. We're just, we can feel your energy through the phone. Imagine what you're presenting like when you're sitting in front of somebody. And so the issue here is, is when you're in a trade,

here's what they're looking for, a little bit of enthusiasm,

a whole bunch of hunger. All right. And then the willingness to show up. They need to know that they can count on you. You were looking to somebody's eyes and don't see a light. Like nobody's home and nobody's even coming up the driveway.

I mean, there's no light in there. I'm not saying that to you. I'm just saying that's one end of the spectrum when you're interviewing someone. The other end of the spectrum is their eyes are sparkling. And there's a smile.

And they took a bath this morning before they came to the interview. And they took to tucked in their shirt. And they didn't wear clothing like they were trying to get in a punk rock band. Instead, they came like they were trying to get a job. And you know, this is basic stuff.

And we people, we go to get people to do business with us. In an interview or in a sales situation, we're not entitled to anything. And so you've got to think about everything, and all the variables that are affecting this.

And then the last part is then in turn up the frequency of your rejections. Yes.

“And so, you know, I think you've been rejected about twice.”

I want you to be rejected 26,000 times. And by then, you will have landed a degree in the medical field or something. I mean, you just, you got to get back at, you got to get back after and keep turn over the rocks. Keep turn over the rocks, something will run out. But if you don't turn over a rock, you go, I want to turn over a rock, and I got a bit.

I'm not turn over anymore. Yeah, you got to go do it. Yeah, generally option. Otherwise, if you keep doing what you've been doing, you're going to keep getting, what you've been getting.

So we're just talking to the whole audience right now, over here, but you're getting caught up in that net. So I got faith in you.

“I think you can do more than you sound more than it sounds like you think you can do.”

Is a better way to say it. And one other thing I'd add, because you are employed now, and you are doing something with your hands and with your head, what else can you do in San Antonio right now as a second or maybe third job? Let's not wait until we get the better full-time job.

Let's go work a second or third job with that transferable skill and experience, because if you were to just double your income,

an additional $2,000 a month, net, that's a game changer for you.

So don't wait on the full-time job, go work two and three jobs, do anything you can related to what you know you can do now. That's a huge bridge, by the way, keep your confidence up, it'll get you some financial momentum until we land that $25, $30, $35, $40 an hour gig.

Yeah, so that's a good message for everybody when you're in baby step one and two. You turn up the energy, you turn up the activity level, you turn up the number of hours and working, and what will happen then is you'll start to get some actual success, which will give you some actual swagger in confidence.

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That's BetterHelp, HELP.com/Ramsie. Welcome back to The Ramsie Show. Welcome back to The Ramsie Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman Ramsie, personality number one best-selling author. Host of the front row seat.

“If you hadn't checked it out on Ramsie Network, you should.”

He's my co-host. Open phones. A triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five. Jared is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hey, Jared, what's up? Hi.

Can I check my call? I got a quick question for you. I've been in the middle of a high-conflict divorce. We recently sold our Merrill House. We're sitting thousands of months in the escrow account.

In the pending process, I'm eating 17, I'm eating 17. I'm out of money currently. I'm waiting for these further funds to come into my account. I'm 17 or 7,000 in debt from legal fees. And I no longer have legal accounts for the time being.

So my question is, should I use your manner of my funds to hire a lawyer and pay off my debt, or should I progress the baby steps and represent myself in court and hope for the best? Well, there's nothing to represent. I mean, there's 17 or 17 is already divided.

What else is the conflict? Kids? Child cuts. Yes, yes, sir. Okay.

Well, you probably don't lose that if you don't go to representation. I've already the Knox soil parent from temporary order, so I don't know what else I have to lose.

“And you don't think that's going to change in court?”

I don't think so, I'm not sure. Okay. So if you're resigned to that, what is there to lose in court? Now, then, just 17,000. Well, no, I mean, that's already determined and split up, isn't it?

It's being painted, so there were the total of 52,000. We signed in agreement from temporary order. She got 17. I got 17. Yeah.

And there's 15 left in the escrow account.

And what's supposed to happen?

“Does temporary order dictate what happens that escrow account?”

No. What's left in that I mean, yes. What's left in the 15 is going to be talked about in our final hearing. It's not scheduled yet. Okay.

So you could lose that. Yeah. You're half of that. I mean, let's say half of that is yours and half of that's hers hypothetically. And if you lost, you would have lost half of that.

So it's $7,000, $7,500 on the lines. That's right. Yes, sir. Okay.

Well, attorney's going to cost you that much.

Right. I don't ever like going into a situation not represented by good, strong counsel. But it sounds like this thing's already run. It's course. And you just need a judge to put a stamp on it.

To finalize it, we still need it. We're separated. But we see the filings of the divorce. I just kind of need. Is the divorce not filed?

It's filed, but we're in the limbo process with the courts. So is there a waiting period from filing till declaration?

“And that's what you're calling the limbo period in Nevada?”

Yes, sir. Okay. And so there's a mandatory 90 day cooling down period or something like that. Yeah, I don't know the exact terminology. You know that we're still really married, but we have to either go to mediation again,

or we have to go to trial and then the judge will sign the final decree. Yeah. Okay. So what would happen if you called her lawyer and said, let's go to mediation and wrap this 15 up and come to agreement on everything in the sauna and get the judge to sign it?

Well, I've tried that twice already and it's resulted in failure, both times, and $10,000 in legal fees with mediators and attorneys. Yeah, but now we're down to only $15,000 to argue about, right? Fundance is speaking, yes, the biggest dispute is child custody. I thought you weren't disputing it.

I thought you had said I'm going to lose it. If you want to fight it, you need a lawyer. Yes, sir. You're going to lose if you don't have a lawyer on child custody, 100% chance. Yes, sir.

Yeah, you're going to split. So it's not spending money to get money. It's spending money for me to get access to my own children. And that's that's money you spend for sure. You'll regret not doing that.

I wish I had dropped another five grand or 10 grand in that. Instead of advanced my death snowball. But if you don't have anything to fight about, if you're saying like, look, 90% chance, the ruling that's standing now, non-castodial is the way it's going to be. I'm going to lose.

Then you've already asked that. And there's no sense in paying some by 10 grand to do what you know is already going to happen. But yeah, I'm going to hire a lawyer if I got a shot at changing the disposition of the children. For sure, for sure. And yeah, what you're learning is it's divorce and in most cases other than divorce,

the lawyers are the only ones that win lawsuits. And so, and everybody thinks they're going to get something out of these things and they don't. So it's just, it's kind of ridiculous, but I'm sorry.

“Sorry, you're facing that, but yeah, if you want to fight about the kids,”

then you need relegaret presentation. Otherwise, with what you've described, there's not enough on the line to cover the attorney's fees. So, I mean, I would call the guy, I would just call the attorney up and go, hey, listen. If I accept the child custody, the way it is, and we split the, and we agree to split the 15k to we have a deal. That's your mediation.

And just call the guy on the phone and do that deal. But if you're going to fight the kid thing, then you need representation. So, that's just a practical thing. It's not a league, that's not legal advice. That's just a guy who's dealt with lawyers more than I ever want.

Wish I had never met one.

[laughs] Jack is in Miami. Jack, how are you? I am doing better than I, but you're Dave and Ken into such an honor to talk to you guys back then. You too, what's up?

