Discipline Is the Key to Building Wealth

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Speaker 1 Emily is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Emily.
How are you?

Speaker 2 Hi, how are you guys doing today?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 3 So quick question. I've been dating a lovely young man for about nine months, and we had a random conversation that came up about retirement savings.

Speaker 3 I'm a big saver, so I'm really into I have 401k and a Roth IRA.

Speaker 4 And his response was that all that matters is working and making money now, and that 401ks are a scam.

Speaker 3 And I just want to know what the best way to approach this conversation is to try to help him maybe understand the importance of saving for retirement.

Speaker 11 Did you ask him why he thinks they're a scam? Was there any kind of follow-up on that particular classification of it?

Speaker 3 Not necessarily. He is actually, he moved here from Albania six years ago.

Speaker 3 And he just became a citizen this year.

Speaker 1 And how old is he?

Speaker 4 He's 32, and I'm 30.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean,

Speaker 1 what he's saying is, without, I mean, I don't know why he thinks 401ks in particular are a scam, but what he's saying is, is that I came from an area where we are living hand to mouth, and thinking about the future is not something I want to do.

Speaker 1 I want to just enjoy the moment because

Speaker 1 the way the situation I grew up in, there might not be a next moment for whatever reason. I don't know.
I'm guessing, okay?

Speaker 1 I'm going to try to give him a break here because what he's saying is basically he's saying, I'm immature and I don't want to think about the future.

Speaker 1 Right. And we can give him a lot of grace as to why he might be in that based on, you know,

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know what the situation was in his area of Albania. I'm not privy to that.
But

Speaker 1 I can guess that maybe the instability politically or whatever, safety-wise or whatever,

Speaker 1 in the area he was in, has influenced this viewpoint. Agreed?

Speaker 1 Agreed. But it is a broken and stupid and immature viewpoint, regardless of how he got there.

Speaker 1 Regardless of how he got there, okay? And so that's a problem for you because you get to live with someone who's going to do no planning for the future, which guarantees your future sucks.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 That's a problem. So that has to be solved relationally going forward.
So we have to solve for this and walk him out of that or walk away from him.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm going to recommend, Emily,

Speaker 11 I'm going back to the days when I taught all three of my kids to ride a bike.

Speaker 11 And if in fact he is truly scared of this product, 401k, because he doesn't understand it, maybe there was corruption, all the things that Dave pointed out.

Speaker 11 If in fact he's truly afraid of it, and that's why he calls it a scam, then in fact, now you can deal with fear because he doesn't understand it. So, it's like teaching someone to ride a bike.

Speaker 11 They're scared to death to ride a bike. So, what do you do? You put training wheels on first, right?

Speaker 11 And then you move from training wheels to I would hold the back of the seat and I would run with them for a bit. The point is, this is going to be a gradual teaching process for you, I think.

Speaker 1 If in fact we talk about this relationship being permanent.

Speaker 11 That's right.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 1 Okay. Now, and so, you know, I'll give you another example that runs parallel.
Okay.

Speaker 1 If you come from

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 1 Latin American country where

Speaker 1 the banking system is full of fraud and is unstable and doesn't have an FDIC underpinning, and people lose their money when the bank goes broke, like they did in the Wild, Wild West in America.

Speaker 1 If you come from one of those Latin American countries and you come here, it's not unusual at all for

Speaker 1 people from that type of a culture to have a deep distrust of banks.

Speaker 1 And yet the banking system in America, even though I hate banks, but I mean, it's not your money's not unsafe in a bank in America. That's an absurd idea.

Speaker 1 But it's based on where they come from, not based on reality.

Speaker 1 Now, if you're going to marry someone who says, I'm going to stack $200,000 under our mattress, in cash because I refuse to accept the fact that American banks are safe based on the country I grew up in, they're not safe, then that's not marriage material.

Speaker 1 You're marrying someone that has not adapted well to the new culture that they live in. And you're going to have problems as a result and shortages and issues.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, you've got to make, they have to make the transformation.

Speaker 1 If that's what it is, if it's simple immaturity,

Speaker 1 I'm 14 years old and I'm going to live for Friday. Thank God it's Friday, party for the weekend.
And I meet 57-year-old Americans who do that.

Speaker 1 Okay, they have no, where there is no vision, the people perish.

Speaker 1 And they end up retiring and trying to live on Social Security and griping and whining because all the opportunity is gone in America because they drank theirs on Friday night because they were so freaking childish.

Speaker 1 Now, I meet those that are Americans that are 57 years old. You don't want to be married to that guy, you know, 25 years from now, agreed.
Agreed, Yes, sir. So I think you got to work.

Speaker 1 I think you're wise to bring the question up and you got to work through this with him

Speaker 1 or I'm going to be your old ugly uncle Dave and say, I love you. Don't marry this guy.
He ain't worth it.

Speaker 2 Yes, I appreciate all the advice.

Speaker 9 Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 That's a really cool question. It really is.

Speaker 11 I would take him to your Smart Vestor Pro if you have one, if you don't need to get one. But I would literally take him in there and I'd honor all of his questions.

Speaker 11 If in fact, and Dave and I don't know, but if in fact he's scared, I think the best way to help someone who's scared is to honor their fear. Well, there's two types of

Speaker 1 false evidence appearing real. That's right.
Which is,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 I fell on my bicycle the last time you let go of the seat and I skinned my knee. So the next time you let go, I'm going to die.
That's right. That's false evidence appearing real.

Speaker 1 You know, actual fear is of something that is logical. If you're standing in the middle of the interstate and 18-wheeler's coming at you at 100 miles an hour, you should move.
That's right.

Speaker 1 That's actual fear.

Speaker 1 You're going to die.

Speaker 1 That's a lot different, though. And so

Speaker 1 this is false evidence appearing real or it's immaturity. I don't know which.

Speaker 1 But it's one of those two things. And

Speaker 1 either way, you got to deal with it to go forward. So we got to go, we got to drill down.
We got to get the ground to zero on this and then work our way out. Really good question.

Speaker 11 And I just want to point out again, when you're in a relationship and you're not on the same page and it's really fear holding the the spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend back, honor their questions.

Speaker 11 Don't dismiss them. Don't always try to explain them.

Speaker 11 Let them sit in that and ask the questions and get with somebody, a third party, in this case, a smart investor pro who can answer every question about fraud and anything like that.

Speaker 11 And hopefully they get there and the light bulb goes off. And now we're on the same page.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's tempting to roll your eyes at something that's stupid. That's right.

Speaker 1 But you can't. You got to honor it and go, okay, there's a reason for this.
And then let's get to the root of why. And can we solve for it so we can go forward? Because

Speaker 1 we're not aligned on what reality is here. And when you can't align on reality, you have a problem.
This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host, number one best-selling author and host of a brand new show that's blasted off, I mean, super fast, on Ramsey Networks called Front Row Seat, where he does long-form interviews with people that'll help you with their information change your life.

Speaker 1 Very interesting interviews. You won't want to miss these, I promise you.
Front row seat on the Ramsey Networks. All right, Jacob is in Dallas.
Hi, Jacob. How are you?

Speaker 7 I'm doing good. Thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up?

Speaker 12 Yes, so I'm going through your baby step program currently.

Speaker 7 I'm past baby step one. I have about $3,000 in savings.

Speaker 12 I'm on baby step two, paying off debt to be debt-free.

Speaker 12 Currently, I have about $10,000 in debt.

Speaker 12 But I'm my question is, is after I pay off all my debt, and I'm looking at baby step three to save three to six months of emergency funds,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 12 But I ultimately want to be able to buy a house. And with our current financial situation, to me, I just don't see a way of being able to get there, even following the baby steps.

Speaker 1 How much debt have you paid off so far?

Speaker 9 So it was a little over $10,000.

Speaker 7 I've already paid off

Speaker 12 about a $1,500 toll bill. I paid off a $343 bill

Speaker 13 in collections.

Speaker 7 I'm looking at paying off another $700 bill in collections.

Speaker 1 So you paid off $2,000 or $3,000 of your $10,000 so far. How long have you been working on this?

Speaker 12 This actually was more recently, so I started doing this this month with my tax return.

Speaker 1 So in one month with a tax return and by focusing and being on a budget, you move the needle $3,000.

Speaker 1 Yes. How does that translate to being hopeless about the future? That doesn't make sense.
You're killing me. Well, Mike.
I'm proud of you.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I appreciate it. But I have have about $9,000 left in a vehicle loan, which should be paid off in a year and a half if I just keep making the payments as I am.

Speaker 1 You paid off the ⁇ I know, but we're not going to make the payments as you are. You're going to roll up your sleeves.
You're going to sell so much stuff the kids think they're next.

Speaker 1 We're going to get the stupid car paid off.

Speaker 1 If you've got to work an extra job, fine. Stay out of a restaurant and quit going on vacation.
Get your dadgum car paid off so you can build an emergency fund so you can get a house.

Speaker 12 Understood.

Speaker 1 I mean, you've already moved the needle $3,000.

Speaker 1 That gives me reason for hope more than you seem to have.

Speaker 11 And you've got 3,000 in savings. Baby Step One is actually just $1,000.
So you've got $2,000 that you need to be putting on that car today.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 1 So this is all new to you. This whole Ramsey thing is new to you, isn't it, Jacob?

Speaker 13 Your name has definitely gone around my church a lot.

Speaker 1 No, but I'm talking about you actually looking at the information and applying it is new.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. Because it sounds like you're fresh in this.
That's fine. I get that.

Speaker 1 The thing that I've experienced in walking with people now for 30 years doing the baby steps in detail exactly as we teach them. Okay, so you stop all 401k contributions temporarily.

Speaker 1 You don't get any more tax refunds because you adjust your W-2 to where your take-home pay is accurate. If you get a refund, it's because they're taking too much out of your check.

Speaker 1 Santa Claus doesn't live in Washington, D.C. Okay, it's your money.
You got it back with no interest a year later. So go ahead and adjust your W-2.
Stop putting money in 401k. Stop eating out.

Speaker 1 Stop going on vacation. Take an extra job.
Sell everything in sight that we can get our hands on. And let's get this car paid off as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 When that is paid off, then build your emergency fund very quickly and then start talking about saving.

Speaker 1 Now, if you start saying, Dave, it's going to take me three years to pay off $9,000 because of my lack of focus and sacrifice, then yeah, you do have a problem. You may never get a house because

Speaker 1 you're living without really leaning in and focusing on this and sitting down with your spouse and saying, we're going to sacrifice, we're going to live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else.

Speaker 1 As I've walked with people doing that, Jacob, they pick up momentum so that by the time the car is paid off and the emergency fund is in place and they come in here and do a debt-free scream, they almost always have seen an increase in income.

Speaker 1 The number of people that their income went up dramatically while they're getting out of debt is substantial because they're just focusing on it. They're going, I need more money.

Speaker 1 I got to get this moving. And so I predict that if you follow the stuff exactly as we teach, that five years from now, you will be making $130,000.
You will be debt-free.

Speaker 1 You'll have an emergency fund in place. And you'll have a good, strong down payment have already been made on a house with a 15-year fix that's a good starter house.

Speaker 1 And you're going to be putting 15% of your income into retirement and be on your way to be a millionaire. That's what we show people how to do.

Speaker 1 And you can do that with what you're doing, but you're not going to do it sitting there half, you know, it takes me three years to pay off $9,000. That, that's, you know, no, that's not okay.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to lean into it harder than that.

Speaker 1 Hang on, I'll send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, which gives you every detail of what to stop doing, start doing, and when to do it on the baby steps.

Speaker 1 And if you'll do that formula exactly and not try to make it Jacob's plan, but instead just do what you're told, it's going to blow your mind how you'll move the needle.

Speaker 1 And get your spouse on board with you, Jacob. That's a big deal.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I just would underscore what Dave said. We have heard so many debt-free screams just right across the studio here.

Speaker 11 And every time their income goes up, I've never, I'm not saying it's always the case, but I've never heard people.

Speaker 1 Something percent.

Speaker 11 And to your point, it is the momentum, mental and emotional momentum of the baby steps is what's the genius about it.

Speaker 11 When you start ticking off the debts, even in baby step two, momentum takes place and good things happen to people who have momentum. I'm just telling you, it's not a mystery.

Speaker 11 It just, because you're happening to life instead of life happening to you.

Speaker 1 Well, and we know we're in momentum. Hey, throw that book in, Christian, as well.
Throw in the momentum theorem

Speaker 1 because momentum theorem says this. It's a thing we developed to try to communicate that idea.
Focused intensity over time multiplied by God and his blessings creates unstoppable momentum.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 wandering along doesn't create any momentum.

Speaker 1 You know, dancing through the rose garden doesn't create any momentum. It's you, as we say in Tennessee in the country, you lay your ears back and you get into it, right?

Speaker 1 You stick your face in there and go. You stick your face right in the middle of the war, right in the middle of the battle, and you get after it.
And that's when stuff starts to move.

Speaker 1 But just just going, well, I think I can just, no, no, you can't do it. You've got to have more energy and focus in your voice than that and in your actions.
And Jacob, you can do all of that.

Speaker 1 You've got the ability. You've already, just in the limited time you've had some focus, paid off $3,000

Speaker 1 just because you thought about it. I mean, that's just the power of thinking about it.
Just the power of intentionality. It's very good.
I'm proud of you. All right.

Speaker 1 William is on the line in Pittsburgh. Hey, William, what's up?

Speaker 9 How's it going? I'm doing good.

Speaker 18 How about yourself?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Speaker 9 Well, what inspired this phone call is I'm getting a bonus check.

Speaker 7 It should clear on Friday. I will clear $3,800.

Speaker 19 I'm still working on paying off debt.

Speaker 18 And my truck broke down earlier this week.

Speaker 9 And I found out I'm going to be losing my job sometime after one year, but before two years.

Speaker 1 How much debt have you got?

Speaker 21 About 60K.

Speaker 1 On what?

Speaker 18 Lines of credit, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 How much on your cars?

Speaker 9 Nothing. They're both paid off.

Speaker 1 What's it going to take to fix the truck?

Speaker 19 2K.

Speaker 1 Well, there's two of your $3,800, right?

Speaker 9 Correct. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. And what did you say you make?

Speaker 12 I make

Speaker 9 with the overtime about

Speaker 7 $58,000 a year.

Speaker 17 What do you do?

Speaker 19 Did I mention I was trying to start up a landscaping business as well?

Speaker 1 I'm sorry if i didn't no but i mean you're trying to figure out what to do that makes sense if you're going to lose your job uh it's going to be a while before you lose it and you make 58 000 so um

Speaker 1 what what do you uh what's it take to get the landscaping business going

Speaker 18 i need four hundred dollars and i know that sounds a little bit ridiculous but i used to own a landscaping business and i shut it down but i already have all the you know i already have the trucks the trailers the equipment i just need to do a few tune-ups and a couple carburetors is all i need to get that up well you ought to make 400 in a week doing that

Speaker 1 if you do the tune-up, right?

Speaker 1 Correct. Yeah, go do that.
You should be able to do about $800 a week. Yeah, go do that.
And then let's get this business up to $8,000 a week

Speaker 1 before you quit, before you get fired. You quit before you get fired, right?

Speaker 1 Because you're making so much money in Landscape. That's right.
Yeah, definitely. Let's get this thing tooled up and get going.
I'm in. That's what I would do if I were you.
Good question.

Speaker 22 There's a time in your life and did the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's.

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Speaker 1 I was just talking about Ken Coleman's front row seat a minute ago.

Speaker 1 One of the guests recently was Sawhell Bloom, and Sawhell has a brand new New York Times best-selling book out, The Five Types of Wealth.

Speaker 1 And we asked him to stop by while he was hanging out with the Ramsey team here and be a part of our show today here live on the air. Welcome, Sahill.

Speaker 17 Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 Congratulations on all your success, man.

Speaker 1 Thanks blowing up.

Speaker 17 I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
It's fun to see the impact in the world, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Writing a book's a pain in the butt,

Speaker 1 but the results of it and how long it sticks around, it makes it worth doing.

Speaker 17 Yeah, something permanent permanent about a book versus anything else that you do, social media, writing, et cetera, just does feel different.

Speaker 1 Something very analog in a digital world, for sure. Very cool stuff.
All right, five types of wealth. I got to hear, what are they?

Speaker 17 So the five types of wealth that I talk about in the book, time wealth, all about freedom. Social wealth, it's about your relationships.
Mental wealth is about purpose and growth.

Speaker 1 Physical wealth is about your health.

Speaker 17 And then financial wealth is about money, what we all know and love.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'm going to guess and say you figured out that if those aren't all working, that none of them work. Yeah, the whole idea is well, anyway.
Exactly.