Okay, so I am a teacher, and I just found out this week I am getting laid off once this summer ends. In my wife's, we're reaching the debt free. We have debt free in the house, have a nice retirement over 800. And we're building an online radio station.

My question is, she's still working out of the house.

I made about 65, so we're losing that income.

Do I go full force into building our online radio station? Are you making money out? Um, I've made, well, we started November. I made about 2,500 so far, because obviously we sell advertising.

“That's how people, that how we make money.”

Yeah. I've heard the rumor. Yeah. What kind of radio is it? It's a country music station playing.

We play like today's hit all the time favorites. Do you need the 60?

How much of the 65 that you've been making do you absolutely need to have?

All of it or something? Well, I mean, if we stayed on a tight budget, we could live off of her income. I don't think we're going to be on a tight budget. Yeah.

I wouldn't hurt my eggs in that basket. No.

“I think I would figure out what I want to do with my life in addition to this.”

And because this right now is a hobby, it's not made money yet. And you're in a highly competitive field where everybody is breathing as a podcast now. And so it's not like there's not like there's a lot of choices out there. There's like a bazillion choices out there. So I'm not against you trying this, but I'm against you leaning on it when it's unproven.

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“Chris is with us in Atlantic City. Hi Chris, how are you?”

I'm fine, how you doing? Better than I deserve, what's up? All right, I have a philosophical will question for you. I'm not married, I have no kids, I'm probably not going to get married, probably not going to have any kids. Right now, my will is set up to give all my stuff to my two nieces, my sister's kids.

And I've been thinking about it, and it turns out that there's probably going to be like four people all in the family. All funneling their money to these two girls.

And each person's going to have probably several million dollars.

And I've been thinking about maybe by passing, changing my will to not give it to them. Maybe give it to a local charity instead. But I know that my family's just going to look at it from purely an emotional point of view. And be like, how dare you? I give it to the family. And I thought I'd get a few viewpoints from like money people to see what you guys think.

Well, there's not a morally or spiritually wrong answer between the two things. You could do either one. It's the money that God has entrusted you to manage. And you can give it where you see fit or not give it where you see fit. I would not let the family's emotions be my motivator.

I would just say, okay, what is the right thing to do in your heart of hearts? Regardless of someone's feelings, okay? What's the proper thing on principle to do with this?

I mean, how long are you?

I'm 46, they are 701. Okay. All right.

“Because the answer for me, if I'm you might change over time.”

Okay. Let me give you an example. Okay. Let's say they get married and they each have three kids. Now there's six kids. One generation down from them.

And there are wonderful family that's contributing to society. Not a bunch of entitled screwed up people, right? Then at that point, you're 66 or 76, you might change it back to give to that way. So this could evolve. And I'm not saying you had to.

I'm just giving ideas, all right? But, and of course, you also could do both.

“Because you're 46 and you've got how much now, how many millions now?”

I've got 1.5 now. Okay.

Yeah. And so you'll be dealing with 15 million when you're 70.

Yeah. And so assuming you keep on the track you're on and I think you will. Sounds like somebody's going to do that. You've done a great job so far. Congratulations. And so you could say I'm going to leave this much to this charity, this much to this charity, and this much to the

nieces or the great nieces and so forth. And so or it might be that you're heavily involved with one of them and the rest of them don't even know your name. Then you can do that. I mean, you can do whatever you want to do. And then, you know, at that point, if you were ill or whatever, at that point, I would let someone in the family know. But I'm not really going to have emotional discussions with a bunch of people who really don't have a say in this.

And, you know, and we're not unless you're ill today, I'm not going to fret about having a big long discussion. I generally tell people, you know, if you're going to make somebody mad with your will go ahead and tell them all your life, that's a fine thing to do. In this case, I don't know why you would bother to stir it up. It's just none of their business. Well, I don't think any of them are like a wrong decision.

I just think it would make more impact because my money would just be thrown in a pile of other money in the end.

Well, I would challenge that idea of impact because if you drop 15 million into the pile of money with other millions and these young people by then or not,

young people, they have been trained in their high quality people, they'll leverage that for more impact than a charity might. Well, and I'm kind of questioning their money managing abilities when they grow up because they're having to be getting it from their mother who is not too good at it. Well, I don't know. I mean, we either seven. I don't know that yet. But so you can do that too. That's okay. None of this is wrong. You know, so you can decide what you want to do.

But I would be open to two things. I'd be open to changing it as it evolves. And I would be open to not necessarily being all or nothing that there could be some of each. And just kind of mix that in. That's just gives you a lot of, gives you a lot of freedom to think about this and not fret about this. Yeah, I'm not really fretting about that.

But if you said, I'm going to put it all in their name today and then the 12-year-old gets into drugs. You know, then I'm, and I'm all or nothing, then I'm going to be fretting about it because I got to move it back out. I got to change it back. Yeah, I think there's something going on in your gut, you know, that's led you to this phone call. I just think before you even choose a charity.

“I think you need to get involved as some causes get really intimately involved or you know how those organizations are run.”

You know, not just because all it's a good cause, you know, and it's not going to my nieces who don't need it. Like, there needs to be a pretty strong lie in my opinion. Again, there's nothing wrong. Dave said it well. But if I were you, if I'm leaving this money to somebody that's not my family, I want to feel really good about the ROI on that money. Yeah, and to assume that a godly family managing God's money in a godly way has less impact than a charity is an incorrect assumption. As a matter of fact, the family will do a much higher impact than a charity because there's no overhead.

Matt is with us in Buffalo. Hi, Matt. How are you? I don't better than I deserve. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I make between about $70,000 a year depending on my bonus yearly. I have about $14,000 in credit card debt with across two different credit cards, approximately $14,000 in student loan debt.

So I guess my question is, I have about $20,000 weekly right now. My question is, should I just pay off the credit cards and the lump sum, knowing that that's probably going to take my credit score.

Okay. Can you be completely dead free if you write all those checks?

Credit cards and everything.

“So it would be not entirely. I would still have the student loan or at least a portion of it in my card payment, which is not really much.”

Okay. Well, number one, we would tell you to be dead free and have an emergency fund before a three to six months of expenses before you talk about buying a house. So that means you're not buying a house in the next year. Okay. And that means it's going to take two years. So what I would do is become completely dead free as fast as I possibly can zero activity of any kind on your credit for six months to a year.

We'll give you a zero credit score and you can do manual underwriting with Churchill mortgage and you'll get the same rate as you would get if you had an 800 score.

But right now you're broken and dead right now you're broken and yeah credit score is what puts you. No, it's well, because you're deeply in debt, you know, money and you're not been doing a good job with your money. And now you're starting to so congratulations.

“But yeah, I'm cutting up all the credit cards and I'm a list my debts smallest to largest.”

I'm a use 19,000 of the 20,000 towards that goal. And then I'm going to be on the brains and rice rice and beans budget. I'm going to clear up the rest of these debts immediately. And then I'm going to start stacking cash from emergency fund and stacking cash from my down payment. While I'm doing that, that period of time will run with zero activity on your credit. And it will return to a zero credit score, you know, a not determinable is what they call it an indie, which is what mine has been for 38 years.