Speaker 17 The whole idea is that our default scoreboard, the way we have traditionally measured our lives, has been incomplete. And that has been entirely based around money.

Speaker 17 And that is part of building a wealthy, a fulfilling life, but it's not the only part.

Speaker 17 And for a lot of people, the chase and the obsessive quest to do the one thing comes at the expense of everything else. You get the Pyrrhic victory.

Speaker 17 You win the battle, but you lose the much bigger picture war.

Speaker 17 And so focusing on a more comprehensive scoreboard, a way to measure your life across all of these areas, that's how you go and build the comprehensively wealthy life that we all really want.

Speaker 1 You know, that's, we often get a question about work-life balance. in the middle of getting out of debt.

Speaker 1 You know, you're going scorched to earth while you're getting out of debt, following our process. And

Speaker 1 as if there's no way to have high quality relationships or even a social life while you work hard.

Speaker 1 People have this idea that it's on a spectrum and there's an automatic trade-off. If I get a bigger piece of that, there's a smaller piece of that.
It's not always that way, is it?

Speaker 17 No, I totally agree with you. The whole idea of even saying work-life balance fundamentally places the two things in tension, and that tension is made up.

Speaker 17 The reality is that the two can actually be part of a harmony, right?

Speaker 17 I mean, your family is on the mission with you that you are on when it comes to your work and they should feel that way because it's part of building a life together that you're on that journey.

Speaker 1 Your wife did the cover of the book.

Speaker 17 My wife did the cover of the book. Exactly right.
We're all on this mission together. I do think that

Speaker 17 the mindset of on off switches in life is one of the most dangerous mindsets we all have. We say, oh, I'm going to be focusing on making money.

Speaker 17 So too bad, you know, health, too bad, family, friends, all those things get shut off. The reality is that you can just have them on dimmer switches.

Speaker 17 Just because you're prioritizing making money and getting out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle doesn't mean you shut off these other areas.

Speaker 17 Anything above zero compounds in all of these areas of life, just as much as it does with your financial future.

Speaker 11 You know, we were talking about this when you were on front row seat, but I want to bring this up because I think there's clear data now.

Speaker 11 We can look at CEOs.

Speaker 11 We see a correlation between healthy people and actually financially wealthy as well. It's pretty interesting how that correlates.
And I think a lot of people overlook their physical health, right?

Speaker 1 Because they go, hey, I'm doing well here.

Speaker 11 What have you seen on that? And how do you correlate those in the book?

Speaker 17 Over and over again, we find that... Physical wealth, your health and vitality is a catalyst for every single other area of your life.

Speaker 17 When you take care of yourself, fundamentally what you're doing is taking back agency over your life.

Speaker 17 You believe that you have the ability to take an action, do something for your physical health and create a desired outcome.

Speaker 17 That belief that you have instilled in yourself through the physical pursuits applies to everything else that you do.

Speaker 17 You now believe that you can take an action at work and create a desired outcome, that you can take an action financially, create a desired outcome, that you can do that in your relationships.

Speaker 17 All of that is about reassuming agency.

Speaker 1 I can reassume the hero in the stories role. I can take control of this.
I can control the controllables.

Speaker 1 The number of times we've over the 35 years doing this, that someone says, oh, while I was getting out of debt, my marriage vastly improved and I lost 40 pounds, not from not eating, but from physically taking care of myself.

Speaker 1 And so it turns out discipline begets discipline is one saying that fits right with that.

Speaker 17 Yeah, absolutely. And you become a different person by taking these actions.
So as a result, you are doing one thing, but it has those ripple effects into every other area of your life.

Speaker 1 You know, we were talking earlier,

Speaker 11 Sahil, I want you to share this because we agree on this. This book has really taken off.
It's hit a nerve. And the title itself is somewhat provocative without trying to be, the five types of wealth.

Speaker 11 But in America today, we're beginning to see kind of a groundswell, a negative groundswell that's anti-successful people.

Speaker 11 Why do you think that's happening?

Speaker 17 I think that for a lot of people out there, success has become something that they don't feel they have access to. And that is fundamentally giving up your agency, right?

Speaker 17 You are saying that other people have the opportunity to do things and create success, but I do not. And so I'm going to bemoan that success because I don't feel I have access to that.

Speaker 17 If you change one thing about your life, you create that one tiny piece of momentum, reassume that agency, you will no longer believe that.

Speaker 17 You will recognize that you have the capacity to take an action and change your life.

Speaker 1 I would add to that that as a couple, particularly a young couple, we see them, once they lock arms and fix their eyes on the same goal, and then they they go slay that dragon together, they start to realize we as a couple can take agency over all these different areas of our life.

Speaker 1 And it just builds confidence. The empowerment gives you confidence to go forward.
Time, social, mental, physical, financial, the five types of wealth. Sahil Bloom is our guest.

Speaker 1 This is now a seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller. It's a legitimate, very good book, and strongly recommend you pick up a transformative guide to design your dream life.

Speaker 1 Talk about designing your dream life.

Speaker 17 It is all about taking deliberate daily actions to actually go and build the life that you want. The tiny action that you do today is going to be the thing that creates the momentum for tomorrow.

Speaker 17 The problem is that when you stare at this big wall, you're trying to go create this enormous change in your life, it's too intimidating.

Speaker 17 You look at it and you say, like, I can't possibly get to the other side of this thing. You don't have to do that.

Speaker 17 It's just about creating a little bit of awareness and then taking a tiny bit of action.

Speaker 17 Because, again, that tiny action is what creates the momentum for you to get a little bit better tomorrow, a little bit better the day after that.

Speaker 1 When you're staring at the blank screen,

Speaker 1 I'm going to write a book. Do you have that same feeling? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I better put a word down here fast so that another word comes, so that another word comes, because otherwise I'm going to be two days staring at this blank screen. Absolutely.

Speaker 17 And again, anything above zero compounds the 10 words that you write today, the 10 minutes. But successful, ambitious people are the worst about allowing optimal to get in the way of beneficial.

Speaker 17 They say, I'm not going to, I don't have an hour to work out today, so I'm just not going to work out. I don't have two hours to write, so I'm just not going to write.

Speaker 17 I don't have an hour to call my mom, so I'm not going to call her. The reality is that a five-minute call is better than nothing.
A 10-minute walk is better than nothing.

Speaker 17 Five minutes of writing is better than nothing in all areas of your life.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So make the call, do the walk.
A walk, you know, could lead to a run. You never know.
So good stuff. Very good stuff.
Very fun. And so they can also hear you on your podcast?

Speaker 11 No podcast right now but uh maybe one to come soon okay very cool a robust newsletter yes newsletter uh several times a week and uh you can get the book anywhere books are sold and i want to point out how do we get the newsletter newsletter is at sahilbloom.com s-a-h-i-l bloom.com very very good that's where that book came from by the way i want to brag on him i i had been following you for years because of that newsletter and and even on x you would put out these little nuggets and he lives what he believes on that.

Speaker 11 That's how this book came about. You tested this content for a long time, and now you're seeing the results of it.

Speaker 1 So, I wrote a book with an absolutely horrible title that didn't do very well. It's called More Than Enough.
So, answer that question. What does it mean to have enough?

Speaker 17 I love the whole idea of enough because fundamentally, enough is where you build your best life.

Speaker 1 The chase for more is a plague.

Speaker 17 More is the most most dangerous word.

Speaker 1 The minimalists would love you. Yes, they would.

Speaker 1 I love it. The five types of wealth, Sahill Bloom.
Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Thank you for having me.
So proud of your success. Very well done.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 22 All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions.

Speaker 1 Possibly, yeah.

Speaker 22 I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.
So why is that?

Speaker 1 Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.

Speaker 1 So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. And what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit.

Speaker 1 on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric.

Speaker 22 Yes. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds.
They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.

Speaker 1 You know, that's why we're partnering with them because

Speaker 1 they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience, and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service.

Speaker 1 And the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe, is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 22 And you're right. Their customer service is unbelievable.
Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not not kidding, it took, it took less than five minutes.

Speaker 22 It was so user-friendly, like the step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone.
So I answered it and talked to someone there.

Speaker 22 And they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer. And so, again, they just really care about your experience.
And I, I so, so appreciate that.

Speaker 22 So, again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but fair wins, again, they make it so easy.

Speaker 22 Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app. And you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs.