There's lots of conversations when I was a kid that, you know, couldn't catch up to me now. And so let's not worship at the altar of the great FICO in order to do something like by house before you're ready to buy a house. So let's just get this stuff in the right order and this things take care of themselves will be the right way to flow this out.

“And so folks, you need to remember that there's one way you get a credit score in this borrow money.”

There's one reason to get a credit score and that's borrow money. And so what have we been taught? All of America's been taught. Go get a debt. So that you can go get a debt. So that your credit score will go up so that you can go get a debt. So that your credit score will go up so that you can go get a debt. So that your credit score will, that's all this is for. Does this sound like a dog chasing its tail to me? It does to you.

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We've implemented this practice since our wedding day. We've had zero money fights because there's full transparency. We are on the same page and winning. Hey, I love that. You can do this too, folks. You can take control of your money. Change your family tree. Live like no one else. Work the Ramsy plan. We'll coach you along the way. It's all built in to every dollar. Download every dollar in the app store or Google Play. Jennifer is in Anaheim, California. Hi. Jennifer, how are you?

Sure. What's up?

Well, I'm kind of wondering if I should consolidate my federal student loans into this one payment.

And then also we've found that's my auto loan. I have a really high industry because I've been living in paycheck to paycheck forever. And then I recently in January just got a raise and practically doubled my salary from there. Hey, what more? That's all I know. What do you make now?

I'm so lucky. 117,000 a year. Awesome. How much do you owe on this stupid car? 8,000. Oh, that's not bad. Knock it out. Just pay it all.

You make 100,000 dollars. Just pay it off. Yeah. That's, yeah. Not really. Not you have it. Really do it. Okay.

“So I mean, like, I mean, why wouldn't you have the money if you just doubled your pay?”

Why wouldn't you have the money in a month and a half too much to pay that car off? Well, my current. I'm sharing an apartment right now. You know, my current, you know, because I have to save on rent. You were before in July. Okay. Did that again?

So stay in that situation. Do you get out of that?

Well, I would have to stay another year. And I really don't want to, I want to move into my own place and my own place. Yeah, you also want to be out of debt and quit being broke. True. Which one you want more?

I'm staying in there for another year. Hmm. Pay off at car in two months and what was the other debt? You student loans, you're trying to earn. How much you have in student loans? 55,000.

Awesome. So you could be like debt free completely in like 15 or 16 months. If you stayed another year in that situation. You pay off the car and the student loans. And then the interest rate really doesn't matter.

Yeah, that's true. Live on nothing, beans and rice, rice and beans. Don't go out to eat. Don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. Don't go on vacation.

Work all the time. Live for one thing for 14 months. And that is to take all 100% of your raise and put it on these debts. And you'll be debt free in 14 months. Yeah.

Okay. That math works. It works a lot better than trying to refinance your way out of debt. Which doesn't work. Right. Right.

“What's the interest rate on your federal student loans?”

Um, like about 2%. Well, refinance is not going to be a good idea because you're going to get a current rate, which is going to be a lot more. Well, yeah, I kind of just wanted to get a consolidation. I know if you can solidate it, if you can solidate it, it raises the rate.

Because you're refinancing. Okay. There is no consolidation on federal student loans. There's only refinancing. And you get, you get to do that one time and you do it at prevailing rates.

And in your case, it's going to increase the rates. So, okay. The fact that you have four student loans or eight student loans versus one, that towed up to 55 does not change that we just need to pay all 55. Okay.

Okay. And so, and you got a great interest rate on that. So, yeah, let's, let's just leave that alone. How many different loans are there? Uh, unfortunately, there's like 13.

Perfect. No, that's really good. I like that. Okay. So, and the car interest rates are like crazy, right?

It's 23%. Oh, my gosh. All right.

“So, what we normally teach is to list your debts smallest to largest pay minimum payments on everything,”

but the little one. And that would be listing your 13 student loans out. And then you probably your car is going to be your largest debt. And that would make it last. I probably going to flip that in this case.

I'm probably just going to knock that because I want you to knock that.

If you're going to knock the car out in two months, let's just put it first.

And then list your 13 smallest to largest. What's your smallest one? All right. Yeah. I did that actually.

I used your every dollar out. So, I actually listed them all in that. My smallest one. Like a thousand dollars. Yeah.

So, see, that's going to be gone. Right. It's like a mosquito. Swatted. And then what's the next one?

Um, it is, uh, like 1500. Oh, good. So. Yeah. My largest one.

Um, I think is like nine thousand. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to go.

Can you knock that car out in two months if you do nothing. But the car. Four thousand a month. I. Yes.

Okay. If you can do that, then let's do that. And then let's list these others. And you're going to get so much emotional moment. I'm a getting rid of the 23% and then be knocking off 1,500.

And they're just going to start. They're just going to start. And all of a sudden, you're going to look up and you're going to have like three left.

Like by. Yeah. I bet you by, uh, I mean, I, I don't know the exact numbers here. But I'm going to give you an estimate.

I always say about November.

You're going to have three left. And that's going to make you feel like like your large and in charge because you are. Your confidence is going to. And that's my only that's my only get. I don't have credit cards.

I don't have anything else. I don't have any debt. What's your, what is your car payment? It's three 18 a month. All right.

Three 18 a month. And then how much are you saving by staying with that roommate not going out on your own. A thousand dollars a month. Yeah. That's $1,300.

“I just want to leave you with that number as to why you need to wait 12 more months.”

When you start to get grippy and I understand it, I want to live with somebody. But you're, you're hanging on for 12 more months. But you're doing it for a $1,300 raise. Because you're going to knock out that, that car so quickly. Now all of a sudden you're attacking all this.

You need to have that mindset. Yeah.

So that decision alone pays off the first two car.

First two student loans that month. That's right. Yes. Yes, true. That's why we went there so fast.

Yeah, because we've ridden this truck before. Okay. So, and the thing I wanted to do is what I did. When I was cleaning up my mouse, many, many, many, many moons ago. I kept looking at something stupid I had done or a situation I put myself in.

And I used it not as shame or guilt. But as motivation, it piss me off. I got mad. And I want you to look at that 23% that time that you got yourself in a pinch. And you got screwed on a car.

Yes. And you let it happen. And I want you to get mad at that. So mad that 14 months from now, your, your friends are going to think you're joined a cult because all you do is get out of debt.

Yes. A brand of the cult. I love it. Yeah. And I want you to win.

Because here's the thing.

That's only a year and some change.

“And your whole life is going to be different after that.”

Because you're resetting all these grooves in your brain. All the neural plasticities resetting. And so you're never going to be the same again. It's not only your, not only who, the fact that you get out of debt. It's who you become during this 14 months.

That's different than the U version that bought the 23% car. And that person's dead and gone. And now there's a new version of you that's going forward. And I'm so proud of you. And we're going to help you.

You're on the every dollar app. I'll send you a copy of total money makeover. And you call us back. If you're get tired and you get down. We'll jack you up and pump you up again.

Because I think you got the stuff, kiddo. I think you're going to knock this thing out. If you're willing to do some sacrificial things like this for a short period of time, you can set the rest of your life on a positive course. Yeah.

There's no question. I'm sitting there listening. And I'm just thinking of the momentum theorem. I'm going to tee you up to give it to people who are new.