Speaker 1 Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general. And so for me to do this is a big deal.

Speaker 1 Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe. You guys, it's incredible.

Speaker 22 Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.
That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.

Speaker 22 Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way it isn't down.

Speaker 22 And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

Speaker 22 So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

Speaker 22 CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981.

Speaker 22 And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs.
They'll also help meet spiritual needs.

Speaker 22 Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs.

Speaker 22 CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget.
That's chministries.org slash budget.

Speaker 1 Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by WhyReFi. Are your defaulted private student loans keeping you up at night? Why ReFi can help you lower your payments and your interest rate?

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Speaker 11 Today's question comes from Craig in Delaware. In previous years, you've advised using a tax professional, but lately you've been promoting a software that listeners can use to do their own taxes.

Speaker 11 We've had professionals do our taxes for years, so I don't disagree with that advice. But what is the reasoning behind changing your stance on tax preparation?

Speaker 1 Data.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 1 did a better job than flying by the seat of our pants, analyzing who was coming to the website.

Speaker 1 So if someone came to the website, Ramseysolutions.com and clicked on ELP, endorsed local provider, for tax preparation.

Speaker 1 When they went to a tax professional and they had an extremely simple return, and the tax professional would charge $200 or $300 to prepare a return that takes 15 minutes,

Speaker 1 the people would say, no, I'm not going to do that. And so we were seeing like 60%

Speaker 1 of the leads that went through to the tax professionals

Speaker 1 were not qualified leads, meaning the people

Speaker 1 were not in the market to spend that kind of money to do a simple tax return, and they would opt out and go do something like TurboTax.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so we weren't serving the listener well.

Speaker 1 And it was aggravating our tax professionals because they were getting about over half of their people calling them were not turning into customers because they were not qualified leads.

Speaker 1 And so the data told us that about half of our audience would prefer to do a quick, easy digital tax return. About half of our audience has a complicated return.

Speaker 1 They own a business, they've moved, they've gone through some kind of life change change, or they have investments or whatever, and they need a tax professional and a couple hundred bucks is no big deal to them to have a more complicated return done, and they continue to use the tax professionals.

Speaker 1 But basically, about 50% of the people in our audience were just saying, bye-bye. You're not helpful.
to me and to our tax professionals. And so we said, oh, we need to be helpful.

Speaker 1 Let's figure out something because

Speaker 1 TurboTax

Speaker 1 is not really free most of the time. Most of the time you're going there, they give you some kind of an upcharge and they promote the snot out of financing.

Speaker 1 They'll loan you the money against your refund. They'll send you a credit card.

Speaker 1 They forget they're there to do taxes and try to sell you a bunch of debt. And I thought, well, if I can punch that in the nose, I'd like to do that.

Speaker 1 So simultaneously with serving our customers, we created a product with the tax slayer people and white labeled it.

Speaker 1 And the Ramsey Smart Tax is now there to serve the half of the customers we were dumping in the street. And we don't feed them a bunch of crap about credit cards while they're doing it.

Speaker 1 Oh, and it's actually what it says it is. Whatever we charge, a couple of dollars is not much.

Speaker 1 That's the number. It's not, we don't upcharge you and get you six ways from Sunday on this.
So that's why we did it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, and be paying attention, folks. It's two weeks away.
Ramseysolutions.com slash smart tax, by the way. That's where you go.
Fabulous product. If you have a simple,

Speaker 1 if it's simple. If you don't, go to the LP page and get you a professional, just like Craig is asking.

Speaker 1 But, Craig, that's a great question because really, that was, what, four years ago or something, we started working on that.

Speaker 1 But the team came in and said, Dave, we're losing, we're not serving half of the people that are asking for help.

Speaker 1 We need to find something to serve them. And prior to that, I was just like, everybody needs a tax professional.

Speaker 1 But I've always had some kind of weird return my whole life because I've been self-employed or straight commissioned or some kind of a thing going on in my, I've had real estate, all this other stuff.

Speaker 1 So I've always needed a, so I couldn't imagine just, you know, blip, blip, blip with a piece of software and being done. It doesn't occur to me.

Speaker 1 But it turns out half of our audience has a very simple return. If you don't have a simple return, don't use Ramsey Smart Tax.
Get a professional.

Speaker 1 But if you have a simple return, don't pay somebody 300 bucks to do something you can do in a few minutes with a simple piece of software for like 30 bucks or something.

Speaker 1 That's a much better better deal for you and it's a lot faster and it's very accurate.

Speaker 1 That was the other thing. I was worried about it being accurate.
It's extremely accurate. So good question, sir.
Jack is in St. Louis, Missouri.
Hey, Jack, what's up?

Speaker 20 Hi, how are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Speaker 20 Well, I am facing a decision of wanting to move to a bigger, more exciting, yet more expensive city, and I'm trying to rationalize it to myself.

Speaker 11 What's the reason beyond it being exciting? Or why is it exciting?

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 9 so I've lived in, I've been renting in St.

Speaker 20 Louis for about 10 years.

Speaker 20 I've stayed here for school and then I just happened to get a job here, but never really felt like thrilled or passionate about life.

Speaker 1 St. Louis is not a small city.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 7 I know it's not a small town, you know.

Speaker 20 I guess by big city, I mean like big metropolitan, you know, metropolises like New York City or Chicago.

Speaker 1 Where do you want to move? Where do you want to move?

Speaker 12 I've been looking at Chicago and New York City.

Speaker 11 Okay, what do you do for a living?

Speaker 20 I'm a software engineer. I work remotely, making 110K.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 11 So are you going to keep your current job and move to those cities, or are you going to try to upgrade?

Speaker 12 Well, I guess that would be a good question.

Speaker 20 Like, because, for example, New York City, like, that would be very difficult. Yeah.

Speaker 1 110K.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you're going to live in a cardboard box and you'll probably have a rat companion at that.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 11 I'm kidding. It's not that bad, but you're going to have to really think about that cost of living.

Speaker 1 Yeah, your real estate's going to double.

Speaker 1 Other cost of living is going to be higher, but not double.

Speaker 20 And there's another fear I have, if I can tell you. I'm 33.

Speaker 14 I'm not married, no kids.

Speaker 20 I'm squared away on big step two

Speaker 6 three,

Speaker 20 and I'm saving 15% for retirement in four.

Speaker 20 But I don't own any real estate and I never have. And so I'm like worried that I'm delaying homeownership to move and making life more expensive if that's something I yeah, you would be.

Speaker 1 What is it you're wanting to get out of the move? What's the move give you?

Speaker 7 I guess just

Speaker 20 invigorated passion and just lighting up my world a little bit.

Speaker 11 I'm going to tell you something. I seriously doubt that moving to Chicago or New York,

Speaker 11 in and of itself, in other words, the proximity to those cities, I don't know that that's going to give you this passion that you're looking for.

Speaker 11 I mean, if you don't change other parts of your life, in other words, you're getting excited about the world.

Speaker 1 So you're single, you're debt-free, you make $110, you're 33 years old.

Speaker 1 You could just move there and live there a month

Speaker 1 and see what happened.

Speaker 1 Leave everything in your apartment. Just pack a suitcase and go do an Airbnb for a month.
You can afford it.

Speaker 9 Yeah,

Speaker 20 that's true.

Speaker 1 And see if it does what you think it's going to do or see if Ken's right.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 11 I'm hearing so much uncertainty on you, and that's not a negative.

Speaker 11 I'm not criticizing you, but I'm hearing so much uncertainty. There's no clear why on this.

Speaker 11 And so I would hold, I like Dave's idea of kicking the tires and see what it is you're actually searching for.

Speaker 11 But I'm going to challenge you that I think what you're searching for is more fulfillment in multiple areas of your life, not about where you live.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 20 I am looking for fulfillment. And, you know, I've, Can I tell you something else?

Speaker 20 I spent my 20s in grad school living poverty line, and I I spent my early 30s dealing with chronic illness, and I've just gotten better, and I'm ready to just live.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're ready to like backpack Europe or something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, you need, you need, you need, you're, you're ready for an adventure.

Speaker 11 I, Dave, nailed it.

Speaker 1 That's what's going on. You're looking for an adventure.
An adventure is different than moving. Yeah.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 1 So go have some, hey, finance, pile up some cash and go do your remote job from a backpack and go to New York for three weeks and go to Chicago for three weeks and go to San Francisco for three weeks and have an adventure and then come back home and sit and pray about it for two weeks and see what you think.