“Because there's a lot of new people joining all the time.”

We're going to send her a copy of the book. That's great. Okay. Well, send her a copy of the moment. I'm there.

I'm as focused intensity. F.I. Over time. Over time. F.I. over time.

F.I. over time. Focus intensity. Over time. Multiply by large G. God.

And his blessings. When you're faithful in the little things, he'll give you more to manage. He will not give you more to manage. When you're disorganized. Unwelling to sacrifice.

And unwelling to hard work hard. It's in the Scriptures. It's very clear. F.I. focused intensity.

Over time. Multiply by God. It equals unstoppable. Momentum. [Music]

[Music] [Music] Danny is in Minneapolis. Hi Danny. How are you?

Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I was calling because my 15-year-old son and I have had a debate.

And of course we need Dave and the Ransy Show to settle it. So my son, Grady, turned 16 in July. And he is adamant that he wants to go get a full-time job at our local hardware store. The day he turned 16. And I, on the other hand, have said, listen, buddy, you are going to be working for the next 50 years of your life.

What is the right answer? And I have a feeling I know the answer already. Where's his dad? Um, his dad is around. Yeah.

His dad is here. Yeah. You're married. Yep. Of course.

And what's his dad say? Um, his dad says he sees it both ways. Which I think is politically appropriate term to not make his life mad at him. I can tell you exactly. That's what's going on.

Okay. Let the kid work. Mom back home. No, I disagree.

I think the answer is both.

Okay. I think he works some. Okay. Maybe more than you want him to, but less than he wants to. Full-time is different.

I don't know if he needs to work 40 hours a week and 16 years old. But if he works three days a week or four days a week at the hardware store and learn, learn style and customer interactions, learn to have a boss and that might not be reasonable. Learn to count the appropriate amount of screws and a bin and whatever else he's going to be doing at the hardware store, right? And yeah, I think work is always good.

It's a good teacher kids to do hard things. Yep. Absolutely. And that's the thing that I think that we'll go ahead and say. No.

I don't want to be to dead horse. It's one of a few times. I actually disagree. I think if the kid wants to work. Let him work.

And you've given your opinion. I don't think that your opinion is wrong. But I think that at this stage, if this young man is saying, I want to go work. He's got his reasons. And I'd let him do it.

And if he finds that maybe he wants to try his motivating him.

“So that's what he just really wants to work at this hardware store in town.”

It's really funny. And I should have started with this. But currently for the last probably three, maybe four summer he has worked like the end of the summer for a local farmer where he goes out and works. You know, three, four hours a day.

And then he goes to the little lady down the street and mold her lawn for 20 bucks in a bag of cookies.

And I mean, he's always doing things like that.

Or like he worked for the school where he helped with like the summer wreck program. But why does he want to work full time of the hardware store? I think he just thinks it's going to be a cool job. Okay. He looks at this as a way to make some money.

And he anything's just going to be fun. Yep. And he's really good about saving money. He doesn't buy like he doesn't care about name brands. He doesn't, you know, I've always, I've always said that his job is to be a kid.

And it like he is a three sport athlete. He is on the honor roll. He's just a really good kid. Yeah. Does he, does he working at the hardware store?

Keep any of that really from happening. I see that's what I worry about. Is I. No, I'm not worried about it. I think about it.

Yeah. Doesn't really keep any of that from happening. It doesn't. Yeah. And this kid is a good work.

He has, here's what I'm hearing.

He's now I'm even more entrenched in my opinion, which is written. He, listen, this kid has self-selected throughout his life. I know people like this. I'm an nerd like that. He likes to work.

He likes to be busy. I've always liked that. And I'm the same way. And I will just say that I, I don't think you're going to change this. In fact, I think you have a little bit of fear in this.

But because you've watched this young man be really serious compared to most kids his age, his whole life.

“And I think you wonder, is he ever going to stop to smell the roses?”

And I think what you may be missing, mom, and you're amazing, by the way. I love this discussion. It's a great discussion. I think that this kid is smelling the roses. He, he's on the farm, working three to four hours a day while being a three, three sports

stud and crushing it in his academics. He's got a different motor than most people. Well, I'm sitting next to a guy who I have actually vacationed with. And he's gone, he's going nonstop. I was at his Lake House one time and I was exhausting watching Dave relax.

And by the way, his family will tell you. And I say that with love, but it's true. He's got a motor that most people don't have. I can name two or three other well name men. I won't.

Who I've worked for that have the same motor. And all I'm saying is, I think you're a good mom. But I think your son has got his own motor. And in this case, he's not doing anything that is anyway suppressing his desire. I think he's fulfilling his desire.

I guess guys going to be a multi-millionaire entrepreneur and provide jobs. And I'd say let him go, mom. And if when he gets to be insane, I think I'm working too much. Then you come in and say, well, buddy, you're only 16. Why don't you do something fun for two weeks?

You know, I just think this kid's wired differently.

“That's why I said he gets great joy from this.”

Oh, it's so obvious. Yeah. And if he gets great joy from it, then it's not work. He's helping the farmer for three to four hours. Then he goes and helps the old lady cut her lawn.

For $20 in cookies. This kid is wired to do stuff. Yeah, he's a doer. He gets grabbed on. So I like him.

But I think he's, I think what Danny is someone that's similar. I get great joy from working. It's why I'm 65 years old. I'm a multi-millionaire. I don't need to work.

“I don't have to do this because I get great joy from this.”

He's got a sit next to me, folks. I can only joy. It brings him into this. Can you just, you're joy personified? Thank you.

But the, that's the thing. You do get joy from getting things done from traction, from accomplishment.

More than I get joy of, I have never in my life gone to the beach and sat.

In the, on the chair. Hmm. I just, that does not bring me joy. Oh, I know. Some people call that smelling the roses.

That's not roses. I'm smelling. So, I don't, it's not, not for me. I mean, it's okay if you want to. I'm not mad at you.

You're not wrong. Yeah. But I'm also not wrong. That's correct. That's, yeah.

I'm with you, Dan. I can't on that.

“And Danny, I love that you're a great mom and you're concerned about his balance and mental health.”

And all of that.

But just make sure he's getting joy out of this.

And then he's not being driven by some demon. If he's being driven by some kind of performance accomplishment demon or something, then yeah, I might, I might back him off. I might put a bridal on that. But if the kid just likes getting stuff done, and he likes learning things and he likes engaging.

And he's got a, like Ken said, he's got a big motor. I'd, I'd tune that motor up and let it run. That's what I would do. Yeah. By the way, great job, mom and dad.

Yeah, that doesn't happen by accident. The good news is they're both sitting there talking about it and it's having a discussion. And they're trying to look at life with a good lens and wisdom. Yeah, I don't think there's any wrong actors in this discussion. It's just good, healthy people.

And yeah, it's, I got to tell you, I would rather hire him and have to talk him into slow and down than hiring some wetwood and trying to get it burning. It's so true. I heard some wetwood, you can't get burning. No matter how much gas you put on.

It's so true.

“He's very employable for the rest of his dead come life.”

Oh, he's going to employ a lot of people. Yeah. Mark it down. Yeah. He's not ever going to say take it easy and mean it.

It's so true. It's so fun. It's so fun. Yeah, we need more of him out there actually in this world. So it's a good thing.

But yeah, it just needs to come from a place of health. And a place of wisdom, a place of, you know, today when Sharon and I vacation, you know, we special, I don't want to be sitting in XYZ city around the world and have missed it because I needed to sit there and rest. I'm going to go out and see this thing.

I came all the way over here to see this thing. Let's see it. And so we're like, we're wearing the tour guide out. They're exhausted. So, but that, you know, I didn't come over here for that.

I could have stayed home if I went to Rish. That reminds me of our all-time favorite tour guide in Philadelphia. That poor guy couldn't breathe. We were walking so filled with Delphia. Remember that guy?

Yes, that guy that way. You couldn't keep up with us. He's all-time worst tour guide we've ever had. Yeah, that's story we can't share. But really, it was a great memory.

But, you know, all-time, all-time greatest. But you know, there's something to people, parents. If you've got a kid that's wired that way, uh, put some holes on that fire. So throw a bread 'em, go.

Throw a bread, but let 'em go. Let 'em run. Just do it. Pull up it. [ Music ]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman Ramsey Personality is my co-host. I'm Dave Ramsey. Ralph is in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hi, Ralph. What's up? Thank you for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's how can we go?

Well, I'm trying to get to a million dollars before I grow.

Um, I don't know anybody anything. Everything has been paid for, um, so I'm just trying to get some advice and how can I invest, I've got about 42,000 in a brokerage. I've got about 40,000 in a bank. And I've got a 40,000 in emergency fund.

So I'm just trying to figure out how to get there. I watch your shows.

“And you talk about growth stock mutual funds.”

But everything I look at is paying two and three and four percent. Not paying 10 or 11. So I don't know. I need advice. Okay.

Well, growth stock mutual funds aren't paying 2%. That would be CDs and money market funds. How you'll savings and that kind of thing. So other things that I own. Do you own a piece of real estate?

I own the house I'm living in. Yeah. No, what's it worth? Oh, right. I have no money.

What's the whole thing? Well, I had two estimates, one between 489 and 517. Okay. So let's call it. We'll just round it.

Call a half million dollars.

Okay. So you're half way there with that. Yeah. And how old are you? Yeah.

87. Okay. And what's your current income? Uh, I get railroad retirement. I don't get so security.

Okay. And that comes out to $39,000 a year. So it's $3,245 a month. Okay. Are you living on that?

Oh, yeah.

“I live about, I take out about $600 a month.”

And I live on that. And then I, I have something. It's worth less to say than my checking. Okay. And so I get some bills.

I do have, talk the credit cards.

I do not, I always pay off all the debt.

I don't pay, I don't pay any interest. And I have an IRA that's worth like $96,314. Uh, what is that investment in? I don't know. Right now it's getting in cash.

Okay. I don't get me about $560 a month. But you don't need it. Oh, I don't need it. No, it's just going.

I just have to take out my, my, what I have to take out every year. Okay. All right. So between the 40, the 42 and the 96, that puts you. I'll just use round numbers.

Let's call it $150,000. Okay. If $150,000 were invested at around 10%. As an example, here's how the math works. It will double every seven years.

So it would be 350 when you're 80. No, I'd be 300 when you're 89 and it would be 600 when you're 96. That's if you add nothing to it and it were invested that way.

“What is the need to have a million dollars before you die?”

What's the, just to go to the set or is there something going on? Yeah, just to go. Okay. If the goal is then how can I better use my money to have to do the best possible job of managing God's money?

Then I think I can help you with that.

I'm not sure we can get to the million dollars unless you live a lot longer than most people,

but you already have. Well, my family's living long lives. Okay. You might make it then. All right.

Cool. It's just a math thing. I have some other stuff. I have about 33,000 and silver. Okay.

Okay. That I bought many years ago. I collect wholesale trains since a little boy and I went to work for the railroad. I worked on the railroad. And I figured that's worth about 25,000.

Have you got family? Okay. You have family? Yes. I have three children.

Two boys and a girl. All right. Two adults and two one female adults. All right. And do they have children?

Yes. I have six grand daughters out of the three of them. Okay. All right. There's no chance I'm selling those trains.

They need to go to your grandkids. Grandpa spent his life working on the railroad. The grandpa has the best crane collection in the world. They need to go to those kids. Not that those little girls are necessarily going to play with them.

But they may want to leave them to their sons. That is a family heirloom. Sure. You do not get rid of that. Yeah.

And I also have a truck in two cars. And truck is a 2000 Dodge. And it would be an antique here in probably two years when it gets 25. Everybody likes it. And I'm trying to get 25,000 out of that.

I have a sonata that's a 15 that I bought used. And I have a kind of a crolla. Anything that anything on this whole list that you've given me that you don't want to keep

And you would rather have an investments. You could roll all of it into a simple mutual fund investment with the smart register Pro. And it would all. The money would do better there than it'll do in silver than it'll do in the checking

account. And it'll do in the $96,000 sitting in cash. All of those things are underperforming by at least 10% a year. But I'm not. It's okay if you don't do anything with it Ralph.

But you called and asked me how to maximize. And so what I would tell you to do just go to Ramsey Solutions.com and get with the smart Vester Pro sit down with someone as the heart of a teacher.

And finally, carefully decide yourself what you're comfortable with investing, which items

are your comfortable with liquidating and moving into a little bit slightly more aggressive investment.

“And if that's your goal and that's what you want to do, then you can do that with every one of those”

things. And I personally, I'm 65. I would personally be very comfortable doing all of those things myself at 82. You'd be comfortable with it because it's you. And so you need to sit down with somebody and walk through that and say, okay, now I want

to keep myself. Okay. I don't necessarily agree with that. But if you want to, it's okay. Or Dave, I want to keep that much in cash.

Extra cash. Okay. That's fine. But you're making that decision.

And every one of those things are earning 2% instead of 10 or 12.

And that's what you can do. But there's no great crisis in anything you're talking about. Other than I would strongly advise you to keep that train set. I agree. My granddaddy also collected trains and just gorgeous, gorgeous.

My dad has it and I'm getting it eventually. And it's special. I mean, that stuff is so well-heancrafted. I mean, it's, it's nice. Yeah.

And the fact that he worked at the railroad. That's, that's the story. It's one of the things. I mean, I'm getting old. I'm thinking about things like that that the grandkids.

It's not a dollar bill they need. They need to remember something. This is what the old man represented. Yeah.

“And this item reminds me of that's what he did.”

How he did it. Mm-hmm. And this man's, Ralph's lived a great life. Fantastic. Way to go, Ralph.

You did good, man. And you're, you know, you're able to eat on what your income is. And, and you do anything you want to do. You got more cars than you have drivers and life's good. Yeah.

It's living off of $600 a month. And, by the way, comfortably. He's not gripping. Didn't hear anyone. I didn't hear any whining.

None at all. When people hear my story of ping off dead, they say things like, "Dang, that must have been so hard. I can never do that." And I tell them, "Sure you can."

It's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. But, do you know what's really hard?

“Working your whole life and never having anything to show for it.”

Never having the long-term gain.

Just feeling broke, stressed, and maxed all the time. And sadly, that's the hard that most people choose. Listen, you're capable of transforming your situation and living a life of freedom. But you need the right tools to do it.