Speaker 1 But that's different than loading up the truck and heading to Beverly.

Speaker 1 That's different than moving, right?

Speaker 1 So that's probably what I'm going to do if I'm in your shoes. I get it.
I get it. There's a pent-up lust for adventure that's fair and accurate here.

Speaker 1 You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all.

Speaker 1 Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

Speaker 1 I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world, like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity.

Speaker 1 What you need is level-term life insurance usually 10 to 12 times your income which is the smartest most affordable way to protect your family the key is finding an independent broker who represents a ton of companies and works for you not for the insurance company this is exactly what my friend Jeff Zander and his team at Xander Insurance are all about they shop the term life companies to find you the best options and they've been around for over 95 years

Speaker 1 so you know they'll be there when you need them Xander is the real deal and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years I trust them and you can too visit zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch give them a call at 800-356-4282

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host. Phone number is 888-825-5225.
Clara is in Tallahassee, Florida. Hi, Clara, how are you? I'm good.
How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 26 This is a career financial question. So I'll set the question and then I'll give you a little bit of background.

Speaker 2 I've been,

Speaker 26 am I crazy to turn down a job? So I've been unemployed for five months.

Speaker 2 I'm an older worker

Speaker 26 and financially I'm doing fine.

Speaker 26 So I could, I'm not in a rush, but I do need a job. So I've been applying and interviewing for different jobs.

Speaker 2 This is the first job that I've been offered and great people.

Speaker 26 It is a ministry organization, so good stuff.

Speaker 26 Yet, as I'm going through the process,

Speaker 2 there are just questions that I have, not ethical questions, but just process questions.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 26 I want to turn it down, but I feel should I turn it down? Because it's the only job I've been offered in five months,

Speaker 26 it would require a move across the country, which is big and expensive. And I've done that before, and it's not easy.
So I guess going back to the beginning of this, the career financial questions,

Speaker 26 great place, great people.

Speaker 1 What What is the process concern? I don't understand.

Speaker 7 It just

Speaker 26 everything seems like an emergency to them.

Speaker 26 So lots of last minute changes. And I've worked in an industry where emergency industry, so there's always going to be changes and that's not what I'm implying.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 2 it just seems like everything is last minute.

Speaker 26 And I'm not so sure I want to be in that type of environment.

Speaker 11 When you say you're fine financially, yet you need to work, can you be very specific with us on that from a number standpoint? Because it's going to affect my answer here.

Speaker 5 Awesome. Okay.

Speaker 26 I have savings that will keep me for about two years. I get

Speaker 26 a small pension from a previous job, so

Speaker 26 I can afford to not work for a while, but I want to work. I'm not ready to retire.

Speaker 1 So that's

Speaker 1 why

Speaker 5 marketing

Speaker 1 okay so are you going to be in a leadership role with this next place

Speaker 26 no it would be a step or two down

Speaker 16 so

Speaker 1 so you can't help them from that position necessarily clean up their

Speaker 1 their lack of planning which is creating emergencies I think you're saying

Speaker 11 there you go unnecessary emergencies this has got red flags all over it for me Clara and the reason I wanted to know the the money situation is because that determines our response here.

Speaker 11 You would not take this job if you were currently employed. You wouldn't even consider it.

Speaker 11 And so for that reason, I'm out. I would not do this.
I would not move across country for a job that you're already concerned about frustrations mounting. And I think you've got enough wisdom here.

Speaker 11 I can read between the lines of what you're saying.

Speaker 11 Be patient, but I think that it's okay for you to stay where you are. And let's get a bridge job.
Let's just find something, even if it's a part-time marketing role or

Speaker 1 a remote role. Yeah, remote.

Speaker 11 Get active, get back in the game.

Speaker 1 Freelancing.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I think there's a lot of freelance opportunities for someone like you.

Speaker 11 I would keep your chin up. I'm going to give you a copy of my book called The Proximity Principle.
I think it's what you need right now.

Speaker 11 I think you need to spend a lot of time getting around the right people and in the right places, and you know who those people are. But I think that's what I do.

Speaker 1 How old are you?

Speaker 7 60.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Then you already knew the answer to the question.

Speaker 26 I think I just needed your confirmation that I respect you guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 your wisdom,

Speaker 1 the spirit of God inside of you is saying, don't do this.

Speaker 1 And you need to listen to it.

Speaker 26 Thank you.

Speaker 1 That's what's happening.

Speaker 1 And because you're seeing things there that aren't,

Speaker 1 you're seeing the symptoms flare up of some deep-rooted problems that are going to drive you bananas and you're not a fit.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 14 You're right.

Speaker 26 I just, you know, being out of work, you start

Speaker 26 not panicking, but you know what I mean? You start getting concerned.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 1 if you don't know how to put yourself out there as a freelancer in the digital world, get a 14-year-old to show you.

Speaker 11 It's so true.

Speaker 1 It's so true. But you can make a lot of money as a marketer right now just sitting remote, working a few hours a week from your computer, and

Speaker 1 that'll even give you more staying power until you land the exact right thing for you to enter into a quality place at the right thing so yeah this is this is a when in doubt don't thing right here

Speaker 1 when the bell rings my dad used to say if that bell is ringing inside your head listen to the bell listen to the bell and uh my old pastor friend of mine um uh Pastor Don Fento

Speaker 1 legend. He's legend.
He just he used to tell us, he's like 90, something years old now. He used to tell us, don't tell, don't say I'm listening to my gut.
Don't call the Holy Spirit a gut. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, don't insult him.

Speaker 1 So, yeah. It's really good.
Yeah, but it's your listen to the bell, listen to your intuition, whatever you want to call it,

Speaker 1 in this case, and you already know. Good question.
I love it. Caleb is in St.
Louis. Hey, Caleb, what's up?

Speaker 13 Hey, it's an honor to speak to you.

Speaker 1 You too, sir. How can we help?

Speaker 13 Hey, I was wondering about selling my classic car to fund my daughter's college fund.

Speaker 27 What is it?

Speaker 12 It's a 65 Mustang.

Speaker 11 Ooh, what's your asking price?

Speaker 7 $10,000.

Speaker 1 How did you get it?

Speaker 11 Sell it to me, Dave.

Speaker 1 I love a 65 Mustang. He's on his way to St.
Louis, right?

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding. A mere $10,000.
That's a classic. So, how'd you get the car?

Speaker 13 Okay, so the main issue is

Speaker 13 it was given to me by my grandpa when I was 15. I'm now 28.

Speaker 1 What do you make a year?

Speaker 13 My household income is about $45,000.

Speaker 1 Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I'd take six extra jobs and fund my kids' college fund and keep my car. I agree.

Speaker 1 It's not an either-or. It's not the only way you fund your kids' college is sell the car.
Life's not that simple, sir.

Speaker 1 Go find some money. And $10,000.
My grandpa gives me a 65 Mustang.

Speaker 1 That's like asking your wife to sell her wedding ring.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 we don't do that. We go find some money by working and doing some other things, working on our career, taking side gigs.
What's your wife do for a living?

Speaker 13 She works at my daughter's Christian school that she goes to, and that pretty much pays for her private schooling.

Speaker 7 We're currently in baby step seven, excluding college fund.

Speaker 1 The house is paid for?

Speaker 1 Yes, sir. And you're how old?

Speaker 1 28 years old. You haven't paid for a house.
No, you definitely don't sell this car. Yeah, not at all.
How is the 10? Even if Ken wants it, don't sell it.

Speaker 11 Well, yeah, I've got to tell you.

Speaker 1 I was going to be your Huckleberry there. I was going to jump in and help out,

Speaker 11 but I'd have to run it by Stacy first. But in all honesty, why is the 10K

Speaker 11 the number? Is that all you've got left in the 529 that you need to fund?

Speaker 11 It's a baby. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 You're not 10 grand off.

Speaker 11 It's an odd number.

Speaker 1 Go get you some money.

Speaker 1 Okay. Keep the car, man.
This is from two guys who have classic cars. That's okay, but I would tell you to sell it, but this is a priceless,

Speaker 1 a thing you can't get back. I have a 1960 Corvette that I bought from a guy.
That's different than your grandpa gave it to you. I agree.
If I get in trouble, the Corvette's gone. Okay.

Speaker 1 But that's different than grandpa gave it to you.

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Speaker 1 Well, guys, our research team has been working very, very hard, and we have a new product we want to introduce you to.

Speaker 25 What if I told you that car payments, student loans and maxed out credit cards shouldn't be the reason you missed out on a rised out weekend with your closest photogenic friends?

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Speaker 11 Because getting into debt is a lot more fun than getting out.

Speaker 25 This commercial was created entirely from Stockford edge and actors have no idea how they're going to be betrayed.

Speaker 1 Debt Zemping is not a real product as there is no quick fix or a one-shot solution to paying off debt.

Speaker 1 It's dead Zemping.

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Speaker 28 This commercial was created entirely from stock footage and actors have no idea how they are to be portrayed.

Speaker 28 Detzempic is not a real product as there is no quick fix or a one-shot solution to paying off debt.

Speaker 1 Wow. We got the booster shot here.
Yeah. If you if you don't believe in the vaccines, you had a problem, but you can get vaccinated with debt Zimpic.

Speaker 1 We got the vials right here. Ken, you ready? I

Speaker 11 think that's the only shot that I will willingly take.

Speaker 11 I'll say that. And the booster.

Speaker 11 It's pretty great. What are the side effects? Being called weird, sleeping peacefully.

Speaker 1 Falling for an April Fool's joke.

Speaker 1 Could you imagine?

Speaker 11 Ramsey Solutions is in big pharma, baby.

Speaker 1 We figured it out.

Speaker 1 They actually made these vials up for an April Fool's joke. You guys don't have a job in there? I mean, don't you have work you need to be doing? They got printed up, took it.

Speaker 1 I mean, somebody in Creative actually made debt Zempic vials. Oh, this one says debt and mortgage on it.

Speaker 11 This one says baby steps millionaire.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's the booster. So the boosters get you to the primary, and then you got to get the booster shots.
Yeah, that's how that works.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, and there's no guarantee you won't get it, but you just were told you might not get it. You know how vaccines work, right?

Speaker 1 So, like, you probably will get it, but you won't. But you think what? You think Fauci would like these?

Speaker 11 You think Fauci would like these?

Speaker 1 I don't think that needs to even be part of this conversation. It's an April Fool's joke.

Speaker 1 Now you've left the part of funny and gone to.

Speaker 11 Oh, sorry, I did do the trigger word.

Speaker 1 The trigger word. That's great.
Very good job. Creative team with too much time on their hands.
No, really good. That's fun.
Debt Zimpic.

Speaker 1 Brought to you by every dollar. I wonder how quick I'm going to get sued for running that.
Okay, we'll see.

Speaker 1 Just, oh well. Hey, you know, some people don't have a sense of humor.
That's all I'm saying. And they work for drug companies.
So, all right, here we go.

Speaker 1 Funny, guys. Really well done.
Eleanor is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Eleanor, what's up?

Speaker 29 Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken.
Big fan of the show and of both of you. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 Thank you. How can we help?

Speaker 29 So my question is, if it would be morally wrong to offer to open 529s for my friend's children, but with the stipulation that I get to maintain ownership of the account.

Speaker 29 And I can give a little bit of background on why I'm asking that question. But

Speaker 29 so I was listening to the show last month and George and Rachel had somebody on who had a baby and his brother opened a 529 for the baby and wanted to maintain ownership of the account.

Speaker 29 And they felt like that was a strings attached situation.

Speaker 29 And so this is really relevant for me because I've been wanting to do this for a friend of mine with that same stipulation.

Speaker 29 But now I'm wondering, is it morally wrong to make such an offer?

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's clarify. There's no such thing as you can maintain ownership.
When you open a 529, it is in the child's name permanently. Right.
You are the custodian. You have to withdraw from it.

Speaker 1 You are the custodian

Speaker 1 until they're 21. And when they're 21, or I'm sorry,

Speaker 1 on a 529, when they're 18, it's their money. You have no control after they're 18.

Speaker 1 You are not the owner of the account.

Speaker 29 You can't the owner draw on it with penalties or something like that, though.

Speaker 7 That's my concern.

Speaker 1 You're the custodian. You are in control of the account, but you no longer own it

Speaker 1 until they're 18. When they're 18, you disappear, and they have 100% agency, 100% control.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 1 That's how it'll work. And so if you want to maintain the control of the account,

Speaker 1 and you also would be the one that could make the decision to move the investments around inside the 529 if you wanted to, all of that, you're the custodian. You are acting on behalf of the miner.

Speaker 1 But it's not your money anymore. You can't take it back.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 29 So then there's nothing wrong with me offering to

Speaker 1 I'm gonna I'm offering to open a 529. If you can't fund it this year I will fund it but I'm gonna leave myself as the custodian and when the money's when they turn 18 the money will be theirs

Speaker 1 okay and I can't take it back legally but I do manage it until they turn 18 that's how it works and just tell your friend that and ask them if they're okay with that that is not morally wrong okay great nor is that controlling if your friends are not handling money well

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's my concern. Or life well or whatever.

Speaker 1 You know, I I mean, like, if you've got a, let's say you've got a a niece or a nephew or a friend that

Speaker 1 one of them's got a problem with substance abuse, right?

Speaker 1 Then this would be a perfectly natural way to do it, and I would want to maintain control. I'm not going to leave someone that's doing cocaine in charge of a kid's money.

Speaker 1 Right, exactly. And so, you know, or if they're just grossly irresponsible and lazy or whatever, right?

Speaker 1 Anywhere in there. But,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 if you want to do that. Now, in a different case would be when each of our grandchildren are born, we have responsible

Speaker 1 children that are their parents that are very good with money, the Ramsey kids, the next generation, Rachel. Each of the grandchildren, the parents, me and me, me, fund the first year.

Speaker 1 That's like a tradition. We want to fund the first year of their 529.

Speaker 1 But they're the custodians there because there's no issue of addiction or responsibility or whatever, right?

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 1 So I do turn it over in those cases, but it's not controlling at all

Speaker 1 if it needs to be controlled for the good of the child. Because what we're dealing with here is we're wanting to benefit the child, no one else.

Speaker 1 We're not really worried about anybody else in this scenario.

Speaker 1 You're not going to benefit because you've given the money away. The parents aren't going to benefit because they have no access to it.

Speaker 1 But you're the custodian. And yes, that's the only way I would do it in that case.
Good question.

Speaker 1 Kay's in Lexington. Hey, Kay, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 8 Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken.
Thanks so much for taking my call.

Speaker 1 Sure, what's up?

Speaker 29 My husband and I are,

Speaker 7 we have a very comfortable life thanks to the programs that you have.

Speaker 8 But we have one debt that I think I want to pay down, and my husband says that we probably need to keep it just for tax purposes for the deduction.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. How much do you pay in interest last year?

Speaker 9 Oh, gosh, $32,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. And are you filing a standard deduction or are you filing an itemized return?

Speaker 9 Well, we are a farm.

Speaker 1 Are you doing an itemized return?

Speaker 5 Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 Okay. Then that $30,000 is deductible.
What's your household income?

Speaker 4 $190,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. And so you are giving the government, or you're giving the bank $30,000.
That creates a write-off,

Speaker 1 which saves you 39%

Speaker 1 of $30,000.

Speaker 1 So $12,000. So you're sending the bank $30,000 to keep from sending the government $12,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. Your husband's wrong.

Speaker 1 Okay. Pay the land off.
You see what I'm doing?

Speaker 14 Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 You do not keep something for a tax write-off because you're trading dollars for quarters. It's a bad trade.

Speaker 27 This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, you've heard me say it a thousand times, and I'm I'm gonna keep saying it.

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Speaker 24 All right, this one's for my classroom superheroes, aka the teachers out there. You know what's better than an unexpected classroom observation? An unexpected getaway.

Speaker 24 This Financial Literacy Month, you could win a dream vacation with the Ramsey Teacher Appreciation Giveaway. Because honestly, you deserve that Colorado cabin.

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Speaker 24 That's ramseysolutions.com slash teacher.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Guys, if you want to help us out, we would appreciate you subscribing, following, leaving a nice five-star review on the show.

Speaker 1 Share the show with a friend. Click the share button.
Click, click, Click cut the link out. Send it to them by email.
I don't care. Let them know the Ramsey show is out here.

Speaker 1 We appreciate you doing that. If you're a business owner or you know someone who is, you know running a business is hard.
Once you become self-employed, you know what happens.

Speaker 1 You find out you're working for a jerk.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when you're self-employed, your boss will drive you into the dirt, man.