Like, our every dollar budget app. In minutes, it'll build you a step-by-step plan that's tailored to your money situation. And every day, it finds ways you can free up extra money in your budget so you can get rid of your debt

and actually build wealth. So make the choice today. Short-term sacrifice, long-term gain. Choose the tool to help you get it done fast. Download the every dollar app and start for free today.

[Music] The Ramsey Show, question of the day, is sponsored by Why ReFi. If your private student loans are in default, that's a mess. But why ReFi can help you clean it up? Why ReFi helps borrowers refinance with low fixed rate payments

and a clear plan forward, so you can clean things up and get back to making real progress. Go to WhyReFi.com/Ramsy. That's the letter WhyR-E-F-Y.com/Ramsy. Might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Spencer in Alaska. We have our emergency fund in a high yield savings account, but have a question about what to do with the accrued interest. Do we keep the interest in the account, or would it be a better idea to take out just the interest

for the year and put it toward our mortgage? We have 65,000 in the HYSA, and that is plenty for our six-month emergency fund.

I don't think there's any wrong thing by doing that.

I've never pulled that out.

I just let it sit in hours. Because it's not enough to work. It's not a whole bunch.

“I mean, if it's making 3% it's 1800 bucks.”

I mean, 1800 bucks is not changing either a thing substantially. 65 plus 1800 is not much more, and 1800 towards your mortgage is nice, but I think Spencer's a nerd. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm with you, can. I think either way is fine. There's not a writer or a wrong answer. It would be something you slap your hand on the table, and say you're under the stupid column if you did one,

and the smart column if you did the other. I have not touched mine. I'm just trying to think what I've actually done. Yeah, I just never thought of it. It's not enough money.

Right. Percentage wise in the situation to think about. Let's sure. If you want to do that. If you're being real intense,

65K is plenty of emergency fund. If you're being real intense and really detailed about throwing everything at the mortgage, pulling that interest off and looking at it, put the one at the mortgage is just fine.

The other thing you could do is actually adjust the 65. That may be a little much. You know, three to six months. You've got a six month emergency fund, so that means you need what?

$10,500 a month to live on for six months. That's a lot. Yeah. It's a hefty emergency fund. Yeah, I might back that down to 50.

I don't know why you've got $10,000 a month in expenses. If you're down to only the mortgage. You don't have any debt except the mortgage. It takes you $10,000 a month to live. Really?

Okay. I mean, Alaska is expensive, but I don't know. Anyway, think of that part through. I'll probably pull the money off because you're worried about it, and just throw it at the debt,

and I might consider low in the emergency fund and throw it at the debt as well. Get rid of that mortgage. I'm with you, brother. Emily's in San Diego.

Hi, Emily. How are you? Hi, I'm good. I'm excited to be talking to you guys. You, too.

What's up?

So basically, my question is,

would it be wise to consider moving to another state due to the financial reasons? Tell us more, moving where for what reason? I'm just like another state. Like I was looking at Iowa or like Oklahoma.

Just somewhere where it's the cost of living as a lot cheaper. I'm the idea of background a little bit. Yeah, that'd be helpful. Yeah.

Basically, I was laid off for my job last month. And I was working part-time while I'm in school. To become a mental health counselor. But in the job was in that field. And I didn't really like the job that much.

So I basically, when I got laid off, kind of had an existential crisis, where I am like basically,

“I think I'm thinking about dropping out of the program.”

And so, and then so I can just work full time. But it's really hard to find a job right now in San Diego. A full time job. I can probably find something part-time. And I'm moving my job right now.

I'm 32. And how are you paying the bills outside of this part-time job? Who are you living with? What's going on there? Yeah, I live with my dad.

So that's another reason why I'm like want to move out. I haven't lived with him for my whole life. I've lived outside, I lived on my own before, but I had some mental health issues that I was dealing with. So I had to move back home with him.

Okay. So let's go back to the future. So have you determined, it sounds like you've determined, you don't want to be in the mental health space as a professional. Yes.

Okay. It's great news. Because we've released it. Okay. We don't even spend any more time in school.

Any more effort on that. So now we've got to take some time to get clear. And we're going to help you with that. I'm going to give you a resource in a moment.

But the first thing we've got to do is we've got to get AJOB just to get some independence

that you're out of dad's house. And we just can breathe. We can pay the bills to get us to a place where we can actually be clear and figure out our future. Yeah.

“If you got a job today in Oklahoma City, how would you get there?”

Yeah. I would drive. I mean, you got money to get a rent a rent apartment. So yeah, that's another thing. I have some student loan debt, but I do have about $15,000 saved.

So you've got some cash to make the move and get established in another market.

Any idea what you want to do with your future?

“I think I want to go into administrative work because I've done that in the past.”

And I kind of liked it. So great. Think about being good move. Okay. And so have you thought about or looked into? What is the top of that world look like?

In other words, a job that's making the most amount of money you can make as an administrative person. That could either be project management. As you move up the level, it could be an executive assistant for a very high end executive, where you're talking six figures. Have you mapped that out about what all I could do within administrative work?

Uh, I've looked into a little bit. Yeah. Good. That's the rest of you.

You got a homework assignment to look at somebody like you who enjoys administrative work.

Let's just simplify it by they dot the eyes, they cross the T's. They get a lot of enjoyment out of execution, right? I get a checklist, it's clear, and then I get it done, and that really fires me up. So with growth experience and skill acquisition over time, you can make six figures with that skill set and that enjoyment.

So you've got to start right now at 32. Let me see all the different paths out there in the grand world of jobs where I could go, and you really got to do that now so that we go, okay.

“I think that I could be very excited about.”

What does it look like to get qualified to move up? And so we get a plan. We don't just decide to go to Iowa or Oklahoma, right? Right. Because that is being willing to move to another state with a lower cost of living,

associated with a new job might be a very wise move.

Yeah. But just putting your clothes in a paper bag and throwing them in the back seat and taking off, driving with 15,000 cash in a student loan. I don't think so. Yeah.

We need to be aiming at something a little bit more specific rather than, let's run two something instead of from San Diego. Yes. And leverage debt, leverage debt right now for some safety so that I can a get some stability and pay off the student loan.

Yeah. For a short period of time. I mean, sure.

“I'd like for you to get to find something in another city.”

Yeah. In the next two weeks and move. Well, that'd be great. But I want you to move to something not from something. And if you don't have a job lined up and you just load up the car,

your what's known as homeless. Right. So I don't want to do that. So we need to, you know, I'm with you on the existential crisis and the reset.

I think all of that sounds solid. It sounds like you've really processed that through. I didn't, I didn't hear anything there that gave me pause. I just want you to land on something that is very intentional. The power of intentionality.

And winning is not an accidental exercise. It's a series of intentional exercises. And so winning at your career putting together quality life, a sustainable situation. In this case, starts with an income.

Yeah. And hey, we want to give you. So hang on the line. Kristen's going to get you a copy of find the work you're wired to do. Comes with the get clear career assessment.

It's been 20 minutes on the assessment. And about an hour on the book. And it's going to get you way further down the line so that you have some clarity of those options within that administrative detail space. [ Music ]

It's that time again folks. Tax season is here. I know some of you would rather bury your head in the sand until April 15th then face your taxes. But here's a better idea.