Speaker 1 I mean, they will work you like a rented mule. I'm just saying they will whoop you.
I mean, it's bad, y'all. And this self-employed thing, it's tough.
It's hard.

Speaker 1 But I'll tell you what, it's worth it when you get it working and when you get it moving. We've been coaching small businesses, 10,000 of them, for

Speaker 1 about 10 or 15 years now through Entree Leadership. And we put together the Entree Leadership System, the five stages of business.

Speaker 1 This new book, Build a Business You Love, that comes out in two weeks from today.

Speaker 1 It shows you the baby steps of small business, how to walk your way through six drivers of business and the five stages of business to get your business to level up and begin to get some sense of control?

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Speaker 1 We'll give you over $350 in free bonus items, including instant access to entree leadership hiring playbook, the e-book, the enhanced audio book.

Speaker 1 You can get the book at entree, I mean, at ramseysolutions.com slash store. David is in Houston.
Hi, David. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 14 Thank you.

Speaker 30 I'm in $80,000 of debt after I graduate, and I heard you're the guy to get me with a game plan to get me out of debt.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 What's your degree in?

Speaker 14 It's in engineering.

Speaker 1 That's good news. So you're an engineer?

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 1 What type of engineering are you going to go into?

Speaker 14 I'm going to be working in oil and gas.

Speaker 1 Okay, good.

Speaker 1 And you've graduated?

Speaker 14 I'm going to be graduating this semester.

Speaker 1 Good. Okay.
Have you lined up the new job?

Speaker 9 I have.

Speaker 10 Very anxious about it.

Speaker 1 What are you going to make?

Speaker 7 $120 with a $10K signing bonus.

Speaker 1 Awesome. What did you make last year?

Speaker 1 While you were in school?

Speaker 9 Only internship money, so not much.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Okay.
Well done. So guess what we're going to do next year?

Speaker 1 Live like an intern.

Speaker 7 Okay. Live like a college student.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think I just freed up the majority of your $120,000 to pay off your $80,000,

Speaker 1 including your $10,000 signing bonus you don't get to buy a car with.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 1 You have to clean up the poop before you can buy a car.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 1 Does that make sense? Is that logical to you?

Speaker 6 It does make sense.

Speaker 1 Let me give you some great news.

Speaker 1 Our company, Ramsey Solutions, has worked in this space, helping people with money for 35 years.

Speaker 1 About five years ago, our research department did an airtight research project studying, did the largest study of millionaires in North America ever done.

Speaker 1 One of the things we asked was, and we figured out, was, what are the top careers of the person who becomes a millionaire?

Speaker 1 By the way, 89% of America's millionaires, according to that study, and it's accurate, are first-generation rich, meaning they started with nothing.

Speaker 1 They did not become a millionaire because of inherited money.

Speaker 1 They became a millionaire because of hard work and getting out of debt and then saving and investing. You follow me?

Speaker 9 I do follow you, loud and clear.

Speaker 1 Top five careers

Speaker 1 with the highest probability to become millionaire.

Speaker 1 Number one,

Speaker 1 engineer.

Speaker 7 I'll take that.

Speaker 1 Number two, accountant. Number three, teacher.
Number four, business executive. And number five,

Speaker 1 lawyer. Medical doctors didn't even make the top five, and you were number one.
But

Speaker 1 here's why. One of the things your academic

Speaker 1 discipline has taught you is that there are systems and processes that must be followed. There's only one way to do it.
You don't get to be like creative arts is not part of engineering.

Speaker 1 You follow me? I do.

Speaker 1 There's a set of chemistry formulas. There's a set of stress formulas if you're building a bridge.
And if you don't build it that way, the freaking thing falls. There's one way to do it.

Speaker 1 There's one way to do accounting properly. There's no such thing as creative accounting unless you go to jail.

Speaker 1 That kind of stuff. So all of these people in this top five are process people.
You're a process person. It's what your discipline has trained your brain to do.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to send you a graduation gift. It's called The Total Money Makeover.
It's the book that we did.

Speaker 1 We're coming up on 12 million of them sold now.

Speaker 1 And that many people have gotten out of debt. That's why somebody told you to call me.

Speaker 1 Okay? Okay, perfect.

Speaker 10 That sounds wonderful. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you follow that system exactly.

Speaker 1 like it was a chemistry formula, like it was an engineering formula, a math formula. You follow the process.
Be a process guy, follow it, and get yourself out of debt super fast.

Speaker 11 And then you got the rest of your life to live with a fabulous income and building wealth and building the ability to be generous and help others okay okay that makes sense david i'm going to warn you you agree with everything dave said rightfully but you're going to go out and tell people that don't know what we teach or have no idea who we are or why we are the way we are and they're going to try to talk you out of this because you got a good income they're going to tell you to live a little and enjoy it i'm telling you you've got to have that engineer brain fully engaged right now and treat this as a problem that you can solve and you know how to solve it.

Speaker 11 On the other side of this, you are going to stack wealth really, really quickly and you're going to have no stress in your life when it comes to finances.

Speaker 11 So please remember that when somebody tries to talk you out of it because they will.

Speaker 1 Number one mistake people make when they graduate college and

Speaker 1 get the big job, they go buy a new car. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What are you driving right now?

Speaker 14 I drive an old Honda, but I already have it paid off.

Speaker 1 So how old?

Speaker 14 It's only like 2015, so it's not.

Speaker 1 Oh, dude. That's going to be perfect.
You know what that is? That's a millionaire car.

Speaker 1 It is. That's a car that makes millionaires.

Speaker 11 45 miles of the gallon. And they're super relative.

Speaker 1 And your buddies start pulling up in the engineering parking lot in their new F-150 decked out.

Speaker 10 I know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Raptor. Yeah.
It's a beast. I got one.

Speaker 1 It's incredible.

Speaker 1 And I want you to get you a Raptor later. They're awesome.
Okay. But

Speaker 1 right now, you just be happy that your car will fit in the back of it.

Speaker 19 Fair enough.

Speaker 10 And then take the 10 and then pay off.

Speaker 1 Throw it at it. You got 70 left.
You make 120.

Speaker 1 And so we know that if you live on 50, not counting taxes, that boom, you're out of debt in one year.

Speaker 1 If you did it even faster, nobody here would be mad because the sooner you get out and you're free, the sooner you get to live all the dreams that you had when you worked so hard to get this degree.

Speaker 1 And you pay cash for a raptor, dude. You pay cash for the raptor.

Speaker 7 So exactly. So that makes sense.
I could probably pay off all my debts in like a couple years, three at most then.

Speaker 1 Uh-uh, honey, you weren't listening. I thought you said you had $80,000 in student loan debt.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You had other debt?

Speaker 10 What? No, no other debt.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're making $120,000.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 1 Let's do some fourth-grade math. All right.

Speaker 1 Plus a $10,000 signing bonus. If you make $120,000,

Speaker 1 you throw $10,000 at the 80, it becomes 70.

Speaker 1 Yep. You live on 50,

Speaker 1 pay 70 off in one year.

Speaker 9 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what I was saying.

Speaker 10 Okay, now I get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 Like super fast.

Speaker 12 How much?

Speaker 30 Because it'll be 120 or 130 pre-tax.

Speaker 1 I know, I know. You're going to lose some to taxes, which means you're not going to live on 50.
You're probably going to live on 30 or 40, but you lived on a lot less than that this year.

Speaker 1 Live like an intern. I wasn't kidding, dude.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 1 And clear it up in one year. How old are you?

Speaker 10 I'm 21.

Speaker 1 Okay, if you do this, you'll be a millionaire by the time you're 30.

Speaker 16 Okay, that sounds good. All right.

Speaker 1 Hang on. I'm going to send you the book.
I think you can do it.

Speaker 11 Oh, it's only another year of ramen noodles, Dave.

Speaker 1 He can do it.

Speaker 1 Or whatever college kids eat. He doesn't avoid the peer pressure from his broke friends.

Speaker 11 That's what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 Driving a new Ford with a $1,200 payment.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I'm looking good. I'm broke, but I got no money.

Speaker 1 But I'm looking good at the stoplight for people I don't know.

Speaker 1 Hey guys, good news. Pre-sale is on now for my new book, Build a Business You Love.
If you're a business owner, you know running a business is hard.

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Speaker 1 Pre-order your copy today, and you'll get access to over $350 in bonus items only at ramseysolutions.com/slash store. Ramseysolutions.com/slash store.
Pre-order today.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host, Peter, is with us in Ferro Beach, Florida. Hi, Peter.
How are you?