If your tax situation is complicated, get in touch with a Ramsey trusted tax pro today. That way they can take the stress off your shoulders. Once those tax forms come in and teach you how to keep your tax bill as low as possible. But don't wait, Ramsey trusted pros can book up fast.

Go to RamseySolutions.com/TaxPro to find one who serves your area with excellence. That's RamseySolutions.com/TaxPro. [ Music ] Hey guys, if you ever wanted to see the person who's calling in on the show, let's ask you the question.

Would you like to begin the room when we answer it?

The Ramsey show is going back on tour and going to be doing the Ramsey show live. You experience live, Q&A, crowd debates, local debt free screen, even roll confessions. So the team is going to be doing four of these. One in Charlotte, one in Denver, one in Phoenix and one in Anaheim, all in April. Just starting in just a few weeks.

It's only about 300 seats per night. Last year we sold all this out in about three days.

“If you want to come, there's a few seats left and you can still come.”

So again, Charlotte Denver, Phoenix and Anaheim. Grab your tickets for the Ramsey show live on tour. RamseySolutions.com/events or click the link in the show notes. Jessica's in Rochester, New York, Hyd Jessica, how are you? I'm doing great of a strange seat.

Thank you so much for having me on the show. I can't really believe that I'm over here right now. Well, we're glad you're here. How can we help? Thank you. So I was blessed to read your book in June.

And so in July, we got the every dollar app and it has completely came for life.

When we actually calculated all our debt, we were almost half a million.

Hey, in debt. And we didn't even realize it. Like our income is great. And we didn't realize what was happening. So we have actually sent July pay off $120,000 of debt.

Good for you. So what is your answer? A couple questions. Last year, we made 268,000. Good for you.

“My husband and I both have full-time jobs.”

And I actually worked two full-time jobs. And then I pick up hours of the hospital on the weekend. And we've been really gazelle intense because this is July. Now, the 500,000 debt include a mortgage or that was all non mortgage debt. No, that was our mortgage.

We had a home equity loan. So how much is your mortgage? Our mortgage right now is 90,000.

Okay, and that's in that half a million.

Yes. So that's a baby step six. Okay, so you got four hundred and ten thousand of which you've already paid off 150. Way to go. Yes, thank you.

Yeah, we, I did have a couple questions about the things like I know I'm not supposed to. But I wanted to know if I can do a few things out of order. So right now we owe $6,000 in taxes because we didn't account for how much money we're going to make. So we already have that in the banks. We just have to file our taxes for that.

“We have a home improvement loan that we're going to do next.”

And then we have two car leases that we are just about ready. And then we're going to pay cash for the R&D cars. Good. So then once those leases are done, those will be cash. Good.

So then we have a hundred thousand dollar home equity loan. Mm-hmm. And I know I've talked. I listened to some of you all. I talked about sometimes you can put the home equity in with the mortgage at step six.

Mm-hmm. Our home equity loan when we did that last year. We actually did it for like a five year plan. Because I wanted to be, I want to get the best interest rate. And I wanted to be done as quickly as possible.

So we're already a year into that. So I wasn't sure if I could kind of wait. To then be able to save up our savings instead of attacking 100,000 in home equity. Or not. So that's like my first question.

So your household income is 268.

We always say if the home equity loan is less than half.

Your annual income, it ought to be in baby step two. So, but your 268 includes working three jobs. Yep. I worked. Yeah.

I've taken that for jobs. I know. But I'm saying technically your 268 is not your real income. This is a temporary spike because you're working with gazelle intensity. Yeah.

So I mean, if we put your income at 200,000, then the home equity loan could roll to baby step six. And I think that's fairly safe. So it's okay if you roll it to six. Here's the danger.

How old are you? Um, it has an I or 40. Okay. Does it feel like to you that COVID was yesterday? It feels like it to me.

Well, I work in healthcare. I know. Does it feel like emotionally? It feels like emotionally. That that five year period of time was yesterday.

That went really fast, didn't it?

That's how fast the stupid home equity loan is going to go to.

“And it's going to come up and punch you in the face if you don't get rid of it.”

Yeah. Five years is a heartbeat. That's my point. Yes. So you got to attack it.

As soon as you get that emergency fund done, and you all start putting 15% away into your retirement. You're going to have to lean on this thinking home equity loan because that five years is going to come up and bite you in the butt. Yes. Agreed.

And I want you to lose your house because of this discussion. I'm sorry. I don't want you to lose your house because of this discussion. Oh, no. No, we won't.

Oh, no, no. I lost my job in the home equity loan came doing. We didn't have it paid off. Dave, so I got four closed on. Well, we're grateful that we're actually paying.

Like the home equity or monthly payment will be done in five years.

All right. That helps. We're not like waiting to pay on that. We're paying that every month as part of our baby step two. All right.

So it's not got a balloon or a call. It's going to. It's going to hammer for us. It's not got a balloon or a call. Okay.

Yes. That helps. But you see my point. I don't want this to sneak up on you.

“But maybe step six, still be worried about it.”

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Be attentive. Okay.

I will. Don't worry. I actually.

I already told my husband.

We should just pay it off within another year. I'm okay with that too. I'm okay with that too. And just because it doesn't tend to just pay off both. And then he completely done is kind of their goal.

Yeah. So if we have time to have questions about public loan forgiveness. I wouldn't bother with it. You make a lot of money. You're great at what you do.

Just clean up your stinkin' debt. You've done a great job. Don't sit around and wait on the government to fix your life. The public loan forgiveness is so full of holes. So many problems.

It's political and nature more than it is practical. And I just wouldn't screw with it. I would just say, I've made this debt. I'm getting out of this debt. And you know, you're already working 63 positions.

You know how to clear your debt. I wouldn't be sitting around worrying about that for 30 seconds. Whether it's just get it done. Just get it done. You are doing so good.

Ride the horse. Ride the horse. You're doing great. Just stay on. You're right.

I mean, things run so fast as scaring you. And just ride it. Don't look for it. Don't look for a shortcut. There's not one.

Get it. Keeps punching it in the nose. Over and over and over again. She's going to do it again. Well, there's a question because this is what we talk about when we do debt free

screens. And you hear us ask people, what was it like when did it kick in the momentum? And when you've paid off this kind of debt in such a short amount of time. And now she's working her absolute tail off. That is somebody you know is going to finish the race.

Because she's been doing this long enough to had some nights where she's probably just cried out of exhaustion. Or wondered why am I doing this? And she keeps showing up. That's the sign that someone like her or husband they're going to get there. Because this is hard.

That's hard to work that many, that many hours a week. I don't care what the work is. It's hard. Yeah. You just get tired.

“But the only thing driving you is the progress and the traction.”

That's right. And the reward is that we're making so much, you know, I can look back and go. That much has gone. So that tells me there's a light at the end of the tunnel. This is not an oncoming train.

And then I could just push on the gas pedal one more time and go again and go again and go again. But it's hard. It's hard. It's just not as hard as being broke your whole freaking life because you didn't do it. I mean, mediocre is really hard too.

Average is really hard. Normal sucks. You don't want to be normal. You want to bust whatever you've got to bust to get out of normal. And that's what, you know, that's what everything we teach us about that.

You know, don't be normal. The Bible says, be not conformed to this world. Don't be normal. Be transformed. By the renewing of your mind.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show.

It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. Our scripture today, Matthew 6, 20, and 21, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

Or moths and vermin do not destroy and worth thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Tom Snyder said, "Mysers are no fun to live with. But they make great ancestors." That's pretty funny.

I've not heard that one. Mark is with us in Seattle. How are you? How about you guys? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, I'm just wondering if you think is very good reason to consider getting term life insurance as a single person.

“Or is it just better to wait until if I'm eventually married?”

Better to wait. Yeah, the only reason you would need term life insurance is if you're going to leave something that's burdened to someone you love. And so if you're single and you signed a $25,000 card note with your dad and you died. He could stuck with that card note, then you were going to get a life insurance. Or if you're single and you don't have any money saved and your sister's got a pay for you to be buried,

well, you might want to get a life insurance.

But I'm guessing just listening to you for a second, you probably have enough to bury you.

Yeah, and I also have some life insurance to my employers. Yeah, you're thinking. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I figured this is if I don't have any real dependence that may not be necessary at this point of my life. It's not. How old are you 25?

36. 36. Okay. Wow. Okay.

And yeah, you're you're exactly right. Yeah, you just need enough to clean up whatever mesh you're going to leave behind.

“And as, you know, we don't want to call wife and kids a mess, but that's a mess you're going behind, right?”

And it would be a better mess. And so yeah, you'd need life insurance. But what you've got to work with your your mom or dad or your sister or whoever could take it and clean up your affairs without being a financial burden on them. And so you're just fine. And you've probably got a little on a 401k or you got a little money in a chicken or say, you know, maybe you got your emergency phone in place. So you're just fine. Well done. John Paul's in to pick a Kansas. Hey, John Paul. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you guys doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, first off, I just wanted to say real quick. And I'll get straight to my point.

Ken and Dave. You guys are both amazing. I've been listening to your podcast for a while now since I was 16.

And then every day for the past couple months. Loveless and you guys love all the insights. So, first and foremost, thanks for taking my call. I have I have two questions, but Dave just answered one of them. I think 10 minutes ago I'm phone with somebody else. Basically my wife and I. We just bought a house. This is our first one. And this is also the first bet either of us is that we're getting into.

Wow. So my my question is yeah, we bought the house for $250,000. It's been very sturdy neighborhood. It's a good house. It's solid. We had a lot of help from my wife's grandfather. He's a real leader. And so that's been a huge blessing. We're just good spot right now. We put 10% down. And then right after we had signed everything and we're closing on Monday. I got a pretty substantial payway that work. I'm in a new position.

And so I was doing the budget the other day. And I'm basically my first question is, how intense can we get with this mortgage?

Well, if you're that's only that you have. You have an emergency fund. I guess after you closed. Yes, sir. And what's your household income? Currently, it's with the raise. It should be somewhere on 95,000 after. Excellent. And what's the balance on your mortgage? Okay. So you got all excited and wanted to dump all the raise on that. And she said, no, I want to buy a couch.

Not like not like. So argument is a strong word for what I had said originally. We talked about this last night.

“Okay. It's a good. It's a fun discussion. Okay. That's fair. So here's the thing.”

Absolutely. So you're in baby steps four five and six. You need to be putting 15% of way of your income away into good retirement accounts. Roth IRAs and anywhere you've got a Roth 401k is anywhere. There's a match in good growth stock mutual funds. Beyond that, it sounds like you don't have any kids. That's maybe step five six is we put everything else on the house. Now four five and six are intentional not intense.

And anywhere in there, I'm okay with five dollars extra on the debt. It's not what I'm talking about. We ought to put something substantially extra and get this house paid off early.

But that doesn't mean we don't go on vacation and it doesn't mean we don't upgrade her. So we still do the basic things without splurging too much on the other things. But also keeping in mind, I want to keep the crosshairs on that mortgage and knock that mortgage out as fast as I can. The faster you get it knocked out, the faster you're getting to be a millionaire because when you got no payments in the world and you're making a hundred thousand bucks a year, you can become a millionaire.

“And you're young and you got all kinds of time to do this and you've been very conservative in your purchase and you're a love your numbers, they're great numbers. I think you're great.”

I don't think you're going to have a wrong answer between the two of you because I think both of you got good sense.

Yeah. Jeff is in Denver. Hey Jeff, what's up? Hey Dave, I am so excited to talk with you guys. So my wife and I are now passing into retirement age. We've been following baby steps since I think we first got married then only recently came across, you know, you guys.

And we're going, wow, this is really neat, but so Dave, we put that cut to the chase. We've saved about five million. Why do we go? We just finished paying off the house. We really have no debt.

“But we're listening on the radio today and you guys were saying, well, you should invest and make ten to twelve percent and I'm like, how the heck do you do that?”

Well, the S&P 500 is average to 11.8 percent and that's the stock market. Okay. So just, I mean, obviously, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, right? I mean, or do you just want to invest in the S&P 500 fund? I don't know, Dave, that's it. Well, I have my investments in growth stock mutual funds across four categories, growth growth income, aggressive growth and international and one of the ways I pick the fund is I want to pick a fund that is outperformed historically the S&P. And then my other investments are in real estate that I pay cash for. Okay. And they do way more than twelve percent. Okay. Okay. I'm really afraid of real estate because I don't, that's fine.

That's fine. No problem. You don't have to do it. But you know, the bottom line is if you had just had your money in an S&P in 2025, it would have made 17.9 in 2024. It would have made 25.6 in 2023. It would have made 26.3. That's what the S&P returned in those last three years. Those are above average returns. I don't think it's going to keep returning like that. Those are unusually high good years. This year were flat year to date in the S&P with a little bit of a roller coaster ride due to Iran getting bombed. But overall, I'm very comfortable in investing in mutual funds for 30 plus years and I'm very comfortable that I can get north of 10 percent on average over a long period of time.

But I don't, you know, I'm not sweating it, but I shouldn't be getting three percent when I've got those kinds of rates of return floating around. Yeah. I'm just curious how he amassed five million dollars. You know, I don't know if he's done company 401k's and doesn't understand the correlation of what you're talking about there. But I mean, that's, you don't really well. It's done very well. Yeah. Way to go. Congratulations. It's unbelievable. Yeah. And so when you get somebody like that that is amassed, you know, and he wants to diversify now does he go the just the standards diversification.

Yeah. I would, but I mean, it's up to him. Yeah. I mean, mathematically, that's what I would do emotionally. I mean, it sounds like he might not want to do that. Right. Right. But that's okay. You don't have to do it, but you're asking how I did it or how we, why we would say something like that on the air.

“Well, that's why, 17.9, 25.6 and 26.3. That's the last three years. And so, you know, that's kind of how this works. So, but again, that's how you can get to an average of 11.8 since the stock market began.”

When other years, you might make six or seven or eight. And, you know, and that drags the average down. So there you go. But all of these things beat high yield savings for sure. That puts us out of the Ramsay show in the books. We'll be back with you before, you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace for our Jesus.

This is the Ramsay show. The Ramsay show live is your chance to actually be part of the show. Ask your burning question live.

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