Speaker 21 Good, great, Dave. Glad to talk to you.

Speaker 1 You too.

Speaker 9 Actually,

Speaker 21 when I sent you an email, I was talking about this woman that had a 401k with a million and a half in it,

Speaker 21 and she was living in New York City, and that was on her bucket list. And you suggested that maybe she should move back out of New York City and,

Speaker 9 go there and visit.

Speaker 21 But I'm thinking that if she was invested in the right stuff with her $1,500,

Speaker 21 and I'm big on dividend stocks, so my opinion is that she could invest all that money into dividend stocks and basically she could stay there making $20,000 a month with a million and a half dollars.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 there's not a dividend stock that pays that.

Speaker 1 $20,000 a month is $240,000. You're talking about a 25% rate of return on a dividend stock? Not a chance.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 9 Bank, no, no.

Speaker 1 You don't get $20,000 a month on a million two.

Speaker 1 Right. Your math is screwed up.

Speaker 1 You said $20,000 a month, that's $240,000 a year. On a million five,

Speaker 1 that's an unrealistic rate of return. I guess that's why she didn't call your show.

Speaker 1 I guess that's why she called ours.

Speaker 1 Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Ashley's in Atlanta.
Hi, Ashley. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 26 Thank you. How are you guys?

Speaker 1 Better than we deserve. What's up?

Speaker 6 I had a question.

Speaker 5 I currently

Speaker 2 am on step one of your, I'm reading your book, and I wanted to know: I have two jobs together that total about $76,000, I would say, a year.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 I have a 403B, a 401A, and a Roth IRA, all with my employers. My question is, should I stop contributing to them? Because I do have $169,000 in student loan debt.

Speaker 2 I have about $300,000 in credit card debt, and then I owe my mom and my father together about $1,800. So I wanted to know if I need to take care of that first and then start back contributing after.

Speaker 1 Yes, ma'am. That's what we teach.
We've taught folks for several decades that baby step one is you should have $1,000 saved as a starter miniature emergency fund.

Speaker 1 Do you have any more money than that saved?

Speaker 2 I have $1,400 and then I have saved because I don't have a car so I put $1,500 aside for a vehicle.

Speaker 1 When are you buying the car?

Speaker 2 I haven't decided because I try to be smarter than I was.

Speaker 2 I let them take my vehicle because it was a mess.

Speaker 2 So now I'm going into it, but I don't want to go into it stupidly.

Speaker 14 So I'm trying to be smarter than that.

Speaker 1 That would be pay cash for a car.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 1 Not no debt.

Speaker 5 Okay. No debt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 No more debt. That hasn't worked well for you, girl.

Speaker 16 It has not. Okay.

Speaker 1 So we're going to go no debt. So you have $1,500 saved towards a car.
Do you have any other money saved?

Speaker 2 Other than, and then the emergency fund is $1,400.

Speaker 7 That's it.

Speaker 1 Okay. So you have $1,400 and $1,500 for a car.
So if we threw it all together, you could get a $3,000 car.

Speaker 1 Okay. Go do that.
That's a good idea. Because you can make more money if you've got a car, right? Correct.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's get some wheels under you. Then your first goal is to save $1,000 back in your emergency fund.
Your second goal is list all your debts, smallest to largest, and pay them off in that order. Stop.

Speaker 1 all investing while you're doing that temporarily.

Speaker 1 But I want you to zoom zoom now. I want you to kick your income up because you got wheels.

Speaker 1 I want you to be on beans and rice, rice and beans, and total focus on each of these steps as you're going through it.

Speaker 1 So we're going to knock out the credit card and your parents within just a few months. Agreed?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 2 I do have four children, so I do kind of budget them into my

Speaker 1 food is in the budget.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about finding money out of the budget while you eat, keep lights on and the rent paid, and that's about all we do and work, and we throw money at these student loans and get rid of them as fast as we can.

Speaker 1 What's your degree in?

Speaker 2 So I have an undergrad in community health and a master's in human resources, which I should never have done, but I know that now.

Speaker 1 Why are you only making $76,000 in Atlanta, Georgia then?

Speaker 1 You should be making more than that with those degrees.

Speaker 9 I agree.

Speaker 1 Are you qualified to be in HR?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm currently in HR. Both of my employees are in HR.

Speaker 1 Okay. But it sounds like you're doing entry-level HR stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I feel like that's what I am doing.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But you got a master's in it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So, Ken, what are we going to do to get this income up?

Speaker 11 Yeah, this becomes primary focus right now.

Speaker 11 That is, who do I know? Connections, connections, connections. This is a big marketplace in Atlanta.

Speaker 11 So I'm looking to upgrade as quickly as I can or take on some fractional HR duties, maybe for some smaller businesses.

Speaker 11 And I'm thinking, what do I have to do to make an additional two to three grand a month? Set your sites higher.

Speaker 1 Ask your supervisor,

Speaker 1 what can I do here to add value, to be worth more so that I can make more?

Speaker 1 Not I need to get paid more because I have a degree. That's not what we would never say that.

Speaker 1 But going there and go, I've got this master's. I've got these tools in my belt.
I want to be able to do more for this organization because I want to move up.

Speaker 1 Help me do that. Mentor me.
Show me what to do. Show me how to add value.

Speaker 1 And if the supervisor refuses, then you need to move.

Speaker 11 But I can tell you how many times great opportunities come to people when you start telling everybody that a listen and your friends, your family, your acquaintances, you have got to put the word out that you've got talent, you've got experience, and you're looking to work.

Speaker 11 And that's how you increase your income quickly. And you get a couple quick wins.
You know, if you get some contract work, even something like that.

Speaker 11 Here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you to default to getting getting in your car and driving rideshare.
I'm not against that at all.

Speaker 1 You don't need to do that.

Speaker 1 You have too many tools. You have too much talent for your time.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's have a goal of moving up through the career with all this training that we have and doubling our income in the next three years.

Speaker 1 I want you making 150 three years from now.

Speaker 1 But you're going to have to concentrate on how can I add value? How can I make myself value?

Speaker 1 What have I got to do to make myself more presentable as I interview for these positions within my company or outside my company?

Speaker 1 And we'll send you a copy of Ken's book, The Proximity Principle, which is what he's talking to you about right now.

Speaker 1 And then we'll send you my book, The Total Money Makeover, which is what I was talking to you about with the baby steps and showing you how to walk up through. Let's get wheels under you.
Let's get

Speaker 1 the $1,000 in the bank, and then let's start paying off these debts as fast and as hard as we can.

Speaker 1 And as your income goes up and you get better and better control with your money, use the Every Dollar app. It's a free download.

Speaker 1 As you get more and more and more control on your budget, you're going to see your money work harder and harder and harder and you're going to plow through that $169,000.

Speaker 1 Most mornings you wake up right now, you think you'll never get that paid off in your life.

Speaker 1 And I see people in your situation pay it off in three years all the time.

Speaker 1 But it has to do also with maximizing your career potential.

Speaker 11 It does. And one of the things that people overlook is the most underutilized question in the world, Dave.
When we're talking about professional advancement and getting more income, it's this.

Speaker 11 Will you help me? This isn't a handout type question. It is a, I'm a mom.
I got four babies. I'm trying to get out of debt.
It's a compelling story.

Speaker 11 People respond to that kind of stuff to say, hey, I'm looking for work over here. I'm an HR pro.
I can do this, this, and this, and here's why I'm doing it. I want to get out of debt.

Speaker 11 I want to have an emergency fund, set my babies free on this journey. People love to help people who are helpable.
And this is a great story.

Speaker 11 So we can't forget, I know there's a lot of people listening and watching us right now.

Speaker 11 When you share a story that's tied to a vision of becoming debt-free, of building an emergency fund, all the kind of things, changing your family tree, people respond to that. You'd be surprised.

Speaker 11 But we forget that the narrative is what's attractive to people. They want to help somebody who's helpable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and who are willing to help themselves. Bust your top, your chops.
You're saying, hey, I'm going to work. Give me, put me in, coach.
Give me a shot.

Speaker 1 Give me a shot, you

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'll work so hard it'll make you

Speaker 1 happy that you did this.

Speaker 11 By the way, opportunities, and you know this, they show up for people like that.

Speaker 1 They do. They just randomly, but not so randomly,

Speaker 1 shows up.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.